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Definition:
When Christ was resurrected, all His believers, chosen and given to Him by God, were included in Him. Hence, they were all resurrected with Him (Eph. 2:6) and regenerated through Him that they may have the eternal life as the authority for them to be the children of God as His species.
Definition:
The Greek word for regeneration in Titus 3:5 is different from that for regenerated in 1 Peter 1:23. The only other place this word is used is in Matthew 19:28, where it is used for the restoration in the millennium. Here it refers to a change from one state to another. Being born again is the commencing of this change. The washing of regeneration begins with our being born again and continues with the renewing of the Holy Spirit as the process of God’s new creation, a process that makes us a new man. It is a kind of reconditioning, remaking, or remodeling, with life.
Prayer: Father, we extol You as the Lord of heaven and earth. It is of Your sovereignty that we can have this blending conference. Your blending is our blessing. Your blending is our growing. Your blending is our increasing. Your blending is our building. Your blending is everything to us. We long to be blended in the Body and to be blended as the chosen people, the heavenly citizens. Father, give us the new utterance, the up-to-date utterance, to utter what You have shown us. We are so weak, but we thank You that the indwelling Spirit joins us in our weakness. We trust in You and we rely upon You. We ask You to defeat Your enemy and to cover us against all his attacks. Amen.
The burden of these messages can be expressed in the following statements:
(1) The generating Spirit in our spirit, quickened by Christ, regenerates us, giving us the authority to be children of God, begotten of God.
(2) The nourishing Spirit in our spirit, cherished by Christ, feeds us with the spiritual milk of the word that we may grow unto salvation.
(3) The sanctifying Spirit from our spirit, captivated by Christ, sanctifies us with the nature of God, making us holy unto God.
(4) The renewing Spirit in our spirit, indwelt by Christ, renews us that we may put on the new man through the breaking of the cross.
(5) The transforming Spirit in our spirit, filled by Christ, transforms us into the glorious image of Christ for His expression.
(6) The building Spirit in our spirit, possessed by Christ, builds us into the house of God and the Body of Christ for Their dwelling.
(7) The maturing Spirit in our spirit, enriched with Christ, conforms us to the image of Christ, the firstborn Son of God—the model of God’s sons.
(8) The sealing Spirit in our spirit, exulting with Christ, saturates us with and brings us into the glory of God for our glorification.
(9) The intensified Spirit in our spirit, drawn by the Lamb, motivates us to overcome the degradation of the church for the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem.
All these points involve the Spirit with our spirit. Here the term the Spirit does not refer merely to the Spirit of God but to the consummated Spirit—the Spirit who has passed through the processes of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection. This is the Spirit who, in John 7:39, was “not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.” After Christ was glorified in resurrection, He became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). This life-giving Spirit is the Spirit, that is, the consummated Spirit.
The Spirit of God has passed through a process, and our spirit also has passed through a process. Our spirit was created by God, but through Adam it became fallen and deadened. However, our deadened spirit was redeemed by Christ and, having been redeemed, it has been quickened, enlivened, by the Spirit, who regenerated us. The consummated Spirit is in our regenerated spirit. When we speak of the Spirit with our spirit, we mean that the consummated Spirit is with the believers’ created and regenerated spirit. Now we need to see that the Spirit with our spirit is the secret of all the experiences of God’s organic salvation: regeneration, feeding, sanctification, renewing, transformation, building, conformation, and glorification.
My burden in these messages is to present the best theology in eight sections concerning God’s organic salvation plus one section concerning God’s intensified salvation. The eight sections of God’s organic salvation are regeneration, feeding, sanctification, renewing, transformation, building, conformation, and glorification. The additional section is intensification. These nine points cover much genuine theology. I believe that if you study these messages, which may be regarded as a theological lesson book, you will learn the best theology.
The title of this chapter is “The Secret of Regeneration.” In these messages we are using the word secret as a noun meaning “skillfulness in doing things or in making things.” Paul uses this word in Philippians 4:12: “I know also how to be abased, and I know how to abound; in everything and in all things I have learned the secret both to be filled and to hunger, both to abound and to lack.” Paul had learned the secret, the skillfulness, of facing every kind of situation. The secret of these eight sections of God’s organic salvation is the Spirit with our spirit. These two spirits working together is the skillfulness, the secret, of all spiritual things, especially of all the aspects of God’s organic salvation.
Luke 15 unveils the seeking by the Triune God of the lost sinners. Man was created by God but became fallen, and now fallen men are lost sinners. However, in order to fulfill His desire for His good pleasure, God still loved the lost human race, and two thousand years ago the Triune God came to rescue the lost sinners.
The second of the Divine Trinity, the Son, came to seek the lost sinners outside of them objectively as a shepherd seeks his lost sheep (v. 4). This seeking was outside of the lost sinners and on the cross. John 10 proves that Christ’s seeking is objective, outside of us, and on the cross. The Lord Jesus said, “I am the good Shepherd; the good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (v. 11). It was through His death on the cross that the Lord Jesus laid down His life for us. This was His seeking us objectively on the cross.
Then the third of the Divine Trinity, the Spirit, comes to seek the lost sinners with the enlightening word within them subjectively in their heart, as a woman seeking her lost coin by lighting a lamp (Luke 15:8). Whereas the Son’s seeking is objective on the cross, the Spirit’s seeking is subjective and within the sinner’s heart. First, in the eyes of God we are the lost sheep, and second, we are lost coins. We were lost and common, but the Triune God came to sanctify us from being common. This is the initial sanctification of the Spirit to separate a lost sinner from among all the others unto repentance to God for the receiving of Christ’s redemption (1 Pet. 1:2). Here the word unto means “resulting in.” The initial sanctification of the Spirit results in repentance.
Let us now begin to consider the secret of regeneration.
The Spirit of reality, who has sanctified the lost sinners unto repentance, comes to convict the lost sinners concerning three things: concerning sin, which is from Adam; concerning righteousness, which is of Christ; and concerning judgment, which belongs to Satan (John 16:8-11). Sin is from Adam. We all were born sinners in Adam, and thus we all are sinful. But God has a way to rescue us, and this rescue is a matter of righteousness, which is not only of Christ but is Christ Himself. In Christ and by Christ God has rescued us from sin into righteousness. We were sinners, but through our believing into Christ, we have become righteous before God. Judgment is for Satan. Anyone who does not believe into Christ to be righteous will suffer Satan’s judgment.
The Spirit’s coming to convict concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment involves three persons—Adam, Christ, and Satan. Sin entered through Adam (Rom. 5:12), righteousness is the resurrected Christ (John 16:10; 1 Cor. 1:30), and judgment is for Satan (John 16:11), who is the author and source of sin (8:44). In Adam we were born of sin. The only way to be freed from sin is to believe into Christ, the Son of God (16:9). If we believe into Him, He becomes righteousness to us, and we are justified in Him (Rom. 3:24; 4:25). If we do not repent of the sin that is in Adam and believe into Christ, the Son of God, we will remain in sin and share the judgment of Satan for eternity (Matt. 25:41). These are the main points of the gospel. The Spirit uses these points to convict the lost sinners.
John 3:3 and 5 tell us that regeneration is to be born anew. The Spirit convicts sinners that they may be born anew of water (the water of baptism signifying death) and of the Spirit (who has sanctified the sinners from among others and who is the reality of resurrection) in their spirit enlivened by Christ in resurrection. The water of baptism indicates that, if we would be regenerated, we must admit that we are good only to be put on the cross with Christ and buried. This means that we are finished and that our past, our history, is gone. Because the Spirit who sanctifies us is the reality of resurrection, when we have Him, we have resurrection. It is resurrection that regenerates us.
Regeneration is through the resurrection of Christ that He may impart the divine life into the lost sinners as the authority for them to be the children of God, begotten of God as His species (1 Pet. 1:3; John 1:12-13). When Christ was resurrected, all His believers, chosen and given to Him by God, were included in Him. Hence, they were resurrected with Him (Eph. 2:6) and regenerated through Him that they may have the eternal life as the authority for them to be children of God as His species. Through regeneration we, who are human, have become God-men; we have become God’s kind.
John 3:6b says, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” The Spirit refers to the Spirit of God, and spirit refers to the spirit of a sinner born anew.
Such a regeneration, a new birth, is a great washing, purging the regenerated believer from the oldness of his old creation and reconditioning, remaking, remodeling, his old being in life (Titus 3:5; cf. Matt. 19:28). The Greek word for regeneration in Titus 3:5 is different from that for regenerated in 1 Peter 1:23. The only other place this word is used is in Matthew 19:28, where it is used for the restoration in the millennium. In Titus 3:5 it refers to a change from one state to another. Being born again is the commencing of this change. The washing of regeneration begins with our being born again and continues with the renewing of the Holy Spirit as the process of God’s new creation, a process that makes us a new man. It is a kind of reconditioning, remaking, or remodeling, with life.
No matter how good we may be in ourselves, we are still an old creation. Only regeneration can wash away the oldness of this old creation. When we were regenerated, born anew, born of God, of the death water, we became new, and now regeneration is washing away all the oldness from our being as an old creation.
To be regenerated is to drink the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13) as the living water. First Corinthians 12:13 says, “In one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body...and were all given to drink one Spirit.” The Pentecostal people talk much about the baptism of the Spirit but say little, if anything, about drinking the Spirit. To be baptized in water is one thing, but to drink the water is another thing. If we do not drink water, no water can get into us. We should not only be baptized in the Spirit but also drink the Spirit. God’s way is to baptize us and then give us to drink. We need to drink the life-giving Spirit as the living water.
The Lord Jesus gives living water to the believer regenerated by Him (John 4:10; 7:37). When we were regenerated, He gave us water.
The life-giving Spirit as the living water is the Spirit flowing as the river of water of life from the throne of the Triune God (Rev. 22:1, 17; 21:6). Actually, the flow of the Triune God is the living water that constitutes the river.
The living water that the Lord Jesus gives to a believer regenerated by Him becomes a fountain of water springing up into eternal life (John 4:14). We need to know the difference between the fountain and the spring. The fountain is the source. When water comes out of the fountain, the water becomes the spring. God is the fountain, the Spirit of Jesus is the spring, and we, the believers, are the ones in whom the fountain is springing up. All of this is included in regeneration, because to be regenerated is to drink the life-giving Spirit.
The experiences of the foregoing points are all by a repentant and saved sinner exercising the spirit through prayer to call on the name of the Lord (Eph. 6:18; Rom. 10:13). Just as we exercise our feet by walking, so we exercise our spirit by praying. According to Ephesians 6:18, every time we pray, we should exercise our spirit. Furthermore, to pray is mainly to call on the name of the Lord.
The experiences of the foregoing points are also by receiving the living and abiding word of God (the word of the Spirit of life—John 6:63; 1 Pet. 1:23). First, we need to exercise our spirit to contact the living Spirit, and then we need to receive the living and abiding word of God, the word of the Spirit of life.
A saved one receives the spirit of sonship in his spirit (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:5-6). The spirit we have received is the spirit of sonship, and this spirit makes us a son of God.
The Spirit of God with our spirit witnesses that we, the regenerated believers, are children of God (Rom. 8:16). First, the Spirit regenerates us in our spirit, and then He witnesses with our spirit that we, the regenerated ones, are children of God.
Romans 8:14 says, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” When we follow the leading of the Spirit in our daily living, this is an evidence that we are a son of God.
A regenerated believer in Christ is a part of the bride as the increase of Christ the Bridegroom (John 3:3, 5-6, 29-30). The regenerated believers in Christ are not part of a company going to heaven; they are a part of the bride of Christ. Many preach the gospel by quoting the word in John 3 about being born again, but not many connect the word concerning regeneration in the first part of John 3 with the word concerning the bride in the last part of this chapter. John 3:29a says, “He who has the bride is the bridegroom,” and verse 30a says, “He must increase.” The increase in verse 30 is the bride in verse 29, and the bride is a composition of all the regenerated believers. According to the context, therefore, all the regenerated persons are parts of the bride, and the bride is the increase of the Bridegroom, just as Eve was the increase of Adam.
Every child of God should learn to worship God, who is Spirit, with his regenerated spirit mingled with God’s Spirit as one spirit (4:24; 1 Cor. 6:17).
A child of God should also serve God with his spirit in the gospel (Rom. 1:9; 12:11). We should both worship God and serve God in our regenerated spirit.
