In the previous message, we saw the Spirit's work in sanctifying the God-chosen people before they repent and believe. In this message we want to see the Spirit's work in regenerating the convicted and believing believers (John 3:5-6, 8).

I hope that we would all learn to know the thought of the Bible. When a person writes something, his thought is in his writing. We need to know the Lord's thought in the Scriptures. In reading 1 Peter 1:2 and 3, we can see not only the thought of Peter but also the thought of the inspiring Spirit. These verses say, "Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has regenerated us unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."

The main thought in these two verses is embodied in three crucial words: chosen, sanctification, and regenerated. God chose us in eternity past. Then in time the Spirit came to sanctify us. God's choosing is in the Spirit's sanctification. Now we need to consider the purpose of God's choosing and of the Spirit's sanctifying. God's choosing and the Spirit's sanctifying do not have two goals. They have only one goal. They are on the same line, the same road. It is not that God takes one way, and the Spirit takes another way. They are taking one way. God started the way to choose us, and the Spirit follows in the same way, in the same line, to sanctify us. God's choosing and sanctifying are for the purpose of producing sons. God's intention is to have many sons.

God can have many sons not by adoption but by begetting. John 3:3 says that we must be "born anew." This is not just generating but regenerating. In God's economy, God must first have man in His creation. His creation of man was a kind of bringing forth, a kind of begetting. How can we prove that God's creation was God's begetting? Luke 3:38 says, "Adam, the son of God." This is a strong verse to prove that God's creation was a kind of begetting. Adam was created by God (Gen. 5:1-2), and God was his origin. God did not breathe His breath of life into the plants, the fish, the birds, or the cattle. In God's creation, God breathed the breath of life only into Adam (Gen. 2:7). Luke considered that this was God's begetting. That was humankind's first birth.

Charles Wesley's hymn "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" (Hymns, #84) is of a very high standard. I would like to point out stanza 3 of this hymn, which says, "Born to raise the sons of earth;/Born to give them second birth." God's economy needs man to go through two births. He receives a human life in his first birth. Then he has to go through another birth, the second birth. This birth is for him to receive the divine life. God intended that man would have two lives— the human life and the divine life. In order to do this, God must have a prototype, a model. So He Himself became incarnated to be the prototype.

At one time God merely had the divine life, not the human life. But He had the intention that mankind would have two lives, the human and the divine. Therefore, He Himself had to be a prototype. He set up a model by becoming incarnated. God with the divine life came into humanity that He might have the human life. Thus, on this earth there was a unique model, the God-man. Today this prototype has been duplicated in mass production because in resurrection He has become the Firstborn among many brothers (Rom. 8:29).