Regeneration – The wind blows
Death – How Serious is it, Really?!?
We can never escape, temporally speaking, the truth that death stalks each one of us. Each one of us has an appointed time in which we will face the termination of our physical existence here on this earth. We fight to prevent it. In fact, I don't think that any generation or people group in history has ever spent so much time and money in the truly futile effort of avoiding death. We know what death means to us. In our youth it sits far outside of the perimeter of view. We don't even see it. Then as time goes on and it touches our lives, we experience its coldness second hand, in the loss of a loved one, perhaps. As we mature, death begins to become more evident a reality as we encounter it in middle age. We lose a few friends to disease. We see generations that precede us going on. Though for the believer we have hope beyond the grave, death is still dark, mysterious and deeply troubling. It should be.
The Bible describes death as the curse that befell the sons of Adam as a result of his covenant violation in the garden. So all men face death. Not one of us will escape our destiny. But death's black kiss is far worse than this. The Bible describes us as being “Dead in our sins”. We weren't born alive and then sin killed us. We were, spiritually speaking, still-born. Like the sadness of a miscarriage, we were born in such a condition that there was no hope of life, naturally. We were born, we learned to crawl, then to walk. We had a shadow of life. But true life, as God had taken away in the curse isn't even imaginable to us. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” - 1 Corinthian 13:12
If life in the greatest sense of the word, is far bigger than what our tiny minds can see and taste, then it stands to reason, that in our condition as dead men, we don't understand what we are missing. The Bible makes it clear that this condition of spiritual death is far worse, far darker than the moment the spirit leaves the body. If life can best be described in the condition of direct relationship to the creator, then what we are missing in our condition as “the living dead” is something far more important than the consistent beating of our hearts, or our ability to draw breath.
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” - Ephesians 2:1-3
To understand spiritual death we must understand what sin is. At the heart of all violations of God's law is a violation of the first commandment: you shall have no other gods besides Me. We are bound by commandment to love God, as the Bible defines love, obedience, having the will and the entire person directed to and committed to the glory of God. We have lost this ability. We are spiritually dead.
Disposition
The Bible describes mans inherited disposition as being one that is consistent with its condition, dead. Disposition is defined as: the tendency of something to act in a certain manner under given circumstances. Our disposition is the way that we would most likely respond given the right conditions”. Like a bacteria growing in a petri dish, if given the ripe medium of real life, we don't grow closer to God, but we will always oppose Him. Our disposition is not to seek after God. That is to say that every opportunity that in a dead condition we had to follow God, led only to our NOT following God. As Paul says, we walked according to the course of this world. We were, no matter how good we thought that we were, followers of the Devil. We were obedient to our bodies. We sought to obey its sinful lusts. Our minds were corrupted by the fall and we did whatever seemed right to us, no matter how self serving and wicked. Rather than loving God by default, we hated God even when we pretended to be His friend. Our disposition in death was to capitulate to temptation. Every chance that we had we gave in to temptation. Paul says of our disposition: “as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." - Romans 3:12
But it can't be stated enough, sin isn't merely drunkenness and violence. Do you remember the rich young ruler? He had a shallow view of his sin. Honor thy father and mother, don't steal, don't murder, don't commit adultery. “All these I have kept he says.” And then it rips his heart out when Jesus points out that he worships his money and not God. He, having an appearance of goodness was still a dead man serving his disposition. The self-righteous, self-reliant professing Christian is as much hell-bound as the serial killer.
Jesus confronts the pharisees shallow view of their sin, not to encourage them to do better, but to point out their absolute poverty before the Law. He says: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” Matthew 23:23
Our disposition leads us “who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” - Romans 1:18. We are powerless to fight this disposition.
A Second Chance?
So if our natural and default position is antipathy and hatred towards God and a rejection of God's authority. Then under the best of circumstances, what could a second chance, hope to provide us? The answer is: not much. If all that we get is the clean sweep of our lives, then it wouldn't take long for sin to take root yet again. We would be wiped clean and then within moments, invisible sins like the sin of pride and others would soon leave us yet again a mess and most likely worse than before. The last thing that you and I need is a second chance. A second chance to be just as dishonoring to God as we were before. To be just as much a God hater as we were previously, only this time with a taste for klov, a fish on our car and McCain bumper sticker.
You Must Be Born Again
So we find in John 3, a learned teacher of the Jewish people. A real covenant man: Nicodemus. He's a teacher, so he has training in the word of God. He's a ruler, sitting on the ruling Jewish council. He clearly has a respected position of importance as a pharisee. He comes to Jesus late at night. He comes because he knows that there is something to Jesus. “For no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with Him.” SO he even understands the real purpose behind the signs that Jesus was doing. He gets, on some level the weighty and profound nature of Jesus and of His ministry. Is it possible that there are those among us now, who like Nicodemus have many markings of a covenant child, a church member, a good person, a contributor and yet something just seems to be missing. Hopefully, like Nicodemus, you are willing to go to great lengths, to endure shame, to endure mocking but to come and to seek Him knowing that something just isn't right.
Nicodemus doesn't actually ask the question, does he? It was once told to me that a young man will yammer incessantly at his father with meaningless questions all with the purpose of getting the nerve up to ask the significant question that is so profoundly important to him. I remember as I would go fishing with my oldest son and he would begin the process. He would ask about whatever was around. He would ask about the water and about the fish. He would ask about the trees and the rocks. Maybe for hours. I would wait for the real question, for his heart to come screaming out of him. Then, if I was patient, Joe would knock me back on my heals with some important question about life, or eternity or many other things. Maybe like Joe Nicodemus, only half way knowing the question that deeply concerned him, was prepared to ask question after question until he finally got the nerve up to ask Jesus: How can I know that I will see the kingdom of God? “Jesus, I know the law and it doesn't look good for me. My conscience nags me all the time, am I OK? I was so convinced that I was doing so well, and now I'm not so sure. There is something so profoundly lifeless in me. I try, I put on the show, but at the end of the day, my heart is as dark and as rotten as it was before.” Jesus cuts right to the heart of the matter and answers the unasked question. The most important question.
“Truly, truly, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” We hear these words as those who have heard these a thousand times. We sort of mock Nicodemus. He's not stupid, but just uninformed. But listen again, as someone who was convinced of his own goodness, yet doubted and came to Jesus. “Truly, truly, unless YOU are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.” Unless, Nicodemus, you are made new... Unless the curse is broken and you are recreated, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. You mighty pharisee, learned man, you know the words of Ezekiel in the 36th chapter verse 25: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness's, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleanness's.” And this is what Jesus says to him isn't it? “Unless you are born of water and the Spirit you cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (5) Unless, Nicodemus, the Spirit of God has removed your stony wicked dead heart and replaced it with a living heart, a beating heart a soft heart, you are no where near the kingdom of God. You're not OK with God.
That's why Paul says: “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him!” Romans 8:9. Nicodemus can't see his own need. Jesus cuts right to the quick and says: “Dead man, you must be made alive.” And “Dead man” you are not the one to do it. That's why He says: “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” (8) It looks odd to you Nicodemus, when someone is given rebirth. You perceive the affect of the wind, on the leaves, maybe you see the grass in the field as it moves and parts for the wind. You don't know where it came from or where it goes. So is the regenerating work of the Spirit of God. For no explicable reason, you see the wicked broken by their sin and given forgiveness, peace and grace and new life. They know that their sins are taken away and that they have peace with God. You can't control this Nicodemus. You can't push all the right buttons and open the gates to the kingdom of God.
The Spirit of God must come upon you and make you alive. “The first man Adam became a living being, the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit” - 1 Corinthians 15:45 “The first man Adam is from the dust, a man of dust... you Nicodemus are a man of dust!” The second man is from heaven.” You sit there with your bag of tricks and your ways of justifying your sin and you're pushing down on the conscience which keeps welling up with the venom of your sin. I have to get it back in the box. You suppress the truth and look for the next thing to fix you. Maybe its worse than that, maybe don't even know it any more. You've been lying there so long having silenced the voice of conscience that you even believe that you're OK. You weren't arrested for tax evasion, you've never hit your kid or missed a Sunday, Nicodemus.
But, like the Israelites in the book of Numbers, God has sent the law like fiery serpents and you Nicodemus bear the holes of the viper's fangs. I can see it in you, there's two holes and you lie dying, puffed up and rotten. And you somehow think that you can get up there high enough to reach heaven and you can't. You think that you know and you don't. Heaven has to reach down and it did. Jesus says: “No one has ascended into heaven, except He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes on Him may have eternal life.” Do you remember Numbers, when Moses was commanded by God to raise up the serpent staff and all those who would gaze upon it would live? Nicodemus, do you remember? DO you see the bite mark? Look to the Son and live!
Then Jesus says it again, more fully this time: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish have eternal life.”
You can't regenerate yourselves! You can't make yourself new. You can't reenter, as it were, your mother's womb and come out 9 months later a new person. You're of the dust, you are a dead person who keeps moving. It has to be Jesus work. Unless Jesus makes you alive. Unless He makes the Spirit to dwell in you (James 4:5), you cannot enter the kingdom of God.
All that you can do is to believe. That is trust, you have no control, merely look to the Son and live. You're not able to stop the gang green that has so corrupted you. Believe in Jesus Christ and you will be given life. Don't believe and no matter how right with God you think that you are, you stand judged already.
The Effects of the Wind
This gift of regeneration, is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within the believer. You must see that the gift of the Holy Spirit to the church is Jesus' and the Father's work. It's not something that you do. Regeneration, rebirth, you being made alive is part of God's gift to you in Christ. As was Justification, Jesus' propitiation and the Father's adoption of you, so is the gift of the indwelling Spirit in regeneration, a glorious gift from God.
“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” - John 16:7
Jesus sends the Spirit.
“He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” - John 16:14
Jesus is glorified to His people by the Holy Spirit. This communication is something that occurs in the hearts of Jesus people, in that the Holy Spirit causes us to behold Jesus as wonderful and marvelous, by faith. He takes the word and causes it to dwell in us.
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” - John 14:17
And again: “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” - 14:20
The Father sends the Spirit to be with us forever. The indwelling presence of the Spirit is permanent in the life of the believer. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the exact means by which we as Christians have real relationship.“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” - Romans 8:16 The Spirit testifies to us that we are not orphans but children by adoption.
“And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” - Romans 8:23
So you see the Holy Spirit dwelling in us as believers is the first offering of deep relationship that we will one day experience fully.
A New Disposition
Again Ezekiel 36:25: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness's, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleanness's.”
In the indwelling of the Spirit. We are given the promised grace that God would remove our old nasty dead disposition and replace it with a new and functional one. One that desires to please God, one that longs for the glory of God, one that love's God. What grace it is that Jesus has given us new life in the Holy Spirit. Paul says it like this: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” - Romans 8:13.
If you are in Christ, the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in you, to give you a reflective love for the almighty God of the universe. If you are in Christ, the Holy Spirit testifies to you that you are a child of the Father. If you are in Christ, you have the power of the Spirit, to walk obediently and to put to death the old man.
