◄ What Does John 1:13 Mean? ►

As members of the human race, we have to be born into the human family. To become literal, physical descendants of Adam (who was the first literal physical man), we have to have a literal physical birth into a literal physical world. Adam was made in the image and likeness of the immortal, invisible God and given some spiritual attributes of his eternal Creator. Man was made in the image and likeness of the invisible God with an intellect to think, a will to choose, and emotions to feel.

But Adam sinned, and God's perfect creation was marred. Fallen men became sinful creatures. Every descendent of Adam was born into this world dead in their trespasses and imputed with a sin nature. Man was born into this mortal realm knowing good without the power to do it, and knowing evil without the ability to avoid it. As members of the human race, we have all been born into the human family with a fallen nature, saturated with sin, at enmity with God, and eternally doomed.

It was in eternity past that God in His grace decided to redeem fallen man. His plan of redemption required the eternal Son of God to be born into His own physical creation. He had to be born with a physical human body so that He could live and die as a legitimate member of the physical human race. But for God's eternal Son to become the perfect Son of Man, He had to be born as a child of a fallen human woman but without an inherited sin nature.

God's eternal Son had to be born of a woman and a descendent of man, with an intellect, a will, and emotions, but without inheriting the sin nature. As Son of God and the Seed of the woman through His forefathers Abraham and David, the Lord Jesus was born without sin, and lived a sinless life in order to pay the penalty for the sin of the whole world. He did this by becoming the sinless sacrifice so that all who believe on His name might be forgiven of their sins.

But forgiveness of sin was only one aspect of this eternal plan of salvation. Not only would all who believe in Christ be identified with the death of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, but they would also be identified with His resurrected life and become part of a new creation, with Christ as the federal Head of this new spiritual creation. All who believe on His sacrificial work for the forgiveness of sins would be made a new creature with a new Christlike nature and have a new beginning and a glorious inheritance in Christ. All who believe in Him would be imputed with the righteousness of Christ and be made heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. But it would all be by grace through faith in Christ's sacrificial work on the Cross.

Just as we were born into the old creation through natural means: conception and a physical birth into the old creation in Adam (where we all inherit an old sin nature and are estranged from God), so too by faith we are born again into a NEW creation by SPIRITUAL means and returned into fellowship with God. By God's grace through faith in the death, burial, and Resurrection of the Son of God, we are born again for the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting.

By faith, we are born from above into the heavenly, spiritual sphere, through the power of the Holy Spirit of God, thus becoming a fully fledged citizen of heaven. We become new creatures with a new nature, a new beginning, and a new destiny, imputed with Christ's righteousness and receive an eternal inheritance in Christ: "Born (again), not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but born from above, by the power of God."

Heavenly Father, what grace that You should love the world so much, that while we were all dead in our trespasses and sins and at enmity with You, You sent Jesus to be our Saviour and die for our sins. Thank You that I have been born again, born from above, born into the spiritual realm by faith. Thank You for Your goodness and grace. In Jesus' name I pray. AMEN.