Lesson 3b ─ The New Birth

Jesus referred to that with which we are all familiar─the natural birth of an infant. This He speaks of as being born of the flesh. The advent of a new baby into the family almost always excites wonder. Its tiny organs are all so skillfully fashioned as to provide it with sensibilities and faculties with which it will be able to communicate with the new world into which it has emerged.
Being born of the Spirit is far more wonderful than the being born of the flesh. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so is this spiritual birth higher than the physical one. Christianity is all about new born souls who emerge into a spiritual realm where which quickened faculties and sensibilities they communicate with the spiritual kingdom which God inhabits.
To miss the second birth is too tragic for words for as A. W. Tozer has said, “To be born only once is to be born lost and to remain lost. To be born the second time is to be saved. This the Bible teaches and everyone ought to know about it.”

What is the New Birth?

1. It is being born again (from above─marginal reading, John 3:3). In John 3:1-13 we have a most comprehensive statement from the lips of Jesus regarding the new birth. He was speaking to Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, and used the words “Verily, verily” three times in these thirteen verses. “The repetition of ‘verily’ or ‘amen’ among Jewish writers was considered of equal import to the most solemn oath,” said Clark the commentator. Jesus was uttering basic truths of tremendous import.

Read John 3:1-13 and find the verses in which Jesus says, “Verily, verily” ________ _____________. How many times is the word “born” used in these thirteen verses? No. ____.

The Jews were acquainted with the term “born again” for it was used of the Gentile or stranger who wished to be incorporated into the Jewish state as a citizen. The Jewish people considered any Gentile as unclean, and so if he wished to become a Jew, it was necessary for him to be admitted into the Jewish nation by a ceremony by which he was to be born again and baptized with water to render him clean. “It was,” says Horace Bushnell, “as if he had been born a second time of the stock of Abraham: and becoming in this manner a native Jew, as related to the Jewish state, he was said in form of law, to be born again. Finding this Jewish ceremony familiarly known, Christ takes advantage of it as affording a good analogy to represent the naturalization of a soul in the kingdom of God.”

“Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of ________ and of the _________, he cannot ______________________________ _________” (John 3:5).

Christ didn’t leave Nicodemus to suppose that He was speaking of ceremonial cleansing. “He only took water by way as a symbol and adds ‘the Spirit’ as the real cleansing power. . . . Be born again, or from above; different to that new birth which the Jews supposed every proselyte enjoyed: for they held that a proselyte was like a child new born. This was of water from below. The birth for which Christ contends was from above by the Holy Ghost.”─Adam Clarke.
Can you not see why Nicodemus, who was not only a Jew, but a Pharisee and a ruler as well, was puzzled by Jesus’ conditions? If we had recorded the mental reasoning of Nicodemus, he might have said, “I am not unclean. I am a Jew by birth and no Gentile needing birth into the Jewish state. I have Abraham for my father. Why do I require a second birth?”
But Jesus was speaking of a family other than that of the Jews and another Kingdom than that of the Jewish state. He was speaking of a spiritual kingdom where only new born souls constituted a part of that new race, that new generation, that new family traveling a new course and living by new laws. This is why Jesus tried to impress His hearer that he had to be “born from above” into a different Kingdom. God has always been pictured in Scripture as occupying the heaven of heavens. This birth was in no wise of earth or to be confused with any analogy to an earthly birth, so He safeguards it by saying, “It is being born from above.”
“We are a sky-born, sky-guided, sky-returning race and sweetly the peace-march beats, ‘Home, brothers, home!’”─Alfred Cookman.

2. It is being born of the Spirit of God. “That which is _______ of the _________ is spirit” (John 3:6).

In the beginning, God breathed into Adam─he was generated and became a living soul. But this precious life-connection with God was paralyzed the moment of his disobedience. Nothing less, therefore, than a second breathing of the Spirit of God would be needed to quicken man into life. This is termed regeneration. Will you please look up in your dictionary the meaning of the word “regeneration” and write out your definition in the space below:

Definition____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

This blessed operation of the Spirit was prophesied by Ezekiel, the prophet, when he said: “I will put a ______________ within ______, and I will _______ the stony heart out of their flesh, and will _______ them an heart of flesh” (Ezek. 11:19).
“The spiritual life owes its beginning to birth from above and this birth is receiving the Holy Spirit of God, so this is equivalent to saying that as many as received Him, to them gave He the Holy Spirit.”─Dean Alford.
Jesus likened the Spirit to the wind. “No human eye can see the incoming of the Spirit of God; no human perception, however keen, can mark whence He cometh and whither He goeth.”─E. Baxter.
Bishop Taylor-Smith once preached on the text, “Ye must be born again,” and he said: “My people, do not substitute anything for the new birth. You may be a member of a church, but church membership is not new birth, and ‘Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’” The Rector was sitting at his left. Pointing to him, the Bishop said, “You might be a clergyman like my friend, the Rector here, and not be born again.” Sitting next to the Rector was also the Archdeacon. Pointing directly at him, the Bishop continued, “You might even be an Archdeacon, like my friend, and not be born again, and ‘Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.’ You might even be a Bishop, like myself, and not be born again. . .” A letter came a few days later from the Archdeacon to the Bishop.

“My dear Bishop:
“You have found me out. I have been a clergyman for over forty years, but I have never known anything of the joy that Christians speak of. I never could understand it. Mine has been a hard, legal service. I did not know what was the matter with me. But when you pointed directly at me and said, ‘You might even be an Archdeacon, and not be born again,’ I realized in a moment what the trouble was. I had never known anything of the new birth..
“Signed: The Archdeacon.”

Bishop Taylor met him and they talked and prayed together and as Bishop Taylor reports, “After some hours we were both on our knees, the Archdeacon taking his place before God as a lost sinner and telling the Lord Jesus he would trust Him as his Savior. From that time everything was different!”

ASSIGNMENT. Under this next section (3) we have quoted from John 1:12-13, Rom. 8:16, Gal. 4:6, 1 John 2:29 and 1 John 3:1-2. Read the verses over carefully and then neatly underline the word or phrase which you think teaches that we can be born into God’s family.

3. It is being born of God. “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name; Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).

“Everyone that doeth righteousness is born of him.” (1 John 2:29).

Born of God! What a royal birth! Born of the Eternal, Almighty God, Creator and Ruler of the Universe! We sometimes look at photographs of the royal family but realize the hopeless gap that exists between royalty and ourselves. But here we see that the King of kings has planned that rebellious man should, by means of the new birth, come into the heavenly, royal family of God. Inestimable condescension on His part to share a family relationship with man where we are privileged to call God, Father, and He to call us sons and daughters!

“And because ye are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6).

In order to include both Jew and Gentile in this privileged sonship, St. Paul writes, “The Spirit cries, Abba Father.” The Hebrew and Greek words for father are joined together to express the united cry of both Jew and Gentile.
Further, the Spirit witnesses to our spirits that we are children of God. This was what John Wesley taught. He says: “The Spirit beareth witness with the spirit of every believer by a testimony distinct from that of his own spirit or the testimony of a good conscience. Happy they who enjoy this clear and distinct.” Adam Clark, a Methodist commentator, remarks: “Thus our adoption into the heavenly family is testified and ascertained to us in the only way in which it possibly can be done, by the direct testimony of the Spirit of God. Remove this from Christianity and it is a dead letter.” But let us note what St. Paul says:

“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Rom. 8:16).

“Upon the foundation of this immediate testimony of the Holy Spirit, all the regenerate man’s conviction of Christ and His work finally rests.”─Olshausen.

A hymn write exultantly witnessed to the reality of his own royal birth:

“A tent or a cottage, why should I care!
They’re building a mansion for me over there.
Though exiled from home, yet still I may sing,
Oh, glory to God, I’m a child of a King.”
—Harriet Eugenia Peck

St. John, glimpsing the marvel of this new relationship, says: 1 John 3:1-2, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; . . . Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”
As a child of the first Adam expresses the nature and characteristics of his father, so those who are born from above show forth the likeness and nature of their Father God.

4. It is being born of incorruptible seed. “Being born again, not of corruptible _______, but of __________________, by the ________________, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23).

Mr. G. H. Lang, commenting on this verse in his book, The New Birth, states: “It has pleased God that new life in every kingdom should grow up out of a ‘seed’ that in itself contains the life-principle to be developed. Therefore, as is the seed so is the life. No seed can produce any other life than is contained in it; so there must be a change of seed if a new crop is to be grown.
“In the realm of thought and morals, words are seeds. A few words spoken to Eve by Satan produced in her heart a new sinful nature, leading to such hateful growths as doubts of God’s goodness and resentment against His holy commandment. A corrupt heart and a depraved life grew out of those words as surely as thistles grow from their own seeds.
“Similarly it is by man receiving into the soil of his heart some words of God that he finds a new and holy life growing up within him. In the bodily realm a physical seed is needful, but, of course, in the realm of the spiritual this is not so, but an immaterial seed produces the spiritual change.”

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that ____________________, and ____________________ that sent me, hath everlasting _______, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).

Again Mr. Lang says: “‘Hearing the word’ is the seed falling into the ground; ‘believing’ what is heard is the soil receiving and nurturing the seed, that is, the heart welcoming and obeying the message of God. Not by diligence in external matters, but by humbly attending to the Word of God does His life find entrance to the heart, and there bring forth its own, that is, His own nature within us, for His words are ‘spirit and are life.’”

“Whereby are given unto us ____________________ and ____________________: that ____________ ye might be ___________________________________, having escaped the corruption that ____________________ through lust” (2 Peter 1:4).
“Of _________________ begat he us with the ___________________” (James 1:18).

If you listen to the testimony of born again Christians, you will soon discover how it was the Word of God, suddenly illuminated by the Holy Spirit, which brought life and light to their darkened hearts.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when _____________ shall hear _________________________________: and they that ______ shall ______” (John 5:25).

A greatly used Scottish evangelist laid hold on these words of Scripture, “The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.” He untiringly used the Word as his seed with living faith in its potency. The Holy Spirit applied that Word and souls were born again.

5. It is a new creation. “If any man be _____________, he is a ________________; old things have passed away, behold _______________ are ______________. And all things are of God” (2 Cor. 5:17-18).

Not by repairing the “old man” but by creating a new man does God fulfill His original plan. Commenting on this verse a godly minister says: “It is a divine creation which involves the hand of God. He who does the work is the Creator; and the work produced is a new creature. This involves the disappearance of something that did previously exist─old things are passed away.”
No amount of effort to enliven a corpse will make it a living creature. As George Watson has said, “Can a dead man develop into a live man? You may take an onion and peel off its outer skin and then peel off the next skin, and you may go on developing the onion until you get the last bit of the onion developed, but it is onion all the way down. And so, you may take the sinner, you may develop him a hundred billions of ages, and he is a sinner still. Conversion is a miracle, as great a miracle as the birth of Isaac, or the birth of Jesus Christ. It is a divine creation, and not a development.”

“For we are his _______________, __________ in ________________ unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

The meaning of “workmanship” in the original Greek is that we are His “product; His fabric; a thing that is made.”
Paul uses the term “new man” in contrast with the “old man,” and reveals in this way the two generations.

“And that ye put on the __________, which after God is __________ in _________________ and true ___________” (Eph. 4:24).

Here we notice again the word “created” showing it to be a work of God and not reformation. D. L. Moody had discovered this secret and preached regeneration by the power of the Holy Ghost. He says:
“I was twenty years old before I ever heard a sermon on regeneration. I was always told to be good, but you might as well tell a black man to be white without telling him how. You might tell a slave to be free, but that would not make him free. But (Christ) frees us. We are a bad lot, the whole of us, by nature. It is astonishing how the devil blinds us, and makes us think we are so naturally good. Don’t talk to me about people being naturally good and angelic. We are naturally bad, the whole of us. The first man born of a woman was a murderer. Sin leaped into the world full-grown, and the whole race has been bad all the way down. I have heard of reform, reform, until I am tired and sick of the whole thing. It is regeneration by the power of the Holy Ghost we need.”

We notice again the word “created” connected with “new man” in Col. 3:9-10: “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have ___________ the ___________ with his deeds; And have _________ the __________, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that __________ him.”

“Put off” in the Greek means to “divest wholly oneself” or “to despoil.” “Put on” has a meaning of “sinking into a garment” or “investing with clothing.”
We note that the word “lie” comes into this picture of the old and new man. Adam was first clothed with a garment of light or righteousness but when he believed Satan’s lie he was divested of that garment and was naked. He then created a garment of fig leaves to cover his nakedness and ever since the old man has lived under a deceitful cloak─a fair covering over an inner filth of heart. The unregenerate man lives in constant fear that this lie or deceit will be detected and his associates discover how different he really is from the fair, outward show he puts on.

“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth ___________, nor uncircumcision, but __________________” (Gal. 6:15).

For this new man created in Christ, there is a New Testament which introduces a new generation in the last Adam and contains a new commandment. It presents a new and living way for this new man to walk in. There is a new name and new heavens and a new earth for his quickened senses to enjoy, and he is bound for a new Jerusalem where he will know how to sing a new song. The New Testament is definitely a book about a new race, a new generation, a new family.

6. It is eternal life and the names of those possessing it are registered in the Lamb’s Book of Life. “To the general assembly and church of the ______________, which are __________ in __________” (Heb. 12:23).

This Book of Life is a family register of the children of the Last Adam, who make up the church of the firstborn. Christ came, as we have studied in former lessons, to become the firstborn of a new race. This was His purpose in coming to earth─to impart this new life via the new birth.

“I am come that they might have _______ and that they might have it more ______________” (John 10:10).
“This is the record, that God hath given to us _________________, and this _______ is in his ______. He that hath the ______ hath _______; and he that ____________ the Son of God __________________” (1 John 5:11-12).

The date of every physical birth must be recorded at a fixed place of registration where a Birth Certificate is issued. When a sinner is new-born, his name is written in the Book of Life. He receives an “inward certificate” of assurance by the Divine Spirit witnessing with his spirit that he is a child of God.

Were Christ born in Bethlehem a thousand times,
And not in you, you would be eternally lost.
─Angelus Silesius.

“And whosoever was not found ___________ in the ________________________ was cast into the lake of _______” (Rev. 20:15).

The possession of this “life” was considered so very important that Jesus said it would be better to be blinded in one eye, or to have an amputation of a hand or foot rather than to be cast into hell and be lost.

“If thy hand or thy foot offend thee, _________________, and ________ ____________________: it is better for thee to ____________________ halt or __________, rather than having two hands or two feet to ___________ into everlasting _______” (Matt. 18:8).

Jesus likewise considered that the entry of one’s name in the Book of Life was far more important than to have the devils subject unto one.

“Notwithstanding in this _______________, that the _________________________ unto you; but rather __________, because your names are ______________ __________” (Luke 10:20).
“I intreat thee also, . . . help those women . . . with other my fellow-labourers, whose ________ are in the _________________” (Phil. 4:3).

The following references from Revelation speak of this Book of Life. Write out these verses. Rev. 3:5; Rev. 13:8; Rev. 20:12; Rev. 21:27.

7. It is a quickening. “And you hath he _____________, who were _______ in trespasses and _______; Wherein in time past ye __________ according to the _________________________, according to the _____________________________ _______, the spirit that now worketh in the _____________________________: . . . and were by nature the ________________________ even as others” (Eph. 2:1-3).
“And you, being _______ . . . hath he _______________________ with ______, having forgiven you all trespasses” (Col. 2:13).

Testing Time

1. Explain why you think Jesus used the picture of being “born again” to Nicodemus.
2. Explain briefly and simply what regeneration means.
3. How may a seeker after God know with a certainty that he has been born of God?
4. In this lesson we have studied seven terms describing the new birth. From memory, list as many as you can of the seven.
5. If someone, disappointed with his religious experience, were to open his heart to you and tell you, “Nothing happened when I made a decision,” how would you advise such a person?
6. “Quicken” has several meanings. In the following dictionary definitions of the word, underline those which particularly apply to the new birth. Work, take effect, sharpen, whet, stimulate, hurry, expedite, accelerate, revive, revivify, resuscitate, animate, energize, strengthen.
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