Being Born of God

Taking hold of the Miracle...

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­“All who receive him, who believe in his name, are given the right to become the children of God, and are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” - John 1:12-13

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These precious words, written in the prologue of the Gospel of John, are inestimably important for us, for they explain what it means to be a child of God (ילד יהוה), one who is “begotten” by the Father, and therefore they help us discern whether we belong to him or not... Let’s take some time to think about some of this.

First there is an implied distinction between those who “receive” him, namely Yeshua, and those who do not. This indicates, among other things, that God is not the “universal father” of all people, irrespective of creed or faith, but is rather the Father of those who receive the truth of Yeshua and believe in his name. There are many, Yeshua said, who do not know the truth of the Father, and therefore they are not regenerated or born from above.

Second it must be noted that “receiving” Yeshua is not the same thing as simply saying or acknowledging that he is the Savior and Lord. “Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness'” (Matt. 7:21-23). We must be unflinching as we consider this and all its ramifications. Yeshua warned us that there will be “many” who will assume that “all is well” with their soul only to be shocked to realize that they never were “known” by the Lord.

In this connection, consider that the Greek text translated “received him” (ἔλαβον αὐτόν) uses an active verb, not a passive form. In other words, “receiving him” means deliberately taking hold of Yeshua by faith, not merely accepting that he is who he says he is. It’s entirely possible to believe that he is who he says he is, that is, to accept it as true, without receiving him in a spiritually significant way. Actively taking hold of Yeshua and clinging to him is the “narrow way” that leads to life, but simply regarding him as a great teacher while living life on your own terms is the “broad way” that deceives the soul and leads to destruction... Yeshua does not give us the option to be “neutral” with regard to our relationship with him. “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” You cannot both have Yeshua and live life your own way.

Parenthetically, someone might wonder why making an earnest decision to “receive” Yeshua is essential to salvation. Is he really the only way? And why does it matter to God what people believe? Is he intolerant of others? The question behind these sorts of questions is whether knowing the truth is possible and if so, why that matters. The Scriptures state that God has given us intuitive awareness that he exists and that we are accountable for our actions. “For the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). God has created each soul with “eternity within the heart,” that is, a sense that God is their creator and the first cause of all that exists (Eccl. 3:11). “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech or words where their God’s voice is not heard” (Psalm 19:1-3). Paul reasons that because of these things everyone has heard the truth of God resounding within their hearts and souls.

In questions of moral reality it is also clear that truth indeed matters. The moral law has been written upon the hearts and consciences of all people (Rom. 2:14-15). We do not need someone to teach us that stealing is wrong, lying is wrong, torturing others is wrong, and so on. Such moral axioms are intuitively known and universally observed. Regarding matters of spiritual truth, the same logic applies in direct proportion to its significance for both our lives and because of the immense importance of the matter to God himself. After all, if it is indeed the truth that the sacrifice of Yeshua is the central act healing for all of humanity, that it is the pivot upon which the very possibility of the re-creation of the universe itself depends, then honoring this and receiving the promise of God in Yeshua is the most significant and prodigious decision you will ever make in this life.

But why faith? Why is it so important to believe? Why does our eternal destiny depend on its presence or absence within our hearts? Because the original transgression of Adam and Eve was that of unbelief, as I’ve written about elsewhere, and therefore repentance turns on the obedience of faith, that is, by trusting the word of God and accepting his rightful authority in our lives. Sanctification means, among other things, relinquishing the transgression of defining what is good and what is evil in our own terms by submitting ourselves to God’s blessing given in the Tree of Life recovered by the Son of Man, Yeshua our “Second Adam” who overcame the lies of the serpent... We are saved by grace through faith in Him. It is not our faith that saves us but his grace; our faith is the means by which we connect with him.

Those who resolutely receive Yeshua, that is, those who “believe in his name” (להאמין בשמו) are given the “right” to become the children of God. But notice that believing in his name is exclusionary in scope, meaning that it is in his name alone that salvation and life is bestowed from above. “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12); “I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no Savior” (Isa. 43:11); "Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: 'To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.' (Isa. 45:22-23). Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Yeshua is none other than the LORD God our Savior, to the glory of God our Father (Phil. 2:9-11; Rom. 14:11). There is only one way to be made right with God, and that is through Yeshua.

This of course implies not only that God was “in Christ” but that Christ is in God, and that we receive Yeshua as the Divine Word and Lord over all, the Son of Man who is seated at the right hand of glory. Yeshua, and Yeshua alone, is “the way and the truth and the life,” apart from him no one can know the heart of the Father (John 14:6). Indeed, the author of the Book of Hebrews says that though God spoke in times past by means of the prophets, but now he speaks to us “in Son” (ἐν υἱῷ), that is, in the language of the redemption in Messiah. Yeshua is the manifestation and message of all that God has to say to us regarding eternal life. He is the “brightness of God’s glory,” the “express image of God” who upholds all things by the word of His power, the one who purges us from our sins, is raised from the dead, and is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on High (Heb. 1:2-3). Note that the idiom of being “at the right hand” of God indicates that the “humanity” of Yeshua has been exalted as our eternal Mediator and Priest as well as the exalted ruler over all.

To “believe in his name” (εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτου), then, means to receive who he is, and this entails the whole story of redemption, from the primordial beginning of God as YHVH who breathed out life to man, the original transgression that evoked the divine judgment; the sacrifice of the lamb with the promise of the coming Redeemer who would undo the curse of spiritual death, and so on. The story further includes the call of Abraham and the promise that his Seed would be the redeemer to come and the subsequent odyssey of Abraham’s descendants would serve as a parable of God’s deliverance as illustrated by the exodus from Egypt. The giving of the law at Sinai and the vision and of the Sanctuary foretold the need for atonement as the blood was presented over the law of God, a vision of the sacrifice of the Seed upon the cross at Calvary. To receive who he is means that we take hold of his blessing for our life and understand that the story of redemption includes us as well.

The “right” to become (or to be) a child of God is the bestowal of life granted by God’s prerogative and agency that implants the “seed” or “divine nature” within you so that you are mysteriously transformed into a “new creation” (בְּרִיאָה חֲדָשָׁה), that is, made into a new kind of being that has been “begotten” or “fathered” by God. King David praised God that he was “fearfully and wonderfully made,” though he anticipated the need for something more when he asked God to create in him a new heart (Psalm 51:10). Likewise the prophets foresaw the need for a new heart and spirit that God would one day bestow (Ezek. 11:9, 36:26; Jer. 24:7, 31:33). But the important point is that the new birth is exclusively the work of God, not a work of religion or spiritual aspiration. It is an “invisible” birth that comes from above (John 3:1-5). As the apostle put it: "You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God" (1 Pet. 1:23).

This implies that God alone chooses who will be his children, and while this may offend human pride that wants to arbitrate the decision, there can be no serious question that the Almighty, the source of all truth and justice, is “unfair” about the election of those who belong to him. By definition it must be affirmed that God alone saves and gives life, and that salvation is not the result of human wisdom, religiosity, or even good will. After all, if mankind could heal itself there would be no need for a Savior in the first place...

Only God saves a person and imparts divine life to them. John makes this very clear in the verse we are considering by unmistakably ascribing this power to God alone. He eliminates the other options. Saved souls are “not born of blood” (οὐκ ἐξ αἱμάτων), that is, not by bloodlines or special ancestry, nor are they born of “the will of the flesh” (οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος σαρκός), that is, by natural instinct as by human procreation, nor are they born of “the will of mankind” (οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος ἀνδρός), that is, by the choice or science of human beings, but, concludes John, they are born by God alone (ἀλλ᾽ ἐκ θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν).

The Lord alone gives the right or “authority” for someone to be his child. It does not come from our history, our reputation, our intelligence, our genetics, or even our will, but from God alone. The Greek word for “right” or “authority” in this verse is eksousia (ἐξουσία), which literally means “out of” or “from being” itself, implying that this is a supernatural bestowal of grace from the LORD whose inscrutable name evokes life itself (אֶהְיֶה). As Yeshua said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44). This is the truth of the gospel which is “the power of God (δύναμις θεου) unto salvation for everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). It is this power that “translates” the essence of our being so that we become a “new creation” forever. We are made partakers of the sacred brotherhood (and sisterhood) of the redeemed, with Yeshua himself as our great King. We shall see him “as he is,” and transformed into his glorious image forever.

Here is the “good news” of the gospel: To all who receive him, to those who are drawn to him, who seek and desire him above all else, God imparts life from above that will transform them forever. The “sign” of being a reborn soul is the desire to take hold of Yeshua at all cost, to lay down your life as you celebrate him as the greatest blessing of your life...

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Addendum

Allow me to reflect a bit more about this vital subject with you... There are two essential relationships we always have, two relationships that will be with us forever. The first is our relationship with ourselves, the “inner dialog” that negotiates the impulses and thoughts that arise within our souls, and the second is our relationship with God, and these are profoundly connected. If we are born from above, the nature of who we are is transformed and we know God as our Father, and therefore we know ourselves as his child. It the Voice of the Father that mediates who we are to ourselves and establishes our being. If we are not born from above, however, we will not know God as our Father or ourselves as his child but will relate to him as the Judge and who will consign us to eternal despair...

Because there is no such thing as a “person” apart from relationship, we cannot truly know ourselves apart from God, who mediates his love in Yeshua. This is a further aspect of knowing “his name,” that is, who he is to us and who we are to him. This is why Yeshua called God “Father” or “Abba,” for this is his name known in intimacy as his child, as one conceived and born of him. On the other hand, if we do not truly know God, we will be left trapped within our own inner dialog, with weeping and gnashing of teeth. We will be in exile from what establishes and grounds who we are, and therefore we will never know rest... A divided house cannot stand.

The idea of being a “child” (τέκνον) connotes affection and intimacy that comes from trust and dependency. We are “children of God” as we cry out to our Father for help or for comfort. The new life from above understands God to be its source and end. God created this new life to be in relationship with him, so that his child would know the love and kindness of his Father.

You may feel like you are the same person you’ve always been; you may have memories connected with your former life, but if you are truly God’s child you are given a new heart and soul, a deeper or “true self” that is the offspring of God’s life within you. This is the “spiritual man,” the hidden life of Christ within, as opposed to the former “life of the flesh” that retains its hold on the old Adamic nature.

Part of our “education for eternity” is learning how to “mortify” the flesh with its affections and lusts and to walk as God’s children - set free from the control of the lower nature. This means, however, that there is a struggle within us, an inner conflict deep within, in which we are refined by testing to live as we have been redeemed to be -- rather than identifying ourselves as victims of circumstances and carnal passions. As we surrender more and more to the Lord, knowing ourselves as his beloved child, we will walk in victory over slavery to our past.

What a glorious trip! What a journey we are on as God’s children. Like the Israelites who were once bound and lost to the world, enslaved to dark powers, the Lord breaks through and redeems his children. It was the blood of the Passover lamb that was offered that set the people free, just as it was the blood of Yeshua that was offered that sets us free. The life is in the blood, and the blood of God was given to be the means of our regeneration.

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Isaiah 63:16

כִּי־אַתָּה אָבִינוּ
כִּי אַבְרָהָם לֹא יְדָעָנוּ
וְיִשְׂרָאֵל לֹא יַכִּירָנוּ
אַתָּה יְהוָה אָבִינוּ
גֹּאֲלֵנוּ מֵעוֹלָם שְׁמֶךָ׃

“For you are our Father,
though Abraham doesn’t know us,
and Israel doesn’t regard us;
You, O LORD, are our Father,
our Eternal Redeemer is your Name.”

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Isa. 63:16 Hebrew page (pdf)

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