Born
of the Spirit
Before the Judean
hills echoed the joyful strains of angel
choirs, before the wondering shepherds sought
the Bethlehem stable, before the Wise Men
from the East brought their gifts of gold,
frankincense, and myrrh, even before the
existence of our world, the eternal Son of
God decided to be born into the human family.
In the councils of heaven before God created
man, our Lord made the decision in which the
Father concurred (Zechariah 6:13) to restore
peace to the universe, to do this He had to
tabernacle in the flesh as one with us. Thus,
He became “Emmanuel,” which means
“God with us.”
Why did the Majesty
of heaven leave the ivory palaces? (Psalm
45:8) Why did He promise to come and enter
the body that God had prepared for Him?
(Psalm 40:7; Hebrews 10:5) He Himself gives
the answer, “I am come that they might
have life, and that they might have it more
abundantly.” John 10:10. Thus Jesus, the
preexistent one, voluntarily chose to be born
as a man that He might bring life to us.
However, what choices
have we in deciding whether we shall come
into the world and whether we shall leave it?
There is a reason for our entering the world
as we do. How could God allow man a choice as
to whether to be born without first giving
him some kind of existence? How could a man
choose unless he first be a free moral agent?
How could he choose without knowing what kind
of life God offered him? God has given us an
existence so that we may decide our destiny,
be it life or death. The teachings of Jesus
and their fulfillment in His life demonstrate
the kind of life God offers to all. Man has
been given the power of choice. Those who
want the only kind of life that will continue
forever will have to choose to be born again.
He who refuses the rebirth forfeits eternal
life. He chooses death.
Christ sacrificed His
past at Bethlehem, where He became a man. We
are to sacrifice our past at Calvary. At the
place of death to “self” we receive
the life of Christ. He who dies to sin at the
cross inherits the life Christ there
bequeathed to us. God even gives man the
opportunity to live in this world as he would
live in heaven. If after he has tasted the
joys of life to come he feels he does not
want that kind of life, he can reverse his
decision. (Hebrews 6:4-6, 11:15.) Such is the
absolute fairness of God.
Just as Jesus in His
preexistence was a free moral agent, so man
in his present existence is a free moral
agent. Christ voluntarily chose to be born
into the human family. You, too, are free to
choose. God will not compel you; He will not
force you.
How could the Son of
God also be the Son of Man? The Incarnation
holds mysteries that can never be solved in
this life, nor need they be. Some truths we
must accept by faith. Some truths we must
accept by faith. Nevertheless, we should try
to understand as much as possible about the
Incarnation. Nearly all know the
circumstances of our Lord’s Incarnation.
To virgin Mary at Nazareth the angel Gabriel
came with the message, “The Holy Ghost
shall come upon thee, and the power of the
Highest shall overshadow thee: Therefore also
that holy thing which shall be born of thee
shall be called the Son of God.” Luke
1:35. And the angel of the Lord told Joseph
in a dream, “That which is conceived in
her is of the Holy Ghost.” Matthew 1:20.
Just as Jesus was
born of the Holy Spirit into the human
family, so we may be born of the same Holy
Spirit into God’s spiritual family. Many
teachers in the Israel of today are like
Nicodemus of old. They are ignorant
concerning the new birth. They have an idea
that men and women may become new creatures
in Christ by education, by training, by
church membership, or by their own efforts to
obey the law. But there can be no new life
without the re-creative presence of the
“Spirit of Life.” (Romans 8:2) Only
life can produce life, and the Holy Spirit is
not only the “Spirit of life, “but
the “Spirit is life.” (Romans 8:10)
Christ’s night-school student stood in
darkness. It mattered not how much Nicodemus
knew or what honors he had received. This man
needed to be reborn. So positive was Jesus
about this that He said, “Except a man
be born or water and of the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God. John 3:5.
There is no
alternative: He that is born but once dies
twice-the death all men face (Hebrews 9:27)
and the eternal death following the judgment
(Revelation 9:27) and the eternal death
following the judgment (Revelation 21:8).
However, he that is born twice dies but once,
for after the resurrection he will live
throughout eternity. Without the Holy Spirit,
there can be no rebirth, and without the
rebirth, there can be no spiritual life. All
who be sons and daughters of God therefore
must be born by the Spirit. Why is this? Why
must man be born again?
At creation, the
Father and the Son worked together. When
Christ spoke, the Holy Spirit immediately
carried His commands into effect. The Holy
Spirit cooperated so that the thing that the
Word called into existence existed instantly.
In the second verse of the Bible Moses
introduced the Spirit as moving upon the face
of the waters (Genesis 1:2) In all the
creative activities of God that followed, the
Holy Spirit played a vital role. Job said,
“By his Spirit he [God] hath garnished
the heavens.” Job 26:13. And in Psalm
104:30 we read, “Thou sendest forth thy
spirit, they are created.” At creation
the Holy Spirit, symbolized as the breath of
God, infused life into the clay. Job 33:4
says, “The Spirit of God hath made me,
and the breath of the Almighty hath given me
life.”
However, man
disobeyed God and partook of the forbidden
fruit, thus causing the Spirit that had given
him both spiritual and physical life to leave
him. Adam then experienced spiritual death,
though his physical existence persisted. He
began to realize something of the awfulness
of the sin he had committed. His nature had
now become corrupt and vile; sin had poisoned
his whole being. Man had become a slave-he
had forfeited his power to choose. The Holy
Spirit, the source of righteous life, had
withdrawn. Adam felt a gnawing emptiness, a
frightening aloneness; he shivered in a
nakedness of soul, fearfully looking for
judgment, a terror akin to that which the
finally impenitent must suffer.
Then God stepped in
to offer man a second chance. God again gave
him the power of choice-He made it possible
for him to receive the Spirit back into his
life. In the gospel promise of Genesis 3:15
God promised hope for fallen man. Man could
turn to God or stay on Satan’s ground.
However, he must choose. All who turn from
the world to God and accept the Holy Spirit,
allowing Him to beget a new life within, are
“born again.” God accomplishes this
creative process by the same Holy Spirit that
begot Jesus. The invisible working of the
Holy Spirit resembles the wind that cannot be
seen, but the evidence of the Spirit’s
presence within will be seen in the daily
life of all who are born again. (John 3:7)
Regeneration or
re-creation may be likened to the process of
metamorphosis, or transformation, by which a
caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Putting
wings on a worm does not make it a butterfly.
A worm’s very nature has to be changed
before it can become a butterfly. In
conversion, the Holy Spirit infuses new life
energies into our souls. New purposes thrill
through our being, new attitudes develop, new
motives prompt our actions, and the virtues
and graces exemplified in the life of Jesus
begin to be revealed in our lives. The same
Holy Spirit that assisted in the creation of
man brings about his re-creation. “God
our Savior [that is, the Lord Jesus Christ]
saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and
renewing of the Holy Ghost.” Titus
3:4,5.
In Eden God generated
man, that is, He brought him into being, gave
him existence. By sin, man became
degenerated; his life processes reversed, and
instead of being a “living” soul,
he became a “dying” soul. However,
now through the merits of Christ’s
sacrifice on Calvary and the gift of the Holy
Spirit man may be regenerated, made anew,
having holy motives, nobles desires, the
grand aims that God originally purposed he
should have.
Christ’s
nativity is a pledge that whosoever will may
experience a rebirth and become a son of God.
Unless a man is born again by the Spirit, he
is only a dying man, without hope, wandering
about in the wilderness of a doomed world. He
who fails to be born of the Spirit locks the
gates of glory against his own soul. Those
who are born again and stay faithful know the
freedom of sins forgiven and live in joyful
anticipation of the great day when Jesus
shall come in flaming glory to gather His
own.
Memory Verse:
Hebrews 10:5-7. Therefore,
when Christ came into the world, he said:
“Sacrifice and offering you did not
desire, but a body you prepared for me; with
burnt offerings and sin offerings you were
not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am-it
is written about me in the scroll-I have come
to do your will, O God.’”
