THE GOD-MAN LIVING

MESSAGE ONE

BORN OF GOD THROUGH REGENERATION

Scripture Reading: John 3:16; Eph. 1:5, 9; Gen. 1:26; Prov. 20:27; Gen. 2:7; Eccl. 3:11; Gen. 2:9; 3:24; John 14:6; Heb. 10:19-20; John 1:1-5, 11-13; 3:6b, 3, 5

OUTLINE

1. God so loved the world that He gave them His only begotten Son, that they may receive Him by believing into Him to have the eternal life—the divine life—John 3:16.
2. His good pleasure is to be one with man and make man the same as He is in life and in nature but not in His Godhead—Eph. 1:5, 9.
3. He created man:
   1. In His image and after His likeness—Gen. 1:26.
   2. With a spirit (breath of life—spirit of man—Prov. 20:27) for man to receive and contain Him that man may live by Him as man’s life (signified by the tree of life) and everything—Gen. 2:7.
   3. Implanting in their heart eternity (a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun, but only God, can satisfy)—Eccl. 3:11.
   4. Putting man in front of the tree of life (signifying God, the Creator of man, to be man’s life)—Gen. 2:9.
4. The way for man to contact God as the tree of life was closed due to man’s fall by:
   1. God’s glory, signified by the cherubim.
   2. God’s holiness, signified by the burning flame.
   3. God’s righteousness, signified by the slaying sword —Gen. 3:24.
5. This closed way was, in the New Testament, opened by the Lord through His death who fulfilled all the requirements of God’s glory, holiness, and righteousness. Hence, now the crucified Christ becomes the reopened way for man to contact God as the tree of life—John 14:6; Heb. 10:19-20.
6. The way the God-man is born of God through regeneration:
   1. In the creating Christ of all things as the Word of God is the divine life—John 1:1-4.
   2. This divine life in Christ is the light of men shining with the divine life over men in darkness—John 1:4-5.
   3. Whoever receives this shining light and believes into Christ as the Word of God who contains God’s divine life will have the authority to become children of God—John 1:11-12.
   4. They are born not of blood (the physical life), nor of the will of the flesh (the will of fallen man after man became flesh), nor of the will of man (the will of the man created by God), but of God, who is the source of life and the fountain of life—John 1:13.
   5. All these children are God-men born of God.
   6. They are regenerated of God the Spirit to be spirits—gods (John 3:6b) belonging to the species of God to see and enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:3, 5).