Salvation: God alone makes Christians (Part 7)
We continue from Part 6 of this series of messages:
John 3:3 "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." [25 words]
I've counted the words in this verse and noted that there are 25 words in there. This verse is the first-mention of the term "born again", and it bears the pattern of number 33 in the chapter and verse numbering i.e. John 3:3. It is also the 1,000th chapter of the Holy Bible, and the number 1,000 = 10 x 10 x 10. The pure word of God is a supernatural book. In Job 33:25, we have a reference to John 3:3:
Job 33:25 "His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s: he shall return to the days of his youth:"
Job 33:25 was not talking about the physical man. It was talking about the "new man" in a believer which is created after the image of Jesus Christ.
John 3:4 "Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?"
How is it possible for a man to enter into his mother’s womb and be born the second time? According to Job 33:25, it is possible. However, this birth is not a natural birth, but a spiritual one.
Ephesians 4:24 "And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."
Notice the term "new man" in this verse in relation to a born again believer? God created the new man i.e. No man can make himself a Christian. Only God alone has the power to make Christians, and the "seed" of the new man is the word of God:
Luke 8:11 "Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God."
When the seed (word of God) is sown on a good ground, it will bring forth a tree, which will in turn bring forth fruit, and more seeds. Those new seeds came from the original seed (word of God) and they were faithfully duplicated according to the genes of the original seed. That is the idea of "faith" according to Hebrews 11:1.
Luke 8:15 "But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience."
There are four types of ground whereby the hearts of every man and woman may be represented: the wayside ground, the stony ground, the thorny ground and the good ground. Only those with an honest and good heart are capable of being saved.
Psalms 97:11 "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart."
When the word of God ("light" John 1:9) is sown in an honest and good heart of a believer ("upright in heart"), the result is a new man in him which is created after the image of the living Word. At that point, the man is born again by the Spirit of God.
Recall in Job 33:21 that "His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen; and his bones that were not seen stick out." What happened between verse 21 and verse 25, now that “His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s”? The answer to this question is found in:
Matthew 13:15 "For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them."
When a person is converted from death unto life, Jesus will also heal him. But it is not physical healing that a born again believer will receive from Jesus Christ, because it is his soul that needed to be healed.
Psalms 41:4 "I said, LORD, be merciful unto me: heal my soul; for I have sinned against thee."
The source of every act of sin is lying and corrupt words that the soul of a person receives as food and drink, and these are as venom of snakes and spiders that consume away the flesh. Lying and corrupt words will do damage to the soul, even as the poison of a serpent will do to the flesh. We have covered that previously.
Job 33:16-17 "Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, 17 That he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man."
In order to heal the soul, God must first open the ears of the man and in opening his ears, God has also sealed off an “instruction” that is getting to him, so that he may withdraw the man from his purpose and hide pride from him.
Obadiah 1:3 "The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground?"
Proverbs 16:18 "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."
Pride is a spirit, and it will work to deceive a man. Therefore, when God hide pride from man, he is in fact opening the man’s eyes so that the man is no longer deceived by that haughty spirit. True conversion is when the eyes are no longer blind, the ears are no longer deaf, and the heart began to understand spiritual things. This is evidence that Christ Jesus has healed your soul.
Before you were converted, you could not understand the deep and secret things of God. But after you have believed in the gospel, the kingdom of God is gradually revealed unto you, and little by little you began to understand spiritual things, and you love them. The word of God has become food and drink to your soul.
In fact, you never quite get enough of it. You eagerly look forward to studying the word of God and let God speak to you, and you also enjoy fellowship with brethren of like faith hearing them speak the word of God. You don’t love the law of God because the pastor tells you to. You do what you do because your heart yearns for it. Not only that, but you also began to hate evil, and every false way.
Psalms 119:127-128 "Therefore I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold. 128 Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way."
The love of God’s commandments is automatically the hate of lying and corrupt words. The word of God is now God in your life and the sole Authority that determines what is right from what is wrong, and what is true from what is false.
Matthew 4:4 "But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
The lies that you used to live by before you were born again has become distasteful unto you, and you hate them. When that happens to you, then according to Matthew 13:15, your soul has been healed. You have been converted from death unto life.
There is also another change that goes along with your second birth, that is, the way God the Father sees you now as compared to previously before you were born again.
Job 33:26 "He shall pray unto God, and he will be favourable unto him: and he shall see his face with joy: for he will render unto man his righteousness."
God the Father no longer sees the vile old man in you. Rather, he now sees the new man which after Christ, is created in righteousness and true holiness. We shall continue with our discussion next week, in Part 8.