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Part
6
BIRTHED
INTO THE KINGDOM
“Jesus
answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water
and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:5).
Scripture abounds in figures, and Jesus always spoke in symbolic terms.
When He said, “Except ye eat my flesh and drink my blood, ye have no
life in you,” He certainly was not advocating cannibalism!
He was using a natural figure to illustrate a spiritual truth.
So when He says one must be “born of water” do not understand water
to mean what we are accustomed to think of as the natural water that men drink
or wash in. It is a figure of THE
LIVING WORD OF GOD. New birth ever,
and only, is by the Word of God and by
the Spirit of God. These are the only two
agents directly involved in the new birth throughout the scriptures.
“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by
the word of God, which liveth and
abideth for ever” (I Pet. 1:23). Some have thought the water to mean baptism.
But there is no mention of baptism in chapter three of John, nor is
baptism ever connected anywhere in the New Testament with the new birth. A man
can no more be born again by coming up out of natural water than he can be born
again by entering the second time into his mother’s womb.
Both are physical, natural, earthly, temporal and corruptible things. They are not agents of the spiritual world at all.
Others have thought the water referred to physical birth — the
water in which the babe is encased in the womb of the mother.
That would make the scripture read, “Except a man be born physically and
spiritually, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.”
But the subject on the lips of Jesus has nothing to do with physical
birth at all — He
is talking about being born again. That is the only
birth that qualifies a man for entrance into the Kingdom of God.
Natural birth brings man into the physical world, but has not one whit of
power to usher a man into the Kingdom of God.
What Jesus was calling for had nothing to do with human origin, even if
it was Abraham. That
had been given to Nicodemus by his parents.
The life Jesus spoke of had to be given by God.
God’s Kingdom is not a matter of descent, or national blood.
Jesus was saying that no one can be born naturally
into God’s Kingdom. The only
entrance to this Kingdom was to be born of the Word and the Spirit; in fact, it
could only be seen by being born of the Spirit.
The citizens of God’s Kingdom were Spirit-born.
No, my friend, Jesus is not speaking of either water baptism or physical
birth — He
is saying that unless a man is born again of both the Word of God and the Spirit
of God, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.
The traditions of the past have so dimmed our understanding that every
truth is side-tracked and diminished by the shallowness of the carnal mind.
Thus it is with the truth of the agency of the Word and the Spirit in the
new birth. The great truth is that
when Jesus announces the awesome reality of the new birth He presents to us THE
TWO NEW PARENTS. The Spirit of God is the new spiritual Father; the Word of God is the new Mother.
Let us understand exactly how the conception of a new life takes place.
Human life begins when a sperm cell from the father enters and fertilizes
an egg cell of the mother. The
joining of these two cells is called fertilization
or conception. Together,
the sperm and egg create one single human cell.
Every human life begins as one single cell. This one cell contains 46 chromosomes.
Twenty three of the chromosomes are from the sperm of the father, and 23
are from the egg of the mother. All
heredity is dictated by the 46 chromosomes.
They determine whether the new human will be tall or short, have small or
large bones, have blue eyes or brown eyes, even whether it will be susceptible
to certain diseases or not. At the
moment of conception the chromosomes of the sperm cell and the egg cell come
together, and the traits that the child will inherit from his parents are
determined. Both mother and father
contribute equally to the child’s heredity — with
only one exception.
It is the father’s sperm that
determines whether the baby will be a girl or a boy.
This brings us to a mystery understood by very few of the Lord’s
people, but it is the truth. It is
evident that God contains within Himself both the masculine nature of the father
and the feminine nature of the mother. Was
it not when God created Adam male and
female that he was said to be in the image of God? (Gen. 1:26).
God’s masculine nature is manifested as SPIRIT, whereas His feminine
nature is expressed as WORD. Now,
as I have previously pointed out, there are two
elements involved in our begettal as children of God — the
Spirit and the Word.
“Except a man be born of Water (Word) and of the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the Kingdom of God.” Peter tells us that we are “being born again, not of
corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the WORD OF GOD, which liveth and
abideth for ever” (I Pet. 1:23). It
is significant to note that when Peter tells us that we are being born again by
the incorruptible seed of the Word of
God, the word for “seed” in the
Greek is not SPERMA, or sperm, as from the Father, but the word SPORA which
simply means a seed as that which contains the origin of life or the
characteristics of nature.
We are born of the Word and we are born of the Spirit. It is only when the Word is quickened or fertilized by the
Spirit that divine life is generated within.
Just as it requires the male sperm and the female ovum to beget a human
child, so it takes the union of the Spirit and the Word within the believing
heart to beget a child of God. And
each contributes equally to the child’s heredity — the
kind of child he is. The Word
contributes, as it were, 23 spiritual chromosomes, and the Spirit likewise
contributes 23 spiritual chromosomes. Let
us see how this works.
The SPIRIT OF LIFE is dispensed into us directly from our heavenly
Father. “Behold, I send the promise of the Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of
Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high” (Lk. 24:49).
“And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they
should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the
promise of the Father...for truly John baptized with water; but ye shall be
baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence” (Acts 1:4-5).
“God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son (sonship) into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6). The
Spirit is the sperm of God. Sinlessness is one of the hereditary characteristics passed
on to a son of God from the seed of the Spirit.
“Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for His seed
(Greek: sperma, sperm) remaineth in him (as inherited characteristics): and
he cannot sin because he is born of God” (I Jn. 3:9). Your outer man may through the weakness of the flesh fall
into sin, but it is impossible for your new creation inner man to sin, for he is
born of God.
The WORD OF LIFE, on the other hand, is dispensed into us through the
church which is His body. This true
church is the Jerusalem that is above “which is the mother
of us all” (Gal. 4:26). That
God’s motherhood nature is revealed through the church as the bride of Christ
is clearly shown in Ephesians 5:23-32. “For
the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the
church. Husbands, love your
wives, even as Christ also loved
the church, and gave himself
for it; that he might present it to himself a glorious church (as a bride), not
having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and
without blemish. So ought men to
love their wives as their own bodies. He
that loveth his wife loveth himself. For
this cause shall a man leave his
father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one
flesh. This is a great mystery:
but I speak concerning Christ and the
church.”
The Spirit of sonship is given
to us as the sperm of God directly
from our heavenly Father. But the Word by which we are begotten again is ministered to us via the
ministry of the church. The
following verses make this very plain. “Being
born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God,
which liveth and abideth for ever...and this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you” (I Pet. 1:23-25).
Again, “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when
ye received the word of God which ye heard
of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the
word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe” (I Thes.
2:13).
This brings us to a truth which is at the same time both wonderful and
dreadful. When children of God are
conceived by the joining of the sperm of the Holy Ghost with the ovum of the
pure and incorruptible Word of God, the result is a perfect child of God that
will be able in all respects to grow up as a son or daughter of God into the
very image of God. If you pause to
think, however, you will become fully aware that the whole church system today
and of many ages is filled with pathetically deformed children of God. This
is not due to any fault on God’s part — the
work of the Spirit in every man and woman who has believed has been a perfect
work. The sperm of God has
absolutely no defect in it. It
cannot pass any spiritual defect on to its offspring.
But there is a great and damning fault in the church world that seems to
be past explanation. It is a fault
that has developed and grown more grotesque as the years have come and gone.
The word that is ministered through the church
mother has become an inconceivably perverted
word, a polluted word, a defective word, and the defects within that word are passed on as
congenital anomalies — birth
defects — to the children born of that word. The children of God born of an impure word come into God’s
spiritual world bearing genetic defects, flaws, weaknesses and abnormalities.
The Baptists preach one word, the Catholics preach another word, the
Pentecostals preach a different word, the Mormons preach something else, and so
on throughout Christendom. Two
thousand years ago the same beloved apostle John who wrote so extensively of
God’s marvelous love also left us this solemn warning, “Little children,
keep yourselves from IDOLS (that is, false gods, or false ideas and
representations of the true God)” (I Jn. 5:21).
“Little children, keep yourselves from false ideas about God!”
Do we have false ideas about God? I
fear we do. How the world and the church are filled with them!
Many people view God as a schoolboy did: “...the sort of person who is
always snooping around to see if anyone is enjoying himself and then trying to
stop it.” Then others make God
out to be a tyrant, or a vengeful, wrath-filled fiend.
Some paint a God so weak that the will of man is stronger than the will
of God. Others speak of God as always trying
to do this and that, but the devil is ever hindering and thwarting God’s
purposes, getting the upper hand, defeating God’s best laid plans, tripping up
and overcoming the saints, until it would seem that the devil is himself the omniscient
and omnipotent one. Some
have a God so capricious that He will only save you if the correct formula is
repeated over you in water baptism.
Vast numbers blaspheme the Holy Ghost by attributing the works of the
Holy Spirit to the devil, contending that if you speak in tongues, prophesy,
heal the sick, or do miracles you are of the devil, and dispense that perverted
word into their offspring who do truly trust Jesus as their Saviour.
Some say that Christ can only be ministered to you through the
sacraments, or a particular ritual, or the ministry of their denomination, or
membership in their movement, or by believing only the doctrines of their church
and listening to no one else. Others
teach their people that they cannot go to heaven if they use tobacco, drink
wine, wear jewelry, put on make-up, cut their hair, go to movies, or wear or not
wear certain kinds of clothing. We
could pile error upon error, with pagan holidays, customs, and philosophies that
have been introduced into the church realm and have become such an established
part of her practice and teaching until the whole world believes that these
things are surely taught somewhere in the scriptures or were established by the
apostles or by Jesus Himself!
A dear brother in Christ has
penned these valuable words of admonition: “The opinions we form by hearing about
people are usually found to be wrong after we have come to know them personally
and intimately. This is also true
concerning God. When you come to
know Him as He really is, you will find Him very unlike the description given by
theologians. You will come to know
that much that they teach is only rubbish because
it is contrary to the nature of God. It
certainly was so with the Jewish theologians and doctors of the law.
When Jesus came He smashed their theories to bits and tore the robes of their
ecclesiasticism to ribbons. He ate
with sinners, cast the devil out of the Syropheonician, let a sinful woman of
the street wash His feet, forgave a thief, healed on the Sabbath, ate with
unwashed hands, called the most esteemed religionists of His day liars,
hypocrites, children of the devil, whited sepulchers, and a generation of
snakes. They thought that they knew
God, but they didn’t. He was more
pleased with the sincerity of sinners than with the ritualism of scribes and
Pharisees. When you come to know Him, you will find that it is the same now as it was then.
“Furthermore, to know Him who is
truth empowers one to immediately recognize all that is error.
The more you come to know Christ,
the more you come to recognize the flagrant error of so much that is taught in
the name of truth. If the doctrines
that men try so hard to prove run contrary to the very nature of Christ, then
know that all that is contrary to His gracious Spirit is error.
For years without number the evangelicals in their missionary fervor have
taught that all heathen men will be condemned forever to groan in eternal flames
in unremitting torment because they did not accept Christ, their ignorance of
His existence being no excuse whatever. I
have no hesitation whatsoever in calling this a lie, because everything about it
is contrary to the very nature of
the blessed Christ I know. It is
contrary to His love, contrary to His kindness and mercy, contrary to His
foreknowledge, contrary to His immutable wisdom, and contrary to His great and
all-inclusive redemption, of which it is stated that as in Adam all
die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive” — end
quote
While preparing this message for the printer, a word arrived in the mail
from Bob Torango, a word so powerful and anointed, and so in accord with the
burden of my own heart, that I would be remiss if I failed to share a portion
with you. He wrote: “Why, you may
ask, doesn’t the world follow after the message of the church?
The answer is that the message is one of a God that is a dictator instead
of a God that is a Father. The
message of the church is tainted with words of judgment promising harsh
punishment for sins, delivered without a voice of love.
This nullifies the true reason for God’s judgment, which is to bring us
to correction and joy unspeakable and full of glory.
It is the same scenario that is played out every day in an abusive home
where the parents lash out at their children in a fit of rage, striking them
with physical blows meant to bring them into submission but accomplishing the
direct opposite. There can be no
substitute for love. A hug will
accomplish more correction than a blow to a child’s body.
“I am not suggesting that a child should never be reprimanded, for I
realize that any child will continue to mis-behave if given a free reign, but I
do believe that the parent is responsible for punishment that exceeds the
transgression. This happens more
times than we want to think. The
parent has a bad day at work, the car breaks down, the air conditioner goes out,
and the frustration over these matters is unleashed upon the children, which, by
the way, can’t do anything right in the eyes of the enraged judge of the
house. The result is a beating that
is more therapeutic for the parent in venting their frustrations than it is for
correction of the child’s behavior. Judgment
of any kind should never be administered in a spirit of rage or loss of
sensibility. The result is much
worse than if there were no punishment at all.
“The church, enraged over the continued rejection of their version of
the gospel story becomes more and more abusive toward anyone that does not see
things their way. Instead of being
the magnet of God’s love to creation, the church has become a judge of God’s
wrath that cannot be approached by anyone except those who have lost all hope of
love in their life, and they commit to the stranglehold of religion just to
belong to a group that will give them a sense of security.
This, dear ones, is the standard
definition of a child that is abused. Some
of us that have never been found in an abusive relationship have doubts whether
or not the relationship is truly abusive. Why
don’t the abused children tell someone about their beatings, if they are truly
abused? Why don’t they run away from home? The saddest truth of all in an abusive situation is that the
abused individual, especially a child, is convinced that they deserve
this treatment. Added to this
is the reinforcement that is given to this submissive behavior by our societal
mores that continuously drill into our children that their parents are the
judges of their life and have the moral and legal authority to administer
beatings whenever they see fit. The
child is reinforced to never question the judgment of their parents by teachers,
who are surrogate judges when at school, or by their playmates who are in
ordinary relationships with their parents.
The abused child is cut off, quite literally, from any hope of escape or
explaining their situation to others. The
result is a child that grows up to be either withdrawn, extremely low in
confidence and self-esteem, or else one that acts out the acts of senseless
violence upon society that were acted out upon them in this abusive environment.
“The world mirrors this same stereotypical attitude within the church.
They are either scared to death of the church, or they are violently
opposed to it. What a tragedy it is
to see the church in this shape. Whereas
the church has been ordained to be the mother
of the world’s lost children, opening her arms with grace and love to all that
are in need, she has instead been seen as an abusive judge in the earth,
spitting out statements of eternal damnation and unthinkable horrors on all that
do not follow her commands. No
wonder the Lord is preparing another
church! The church that is
known as “mainstream” is a fake, dear ones!
She is a wicked stepmother that has no bond of love with the world at
all. This wicked church loves the
world in word only, and that only because the Bible says she must! The lost children of the world are only her lawful
responsibility, and by God, if they don’t shape up she is threatening to throw
them all into eternal hell fire. Raise
up your Jerusalem, O Lord! Raise up
the true Mother of us all, bring her
to us and let her lay her cool, soft hand upon the wounds that have been
inflicted by the abusive, counterfeit church of religious dictators.
Let her sweet kisses fall upon our head and let them take away the fear
and anguish that has been perpetrated upon the world’s lost children.
Oh, dear friends, can’t you just envision the power that will be
unleashed when the true, nurturing nature of the New Jerusalem, the beautiful
Bride of Christ, the loving, compassionate Mother of us all wraps her arms
around us and holds us until the crying stops and cleans the dirt from us as she
takes the filthy rags off of us that religion put upon us and she covers us in
clean, silky linen made up of the righteousness of our Father.
“Even now, as we speak out against the tyranny of an out of control
religious mother of Babylon, we see the damage that has been done and the scars
that remain in the hearts of the people of God.
Some will flinch and pull away when the hand of Christ is stretched out
to them. For some, the message of a
loving God that asks nothing of us but to believe in His love and come to Him to
live with Him in peace and grace is too good to be true. For them, the abused offspring of a wicked guardian, beaten
without reason, locked up in cult-like communities of religious bondage,
forbidden to question the teachings and rules of their overseers,
psychologically brainwashed into testifying to the goodness of their tormentors
in order to stay in good graces and not be publicly humiliated, for them the
message of unconditional love is foreign and suspicious.
In their world of abuse, everyone has an angle, an ulterior motive, a
con. Nothing is truly free in their
relationship with the wicked mother. Yes,
they have programs for the adults, a big gymnasium for the children, a beautiful
building to gather in, but only if they continue to give their money to the
wicked mother. In fact, they have
come to the awful truth that mother only loves them if they support her with
their money.
“The wicked mother especially enjoys telling her forced child laborers
the tales of what will happen if they think they could ever leave her domain.
She goes into great sickening detail in describing the terror that awaits
them outside the walls of her prison. Giant
scorpions with tails that sting and torment you, dragons that eat little
children, starving children that cannot buy any food and will watch each other
starve to death without having the mark of the beast.
She tells them of devils lurking behind every door, waiting to jump on
them and make them slaves of evil. These
are the bed time stories that the
mainstream church puts her children to rest by.
The fake church tells her young children that they are hopelessly evil
and that all their lives they will have to serve the wicked mother in order to
earn their way to heaven. The
abused are told that God can’t even look upon them, that He never heard their
prayers before they came to live with the wicked mother, that God turned away
from them in their sorrow, because He is too holy to look upon sin!
Whereas, the opposite is true. God
always hears groaning creation, and not one word intended for His ears goes by
the wayside. Indeed, God has moved for us even when we were sinners, and
countless times saved us from destruction with or without our asking Him to.
He has moved heaven and earth to keep us in this world
and is constantly working on our behalf”
— end
quote.
It is a mystery too deep to fathom, but God in His great mercy honors His Word on whatever level it is preached, and in spite of
the character of those who preach it. It
is a fact that multitudes of men have been turned to seek and find God even by
words that are pitiful mixtures of truth and error and preached by men and
systems of reprobate minds. Their
children are born of mixed natures as was Ishmael, truly born of God by the
Spirit, yet born of Hagar, the Egyptian bondwoman, through the fleshly word, the
Word of God mingled with the ideas of men.
The many and varied erroneous ideas about God and His Kingdom, contorted
representations of truth and reality, each bring forth spiritual expressions of
their religious lineage. Some of
these unfortunate children are born completely paralyzed spiritually and others
are still-born, conceived by a totally dead word.
Those who preach the Word of God as a dead
letter of literalism, legalism, and carnality, void of spiritual
understanding or the breath of life, fill the earth with children of God having
inherited weaknesses, deformities, and pathetic imperfections.
I do not doubt for one moment that many who read these lines were first
conceived in their spiritual life by a defective
word! Only as each of us is
miraculously and supernaturally healed
can we hope to come into the image and likeness of God as His sons. How precious the knowledge that regardless of the poor and
wretched condition of our early conception, GOD IS A GREAT HEALER! He can heal the
embryo in the womb, or He can heal the child of tragic birth.
As this great healing work takes place in our lives, through the gracious
dealings and faithful processings of the Lord, we are dramatically and
gloriously transformed in our spiritual lives.
Gone are those “religious” spirits, bondages, customs, speech,
mannerisms, methods, practices, fleshly efforts, false doctrines, static creeds,
empty rituals and ceremonies, lifeless programs, dead works and denominational
hype which once characterized all our understanding, attitudes and activities.
All the marks of Babylon were upon us — not
impressed merely from without, but genetically reproduced within us by the very
Word that conceived us.
Have the flaws in your own character, my beloved, been magnified in your
eyes until you despair of ever attaining to the High Calling of God in Christ
Jesus? Today, dear one, I point you
to CHRIST THE HEALER. Think not for
one moment that Jesus Christ is the healer only of diseases of the body.
He has come to cleanse His church, to sanctify and purify His people, to
purge and refine and make every whit whole His children called to be sons.
I declare to you today that HE IS THE HEALER AND RESTORER OF HIS FAMILY.
He purges out of His Kingdom all things that defile and offend.
Listen! The great and
wonderful mercy of the Christ receives those who have blemishes, and His power
heals all who humbly bow before Him, calling upon the name of the Lord.
Have you received the call to sonship?
Then get rid of the blemishes! The
Holy Ghost is closely examining candidates for this ministry.
The qualifying time is NOW. The
“in part” ministries of the church age may get by with blemishes and
defects, but the King-Priest ministry destined to deliver the whole creation
from its bondage to corruption must itself first be freed from every vestige of
carnality, weakness, limitation, sin and death, transformed into the image of
God. How is this thing done?
“And the very God of peace sanctify
you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved
BLAMELESS (without blemish) unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Thes.
5:23). If you are to be cleansed,
healed, made whole and preserved without blemish there is only one way, and that
is shown in the verse that immediately follows the one quoted above: “Faithful
is HE that calleth you, WHO ALSO WILL DO IT.”
What a word!
THE
KINGDOM FAMILY OF GOD
The Kingdom of God is that Kingdom which is
God. As with all kingdoms, the
kingdom of Israel was a family of the
children of Israel — the
family descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which became one of earth’s
nations. Nearly all kingdoms
originated as an ethnic entity, a racial group, developed from a clan
or family. Thus, the
Kingdom of God comprises the Family of God — a
family into which man may be born, and which is being formed into a RULING OR
GOVERNING family that shall have jurisdiction over all nations, that is, the
whole earth, and, eventually, the entire universe!
For almost two thousand years there has raged a theological battle over
the Godhead. Some have contended
that God is one Person in three manifestations, and that Jesus is that one
Person of God manifested in the flesh. Others
believe in the trinity — that
God is eternally three distinct Persons, co-equal, co-eternal, and
con-substantial, united together as one God.
There is yet a third school of thought known historically as Arianism
which views God as a duality — the
one eternal and almighty God together with His Son whom He begat at some point
in time, and by whom He created all other things.
Now, I have my own view of these things, but far away in the depths of my
spirit lies the secret, sacred knowledge that God is greater than all of man’s
puny definitions. It is no
embarrassment to me to admit that I know nothing yet as I ought to know, but the
spirit of truth within me today bears witness that the truth lies far beyond the
limitation of any of man’s concepts.
None of the above views grasp the fuller truth set forth in the
scriptures and now revealed by the Holy Spirit.
The wonderful truth is — God
is ultimately not one Person, nor is God two Persons, nor yet is He three
Persons. God is a FAMILY, for we
are the children of God by faith in
Jesus Christ, and the sons of God who
are led by the Spirit of God. We
are the citizens of the Kingdom of God founded upon the family of God.
God is a KINGDOM! God is
reproducing, expanding, increasing HIMSELF!
Jesus explained to Nicodemus that in order to enter the Kingdom of God —
or the GOD
KINGDOM — human
beings have to be born again.
He patiently explained to this inquiring ruler of the Jews that it was
not a physical re-birth into the human plane that He was talking about, but a
newborn spirit being on the spirit
plane. The apostle John elaborated
on this birth when he wrote, “But to as many as received Him, to them gave He
power to become the sons (children, offspring) of God, even to them that believe
on His name” (Jn. 1:12). The word
“sons” in this passage is from the Greek TEKNON which means “one born”
or a “child”. That a birth as the
offspring of God is what John intended is made clear as he continues in the next
verse: “Which were born, not of
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God.”
This is not a mere conception
as some say, for the Holy Spirit testifies to every man, saying, “And I cannot
speak unto you as spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto BABES IN CHRIST.
I have fed you with milk, and not with meat” (I Cor. 3:1-2). Again, “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye
have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles
of God; and are become such as have need of milk,
and not strong meat. For every one
that useth milk is unskillful in the
word of righteousness: FOR HE IS A BABE” (Heb. 5:12-13). Yet again, “As NEWBORN BABES, desire the sincere milk
of the word, that ye may grow
thereby” (I Pet. 2:2). Then John
tells us, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one
that loveth IS BORN OF GOD, and
knoweth God...for whatsoever IS BORN OF
GOD overcometh the world” (I Jn. 4:7; 5:1,4).
Regenerated believers are called the children
of God all through the New Testament. Nowhere
does God call us divine fetuses or embryos! Children are born ones.
Embryos and fetuses do not drink
milk, neither do they love or do the will of God! Nor are they chastened.
How beautifully does J. B. Phillips translate the meaningful words of the
apostle John: “Consider the incredible love that the Father has shown us in
allowing us to be called children of God
— and
that is not just what we are called, but what we are.
Our heredity on the Godward side is NO MERE FIGURE OF SPEECH — which
explains why the world will no more recognize us than it recognized Christ” (I
Jn. 3:1).
The way into the Kingdom is so narrow that only one can enter into it at
a time. It is the way of life in
everything else. One baby is born
at a time. One flower bursts into
bloom at a time, and yet it seems as if they all come together.
I am thankful that there are seasons of God’s moving in which great
multitudes are born, but it is one at a time, and each one has an independent
spiritual life. That is the way of
sonship. God is not the Father of a
great conglomerate of spiritual life. He
is the Father of spirits — independent,
original, unique, and absolutely independently constituted spirits.
Paul says of this Fatherhood of spirits, “Furthermore we have had fathers
of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not
much rather be in subjection to the FATHER OF SPIRITS, and live?” (Heb. 12:9).
God is the Father of spirits — not
angels or demons or fairies — He
is the Father of our spirits. The only spirits in the whole vast universe that are born
spirits are the children of God! Each
one must be born of God by the distinct operation of the Spirit of God.
You may be as great a Rabbi as Nicodemus, and know nothing about these
things. You may have to be told as
Jesus told Nicodemus, “Art thou a Rabbi, a master in Israel, and knowest not
these things?”
The Greek word Jesus used which is translated “born,” is GENNAO.
It refers to the entire birth cycle — from
conception to entrance into the world. Vast multitudes today do not know the difference between
being born of man and being born of God. And
almost as many do not know the difference between such terms as forgiveness,
reconciliation, justification, salvation and the new birth. They
repeat the sinner’s prayer and confess faith in Jesus and then are informed by
the preacher that they have been “born again.”
But it is a lie. It is a
delusion. It is a deception. It
is a monstrous heresy. Error
cloaked in Biblical terms is still error. In
the case of the current evangelical “born again” movement, scriptural
terminology is being used to teach just the opposite of its original meaning.
Stated simply the error is this — that
men are born again as a result of something they
do. This something may be “going
forward” at the close of an
evangelistic message, praying the “sinner’s prayer,” making a
“decision” for Christ, or “repenting” and “believing” the gospel.
The sad results of such a teaching can be seen all around us. Evangelists who believe that men dead in sin can and will be born
again if the right kind of emotional and psychological inducement is
presented, push and pressure lost people into making “decisions”.
Whatever is necessary to get people to come forward, or raise their hand,
or pray a prayer, or sign a card, is tried by today’s “soul winners.”
Highly emotional meetings, prolonged appeals, repeated musical choruses,
and even the deceitful tactic of having counselors strategically placed in the
audience to come forward at the time of the “appeal” to make it appear
others are responding — all
smack of the techniques of crowd psychology.
Those who do come forward are then rushed through a process, a formula,
and coached into believing that they are now born again.
Deep down, though, the vast majority know that nothing so dramatic has
really happened. The evangelist has
done something, the sinner has done something, but God has done nothing.
There has been no miracle.
The heavens have not been opened to them.
That some people are brought into an experience with God in these
situations is no doubt true. You
may even be one of them. But it is
in spite of these methods, not because of them.
Men are not born again because of any action on their part. What effort did you exert to be born into this world?
What contribution did you make? Jesus
said nothing of any action or decision that Nicodemus must make, nor did He
quote him the four spiritual laws, or have him repeat a prayer, nor did He even
tell him to repent and believe the gospel.
As a matter of fact, Jesus was not telling Nicodemus to do
anything! “You must be born
again” was not a command Nicodemus was to obey, it was simply a statement of
fact. He was talking about God doing something, coming and sovereignly and miraculously
generating life in man. I never
chose the family I was born to. When
I stop to think about it, I have had very little choices in life.
I certainly didn’t choose to be born!
I didn’t pick the chromosomes that make up the genetic structure called
Preston Eby. To a marvelous and
beautiful degree there is a destiny that put us here, the way we are, where we
are, when we are, and what we are. “Of
His own will begat He us.” The
new birth is something more than having your sins forgiven, or being reconciled,
or being justified, or being saved, as wonderful as all those things are.
It is the birth of a new and glorious life which thrusts one into a new
and dynamic reality — the
Kingdom of Heaven. In the new birth
God does not become your Forgiver, your Reconciler, your Justifier, or your
Saviour — He
becomes your FATHER in a most real and glorious way!
In that far away beginning the Almighty Creator proclaimed, “Let us
make man in our image and after our likeness.” God
made cattle “after their kind,” after the cattle
kind. He made “every winged fowl
after his kind,” after the bird
kind. But it is abundantly evident
that God purposed to make man AFTER THE GOD KIND.
Now, incredible as it may seem to those who do not understand the mystery
of God, God is a FAMILY. This does
not mean that there are many gods.
There is only one God, just as there is only one Adam and one Christ.
Adam is a many-membered man, Christ is a many-membered son, and God is a
many-membered Godhead! The Person
of God is expressed through a variety of manifestations
of Himself as He reproduces Himself
after His own “KIND”. It
is in man that God is reproducing His kind.
Man is God’s idea, God’s image, God’s likeness, God’s expression,
God’s revelation, God’s manifestation.
Man, out of all the infinite creation of God, has the supreme
potentiality of being born into the very divine family of God, of which divine
family Jesus Christ is the firstborn among
many brethren. Jesus Christ is
the first perfect representation of God, and Jesus was and is a MAN. He is the express image of God’s Person.
Do you realize what this means? It
means far more than having an immortal body.
The writer to the Hebrews tells us that Christ is “the express image of
God’s person” (Heb. 1:3). The
word “express” is from the Greek word CHARAKTER from which we get our
English word “character.” It
means that Christ is the CHARACTER IMAGE of God. The transcendent essential
factor is that God is PERFECT SPIRITUAL CHARACTER.
It is the supreme intelligence, combined with holy and righteous
character, that most importantly distinguishes God from every other life form.
Of course God, too, possesses supreme and omnipotent power and eternal,
incorruptible existence. But
without right CHARACTER, such power and perpetuity would be destructive and
dangerous. A monster would be in
control of the universe! And should any one of us acquire an immortal body prior to having developed a holy and incorruptible character,
a devil would surely be born!
Come now, and let us reason together.
Character springs from nature.
Understand this and you will understand a great truth: NATURE
is inherited; CHARACTER is developed!
No one is born possessing
character. Every child of Adam is
born into this world with a sinful (flesh) nature.
But that precious little infant does not yet have a sinful character.
As the child grows its character is formed progressively out of its
nature. The nature gradually
manifests itself through the actions of the child as character. In the same way we have by regeneration been made partakers
of the divine nature.
And while this new birth is the most astounding miracle of the ages, it
is, nonetheless, merely the birth of a spiritual infant possessing divine nature
but not divine character. Now
divine character must be developed
from the divine nature — God
manifesting His nature outwardly through our attitudes, words, behavior and
actions. The character is formed in
the crucible of experience, as we learn in every situation and circumstance to
yield our vessel to the Holy Spirit who is the active agent in our divine
nature.
We tread softly here. With
bated breath we read Ephesians 3:14-15. “For
this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the
WHOLE FAMILY in heaven and in earth is named.”
Through the new birth we become bona fide members of the original cosmic
family, actual generated sons of God. Thus
through the new birth we truly become God’s very own offspring, His kin, His
family, His clan, His kingdom, a kind of “extension” of His Godhead.
That this group outranks all other orders of beings in the universe is
attested by Paul’s dramatic questions in I Corinthians 6:2-3.
“Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world
shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain
to this life?”
In a recent meeting Bob Torango said, “We are citizens of the true
Israel, not those who are born after the flesh, but those who are born of the
Spirit. The citizens of the Kingdom
of God are from every nation, tongue, tribe and people.
It is that citizenship that holds us steady on course.
It is that citizenship that has brought us this far.
We cannot deny the genes of our natural body.
I can say that I’m not from my mom and dad, I can get angry with my
parents and accuse them and say, ‘I’ll bet you just found me out on a tree
stump somewhere,’ but that doesn’t make it so.
That’s what my brother used to tell me.
My brother, when he wanted to get even with me because of something I had
done to him, would tell me, ‘Well, you don’t know it, but mom and dad found
you out on a tree stump in the woods, and they brought you home.’
But I can’t deny them. And
they can’t deny me, because it’s in the genes.
If I’ve been born of someone, I have their genes.
I can move out of their house, I can change my name, I can alter my
appearance, I can do anything I want, but my genes will remain the same.
I am a child of the loins of my parents.
You can do anything in the spirit, or in your flesh; you can get all
kinds of titles such as “Doctor,” “Reverend,” “Bishop,” etc., but
that doesn’t make you anything more or less than what you are in God.
You are the offspring of God, the fruit of His loins, the product of His
Spirit. Men can call you garbage,
liars, wine-bibbers, wolves, heretics, Beelzebub, antichrist or any other title
they might lay upon you — all
is absolutely meaningless — the
reality is in your genes! It’s in
your spiritual lineage that goes beyond Adam — it
goes right into the Father. Adam
isn’t the root of my tree. The
root of my tree is God, the I AM. The
Alpha and the Omega is the root of my tree”
— end
quote.
Here is an entirely new, unique and exclusive order of beings which may
be classified as a “NEW SPECIES”. There
is nothing like it in all the kingdoms of infinity.
This is the order of beings that Paul called “the new man,” the
“new humanity,” destined through
citizenship in the God Family Kingdom to be the aristocracy of the universe.
They form a new and exclusive royalty, a divine ruling hierarchy who are
called “the sons of God.” It is
an organic family relationship.
How wonderful are these things! They
are far beyond our expression or the ability of the most eloquent to describe.
Oh, to be able to grasp the greatness of our calling!
We have been born again of the very life of God!
When we have matured and God has brought us experientially to the full
potential of His life in us, there will be nothing impossible to us.
We will even have creative powers. Like
Father, like son. We will be
creators! Can your faith go this
far? If we are born of God we are
born of the life of the almighty Creator. This
is the life that Jesus lived and demonstrated.
Twice out of a few rolls of bread
and a couple fish, He created enough food to feed five thousands of people, and
He said we would do the same. “The
works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do...”
I want to know the life of this God!
I want to know experientially the power He wrought in Christ when He
raised Him from the dead. I want to
know and experience all His holiness, righteousness, love, power and goodness.
To this end I seek to completely surrender myself to Him and I am asking
Him for grace to be able to do this. This
is the power and glory of the Kingdom of God.
Gracious Son of God, reveal the Father to us in a way we have not known
before! Make us overcomers, that
you may be able to write the name of your God, the Father’s name, the name of
the city of your God, and your new name, on our foreheads.
God is in the process of preparing a people FOR HIS NAME — a
company that will bear His name, that will be called by His name, those who know
His name because they are born of His seed. To these the Son reveals the name of His Father, He reveals
the Father unto them. They will
bear the name of Yahweh for they will be filled with His fullness and they will
do His works, for the fullness of His power and understanding and nature will be
in them. He will be in each of them
in the measure that He was and is in Jesus, and will speak His words and
do His works through them. They
will be like His first-begotten Son, they will be conformed to His image, the
express image of His Person.
Jesus, the Son, knew the Father and He was the only one in His day who
did. The Lord said to the
religious, as He undoubtedly says
to the religious today, “...ye say that He is your God; yet ye have not known
Him; but I KNOW HIM and keep His saying” (Jn. 8:55-56).
“As the Father knoweth me, even so KNOW I THE FATHER” (Jn. 10:15).
The first-begotten Son knew the Father and it is this knowledge His
spirit of sonship imparts to the rest of His brethren, that they also may know
the Father, and knowing Him, shall reveal Him unto creation.
All creation waits for this manifestation of the sons of God.
For two thousand years creation has continued to wait for this
manifestation, but the time of their waiting is fast drawing to a close. The hour is at hand. The
Spirit has spoken this from one end of the earth to the other through the mouths
of His holy prophets in this our generation. It is a sure word.
It has been attended by mighty dealings and processings of God in the
lives of those who have received the call to sonship.
In the fullness of time, “...the people that do know
their God shall be strong and do exploits” (Dan. 11:32).
We will be this people “...if we follow on to know the Lord” (Hos. 6:3).
From earliest times there has been a thirst
for the new and undiscovered. Astronaut
Michael Collins remarked in The Home Planet: “It’s human nature to stretch, to go, to see,
to understand. Exploration is not a
choice, it’s an imperative.” Very
few will probably ever have the opportunity to travel to the moon, and yet we
can all take the most rewarding journey of all.
This is the spiritual
exploration that reaches into the realm of infinite Spirit — the
present reality of God’s Kingdom on earth.
In the Bible we find stories of people who took such journeys in
obedience to God’s bidding. Abraham
was certainly a spiritual explorer. The
book of Hebrews records: “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into
a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went
out, not knowing whither he went...for he looked for a city which hath
foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”
Those who are willing to obey God and follow the Spirit’s leading in
any age find themselves embarking on a spiritual quest in which the human heart
reaches out for a larger sense of home.
Obedience to God’s leading and faith in God’s provision inspire many
today to seek a stronger foundation on which to build their lives than material
ambition and human prestige. It
takes courage and vision to be a spiritual pioneer, to follow the road of
spiritual insight that signposts greater attainments and accomplishments for the
sons of God.
Captain James Cook was a famous English explorer who lived about two
hundred years ago. His adventurous
life began when he joined the British navy at the age of 27.
He surveyed the St. Lawrence Channel and the coasts of Newfoundland and
Labrador before he was given his own ship, the Endeavor, to command. He
sailed this ship all the way around the world, exploring the coasts of eastern
Australia and New Zealand in that way.
After returning to England he set out again for the South Pacific with
two ships, and explored the icy Antarctic Ocean. He explored the New Hebrides Islands and discovered the
island of New Caledonia in the Pacific Ocean off Australia. Captain Cook is recorded to have made the statement, “I
have no desire to merely go where other men have not gone — I
want to go as far as it is possible for man to go.” His dream, for all practical considerations, was realized in
geographical terms. He had no idea,
of course, of the vast new frontiers yet to be opened to man by the advent of
the space age.
Today I make Captain Cook’s dream my own — but
on a different and higher plane. I
do not idolize Peter or Paul or John. I
do not follow St. Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Menno Simons, John
Wesley, George Fox, John Alexander Dowie, John G. Lake, the Pentecostal movement
or the Latter Rain. I have no
desire to merely go where other men have gone in God or to do what they have
done in God, however great and glorious that may have been.
As I write these things and meditate upon them I am keenly aware of the
momentous Day to which we are come. As
George Hawtin once wrote, “The things belonging to the old order of the
dispensation of grace have waxed old and are ready to vanish away.
But sadly and with deep regret we find that everywhere men and women are
clinging to those old things that are passing away as drowning men cling to a
straw. To them these precious
antiques must be kept at all costs. They
love their sects, their crowds, their endless and wearisome meetings, their
sermons, song services and special numbers, their revival meetings and their
missionary programs and all the other paraphernalia that has belonged to an age
now passing away.
“We have become like the priests of the Old Testament whose greatest
fear of Christ and His apostles was that they would change their beloved laws
and customs (Acts 6:14). They cared
not about God’s purpose for the world and the universe.
That was not important in the least.
The important thing to them was that the old system be maintained and
that there be no change. Tradition
has it that, when the great veil in the temple was rent in twain at the death of
Christ, opening the way into the holiest of all, the priests had it sown
together again that all things might remain as they had always been.
When Jesus was buried, they took every imaginable precaution to make sure
He did not rise, but He arose in spite of their care and ever lives on high and
in the hearts of His people” —
end quote.
It is time, beloved children of God, to arise from the mists of yesterday
and press onward and upward into the Kingdom of God.
“The fullness of God,” “the image of the Son,” “we shall be
like Him,” “I will grant him to sit with me in my throne,” “the
manifestation of the sons of God,” — these
are but a few of the wonderful phrases that speak powerfully of HOW FAR IT IS
POSSIBLE FOR MAN TO GO IN GOD. Jesus
Christ is the trailblazer on this heavenly road.
He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the
Father, but by me.” The Lord is
actually inviting mankind to take a spiritual journey that breaks through all
physical and mental limitations into the spiritual realm of the Kingdom of
Heaven.
A certain man told his sons and daughters this story over and over as
they grew up:
There was a calf that made a trail.
The trail turned into a path.
Dogs and sheep walked in the calf’s foot steps,
Followed by men, complaining of winding trails;
But came along day by day any way.
The
path became a lane,
Then a road, then a village street,
Then a thoroughfare,
Then the central street of a renowned metropolis.
Some centuries and a half
Trod in the footprints of that calf.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf paths of the mind;
And work away from sun to sun,
And do what other men have done!
Beaten paths are for beaten men;
They blindly follow where others trod;
But men of faith search long for God;
So they set sail where none have been.
They sail on uncharted sea,
Fearing not what men before have done.
Their soul’s desire is just to BE
The express image of the Son!
There is a people in the land
That follows God and God alone,
Refusing beaten paths of man,
They will not rest till they reach home.
When the sons of God for joy did shout,
We were there, and our hearts cried out
For realms in Spirit to set us free —
We are the people sailing uncharted seas!
To be continued... J. PRESTON EBY