Search
Scripture Reading: John 1:12-13; 3:6; Eph. 2:5; John 3:14-16, 36; 5:24; 6:47; 1 John 5:11-12; 1 Pet. 1:3; 2 Pet. 1:3-4; Ezek. 36:25-27a; 1 Cor. 2:12; 2, Rom. 8:9-10; John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26; Phil. 1:19; Eph. 1:13; 1 John 2:27; 2 Cor. 13:5; Eph. 4:6; 1 John 3:24; 4:12-13, 15; 2 Cor. 5:17
There are many matters related to the inner life. Of these, the first main point is regeneration. We must go back to the beginning to consider regeneration because many of us are still too short in the understanding of life, and we are not able to present these truths to others. First we need to experience the things of life, and then we need to learn how to present them to others in a brief, clear, and impressive way.
What is regeneration, and what do we obtain by regeneration? Regeneration means to be generated again, that is, to be born again. Regeneration is a rebirth. We all have had a birth by our parents. By that birth we received the human life, which is the life for us to exist on this earth. However, that is not the uncreated, divine, eternal life. God’s intention is to put Himself into us as the eternal life, the uncreated life, to fulfill His eternal purpose. Therefore, we need another birth; this means that we need another life. By the birth we have had already, we received a life. Now we need another birth in order to receive another life, which is nothing less than God Himself.
John 1 tells us that Christ as the expression of God was incarnated in order that we may receive God as our life. Verses 12 and 13 say, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name, who were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” When we receive Christ, we are born of God. This is the second birth, that is, regeneration. To be regenerated is to be reborn, to be born of God. In our birth from our parents we received the human life, but now we are born of God to receive the divine life, which is God Himself.
In regeneration we are born not of the flesh but of the Spirit, of God Himself. John 3:6 says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” To be born of the flesh is the first birth, but to be born of the Spirit is the second birth. Moreover, this regeneration is something that happens in our spirit. Therefore, regeneration is to be born again of God, to receive God in Christ through the Spirit as a life other than the life we received from our parents. This is the way we should present the truth of regeneration to others. This word is brief, clear, and impressive.
Strictly speaking, whether or not we were fallen, we would still need regeneration. This presents a problem in the theology of today’s Christianity. Today’s theology tells people that because we are fallen, our life has became rotten; therefore, we need a better life. In a sense this is right, but we should realize that even if man had never become fallen, he would still need to be born again. The spirit of man was deadened by the fall through sin. Now through the redemption of the Lord’s blood, the Holy Spirit has gained the ground to come to give life to this deadened spirit, to impart Christ as life into this spirit.
If our spirit had only been made alive, that would simply have been a kind of recovery. What happens, though, is not only a recovering but a regenerating, a life-imparting, because the Holy Spirit brings Christ Himself into us. The Greek word in Ephesians 2:5 translated as quicken in the King James Version means “to give life.” In every language there is a shortage, and in English this word is a problem for translators. In English we can use the noun eye as a verb, as in Hymns, #206, which says, “The Bride eyes not her garment.” In Chinese the word life is both a noun and a verb. If it were possible, in English also we should use the word life as a verb. The Holy Spirit comes to “life” us. Thus, “to put life into us” is the correct meaning of the Greek word in verse 5, which has zoe — the divine, eternal life — as its root, as does the phrase life-giving Spirit in 1 Corinthians 15:45. When the Holy Spirit comes, He comes in as the Spirit of life to life us. When we are “lifed,” we are not only “quickened,” but we also have the Triune God within us as our life. In this way we are regenerated. We are born once more not of flesh but of the divine Spirit, that is, of God Himself. Hence, we are born of God. What is regeneration? Regeneration is to be born again of God, to have God Himself in Christ through the Spirit as the divine life, which has come into us in addition to the life which we received through our parents.
The breath of life that God breathed into man in Genesis 2:7 was only a part of God’s creation, for the purpose that man could live. At that time, however, God did not commit Himself to be within man. The dust with which God created man became his body, whereas the breath of life became his human spirit. That breath was not God Himself. Some Christian teachers have made a serious mistake, teaching that at the time of creation God put Himself into man. At that time God only gave the breath of life to man to cause man to live. That produced merely a created human life.
The proper definition of regeneration is to have a second birth, to be born again. We all have been born once of our parents; by that birth we received the human life from our parents. Now we have a human life within us. However, this life is good only for us to exist on this earth. It is not good enough for us to fulfill God’s purpose. God’s intention is to put Himself into us as the eternal life, the divine life, to fulfill His purpose. Therefore, we need to be born again, to have a second birth to receive the divine life into us. That is why John 1:12-13 tells us that as many as received Him were born of God, and John 3:6 says that these were born in their spirit of the divine Spirit. Regeneration is to be born of God, to receive God into us in Christ through the Spirit as the divine life, which is a life other than our natural life. It is by this life that we can fulfill the eternal purpose of God.
The first thing we obtain by regeneration is life, and because we obtain life, our human spirit is made alive. What is this life that we have obtained? Before we were regenerated, we already had the human life, the created life that we received from our parents. This life is not the real life. It is only temporary, a shadow of the real life, just as the food we take in day by day is not the real food but a shadow of Christ as our real food. Now through regeneration we have received the uncreated life, which is the divine, spiritual, heavenly, real, eternal life, without beginning and without end. This life is nothing less than God Himself in Christ through the Spirit. All other lives are merely shadows of this one.
John 3 proves to us that when we were regenerated, we received the divine life. Verses 14 through 16 say, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that everyone who believes into Him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.” John 3:36; 5:24; 6:47 and 1 John 5:11 and 12 also show us that by regeneration we receive the eternal life, which is God Himself. The law of life, the fellowship of life, the sense of life, and the light of life all come from life. We may say that these are “by-products” of the life we received in regeneration.
With life there is also a nature. By regeneration we have received the essence of the divine life, and we have also received the divine nature. Second Peter 1:3 says, “Seeing that His divine power has granted to us all things which relate to life and godliness, through the full knowledge of Him who has called us by His own glory and virtue.” Life is the inward content, while godliness is the outward expression. The divine power of God has given us all things relating, pertaining, to life within and godliness without. Then verse 4 says, “Through which He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world by lust.” By the precious and exceedingly great promises we are partakers of the divine nature, the nature of God. Have you ever realized that we have the nature of God within us? In the first Epistle of Peter, verse 3 of chapter 1 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has regenerated us unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” The first chapter of the first book of Peter speaks of regeneration through the resurrection of Christ, and the first chapter of the second book speaks of partaking of the divine nature. This shows us that we receive the divine nature by regeneration.
By regeneration we have also received the Spirit into us. Ezekiel 36:25 through 27 is a passage dealing with regeneration. Verse 25 speaks of cleansing on the negative side, and verse 26 tells us that our old heart and deadened spirit have been renewed. After this, verse 27a says, “And I will put My Spirit within you.” After cleansing us and renewing us, God put His own Spirit into us. This is the best verse to show that in regeneration we received the Spirit into us.
First Corinthians 2:12 also tells us that we have received the Spirit which is of God. Romans 8:9 says, “You are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Yet if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him.” We should know all these different terms. The Spirit of God today is the Spirit of Christ, and this Spirit of Christ today is the Spirit of life within us (v. 2). The main purpose of the Spirit of God, who is the Spirit of Christ, is to be life to us. The phrase Spirit of power cannot be found in the New Testament (the spirit of power in 2 Timothy 1:7 is the regenerated human spirit, not the Holy Spirit). However, in Romans 8:2 there is clearly the term Spirit of life. This is because the main purpose of the Spirit who dwells in us is not power but life. If the Spirit within us is for some kind of power, He is for resurrection power, which is the power of life. The Spirit of God in us today is the Spirit of Christ for the purpose of life.
This Spirit of life dwells in us as the Spirit of truth, that is, the Spirit of reality (John 14:17).
The Spirit of reality, as the reality of Christ, is the Comforter (vv. 16, 26; 15:26). There is no adequate equivalent in English for the Greek word for Comforter, so we have borrowed the Greek word as Paraclete. This word has two meanings, a legal one and a civil one. In legal terms, a paraclete is an attorney who takes care of your whole case in the law court. In civil terms, a paraclete is a patron who serves you and takes care of you. If you need food, he gives you food. If you need water, he gives you water, and if you need medicine, he gives you medicine, somewhat like a nurse does. Today the Spirit of life is in us as the Paraclete. Therefore, with this Paraclete there is the bountiful supply. Philippians 1:19 says, “I know that for me this will turn out to salvation through your petition and the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” Again, here we do not have an adequate translation. The word supply indicates a bountiful, all-sufficient, all-inclusive supply. This is the supply of the Paraclete, the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of life, who is the Spirit of the reality of Christ, and He is within us as the Paraclete to take care of us in every way. If we need to learn teachings from the Bible, it is this kind of teaching that we need to learn. Do not pay too much attention to the teachings of dispensations, sovereign grace, and sovereign will. Rather, learn to know the practical things of life. In Christianity today too many people pay attention to learning all kinds of doctrines but not the teachings concerning life. Anything related to life is generally neglected.
The Holy Spirit within us is the seal (Eph. 1:13). A seal is a stamp of ownership. When the Chinese buy a book, for example, they put their seal on it. When I buy a Bible, I always put my seal on it; then everyone knows this Bible belongs to me. The Holy Spirit dwells in us as a seal, testifying that we belong to God. The Holy Spirit as the seal declares that we are the inheritance, the property, of God.
Verse 14 and 2 Corinthians 1:22 tell us that the sealing Spirit is also the pledge. The pledge is the earnest, the down payment, or guarantee of the full payment of God Himself. As the seal the Spirit marks us as God’s inheritance, God’s property, and as the pledge He is the guarantee that God is our inheritance.
The Spirit whom we have received is also the anointing Spirit (1 John 2:27).
There are many other aspects of the Spirit, such as the Spirit of sonship, the Spirit of holiness, and the Spirit of wisdom (Isa. 11:2). The above aspects, however, are the main ones. The Spirit of God today, who is the Spirit of Christ, is within us as the Spirit of life, who is also the Spirit of reality, the Paraclete, the seal, the earnest, and the anointing. We need to know all these items of the Spirit not only in knowledge but also by experience.
Fourth, in regeneration we also receive the Son. Second Corinthians 13:5 and Romans 8:10 prove to us that the Son, Christ, is within us.
Ephesians 4:6 indicates that through regeneration we have also received the Father. This verse says, “One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” We have the divine life, the divine nature, the Spirit, the Son, and God the Father in us. First John 3:24 says, “He who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And in this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He gave to us.” Verses 12 and 13 of chapter 4 say, “No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. In this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, that He has given to us of His Spirit.” Verse 15 says, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God.” These verses prove adequately that God is in us.
What have we obtained by regeneration? We have the divine life, the divine nature, the Holy Spirit, the Son, and the Father God within us. Have you ever fully realized that by your regeneration you have received all these items? These are simply the spiritual ABCs. Many Christians today think that they know many things, and they do, but the one thing they do not know is life. The matter of life is not something in our natural human concept, as many other teachings are. If you put a Christian to the test and ask him or her to speak something about life, you will see where Christians today are. The matter of life is veiled by the enemy.
The above five items that we receive in regeneration are actually just one item with five aspects. The Father is in the Son, the Son is the Spirit, the Spirit is the Spirit of life, and within the divine life is the divine nature. The Son is the embodiment of the Father, so the Father is in the Son. The Spirit is the reality of the Son, so the Son is the Spirit. This Spirit comes into us as the Spirit of life, and within this life is the divine nature. The divine life we have received is nothing less than God Himself, but not merely God in a simple way. Rather, God the Father is the fullness in God the Son, God the Son is the very embodiment of God the Father, God the Son is realized as God the Spirit, and God the Spirit is the very transmission of the Triune God who comes into us as the divine life with the divine nature.
All the divine attributes such as wisdom, holiness, power, and love are in this Spirit. If we have this Spirit as the all-inclusive dose, we have all these divine attributes. In this all-inclusive Spirit we even have the human nature of Christ and the effectiveness and killing power of Christ’s death. All this we have obtained by regeneration.
We have seen what regeneration is and what we obtain by regeneration. Now we may see what happens to us in regeneration.
According to Ezekiel 36:26, in regeneration our heart and our spirit are renewed. Before regeneration, our heart was a stony heart. It was not dead; the Bible never tells us that our heart is dead. Rather, it tells us that our heart is hardened, so it becomes rotten and stony.
Within the tripartite man are two kind of hearts, the physical heart and the psychological heart. Medical doctors deal with the physical heart, whereas a little “doctor” like me deals with the psychological heart. The physical heart is in the body, but according to the Scriptures where is the psychological heart? The first word of the New Testament gospel is repent. This is because the mind of man was turned away from God. To repent is to turn our mind back, to have a change of mind. Then after we repent, we have to confess. This is to exercise the conscience. Before this time the conscience was seared, without feeling; it was evil and careless. Now through our repenting the conscience starts to work, giving us the sense that we are sinful, so spontaneously we confess all our sinfulness. In addition, in our emotion we loved the world and hated God, but by repentance and confession spontaneously our emotion starts to delight in God and love Him. Before this time also, our will was hardened and stiff-necked, like the will of Pharaoh at the time of Moses.
If we add all these four items together — a mind turned away from God; a conscience seared, insensitive, without any feeling, and careless; an emotion hating God; and a hardened will — what we have is a stony heart. Our heart was hardened, like a piece of stone, but at the time of our regeneration, God the Spirit did something miraculous and divine to soften and renew our heart. He did this by causing us to turn our mind to God, causing us to have an exercised conscience sprinkled with the cleansing blood, causing our emotion to delight in God and love God, and causing our will to be not only softened but also pliable and very submissive. By all this, our stony heart became a renewed heart. This is the first thing that happened to us at the time of regeneration.
Ezekiel 36:26b says, “A new spirit I will put within you.” Before regeneration our heart was hardened, like a piece of stone, and our human spirit was deadened. This means that all the functions of the spirit were lost; the spirit was without function. At the time of regeneration, however, our heart was softened, and our spirit was made alive. Our spirit was “lifed,” made alive, by the Holy Spirit coming into our spirit to be life to us. Since life came into our spirit, it was lifed. All of the above are the meaning of regeneration. In order to define what regeneration is, we have to tell people the definition and meaning of regeneration, what we obtain by regeneration, and what happened to us at the time of regeneration.
We must also consider what we become by regeneration. First, we become children of God, because by regeneration we are born of God (John 1:12-13.)
By regeneration we also become a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). As children of God, we have God within us as life, but as the new creation, we have God within us as our essence, element, and substance. What is the difference between the old creation and the new creation? The old creation does not have God as the essence, element, and substance, but in the new creation the essence, element, and substance of God are mingled with the creatures. Praise the Lord, today we are regenerated! We have God within us as our life, so we are God’s children, and we have God within us as our very substance and element, so we are the new creation.
If we can adequately tell people what the meaning of regeneration is, what we obtain by regeneration, what happened to us at the time of regeneration, and what we become through regeneration, then we are clear about regeneration, and this will help us very much to go on in life. These are the ABCs of the inner life.
