Search
Scripture Reading: John 3:5-6, 8; 1:12-13; 1 Pet. 1:3; Titus 3:5
In the previous chapter we saw the Spirit’s work in sanctifying the God-chosen people before they repent and believe. In this chapter we want to see the Spirit’s work in regenerating the convicted and believing believers (John 3:5-6, 8).
I hope that we would all learn to know the thought of the Bible. When a person writes something, his thought is in his writing. We need to know the Lord’s thought in the Scriptures. In reading 1 Peter 1:2 and 3, we can see not only the thought of Peter but also the thought of the inspiring Spirit. These verses say, “Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied. 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 main thought in these two verses is embodied in three crucial words: chosen, sanctification, and regenerated. God chose us in eternity past. Then in time the Spirit came to sanctify us. God’s choosing is in the Spirit’s sanctification. Now we need to consider the purpose of God’s choosing and of the Spirit’s sanctifying. God’s choosing and the Spirit’s sanctifying do not have two goals. They have only one goal. They are on the same line, the same road. It is not that God takes one way, and the Spirit takes another way. They are taking one way. God started the way to choose us, and the Spirit follows in the same way, in the same line, to sanctify us. God’s choosing and sanctifying are for the purpose of producing sons. God’s intention is to have many sons.
God can have many sons not by adoption but by begetting. John 3:3 says that we must be “born anew.” This is not just generating but regenerating. In God’s economy God must first have man in His creation. His creation of man was a kind of bringing forth, a kind of begetting. How can we prove that God’s creation was God’s begetting? Luke 3:38 says, “Adam, the son of God.” This is a strong verse to prove that God’s creation was a kind of begetting. Adam was created by God (Gen. 5:1-2), and God was his origin. God did not breathe His breath of life into the plants, the fish, the birds, or the cattle. In God’s creation God breathed the breath of life only into Adam (2:7). Luke considered that this was God’s begetting. That was humankind’s first birth.
Charles Wesley’s hymn “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” (Hymns, #84) is of a very high standard. I would like to point out stanza 3 of this hymn, which says, “Born to raise the sons of earth; / Born to give them second birth.” God’s economy needs man to go through two births. He receives a human life in his first birth. Then he has to go through another birth, the second birth. This birth is for him to receive the divine life. God intended that man would have two lives—the human life and the divine life. In order to do this, God must have a prototype, a model. So He Himself became incarnated to be the prototype.
At one time God merely had the divine life, not the human life. But He had the intention that mankind would have two lives, the human and the divine. Therefore, He Himself had to be a prototype. He set up a model by becoming incarnated. God with the divine life came into humanity so that He might have the human life. Thus, on the earth there was a unique model, the God-man. Today this prototype has been duplicated in mass production because in resurrection He has become the Firstborn among many brothers (Rom. 8:29).
After man was made by God, God saw what He had made and used the words very good to describe it (Gen. 1:31). But this very good man became fallen. Most people think that if Adam had not fallen, he and we would not have needed to be regenerated, but this is absolutely wrong. Even if man had never fallen, he would still have needed to be reborn. The God-created man needed to be reborn of God, not just to have God’s breath of life but to have God’s life itself. Man needed regeneration even if he had never fallen. God in His economy planned it this way.
The Old Testament tells us that Saul was anointed by God and got another heart (1 Sam. 10:9). A new heart is obviously something new, but another heart may still be the old heart. Saul did not have something new. God created an old man, and this old man should have a transformation, a change from the old to the new. The old man was human; the new man is divine. We all have to see this. Today we are wonderful persons because we have been regenerated with God’s divine life. We are now both divine and human. When God was incarnated, He could say, “I am a God-man.” Now that we have been regenerated, we can say, “I am a man-God.” The only difference is this: God had the divine life first. Then He received the human life. We had the human life first. Then we received the divine life. Eventually, God has two lives with two natures, and we are the same.
Christ was born to give us a second birth, that is, to make us God in His life and nature but not in His Godhead. God was made a man, and we men are being made God, but without the Godhead. There is a two-way traffic. He comes with divinity to enter into humanity, and we go with humanity to enter into divinity. This is the significance of regeneration according to the blueprint, the plan, of God. By His mercy God has really shown us His plan, His economy. The main line we have seen in God’s plan is that God intended to be a man. This is His hobby, His heart’s desire. What does God want? God wants to get a man for Him to be one with man. This is the reason He loves man. So first, He created a man, and this creation of man can be considered as a begetting of man. Four thousand years later, He came to be a man. He was not separate from man, but He became a man in union with man. He entered into man.
God came to be a man to give us a second birth. God can do everything, but if He had not become a man, He could not regenerate man. He must have the qualification of being God and man. He became a man in His incarnation to put on humanity, and this part of Him, the human part, was not divine. While He was on the earth for thirty-three and a half years, He was part divine and part human. In His incarnation He put on man. Then He took the second step to die and resurrect. In resurrection He “sonized” His human part, making this human part divine.
Obviously, we were born human. Then God as the prototype came into us as the divine One. Now it will take our whole life for Him to transform our humanity into something divine. This transformation is the process of “sonizing” us. In one sense we are now the sons of God because we have been begotten of God with His life. But in our attitude, actions, and behavior we may appear as the sons of beggars. This shows that in another sense we do not appear to be the sons of God. We should say, “I am a son of God in life and nature but not yet fully in constitution and appearance. I am being transformed day by day.” Now we are under God’s transformation. To transform us is to sonize us. This is God’s work in us every day.
God created man in a way that he needs a wife as a helpmate to match him. But the highest purpose in God’s giving a wife to a brother is to give him trouble so that he can be transformed. Many times it is the wife who troubles the husband the most and the husband who troubles the wife the most. God uses this situation to transform the husband and the wife. The wives perfect the husbands, and the husbands perfect the wives. Even our children become helpers to us in the process of transformation. We also need a job in order to live, and our job is used by the Lord to transform us. All our daily necessities are troubles. People like to have a car, but the car becomes a trouble. People like to have computers, but computers also become a trouble to them. These troubles are ordained by God so that we can be transformed.
In my earlier ministry I told people that our circumstances and environment are ordained by God for our transformation. But I did not realize as much as I do today. Everything we need becomes a trouble. God ordained these things so that we could be sonized, transformed.
Transformation is a continuation of regeneration. We have been regenerated, and we are a new man, but the process does not stop there. The butterfly does not come out of the cocoon overnight. It comes out slowly. Sanctification, renewing, and transformation are all a continuation of regeneration to make us a new man with the divine and human natures. Eventually, 1 John 3 says that when He comes, we will see Him, and at that time we will be the same as He is (v. 2).
God has only one way in the whole universe. This is the way of His economy to gain many sons for His expression. The first step God took was His choosing. Ephesians 1 tells us that God’s choosing was for His sanctification, for us to be holy (v. 4). God chose us in eternity, predestinating us unto sonship (v. 5). He chose us with an intention to get sons. After His choosing, He came as the Spirit to sanctify us, to separate us, from the heap of common people. The Spirit came to seek us, to enlighten us, to find us, and to get us (Luke 15:8-9). He worked to convict us (John 16:8), causing us to repent and stirring up our heart so that we might have the desire to go to God. Then we became believers.
After He sanctified us as the Spirit, He regenerated us. First Peter 1:2 speaks of God’s choosing and the Spirit’s sanctifying. Then verse 3 says that following His sanctification, He regenerated us through the resurrection of Christ. Regeneration is the step following the Spirit’s sanctification. First, God chose us; then God the Spirit came to sanctify us; and sanctification is for sonizing, which begins with the Spirit regenerating us.
For us to study the work of the Spirit on and in the believers is for us to study the real Christian life. Soon after I was regenerated, I wanted to know the real significance of regeneration. It was very difficult to find anyone who taught this. Eventually, I read a book by T. Austin-Sparks that really helped me. In that book he spoke a very precious word. He said that regeneration is to have God’s life, as another life, in addition to your human life. This is the proper definition and significance of regeneration. For the Lord to give us a second birth means that He gave us another life, a second life, the divine life.
The Spirit works to regenerate the convicted and believing believers (John 3:5-6, 8).
According to John 1:12 and 13, those who receive Christ by believing into Him will be born of God to be God’s children. Of course, this is the second birth.
John 3:6 says, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Regeneration takes place in our spirit. It is accomplished in the human spirit by the Holy Spirit of God with God’s life, the uncreated eternal life.
First Peter 1:3 says that God regenerated us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We need to consider why regeneration needs to be through the resurrection of Christ. God created man, but man became fallen. Through this fall Satan came in to join with man, so man became a real problem to God. Man was created by God without sin, having nothing to do with Satan. But through his fall he became sinful. Romans 5:12 says that sin entered into man through one person, Adam. Thus, man became joined to Satan.
How could such a person of sin and of Satan be regenerated? There is the need for this person to be put to death and to be buried. Then there is the need of the divine life to raise up this dead and buried one. Who can put us all to death, bury us, and raise us up? Only the One who passed through death, was buried, and rose up. He is the qualified One. His death and resurrection are the process, the means, through which we can be made dead, buried, and resurrected to have another life. This is the procedure of our regeneration. So Christ had to put on humanity and bring this humanity to the cross. Then He brought us into His death and burial (6:3-4) and raised us up with Himself in His resurrection (Eph. 2:6).
Christ’s resurrection was a big birth, a big delivery. Not only was Christ Jesus resurrected and begotten in that delivery (Acts 13:33); millions also joined Him in that birth (Rom. 8:29; 1 Pet. 1:3). In resurrection Christ as the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). Then through His resurrection many Satan-possessed sinners were all regenerated. We need such a revelation. We need a revelation to see that we were created by God, yet we became fallen, involved with sin and joined with Satan. So we became a kind of trinity—fallen man with sin and Satan. Yet God chose us. Then He regenerated us by bringing us into death and burial and raising us up in Christ’s resurrection. Through Christ’s resurrection we became reborn. We had a second birth and received another life with another nature, both divine.
In the divine viewpoint our regeneration transpired about two thousand years ago in Christ’s resurrection. It transpired before our first birth. With God there is no time element. First, He created man, and then He joined Himself to man. Later, the Spirit came to us to bring Him, the One who passed through death, burial, and resurrection, into us to make His history our experience, to make us one with Him, fully identical to Him. So we died, we were buried, and we rose up to be a regenerated new man, a new man with a second birth.
The Lord Jesus said that if you are not born anew, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:5). Man cannot enter into the animal kingdom to fellowship with the animals and understand them, because man was not born with the animal life. The animals were born into the animal kingdom. God also has a kingdom. We cannot understand the things of God if we are not in His kingdom. The only way to enter into His kingdom is to be born into it. In our first birth we were born into the human kingdom. Only man knows the things of man in the human kingdom. The animals cannot know us or understand us. In like manner, how can we understand the things of God in the kingdom of God? The only way is to be born into His kingdom with His life. Now we have been born into the kingdom of God, so we can know God. According to Genesis 1, all the animals were created according to their kind. But we men were created by God according to God’s kind. A “kind” is a kingdom. Later, we were reborn into God’s kingdom, into His kind.
Titus 3:5 speaks of the washing of regeneration. Regeneration is a washing. It washes away the filthiness of the old nature of our old man. This washing away is to put off our old man and put on the new man. It is also a kind of reconditioning. We all have been regenerated, reconditioned, with the divine life. Regeneration is very deep. I like this word recondition. Charles Wesley used the word reinstate in stanza 4 of Hymns, #84—“Reinstate us in Thy love.” We lost our state, our position, so we needed to be reinstated. But we also needed to be reconditioned. Our nature, our essence, and our entire being needed to be reconditioned. Nothing can do this except regeneration. To be regenerated is to be reborn, reconditioned, with the divine life.
