That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again (Joh 3:7).
That Which Is Born of the Spirit Is Spirit
Now, here’s where majority of Christians and even preachers miss it, get confused and then confuse many. We just need to slow down and listen to the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit as He teaches us the ABCs
of the new birth. With us humans, the natural birth comes first at which time we were born into this physical world, born of the flesh from the fallen human race. And that which is born of the flesh is flesh. Then the Good News, the Gospel of Salvation came and we believed, accepted Jesus as our Savior, confessed Him as Lord, and are saved. Listen to the Lord as He discussed this with Nicodemus.
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. This reply must have shocked this top-class Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, who believed that by virtue of his birthright as a Jew he was already a member of the Kingdom of God. This was a term he was familiar with since childhood. But now, this young carpenter’s son Teacher from Nazareth, of all places, tells him to his face, that unless he’s born again, born from above, he will not see the Kingdom of God!
“What does that even mean?” He considered quietly. Looking confused, he asks defensively, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born? (Joh 3:4).
So, the Lord Jesus repeated His answer with respect to entering the Kingdom. His first reply to Nicodemus was that except a man is born-again, he cannot even see the Kingdom of God talk much less of entering it. When Nicodemus posed his defensive retort, the Lord now repeated His answer with an additional emphasis saying
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.
The new birth is not a honorary title given to some religious folks who go to church and try to follow some morally sound family-value rules and regulations. It’s not a degree awarded to a group of people who try hard everyday to follow ’What Will Jesus Do’ principles. The born-again people are not a group of ’broken people’ whom God found, and in His mercy gathered all their broken pieces and put them back together again.
When God talks about salvation, the new birth, or to be ’born again’, He’s not talking ’patch-work’ or a gathering and putting back together of some broken humpty-dumpty pieces, but a totally ’New Creation’. The old-man is trashed and totally discarded, and God creates a new- man. He puts away the old, creates and establishes the new.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again (Joh 3:6).
When we heard the Good News, the Gospel of Salvation and we believed and accepted Jesus as our Savior and confessed Him as our Lord that moment, in a twinkling of an eye, God performed a miracle of creation similar to what He did in Adam, in us. We are born of the Spirit. When Adam was born or created, it was out of the breath of God.
Now, listen carefully to what the Lord Jesus said in 6th verse of John Chapter 3 above. What did He say is born of the Spirit?
In the first birth, the natural birth, we understand He said that which is born of the flesh is flesh. He then stated that the second birth is of the Spirit (ver. 5). In the next verse, what did He say is born of the Spirit?
Yes, you got it! That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. It is your spirit, the inner-man, the hidden-man of the heart, that was born again, born of the Spirit (God’s Spirit) at new birth.
Your body was not born again, neither was your mind. Only your inner man, your spirit was born-again and became a New Creation in Christ Jesus.
As stated above, it is similar to Adam’s creation when God ’breathed’ the breath of life into a new, beautifully shaped clay and Adam became a living soul. The new you, your spirit-man, came from God at the instant of new birth. But unlike Adam’s case, you did not get a newly created body. That is yet to come. It’s on its way and will arrive at the appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
So the new birth is a bringing forth of a new creation in God’s class. It’s a creature that came from God’s breath. It’s an actual birth of a spirit being who becomes the inner man of one who accepts Jesus as savior. He becomes the ’new you’, and the ’new me’ who believes in Jesus.
So many Christians and preachers talk glibly about salvation experience, being ignorant as to what happened to the believer at the new birth. The Lord Jesus said, Ye must be born-again, this time not of the flesh, but of the Spirit. Just as when a woman gives birth, an actual new human baby is brought into the world, in the same manner when a man is born-again, God delivers out of His own loins an offspring of Himself, of His own kind destined to grow up into the fullness of Christ.
The new birth is nothing less than the birth of an actual “heavenly being”, a newly born spirit, a son of the Father God, who is like his immortal Parent. This is the foundation of almost everything else in Christian life, and except this is gotten right every other thing built on this might not be stable or make for a balanced Christian life.
Have you ever seen a house built on a faulty foundation before? It looks unleveled. You see cracks everywhere. The doors may no longer close because the axes are not straight anymore, and the door frames no longer line up with the door. And if the foundation is faulty, what can the righteous do?
1.4 Ye Shall Receive Power
But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
“I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak and he will shew you things to come” (John 16:12,13).
“But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teaches you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him “ (1Jn 16:12,13).
Every born-again child of God already has the Holy Ghost dwelling inside of him or her. At new birth, as discussed above, it’s the Holy Spirit that executes the process of salvation itself in the believer. And immediately we are born again, the Holy Spirit enters in and dwells inside the believer. When we say God dwells inside you or me, we are referring to the Spirit of God. So, if you’re born-again, you have the Holy Spirit in you, and anyone who does not have the Holy Spirit in him is none of His.
However, Receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit’ is a different spiritual experience. This happens after the new-birth, or could happen concurrently, immediately after the New Creation man is born as it did on the Day of Pentecost. Baptism is immersing someone in an overwhelming and overflowing quantity of the substance he’s being exposed to. In this case, the believer is being filled to overflowing and flooded with the Holy Spirit so out of his belly flows, rivers of living water’
Joh 7:37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified) (Joh 7:37).
Glory to God! These words of promise from the Lord are very profound, encouraging and exciting to all those who love the working and manifestation of the Holy Spirit in their lives. The Holy Spirit is symbolized by the Living Water in Scripture. We already have this living stream in us starting at new birth. But the Lord Jesus is saying that there’s much more in stock for us. He is not content with the Holy Spirit being just like a river inside us. His desire is for us to be filled with rivers of living water.
When our Lord ascended, he received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, and then a new Day arrived on earth. It’s the era of the Holy Ghost. Our life as believers are no longer an imitation of Christ, we are transformed with power from inside out by the outpouring and infilling of the Holy Spirit. We become strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man, and Christ dwells in our hearts by faith.
We should become intimate with the Holy Spirit, who has been sent to: give us the assurance of our salvation, be our source of power, our source of boldness and courage. our Advocate and Defender, our Guide and Teacher, the One Who helps us to pray, the One who inspires and edifies us, the One who reveals the Father to us, the One who enables us to live a supernatural life, the One Who helps us understand the hidden things in the Word, the one who receives from God and delivers them to us and the One who leads us into all truth and reveals to us things to come.
Here’s make a partial list of some of the works of the Holy Spirit within us:
• Assurance –The One who gave us the assurance of salvation. “The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit.
• Teaching –When HE the spirit of truth is come, HE will teach you all things and lead you into all truth.
• Quickening– It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. If the SPIRIT OF HIM who raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, HE that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by HIS SPIRIT that dwelleth in you.
- New Birth– Born of water and of the Spirit.
- In-Dwelling– The SPIRIT OF GOD dwelleth in you.
- Leading– As many as are led by the SPIRIT OF GOD, they are the sons of God.
• Strengthening –”Strengthened with might by HIS SPIRIT in the inner man.”
• Revelation – God hath revealed them unto us by HIS SPIRIT. • Gifts– For to one is given BY THE SPIRIT the word of wisdom, faith, gift of healings… working of miracles, prophecy, etc.
All these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as HE will.
- Empowerment – Ye shall receive power. God has not given us the spirit of fear.
- Transformation – We are all changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by The Spirit of the Lord. Sonship consciousness God hath sent forth the Spirit oF His Son I into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
- Seal – Sealed with that HOLY SPIRIT of promise.
- Confidence Hereby we know that HE dwelleth in us, by The
Spirit which He hath given us. - Guide – when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth
- Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor, Paraclete (parakletos)– But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you (Joh 16:6,7)
I admonish every new believer not to wait a single day after their salvation before receiving the fullness of the Holy Spirit. No need to ’tarry’ anymore. The Lord Jesus has already ascended, He already received of the Father as He said He would do. The Holy Spirit has been sent down to us. What is left is for you to ’receive’ the gift of the Holy Spirit. The earlier, in your Christian walk, you receive, this infilling, the better it’ll be for you in the long run. I am privileged to have been ministered to early in my faith by a couple of young men of God from the University during the move of God in the early 70’s. And my observation is that new believers who are taught the baptism of the Holy Spirit and are genuinely ministered to when they just accepted Christ, are distinctly different. They learn early how to talk to God, how to hear from God, are stronger in faith, and are resilient prayer warriors.
The Lord Jesus said:
“But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
“I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come” (John 16:12,13).
“But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teaches you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him”(1Jn 16:12,13)
Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Act 2:37,38
What is the Bible way to receive the Holy Spirit?
God has already completed the work of salvation, now it is up to us to receive Christ as Savior.
God has already done all He’s ever going to do about providing healing for us. God laid our sicknesses and diseases on Christ Jesus
Who bore them. In the mind of God we are already healed because Jesus already bore them for us. But now it’s up to you and me to receive it. Healing belongs to us. Of salvation, now it is up to us to receive Christ as Savior.
In the same manner, God has already given us the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is up to you and me to receive Him. The Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He leads, He guides, and it is up to you and me to respond. The Bible says,
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God (Rom 8:14).
Acts 19:6 And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues and prophesied. Notice that they were filled without waiting, without tarrying, without agonizing.
Pray In Tongues
In the house of Cornelius at Caesarea, While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word” (Acts 10:44)
• You can receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost while hands are laid upon you, or You can pray by yourself and receive the Holy Spirit from the Lord who is the one who baptizes with the Holy Ghost and with Fire
• Believe the promise from the Lord Jesus and that the Holy Spirit has been given
• Then ’RECEIVE’ the gift of the Holy Spirit into your heart 27 96
- Thank God for filling you the Holy Spirit Begin to worship Him, speak out loud, Pray out loud
- Begin to praise God and thank Him aloud, and let the Spirit of God take control of your mouth. As you do this, reach down deep within you and speak as the Holy Spirit gives you utterance. Remember you need to take that step of faith and speak whatever language that comes up from within you. It’s you that will do the speaking as the Spirit gives you utterance. This is praying or speaking in tongues
- Develop the ability to pray and sing in unknown tongues as the Spirit leads you. You will find this to be very important in your spiritual walk and in warfare that you will face in this race.
- “He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself” (1Cor 14:4). For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also (1 Cor 14:14-15).
- Remember the tongues is not the Holy Spirit, but it’s you speak- ing in an unknown language as the Spirit dictates or give the words to you. You are the one producing the sound as the Holy Spirit gives you the words or inspires you, and the spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet. In other words, you can control yourself when speaking or prophesying in tongues.
- Finally, on this, it is important for you to ask the Lord to reveal to you which spiritual gift or gifts He has given you….