Every creature of God has its own nature, and of God’s creatures on earth man has a very distinctive nature that sets him apart from all others. Alas, sin has entered into the nature of man and has brought in all the ruin, decay, disease and death that we see all around. Scripture relates plainly that this was brought about by the sin of Adam and Eve, and that every child of Adam has inherited his sinful nature. Adam’s sin made him a guilty creature, and put him at a distance from God, but it also introduced into his nature an evil principle, sin, that had not been there before. The long centuries of man’s life upon earth have demonstrated the utter ruin of human nature, but the cross of Christ has not only shown that it is incorrigible, but there God condemned the sin that controlled, and formed part of, man’s nature as away from God (Rom. 8:3).
New Birth in John’s Gospel
The coming into the world of the incarnate Word, the Son of God, fully revealed man’s dreadful state as a ruined creature, for “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not” (verse 10). Israel were His own people, and the throne and kingdom of Israel were His, but when He came to the things that were His own, His own people received Him not. With the world at large it was ignorance of God, but with Israel it was wilful rejection of God and His Son. The refusal of the Son of God made plain that there was nothing in human nature to be recovered, it was irretrievably ruined.
It is just when this is made plain that we learn, “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the children of God, even to them that believe on His Name” (verse 12). All the while, during the period in which the ruined nature of man had been displaying itself in its iniquity and hatred of God, God had been working, even as the Lord Jesus said, “My Father works hitherto” (John 5:17), and to produce another family among men, His own family, in which He had wrought, giving them a new nature that was entirely different from the nature that had been ruined by the entry of sin. All in this family are the children of God.
When the Son of God became Man, those belonging to this divine family received Him, believing in His Name, and He gave them the right to take their place as the children of God. Saints of former days were indeed children of God, but the blessedness of this as a known relationship awaited the coming of the Son of God to reveal the Father, into whose family the new birth had brought them.
Such were “born, not of blood,” for natural generation could not bring any into this blessed relationship with God. No king, priest or prophet could make any of their generation a child of God. Nor was it by “the will of the flesh,” the will or desire of human nature that the children of God were brought into being; nor yet was it “of the will of man,” for man’s will was in deadly opposition to the will of God, and incapable of entering into anything divine. So that man, and all connected with man, is excluded from having any part in bringing into being the children of God.
We are then told that the children of God have been born “of God” (verse 13): they are the fruit of the work of God, His own workmanship. From the beginning, as soon as the old creation had been ruined by the entry of sin, God had been working in His sovereign grace to produce this divine family, who were to be brought into conscious relationship with Him as His children, to know His affections in association with His own Son.
Speaking to Nicodemus, the Lord said, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (3:3), teaching him, and us, that man is blind to the things of God without a work of God in his soul to give him an entirely new nature. With the reception of the new nature, through the new birth, there is vision that the natural man does not possess, no matter how great his perception of what is natural, and it is with this divine vision he perceives the kingdom of God and all things divine.
Entry into the kingdom of God is through being born again, and this is by the working of the Spirit of God in the soul, for Jesus said, “except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (verse 5). The water, the agent used by the Spirit to produce this new nature, is the word of God, and as the new life is engendered in the soul, there is also a moral cleansing by the word from the defilement of the old state belonging to the flesh. What is produced by the flesh takes character from the flesh, and what is produced by the Holy Spirit takes character from the Spirit. The two natures are entirely distinct, and entirely different; the one takes character from Adam fallen, with all connected with sin and its defilement, the other takes character from God, and bears His features of holiness, righteousness and love.
In verse 8 the Lord shows to Nicodemus the sovereign nature of God’s working in the new birth, but all that the teacher of Israel could answer was, “How can these things be?” Yet he should have known for the truth of the new birth was to be found in the Old Testament, where the Lord said, “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty…I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring (Isa. 44:3). Ezekiel had also written of it, saying, “Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean…and I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes” (Ezek. 36:25–27). Had Nicodemus been born of God he might have apprehended this.
New Birth in James
Like the Apostle John, James teaches that it was God’s sovereign action that brought us into His family, for he writes, “Of His own will begat He us” (James 1:18). Man’s will is utterly excluded, for man by any act of his will could never bring himself, or any other, into the blessing of God. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,” whether it be in natural things, the things needed by men on earth, or divine things from heaven, and the good gift of the divine nature, which brings us into God’s family, is one of the good and perfect spiritual gifts that God has given to those who are His own.
Moreover, the Apostle James tells us that it was “with the word of truth” that we were begotten of God, the word of truth entering the soul and producing the new nature by the power of the Holy Spirit. God’s object in this great work is “that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.” When the day of eternity comes everything shall be according to the will of God. The flesh will have gone for ever, and only what is of new creation will remain. In that day we shall possess bodies of glory like Christ’s, but even now we have His life, as born of God, and so are a kind of firstfruits of all who shall have part in the eternal scene.
New Birth in 1 Peter
Saints of God have purified their souls “in obeying the truth through the Spirit” (1 Peter 1:22), and this is a divine work in God’s people, the fruit of “being born again,” if not actually part of that divine operation, for the soul is purified in obeying the word of truth, the word by which we are begotten of God. The divine work is wrought by the Spirit, and by God’s word, a word received into the soul as prepared of God, which has the effect of purifying the soul.
The seed that produces man after the flesh is a corruptible seed, and it produces that which is corruptible, whether it be the body or the nature of man, but the incorruptible seed, the word of God produces a nature that is incorruptible. The word of God by which His work is done is a living word, and a word that abides eternally, and that which is produced by it takes character from it, it is of the same nature living and abiding.
New Birth in 1 John
Those who are born of God manifest the features of God, so that the Apostle John wrote, “If ye know that He is righteous, ye know that every one that does righteousness is born of Him” (2:29). To practise righteousness is to manifest that we belong to God, for He is righteous. This is not human righteousness, which is very different from divine righteousness. In God’s sight “there is none righteous,” but those who are born of Him have a nature that is capable of doing that which is right in the sight of God, and, indeed, can do nothing else.
The opening verses of chapter 3 tell of the blessedness of our present portion as children of God, knowing the Father’s love, while having as our hope, being like Christ, when we see Him as He is. Although we are now the children of God, the world does not know us as such, for they did not know the Son of God when He was here, and it is His nature that we now have. Viewed as children of God in their new nature, “Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin; for His seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God” (verse 9). In our mixed condition we often fail, when the flesh is allowed to act, but the divine nature within us is incapable of sin.
Righteousness and love are two of the features of the divine nature (verse 10), therefore we ought to be exercised as to manifesting the divine nature, and keeping the flesh in the place of death that God has given it. In the first family found in this world, one was a child of God, Abel, and the other, Cain, was a child of the devil. Cain manifested that he was of the devil because of his hatred of Abel manifesting the features of a child of God.
God is love in His nature, and all love finds its source in God, so that those who belong to God should be manifesting their love to one another, the love that belongs to God and His children. It is impossible for an unregenerate man to manifest divine love, for “every one that loves is born of God, and knows God” (4:7). Men love with natural love, and “sinners also love those that love them” (Luke 6:32), but only those born of God can manifest the divine nature, loving with the same love that was seen in Jesus.
Our verse also shows that those who are born of God know God, and how very blessed is the knowledge of God. Of old the children of God knew God in the way in which He was pleased to reveal Himself to them, but since the coming of the Son the children of God know Him in the way in which He has been revealed in Jesus. We now know God in the sovereign love in which the Son made Him known, in all the riches of His grace, in the glory of His grace, and in the Name of Father, which gives us the knowledge that we are His children.
Faith is another feature of the children of God, for “Whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (5:1). True faith in Jesus as the Christ of God is the evidence of a divine work in the soul, and any who denied this would show that they did not belong to God’s family. Besides, “every one that loves Him that begat loves him also that is begotten of Him.” It is impossible to love God without loving those in whom the divine nature is found, and here the children of God are seen in their normal life as manifesting the divine nature as born of God.
Love to the children of God is shown by walking with them in the path of obedience to the will of God, not by walking with them in some other path. The divine safeguard for our conduct at all times is obedience to God that manifests our love to Him. What God has asked His children to do is not grievous (5:3), indeed, He only asks us to do that in which the divine nature finds its delight. His commandments are given to show His children how to find true enjoyment. When the Lord Jesus was on earth He found His pleasure in His Father’s commandments (John 15:10), and could say, “I delight to do Thy will, O my God” (Psalm 40:8).
The last words of the Lord Jesus in John 16 are “I have overcome the world,” and in 1 John 5:4 it is written, “For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world.” There is nothing in the divine nature to which the world can appeal, and if by faith the eye of the believer rests on the Son of God he too will overcome the world, for we read in verse 5, “Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”
Paul is an example of one who overcame the world. In the cross of Christ he saw the world exposed as it truly is, at enmity with God, and hating the Son of God, and he was content to share the place that the world gave to Christ (Gal. 6:14). He viewed the cross as that which brought to an end before God all that he was as a man in the flesh, and he willingly took the place that man gave to Christ and that God gave to the world. Moreover, he lived with his eye on the Son of God, and so engaged he was able to overcome the world, living by the faith of the Son of God who loved him, and who gave Himself for him (Gal. 2:20).
In John’s First Epistle we have seen what marks those born of God. They manifest the features of God, love and righteousness, they have faith in the Son of God, are obedient to the commandments of God, have the knowledge of God, and overcome the world. May God grant that we may be exercised to keep the flesh in the place of death, and to allow the divine nature that we have as born of God to manifest itself in such a way as will bring pleasure to God, and joy to our own hearts.
R. 14.12.68