80. The New Birth Is a Real Birth
The New Birth Is a Real Birth This is what Christ was talking about when He told Nicodemus that he could not see the kingdom of God unless he was “born from above” (John 3:3). And it is what the New Testament means when it refers to the new birth in seven different words that use the language of biology for the coming of a new being.
Gennao means to beget; anagennao to beget again; paliggenesiaa new birth; anakainosis a renewal, from anakainao, to make new; apokneo to bring forth or produce; ktizo to create, and suzoopoieo to make alive.
Salvation is therefore no revamping of the nature Adam gave us, no moral or spiritual straightening up within, but the coming into our personality of an actual new nature that no man ever had by his first birth—a new creation in actual fact, for it is a birth from above.
It is thus by this new life that spiritual death is driven out, just as light drives darkness out. For our life is a Person, and that Person no other than Christ Himself. For “God has given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life” (1 John 5:11-12). The moment we receive life, therefore, in receiving Christ, we are justified before God for all eternity, which means that we are fully acquitted, pardoned, delivered from the guilt of all our sins forever. This is wholly on the basis that Christ’s work on Calvary is a finished work, for the whole world, forever. For under the law of Moses no one could be justified from all things, but only from past sins. For the Law could only give a righteousness of works, and works cannot possibly reach into the future, for they cannot be done in the future, but can reach only up to the present moment. But since the whole question of sin has been forever settled for the whole world by Christ’s work on the cross, now “by him all that believe are justified (the moment they believe) from all things” (Acts 13:39), which was impossible under the Law. So justification is forever complete for every receiver of Christ, and he can never come into a second jeopardy for sins from which he has been justified once and for all. There are no degrees in justification, and acquittal from all possible charges against us can never be reversed (see Romans 8:31-33). But this is not all. God has still further provided for us so that we need no longer live in known sin. This has been mentioned, but a word further is needed. The new life that comes into us in our new birth is actually Christ Himself within us from that moment on, by the indwelling Holy Spirit, and He is there to live our life in us and do our service through us, as we live in the constant consent of faith toward Him. And this is what the Scripture calls sanctification. The Old Adam is still in us, however, for John tells us (1 John 1:8) that “if we say we have no sin (nature), we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” But Christ in us as our life is our constant safeguard against its activities, as we consent toward Him moment by moment. Sinless perfection is also impossible on earth, for John says this also (1 John 1:10); yet perfection in our attitude of constant consent toward Him is gloriously possible, and while we are in that attitude we can live without known sin. But this is far from sinless perfection. In the Old Testament ceremonies there was provision for “sins of ignorance,” and even though Paul said: “I know nothing against myself,” he at once added, “yet am I not thereby justified” (1 Corinthians 4:4).