Return to Alpha Omega Net *** Forthshining Christ's Life
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again (Greek: anagennesas = again begotten) to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ... for you have been born again (anagennemenoi = having been again-begotten) NOT of seed which is perishable BUT imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God" (1 Peter 1.3,23, NASB, my emphasis and parenthesis).
"...His divine power has granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust." (2 Peter 1.3-4, NASB, my emphasis).
"He taketh away the first, that He might establish the second." Only GOD can make the tremendous changes required to "take away the first and establish the second." "Blessed be the God and Father", "His divine power..." -- these phrases place emphasis on the fact that it is the hand of God which accomplishes the fulfillment of His own will. It is THE FATHER who has placed His Son as the Surety, the security and guarantee that the New Covenant will be completely successful. It's in that Son, Jesus Christ, that we first see the "taking away the first", by His (Jesus') fulfilling ALL of the righteousness of the law. Then, He established "the second" when He ushered in the new ministration. The former covenant, championed by Moses, is DONE AWAY -- IT IS NO MORE, and the ministration of the New Covenant is headed by Jesus Christ, the Righteous. "But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a BETTER COVENANT, which has been enacted on BETTER PROMISES" (Hebrews 8.6,NASB).
Better promises!...God made promise both for Himself and for us, saying, "I WILL....AND THEY SHALL...!! He promised to pour out His Spirit upon ALL flesh, so that His Spirit became the ENERGIZING LIFE FORCE which is carrying out the New Covenant in perfection -- thus manifesting that it is totally the work of HIS GRACE.
Here, then, we have a NEW ministration for a NEW covenant, energized by a NEW Spirit -- so it rightly follows that it is being fulfilled in a NEW PEOPLE -- because, "...a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised (discerned, judged, estimated)" (1 Corinthians 2.14, NASB, my extension and parenthesis). Jesus stated the case plainly, "That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, `You must be born again'" (John 3.6-7, NASB).
"BEGOTTEN AGAIN" (see first scripture above) from the Greek "anagennao". The prefix "ana" means "again", and the word "gennao" means "to beget" -- combined they mean "to beget again" -- translated by many "to be born again", "to generate again" or "regenerate", and the word, in two of its forms, is in the New Testament, used only in the first two scriptures cited above in 1 Peter 2.
The new birth we cherish is a PROCESS OF BECOMING a new creation in Christ, where old things have passed, and all things have become new. The growth into the fullness of the pattern Son isn't accomplished with one giant step -- no more than is the natural offspring of man full grown at birth. No -- the process of becoming a new creation in Christ is a process of growth and development, until we are mature, "...until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, TO A MATURE MAN, TO THE MEASURE OF THE STATURE WHICH BELONGS TO THE FULLNESS OF CHRIST" (Ephesians 4.13, NASB).
And this new birth covers all three dimensions of our being -- the spirit, the soul, and the body. We know our spirit is enlivened by His Spirit. "HE is the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." (John 1.9) See also Proverbs 20.27 and Psalms 18.28).
Only the Spirit of God moving upon our being can quicken our spirit and bring us into God-consciousness, beginning the process of renewing our mind until we are "renewed in the spirit of our mind" as written in Ephesians 4.23. "Transformed by the renewing of our mind" (Romans 12.2) -- and then it can be truly said, "We have the mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2.16).
When our spirit is enlivened by the Spirit of God and our mind renewed into His mind, it rightly follows that He will then "transform this body of ours which has been humiliated so that it will be conformed to His body of His glory" (Phillipians 3.21, Wuest). Thus we are processed into a TOTALLY NEW CREATION in Christ -- spirit, soul, and body.
And none of this processing is of ourselves, for we are the ones acted upon -- not the ones acting. It is His own super-abounding grace toward us, His overflowing mercy, His all encompassing love and compassion that purposes and accomplishes our regeneration. We are not self-begotten -- and the realization is not self-initiated. The Holy Spirit says through Peter "...according to His abundant mercy (He) hath begotten us again." It's God's sovereign operation in us. "God's gift is not a question of human will and human effort, but of God's mercy. It depends not on one's own willingness nor on his strenuous exertion as in running a race, but on God's having mercy on him". (Romans 9.16, Amplified Bible).
Phillips translates James 1.17-18: "Every good endowment that we possess and every complete gift that we have received must come from above, from the Father of lights, with whom there is never the slightest variation or shadow of inconsistency. By His own wish He made us His own sons through the word of truth, that we might be, so to speak, the first specimens of His new creation".
Jesus says, in John 6.44, "No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him". Our being born into HIS NEW CREATION LIFE is wrought by the sole and absolute will of God! "IN CHRIST shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order (rank, time)" (1 Corinthians 15.22-23). It is the Father who begets -- and according to HIS will and HIS purpose as He draws every man to Himself. His mercy and love is past understanding!
We have read at 1 Peter 1.3 how "...His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a LIVING HOPE through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead". Had He not risen from the dead there would be no hope for man's birth into God's new creation. Jesus is the absolute, the YES, the AMEN of the New Covenant, and His resurrection-life guarantees that we also shall live in the fullness of His life.
"After a little while the world will behold Me no more; but you will behold Me; BECAUSE I LIVE YOU SHALL ALSO LIVE", Jesus said in John 14.19. He was crucified, buried in the tomb and the world saw Him no more --; no more does the world know Him after the flesh, and even those who knew Him in the flesh no longer know Him so. But He said there are those who will and would SEE HIM -- and these are the first fruits of a New Creation, those whom HE has chosen to be FIRST PARTAKERS of the NEW LIFE.
"YOU WILL BEHOLD ME", He said.
When Jesus came out of the tomb in resurrection life, He appeared to chosen ones of that age and said, "Behold My hands and My feet, THAT IT IS I MYSELF; handle Me, and see..." (Luke 24.39). Having been raised from among the dead He proceeded to work out His promise: "Because I live, you shall live also".
That's a living hope, a secured expectation that we shall come into the fulness of His life.
There's a great God-given prayer in Phillipians 3.10-11. The Holy Spirit prays through Paul, "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead". Since we know this prayer is God-given, we know it will be God-fulfilled -- for it is God that works in us to will and to do; He gives us the desire, and the supplies the power for fulfillment.
"To know Him" -- to come to know Christ experientially, which is only complete by being LIKE Him, is a fulfillment truly to be desired. And it is when HE has conformed us to HIS image that we shall truly know Him -- not just by mental illumination, not just by inner spiritual knowledge, but by our very STATE OF BEING witnessing to His reality.
How much more we shall KNOW HIM once we've been conformed to His image and actually partake of His divine nature!! How much more shall we appreciate His resurrection when that which is invisible becomes manifest in our own being!! Yet -- the resulting attention of such a wonder will not be drawn to us -- but to HIM, and we BECOME living, new creation witnesses to HIM.
Thus is He exalted!!
In the same prayer, experiential knowledge of the power of Christ's resurrection is desired, and NOT for the magnification of the natural man. Paul, whom the Holy Spirit used to utter this prayer, longs, as we do, to have that power surging through his own being so that sin and self is overcome and the Christ-Life becomes openly visible.
The word, "power" is, in the Greek "dunamis" which means, "inherent ability", or "strength and power residing in a thing because of its nature". The ability and strength of Christ's resurrection is that which overcomes all resistance, even death itself -- for it lifts one from among the dead!!
The special Greek word translated "resurrection" in verse 11 is found only here in the New Testament, "exanastaseos", and a better translation would be "outresurrection". This resurrection is not to be limited only to some future event, but is also a SPIRITUAL RESURRECTION now -- out from a state in which we are dead in trespasses and sins to one in which we are ALIVE -- our entire being -- spirit, body and soul -- quickened with the very LIFE OF GOD.
With apologies to Shakespeare's deranged Dane -- 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished, BUT it is self-evident that Christ's Resurrection Life in any degree or meaning can only FOLLOW the work within us of the cross with its death to self. The very word "resurrection" clearly proclaims that there has been a death from which one is raised. HIS CROSS brings an end to our trespasses and sins, and to all our self in its arrogant rebellion and willful entanglement in soulish humbuggery, so that we might truly manifest more and more of Christ (He increases and causes us to decrease).
This manifestation, this great witness is to be expressed not only in our present daily living but ultimately in a new body, also.
"For indeed, we being in this tent, are groaning, being weighed down, because we do not desire to be unclothed (divested of our mortal body), but clothed upon (invested with our heavenly body), in order that that which is mortal may be swallowed up by the life". (2 Corinthians 5.4, Wuest's Expanded New Testament). Phillips translates the same verse, "We have a painful longing, not because we want to get rid of these `clothes' but because we want to know the full cover of the permanent house that will be ours. We want our transitory life to be absorbed into the life that is eternal".
WE ARE BEING BORN AGAIN! The process shall continue until He shall have brought forth a totally new generation -- a New Race -- made truly alive in spirit, renewed in mind and body, and changed to His likeness and Godliness -- being born again, NOT of corruptible seed, BUT of incorruptible, BY THE WORD OF GOD. (See 1 Peter 1.23).
By the WORD -- by the LOGOS of God!!
"Logos" translated here as "WORD" is a word teeming with meaning. It includes the whole mind, the will, the intent, the purpose behind that which is expressed or spoken -- and JESUS CHRIST IS THE WORD OF GOD!! He is the expression of God's thought and purpose, a perfect revelation of the mind of God to mankind.
What we see in Jesus Christ the Righteous, as THE WORD, is what we are becoming, and this Word is the NEW NATURE found in the New Covenant race. "I will put My laws into their minds, and I will write them upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people". (Hebrews 8.10).
(There are many self-appointed prophets and teachers in the land today who proclaim that particular scripture to be only for a semitic people they call "restored Israel". They're wrong about a lot more than that -- and only Jesus Christ can open their blind eyes.)
God's word is implanted in the heart and mind so that we become a further expression of God, the Christ, to man.
So we see that truly, THE WORD is that incorruptible seed of which the new CHRIST-LIFE is formed -- a WORD-LIFE. We are born of the word, nourished by the word, as we "grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3.18). He gives "unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of HIM who hath called us..." (2 Peter 1.3). Without knowing Him there is no real life, because "...this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and (even) Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" (John 17.2, NASB, my parenthesis).
To know -- by personal experience completely apart from sense knowledge and mere mental assent to doctrines and histories about Him; to experience Him. "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" (John 8.32). "For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea", (Habakkuk 2.14). "For all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest" (Hebrews 8.11).
He is fulfilling these promises, as well as 2 Peter 1.4: There are "given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE".
(I think the Greek word used for our English word "nature" in this verse is interesting. It means, generally, the sum of innate properties and powers by which one person differs from others.)
When that incorruptible seed, the WORD OF GOD, is placed in us and begins to grow, it expresses HIS thought, HIS will, and HIS purpose. Truly, "For all creation, gazing eagerly as if with outstretched neck, is waiting and longing to see the manifestations of the Sons of God" (Romans 8.19, Weymouth). Not just a "seed", a babe in the womb, but a full grown expression of the Head, a revelation of HIM -- partakers of the Divine Nature! Partakers of God's essential nature!!
We who have been imprisoned in the earthy nature, (though not willingly!) a nature replete with weakness, lusts, passions innumerable and pride uncontrollable, are to be (Greek: become) participants-in-common with the very essence, the very character and nature of our LORD and Saviour! We who have been soulish, fickle in mood and emotion, subjected to the futility and frustration of change and decay will become, BY HIS WILL, joint- participants in the incorruptible realm which is unchangeable, permanent, and totally righteous. FOREVER.
This resurrection life of the new covenant race, first revealed in our Lord, is ours -- just as surely as He rose from the dead. The Holy Spirit says, "The fact that God raised Him from the dead, never to decay, is stated in these words:
`I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.'
So it is stated elsewhere:
`You will not let your Holy Seed decay'" (Acts 13.34-35, Isaiah 55.3 and Psalm 16.10, NIV).
Then He goes on to say, "For when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed. But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay" (verses 36-37).
It is the new creation resurrection life which brings us into the fulfillment of the sure blessings (or mercies) of David -- and that includes the promise of no more decay or corruption. The nature of the resurrection race is one that cannot be corrupted.
Thank God, this excludes all the stupidity taught and scattered abroad by "reincarnationists" and the "new age" nonsense so popular with the cocaine-culture of this day. Why? Because the sure blessings promised David don't include repetitious cycles of birth and decay, or visits to never-never land with a "spirit guide", but age-during life!
NO!! It's NO MORE DECAY, but it IS a truly more abundant life.
"No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he CANNOT go on sinning, because he has been born of God" (1 John 3.9). Phillips happily translates, "The man who is really God's son does not practice sin, for God's nature is in him, for good, and such a heredity is incapable of sin".
(There has been a false teaching concerning this verse making the rounds on the sawdust circuit for years -- centuries perhaps: "Jesus of Nazareth, Mary's boy, is the only son who doesn't sin and He's the only one who has God's seed in Himself".)
Any holiness ascribed to us is a matter of genetics. You shall be holy, because your Father is holy -- and when God said, "You shall be holy for I am holy", He made a promise. (Leviticus 11.45, 19.2, 1 Peter 1.16. Look it up!) The promise is based upon the Father's own nature and is something we can absolutely count on. He character traits are to be found in us; holiness is guaranteed because it is a matter of heredity; "Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God" (King James Version).
"In accordance with His deliberate purpose He brought us into being by means of the WORD resulting in our being a kind of first fruits of His creatures" (James 1.18, Wuest).
I know that the words I write here are far beyond the theology of Christendom -- and certainly beyond the pagan mythology of churchdom -- but I proclaim to you that God is now bringing forth a manifestation of Himself -- a new people -- of whom Jesus Christ is the head. This new covenant people will truly express the Divine Nature because His life abides in them as it abides in our Lord Jesus Christ, into whom we are maturing, that perfect and complete man, "unto the measure of the stature of Christ". (See Ephesians 4.13-16, and many others).
That Sinless One was made a sin-offering for us. "He made HIM who personally knew nothing of sin to be a sin-offering for us, so that through union with Him we might come into right standing with God". (2 Corinthians 5.21, Williams). That union with Him is what brings us into a BECOMING -- becoming the righteousness of God in Him. Only He could ever be a sin-offering for us, freely giving His sinless life so that we might be born of Him and come into a state of being that is also sinless.
I say again, it's a matter of genetics -- we are BORN (BEGOTTEN) OF GOD, and since He is incorruptible, so also is the nature of His new race.
There is a process in all of this "becoming", and we "share His sufferings (so) as to be continually transformed to His death" (Phillipians 3.10, Amplified Bible, my parenthesis).
CONTINUOUSLY TRANSFORMED!! His ever-perfecting grace works in us so we "are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the LORD, the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3.10, NASB) but we cannot isolate the "continuously transformed" in Phillipians 3.10, from the other part of the verse -- "sharing (fellowshipping) with Him His sufferings". -- even with all its "death" implications.
Our transformation from the earthy race -- the race of man, of the letter, of the Law, et cetera, into the new covenant race, which is that of God's Spirit, the inward man, -- is accomplished as we share the working of His cross. We thus become transformed unto His death. "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me..." (Galatians 2.20, NASB).
HE LOVES US. HE gave HIMSELF to be a sin-offering for us and now He is imparting HIS SEED-LIFE into us, so we may come forth in the newness and incorruptibility of HIS life.
Here I must briefly digress: No matter what a great part of the present apostate church teaches, the "sufferings" we share with our LORD are NOT the physical-emotional self-abasements lauded by the clergy and practiced by Churchdom's saintly rewritten and rectified sinners. No amount of fasting, flagellation, self-torture, or any other outward show of soulish humility can conform man to our Lord's image. The three ring circus that presently purports to be "cleansing the inner man" through simplified "imitations of Christ", "steps to perfection", "way of the cross" and other man-made processes too numerous to list are NOT responses to faith -- and without faith it is impossible to please Him. Look it up!
Consider some of the sufferings we DO share with Him.
"In His humiliation He was deprived of justice. Who can speak of His descendants?..." Acts 8.33, NIV).
Who, in this hour of darkness, can tell of his birth, of his generation source. Who will declare from the heart that God is his Father? And who will courageously declare his descendants, his children, his brothers?
In HIS humiliation no one stood with Him. Peter, His disciple, to whom God revealed that Jesus is "the Christ, the Son of the Living God", didn't, couldn't, stand the hour of His humiliation. He "denied with an oath, I do not know the man."
Jesus Christ's true identity was hidden behind the veil provided by the Father. Nobody truly knew who He was then for "Had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory", the Holy Spirit says in 1 Corinthians 2.8, yet God gave a brief insight to the centurion and a few at the cross: "when they saw those things that were done, feared greatly and confessed Jesus to be the Son of God" (Matthew 27.54).
We may be assured that while we share His humiliation, "going forth beyond the camp" to share His reproach, we will have no man to declare us, nor do we need natural man for such: "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children (descendants) of God" (Romans 8.16, NASB, my parenthesis). It is INTERNAL KNOWLEDGE which we hold in trust before God. We KNOW that we are HIS and HE knows that we are His. Let it suffice -- for we don't want a soulish declaration of our race -- but a spiritual, God-rendered witness to our generation.
Jesus said, "He that speaketh of himself speaketh his own glory" (John 7.18). All self-proclamation is dealt with by the cross of His humiliation in preparation for manifesting His NEW COVENANT generation.
Since you are "dead, and your life with Christ is hid in God" (Colossians 3.3), who will declare your generation -- your source, your race? This time of humiliation is no time for an ego-trip. If you want to take part in a truly egotistical carnival of aggrandizement, let me recommend the television myth-market and sawdust-trail-blazers that infest our society.
It's time for His tremendous love to draw us to Himself so as to share His processing with and in us!
"A generation! How lofty are its eyes, and its eyelashes lifted up" (Proverbs 30.13, Rotherham). We feel the disdain of raised eyebrows, the scorching-scorn of the "church", but like our Lord we must bear them in silence, sharing His reproach. Paul witnessed "...We have been made and are now the rubbish and filth of the world -- the offscouring of all things, the scum of the earth" (1 Corinthians 4.13, Amplified Bible).
The generation of this world, the race of natural man, will not receive you -- and not much of Christendom, either, will recognize you and call you "brother". And why? You're a misfit in their little conclave, a challenge to their teachings, a threat to their kingdom of do-don't-or-be-damned dogma.
SO WAS JESUS CHRIST, THE RIGHTEOUS -- founder and perfecter of our race.
The world and 99% of Christendom doesn't know you -- BUT TO GOD you are His covenant generation, a new race that He created in Christ Jesus. You are a race clothed with humility, seeking only to lift up Christ, NOT man, NOT self, so that OUR LORD alone is exalted.
This New Generation, this New Creation, is vitally involved in His time and appearing.
"For the LORD will rebuild Zion
And appear in His glory.
He will respond to the prayer of the destitute.
He will not despise their plea.
Let this be written for a future generation,
that a people not yet created may praise the Lord".
(Psalm 102.16-18, NIV)
He is creating, (indeed has already created, if we can but see it) a new people -- forming, preparing, fashioning a new race: "This people I have formed for Myself; they shall show forth My praise" (Isaiah 43.21).
2 Corinthians 5.17 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come". The Greek verbs translated "has gone" and "has come", are, respectively aorist tense and perfect tense. The deed is done and the process of fulfillment is complete in Jesus Christ. We are being changed from glory to glory into His very image, and we are "confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Phillipians 1.6,NASB).
The full disclosure of this New Covenant Race is crucially linked with Christ's revelation. "When Christ WHO IS OUR LIFE, is revealed, THEN you also will be revealed with Him in glory" (Colossians 3.4, NASB, my emphasis). He alone is the Finisher of this wondrous creative-redemptive process of our new birth -- and we need to prepare our minds for action, be spirit controlled. Let's set our hope fully on the grace given us when Christ is revealed.
"...And not yet has it been made visible what we shall be. We know absolutely that whenever it is made visible, like ones to Him shall be, because we shall see Him just as He is" (1 John 3.2, Wuest).
"We don't know what we shall be in the future. We only know that, if reality were to break through, we should reflect His likeness, for we should see Him as He really is" (Phillips).
Only HE knows the season of this revelation -- but that season, that time, when the New Generation shall SEE HIM and BE LIKE HIM, is a part of our predestined victory -- the fulness of HIS life.
According to Psalm 14.5, God is present in company of the righteous. Righteousness is a state of being, a condition of heart and mind, wherein the true nature of God is revealed. Genesis 7.1 tells us God found righteousness in Noah, and of whatever degree it might have been, Noah's state of being pleased the Lord.
Certainly, God has been WITH other generations, righteous in their time, walking according to the light He had given them, BUT He lives in, abides in, dwells in the New Covenant Generation, His new man. He was WITH others, He is IN this race. Jesus said, "He dwelleth with you and shall be in you" (John 14.17).
Most true believers surely don't yet fully comprehend WHO LIVES IN THEM -- because if they did they wouldn't struggle so hard to live His life. They'd just yield to His living and manifesting the Christ-Life in and through them, resting in the security of His unlimited love. We know that all of Jesus Christ's prayers are answered, so His born-ones can rejoice in John 17 where it is recorded Jesus prayed and declared, "And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are One. I IN THEM, AND THOU IN ME, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me..." (verses 22-23, NASB, my emphasis).
"A chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that shall show forth the praises of Him who hath called them out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Peter 2.9).
This selection of a "chosen" generation or race is not rejection of the remainder, for ALL shall be redeemed, every man in his own order. But God's election of a new covenant people is for a specific purpose -- to fill an appointed position, so He has a new people to become His DISPLAY VESSELS, His demonstration people, so to speak. "And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2.6-7, NIV).
The marvelous work of redemption, as seen in His firstfruits company, these creatures in whom He lives, shall be a demonstration of what He purposes to work in every man. As is the firstfruit, so shall also be the entire harvest, when He "gathers together all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him" (Ephesians 1.10).
Psalm 22.30 says, "A seed shall serve Him; it shall be accounted to the LORD for a generation". It's a new covenant generation through whom He shall bless all nations, revealing the wonders of His grace, bringing hope to the hopeless, love to the loveless and life to those who have long abode under the shadow of death.
KEEP YOURSELVES FROM IDOLS.