When Nicodemus came to the Lord Jesus, the Lord took the opportunity to reveal the basic need of man. In His conversation with Nicodemus, the Lord revealed that regardless of how good we are, we still need regeneration. Regeneration is the primary need of man. Moral people, as well as immoral people, need to be regenerated. Some Christians hold the mistaken concept that people need regeneration simply because they are sinful and fallen. However, if man had never fallen into sin, he still would have needed regeneration because he was lacking the life of God. That is why God put him before the tree of life (Gen. 2:9). The tree of life represents the very life of God. If Adam had partaken of the tree of life, he would have received the life of God and been regenerated.
Since we are human beings, we all have human life. The question is not whether our human life is good or bad. Regardless of the kind of human life we have, as long as we do not have the divine life, we need to be regenerated. To be regenerated simply means to receive the divine life in addition to our human life. God’s eternal purpose is for man to be a vessel to contain the divine life. We are earthen vessels to contain God as life (2 Cor. 4:7). This is the true meaning of regeneration.
Due to the influence of human culture and the Jewish religion, Nicodemus thought that men needed to behave properly. He supposed that in order for men to have good conduct and worship God in a proper way, they need much teaching. Since Nicodemus considered Christ to be a teacher who had come from God, he may have thought that he needed better teachings to improve himself. But the Lord’s answer in the following verse unveiled to him that his need was to be born again. To be born again is to be regenerated with the divine life-a life other than the human life received by natural birth. His real need was not better teachings, but the divine life. We do not need religion or teachings to regulate and correct us; we need another life-the life of God-to regenerate us.
When Nicodemus heard that he had to be born again, he thought it meant that he had to return to his mother’s womb and come out again. Then the Lord Jesus said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” (John 3:6). He was saying to Nicodemus that even if he could go back into his mother’s womb and be born a second time, he would still be the same. He did not need another birth in time, but another birth in nature.
The Lord Jesus was very wise in using Nicodemus as the example of regeneration. If He had used the sinful woman in John 4 as the example, we might conclude that only sinful people need to be born again. Outwardly, Nicodemus had no moral or sinful problems. But he lacked the life of God. Because the Lord used a good man, Nicodemus, for His example, we can see that whether we are good or bad, we all need regeneration-we all need to receive the life of God.
Since regeneration means to be born of God, it automatically causes us to become the children of God (John 1:12-13). We are His children and He is our Father. The divine life we receive through regeneration is our authority to be His children. It is also a guarantee that one day, through the transformation of our soul and the glorification of our body, we shall enjoy full sonship.
The old creation has nothing of God’s divine element in it. That is why it is old and decaying. By regeneration, God’s element is added into us and we become a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). This new creation is a marvelous mystery, for it is the very mingling of God and man. It is both man and God, and it has both the human and the divine elements within it.
By regeneration we not only obtain God’s life with its divine elements, but we are also united with God as one. God the Spirit enters our spirit, causing us to be joined to Him as one spirit. “But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). What a marvelous and deep relationship is this-that in at least one part of our being-our spirit-we are fully one with God! This oneness with God is deepened and increased by the transformation of our soul, and will reach its full development by the glorification of our body, which will cause even our body to be one with God.
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