Regeneration is a birth relationship with God, instantaneous and indissoluble. At this point, place a small gilt disc in the center of the black disc symbolizing the sin-stained “spirit,” “soul,” “body,” and call for John 1:12 and 1 John 3:1-3 to be read by the class. (See Fig. 10.) It is evident that a birth relationship can never be dissolved. A child may disobey its father’s commands, may grieve his heart and wander away from him, but he is still his father’s child. Other relationships may cease. A business partnership may be dissolved; the marriage relation may be annulled; friends may be separated, but birth relationship is indissoluble.
Unless the members of the class really see the meaning of this birth relationship with God, progress in the Christian life will be slow and uncertain. Many persons seem to think that they remain Christians while they are not consciously disobeying God’s commands, but should they do something that they consider wrong, they think that they have fallen from grace and have lost Eternal Life. Could Christians but remember that the life they receive at regeneration is Uncreated Life-God’s Life that can never change, and that He calls them His own children, they would cease to permit their fluctuating emotions to determine their standing before God. When a sinner is willing to admit his sinful, lost condition, and definitely turns to God from sin-appropriating the Life of God in Christ Jesus-that very instant he becomes a child of God, and through all Eternity will be a Child of God; for he is put within the sphere of Eternal Life; therefore he now possesses in his spirit a Life that will remain there as long as God lives. (See John 1:12; Rom. 8:16-17.) This is what regeneration means. He is also justified. (See Rom. 8:30.)
The class should learn the meaning of Justification, which is-a new standing before God. Before his new birth his standing was that of a sinner; now it is that of a child of God-in New Testament terms, a “saint.” An illustration may help the class to perceive that justification does not depend upon our righteous acts but upon our attitude toward God. It is the result of our choice, not the reward for our good works. In Tennyson’s poem, The Beggar Maid, we find that king Cophetua made the barefooted beggar girl in poor attire, his queen. Her standing before her marriage to the king was that of a poor beggar maid; upon her marriage she was at once a queen. Her change of status depended solely upon her choosing to become the bride of a king. After her marriage, she might put on clothing befitting her position and adorn herself with the jewels that the king should bestow, but her change of status would not depend upon such acts; indeed the changed clothing would be the result of her previously changed status. The person who one moment says, “I am a poor lost sinner” may the next moment sing, “I’m the child of a King.”
Most carefully should the nature of redeeming grace be presented to the class. Grace is unmerited favor bestowed by God upon repentant human beings, but it is favor that He longs to bestow. Have the following passages read: Ephesians 2:4-10; Romans 5:15, 21; 3:23-24 and find similar passages.
Regeneration marks the first crisis of appropriation in the life of a Christian. A new life-principle has entered the spirit of the believer, and his personality is in a new sphere. He is “in Christ Jesus,” and Christ’s Life is in him, and his condition is absolutely unalterable. To think otherwise would be to doubt the unchanging nature of the Life that enspheres him. In connection with the use of the word “sphere,” the following quotation from Dr. A. T. Pierson will be helpful:
A circle surrounds us, but only on one plane; but a sphere encompasses, envelops us, surrounding us in every direction. If you draw a circle on the floor, and step within its circumference you are within it only on the level of the floor. But, if that circle could become a sphere, and you within it, it would on every side surround you-above and below, on the right hand and on the left. Moreover, the sphere that surrounds you also separates you from whatever is outside of it. Again, in proportion as such a sphere is strong it also protects whatever is within it from all that is without-from all external foes or perils. And yet again, it supplies, to whomsoever is within it whatever it contains. This may help us to understand the great truth taught with such clearness especially in the New Testament. Christ is there presented throughout as the sphere of the believer’s whole life and being, and in this truth are included these conditions: First, Christ Jesus surrounds or embraces the believer in His own life; second, He separates the believer in Himself from all hostile influences; third, He protects him in Himself from all perils and foes of his life; fourth, He provides and supplies in Himself all that is needful.
These two expressions, “In Christ Jesus” and “Christ in you,” or their equivalents, indicate the whole gospel story. We find them used very many times in the epistles. It will be well for the class to find some of these expressions for themselves. Notice how they abound in the first chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians.
Home | First | Prev | Next