We must avoid the thought that man ought to have the experience of dying and resurrecting with the Lord before he can be born again. According to the Bible, once a person believes in the Lord Jesus, he is born again. "But as many as received Him...who believe into His name...were begotten...of God" (John 1:12-13).

We ought to realize that our co-resurrection with the Lord is not an experience after regeneration. Our being born again is our co-resurrection with the Lord because the Lord's death (in other words, our death with Him) terminated the problem of our sinful life. Then, at the resurrection of the Lord (in other words, when we were resurrected with Him), He gave us a new life with which we began our Christian life. That is why the Bible says, "God...has regenerated us...through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Pet. 1:3). This shows that every born-again Christian has already been raised up with the Lord. However, the apostle Paul in Philippians 3 told us that every Christian still needs to pursue to know "the power of His resurrection" (v. 10). Many Christians are born again and have participated in the Lord's resurrection but lack the manifestation of the power of resurrection.

Therefore, we must not confuse position with experience. When a person believes in the Lord Jesus, although he is still very weak and ignorant, God has placed him in a position of being reckoned as having completely died, resurrected, and ascended with the Lord. Those who are accepted in Christ are accepted just as Christ is; this is position. However, the believers may not necessarily have the experience of this. Positionally speaking, a believer in the Lord possesses all the experiences of the Lord Jesus. Experientially, at the minimum, he is born again. This rebirth is not because he has already experienced the Lord Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension to a certain degree, but because he believes in the Lord Jesus. His position causes him to have the experience of being born again. Although in experience he still does not know the power of Christ's resurrection (Phil. 3:10), he has already been made alive, raised, and seated in the heavenlies together with Christ (Eph. 2:5-6).

"The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord" (Prov. 20:27, Heb.). At the time of regeneration the Holy Spirit comes into us. He enters into man's spirit like the lighting of a lamp. This is the "new spirit" spoken of in Ezekiel 36:26. Because the old spirit was dead, the Holy Spirit puts the uncreated life of God inside it, causing it to have life and to live.

Before regeneration, man's soul ruled over his spirit. His "self" dominated his soul. His lust governed his body. The soul became the life of the spirit, the "self" became the life of the soul, and the lust became the life of the body. After man's regeneration, the Holy Spirit rules his spirit, causing his spirit to govern his soul, then through the soul to rule over his body. Now the Holy Spirit becomes the life of the spirit, and the spirit becomes the life of the entire being.

At the time of regeneration the Holy Spirit revives the human spirit and renews it. In the Bible, regeneration refers to the step in which a man comes out of death and enters into life. This regeneration, like the physical birth, occurs only once, and once is sufficient. It is at this time of rebirth that man receives God's own life, is born of God, and becomes God's child. "Being renewed" in the Bible refers to the Holy Spirit's work of increasingly filling and permeating our being with His life and thus completely overcoming our life in the flesh. It is a lengthy, continuous, and progressive work. In such a regenerated one, the original order of the spirit and the soul is restored.