The Son of God has come to save man from this condemnation. Verse 17 says, “For God did not send the Son into the world that He might judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” Christ, the Son of God, was sent to save us from God’s condemnation, which was caused by the sin of Adam. We all were condemned in Adam. Now we all can be saved from this condemnation through Christ. In the natural birth we were condemned in Adam. In regeneration we are saved in Christ.
What is the way for us to be regenerated? How can we receive regeneration? In verses 15, 16, 18, and 36, the Lord said, “That everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life”; “that everyone who believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life”; “he who believes in Him is not judged”; “he who believes in the Son has eternal life.” These emphatic words spoken repeatedly by the Lord tell us clearly and definitely that the way for us to be saved and regenerated is simply to believe in the Lord. To believe is the only way for us to receive salvation and regeneration. It is absolutely a matter of faith. Regardless of how much we can work or how good our work may be, we cannot be saved and regenerated by our work. Our work does not count in this matter. Only faith counts. Salvation and regeneration must be by faith. It is by faith in the Lord, by believing in the Lord, that we receive the forgiveness, the release from God’s condemnation negatively. It is also by faith, by believing in the Lord, that we receive eternal life, the divine life of God, positively for our regeneration. The Lord has accomplished the redemptive work for us. By His redemptive death on the cross, He has met all of God’s righteous demands on us and has fulfilled all the requirements of God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory for us. By His death on the cross in the form of the serpent, the Lord has even destroyed Satan, the devil that usurps us and enslaves us, that we might be delivered from the evil one’s slavery and power of death (Heb. 2:14). All negative things have been solved by His all-inclusive death on the cross. We do not need to do anything except believe in what the Lord has accomplished. He has dealt with and solved all of our problems. He has left no room for our doing or work. So, there is no need of our work, only of faith in His finished, completed, and all-inclusive redemptive work.
After passing through death, by and in resurrection, the Lord has released His life and has become a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). Now, in resurrection, He is the Spirit of life (2 Cor. 3:17), with all the virtue of His redemptive work, waiting for us to believe in Him. Once we believe in Him, we not only receive the forgiveness of sins and the deliverance from Satan’s evil power of darkness, but we also receive the Spirit of life, that is, the Lord Himself, with the eternal life of God. In this way we are saved and regenerated. It is by the way of believing in the Lord with His all-inclusive redemptive work that we receive God’s life and are born of Him to be His sons.
To believe in the Lord means to receive Him (John 1:12). The Lord is receivable. He is now the life-giving Spirit, with His complete redemption, waiting for and expecting us to receive Him. Our spirit is the receiving organ. We can receive the Lord’s Spirit into our spirit by believing in Him. Once we believe in Him, He, as the Spirit, enters into our spirit. Then we are regenerated by Him, the life-giving Spirit, and become one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17). The phrase “believes in” in verses 16, 18, and 36 literally translated should be “believes into Him.” When we believe in the Lord, we believe into Him. By believing in Him, we get into Him to be one with Him, to partake of Him, and to participate in all that He has accomplished for us. By believing into Him, we are identified with Him in all that He is and in all that He has passed through, accomplished, attained, and obtained. As we become one with Him by believing into Him, we are saved and regenerated by Him as life. It is by believing into Him that we partake of Him as life and are regenerated in Him.
The Son of God came as light that man might be enlightened for salvation (3:19-21). In order to save us, Christ, the Son of God, came firstly to be the light to enlighten man that man might be saved. But, sorry to say, most men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But anyone who comes to the light will be enlightened and, through this enlightenment, he shall be saved. Light comes first, then salvation follows.
In chapter three of John we can see that even a high-class moral gentleman was also on the line of death. Though he was seeking after God, he was seeking according to the line of the tree of knowledge. Nicodemus was seeking for teaching, for knowledge, which belongs to the tree of knowledge. He did not know life and had no concept of the tree of life. But the Lord turned him from knowledge to life, from the tree of knowledge to the tree of life, that he might be regenerated and have the divine life denoted by the tree of life in Genesis 2. In the Lord’s conversation with him, it is implied that his seeking of knowledge was related to his serpentine nature. The serpentine nature of our natural being causes us not only to do evil things, but also to seek knowledge, even knowledge concerning God, in a way that is not in the way of life. This kind of knowledge-seeking is on the line of death and brings in death. We all have to be turned from this line of knowledge to the line of life that we may receive the divine life for our enjoyment.