Understanding New Birth - Part Four
SCRIPTUREJohn 3:1-15
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel yand yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
LESSON
In A Guide to the Study of the Christian Religion, a late professor in the University of Chicago wrote this about the need for new birth: "One may say that not supernatural regeneration but natural growth, not divine sanctification but human education, not supernatural grace but natural morality, not the divine expiation of the cross, but the human heroism-or accident?-of the cross ... not Christ the Lord, but the man Jesus who was a child of His time; not God and His providence, but evolution and its process without an absolute goal-that all this, and such as this, is the new turn in the affairs of religion at the tick of the clock."
Now with this in mind, listen to the Lord Jesus Christ, "If God were your Father, ye would love Me." The man who talks about the fatherhood of God and then speaks of Jesus as being a child of His time shows clearly that he himself comes under the stigma of the Lord, when He says, "Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my Word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do: he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it (John 8:43-44).
We read in His Word that we are "born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever" (1 Pet. 1:23). If we are to have the proper understanding of all that God means we must hold in our minds that the new birth is given to us as an analogy with physical birth. We are familiar with the biological processes by which we exist in the world today. We know precisely that we are alive physically as the result of the union of two life seeds which union caused the beginning of the growth of our bodies. God takes this wonderful mystery of life and parallels it very closely in His story of regeneration. You have received your body from your father and your mother; you have inherited characteristics that are the marks of that union.
STUDY QUESTION
- Is Christ the Lord over all things? If so, are there particular areas of life that Christ would not maintain sovereignty over? Explain.
- If salvation is a gift of God, is it possible for humanity to then control or sustain their salvation?
