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THE KING’S BUSINESS
TRANSFORMATION OF OUR IN MOST NATURE. This comes out in the very wording of what our Lord said, “Ye must be born again (or, anew, or, from above). It is not a mere outward change, but a birth, a new birth, elsewhere we are told it is “a new creation.” Paul says in 2 Cor. 5:17, “If any man is in Christ, he is a Nnew creature (or, there is a new crea tion)': The old things are passed away; behold they are become new.” Evidently the new birth is a radical transformation in the deepest depths of our being, the impartation of a new nature, a new intel lectual nature, a new emotional nature, a new volitional nature. That is to say, new thoughts, new ideas, new ambitions, new desires, new feelings, new emotions, a new will. It is an impartation of God’s own nature to us. As the Apostle Peter puts it in 2 Peter 1:4, “By these (that is by- the Word of God, by God’s exceeding great and precious promises)” we "become par takers of the Divine nature.’’ Wé are born into this world with a corrupt nature in every part of our mental and moral being. Our minds are blind to the truth of God (as Paul puts it, “The natural man receiv- eth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spir itually discerned”—1 Cor. 2:14): our feel ings aré corrupt, ■we love the things that God hates ánd hate the things God loves; our will is perverse, our wills are set upon pleasing ourselves instead of upon pleasing God. Ih the new birth we get a hew mind, a mind that is open to the truth of God, that thinks the thoughts of God after Him ; we get new affections; we now love the things that God loves and hate the things that God hates; we get a new will, a will that is in harmony with the will of God, a will that is set upon pleasing God and not set upon pleasing self. 2. The new birth is also a birth from above . We learn this from verses 3 and 7, Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born from above he can not see the kingdom of God.” And again,
“Marvel not that'I said unto thee, Ye' must be born from above.” In our Authorized Version we find the Words “born again,” and in the Revised Version, “born anew," but a more exact translation is “born from above.” The new birth is a birth from above, it is a .Jieavenly birth, it is a birth from God, a direct work of God in the individual heart. III. T he Method of th e New Birth, or How Men A re Born Again. We now come to the directly practical question, how are men born again, and what must anyone do in order to be born again. This question is answered plainly in the chapter we are studying. 1. First of all we are born again by the H oly S pirit ’ s power . We read in verses 5 to 8, “Jesus answered. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God, etc.” The new birth is the Holy Spirit’s work. The Holy Spirit is a living person today, who operates directly upon the spirits of men, quickening them; and by His transforming power working directly in our spirits we are regenerated. The Holy Spirit imparts a new nature to us. 2. T he new birth , while wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit is wrought through the instrumentality of the word of G od . This comes out in the fifth verse, “Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king dom of God.” There is reason to believe that the, water here means the water of the Word, but we will not go into that at this time. Whether that is taught here or not, it certainly is taught elsewhere in the Bible. For example, we read in 1 Peter 1:23, "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the Word of God, which liveth and abideth.” And we read in Jas. 1:18, “By His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures.” The Spirit of God is the One who works the new 'birth, the Word of God is the instrument through which He
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