The new birth

What does it mean to be born again? How is the gospel proposition transacted? Many will consider that the new birth is a mix of our believing and God’s adding to that by the Holy Spirit. By this means it is God and us, and the two components are mixed via some spiritual exercise. Perhaps we shook a bit or maybe cried a bit at some point in our spiritual experience. Some may have spoken the four spiritual laws and, hopefully, found some assurance. Whatever happened, that bit of Him and that bit of us together were perceived as the new creation. We were never really sure what it was, but what I’ve expressed here is largely our traditional understanding.

However, the new creation is Jesus Christ only. We can add nothing to Him in our new birth. Without Christ we are dead in trespasses and sins. We exist, but we are dead in the sense that we are lost, ‘remembered no more’. For this reason the psalmist cried out, ‘Lord, I have called daily upon You; I have stretched out my hands to You. Will You work wonders for the dead?’ Psa 88:9,10. We are born from above, when we receive a word declared to us by a messenger of Christ.

A word comes speaking to you, about you, about your sonship. You hear that from the messenger and you say, ‘I believe that, I receive that and will come into the position of a son’. So it comes speaking but you have to actually believe the word crying, ‘Ábba, Father’, which is wanting to come into you. Imagine! The word of you, coming to you. This is an amazing picture! And it is only so, because ‘He is the God who justifies the ungodly’. Rom 4:5. He positions us in the place of no transgression when we’re hearing and receiving this word. Rom 4:15.

Our own faith has no merit for we can’t believe ourselves to be saved. Faith is not affirmation; it’s not positive thinking. Faith operates this way: the word that names you, comes to you; you hear it and you believe it. It’s reckoned to you and you say, ‘I’m going to have it; I accept it’. It’s not a human positive desire or act of will. ‘Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.’ Rom 10:17.

So we have the word speaking, which brings illumination, and faith comes. Then a response can be made. There is nothing we can do except receive it, rather than resist it. So faith came. It’s the gift of God. ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.’ Eph 2:8 When we look at that we could say, ‘Oh well, salvation is the gift’. Yes, but both the grace and the faith are the gift. The whole package is a gift. It’s not of you, for you are dead. It’s not of works, for God willed it so. This is the foundation for understanding new birth.

Victor Hall

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Feature Articles
September 2008

Searching out a man

The new birth

Signs of the times

The national anthem

Overcoming fear & anxiety

Anointed with oil

Compassion that restores

The success formula

Desire to be known

At ease in your youth

The mother of all wars