Programme 9: Regenerated by Resurrection - Part 2
In this Series we are discovering who we really are in Christ. When we were born again everything changed. We received a new position of righteousness and sonship before God and a new reborn resurrected spirit with a new life and nature. All the old things that were true about us because of our position in Adam, have been replaced by new truths now that we are in Christ. We are literally a New Creation - a new kind of human being, no longer in Adam but now in Christ. Therefore we need to completely change the way that we think about ourselves, because until we realise who we are in Christ we will not be able to experience and enjoy the new reality:
2Corinthians 5:17,18: Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh (according to who they were in Adam). Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a New Creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things (in the New Creation) are of God.
Paul says here that even Jesus Christ is different from the way He was in the days of His flesh, for His humanity has gone through a death and resurrection, and has now become a New Creation. Therefore Paul says that those who knew Him in the days of His flesh need to think of Him in a new way for He has been transformed by His resurrection. How much more do we need to change our thinking about ourselves now that we have died and have risen with Him to a new life as new creations in Christ. We are no longer defined by who were were in Adam, but by who we are in Christ. Jesus lived His earthly life here as the Last Adam (1Corinthians 15:45), identifying with man, having been born into the human race. He took everything that was in Adam (including us with our sin and death) and nailed it to the Cross. Then He rose from the dead as the 2nd Man (1Corinthians 15:47), the Head of a New Breed, a New Species of humanity, the New Creation Man, the product of the resurrection.
Then when we believed in Him we were put into Christ and the Holy-Spirit released the very same resurrection life of Christ into our spirits and we became New-Creations in Christ, made alive with Him
and risen with Him far above all principality and power:
1Corinthians 15:21,22: “For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die (spirit, soul and body), even so in Christ all shall be made alive (spirit, soul and body) - though His resurrection).”
Jesus said in John 14:19 prophesying the day of His resurrection: “Because I live, you will live also (by My resurrection life in you).” That is: Because I am raised to new-life, in Me you also will be raised to new-life, because you will receive the same spiritual and physical resurrection that I have received. When you believe in Me your spirit will be raised to life and later your body will also be raised.
Ephesians 2:4-6: “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
Colossians 2:12,13: “you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being (spiritually) dead... He has made alive together with Him.”
These verses describe something that has already happened to us, that is to all believers in Christ: we have been made alive and raised with Christ by the very same operation of the power of God that raised up Christ. If we have already been made alive together with Christ and raised together with Christ then this must be talking about a spiritual resurrection, for our bodies have not been raised yet. Therefore our spirits must have been literally resurrected with Christ when we were born again. God’s power that raised Christ from the dead was at that moment applied to our spirit and our spirit was instantaneously raised up and filled with eternal life - the life of God. Resurrection power was fully released in our spirits making us a new-creation. Our spirits have been saved! If our spirits were raised WITH Christ (in the same operation of God’s power) from death to life, then Christ’s human spirit was also raised from (spiritual) death, for if we were spiritually raised with Him, He was also spiritually raised with us. This means that Christ’s spirit was resurrected as well as His body, otherwise it makes no sense to say that we were raised with Him. Thus when Christ’s human spirit was resurrected, our spirits were also resurrected with Him by the same operation of God’s power.
Our spirits are therefore now in Christ’s own perfect righteous and victorious image, raised from the dead, dead to sin and alive to God. They have already overcome sin, curse, satan and death. Sin, the world, the flesh and the devil and his demons have no more dominion over our spirit. Praise God! We ARE the righteousness of God in Christ (2Cor 5:21). We need to know who we are and then live it!
The Bible describes what happened to our spirit as both a REGENERATION (REBIRTH) and as a RESURRECTION.
The fact that we are now a NEW CREATION, a new type of human-being, means we have been literally reborn in the spiritual realm.
This REBIRTH was produced by the power of the RESURRECTION
That is, the very same power that raised Jesus’ spirit and body from the dead, also raised our spirit from the dead and will soon also be released to raise up our bodies also.
Our New Birth comes from the resurrection of Jesus from the dead: 1Peter 1:3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten (BIRTHED) us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” This is the origin of the New Creation Man. Our spirits were brought forth (to birth) through the resurrection of Christ. Therefore we will discover more about who we are in Christ by understanding more about what the resurrection of Christ, for the power God used to raise up Christ, is also working in us.
Since we are fully united and identified with Christ in His resurrection, it follows that what happened to Christ in His resurrection can be described as a REGENERATION (or REBIRTH) as well as a RESURRECTION. He was not just resurrected physically, but He was also regenerated spiritually. You see, Christ in His humanity fully tasted death for us, both physical and spiritual (His Deity, of course, cannot die). Therefore Christ’s resurrection was not just the resurrection of his body, but the resurrection of His whole humanity, which includes the regeneration of His spirit. This is confirmed by the fact that the Bible describes Christ’s resurrection as a REBIRTH.
Psalm 2 is a famous prophecy of the Coming Messiah. In Psalm 2:7 God says to the Messiah: “You are my Son, this day I have begotten you.” (or: “Today, I have become your Father” - NIV).
Here it describes a certain day when the Messiah is begotten by God.
In Acts 13:33-35, we are clearly told that this is a prophecy of Jesus, and the day to which it refers is the day He was raised from the dead:
“God has fulfilled this for us their children, in that He has raised up Jesus. As it is also written in the 2nd Psalm: ‘You are My Son, Today, I have begotten You.’ And that He raised Him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, He has spoken thus:‘I will give you the sure mercies of David.’ Therefore He also says in another Psalm: ‘You will not allow your holy one to see corruption’
In His Deity (or Divine Nature) Jesus was, is and always will be the Son of God. However this verse tells us that His human nature underwent a change at His resurrection. The fact that His resurrection is described as a begetting means that He was not just resurrected physically, but that He was also reborn or regenerated spiritually. This is confirmed by the scriptures that describe Jesus Christ as
the FIRSTBORN FROM THE DEAD:
Revelation 1:5: “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the Firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth.”
Colossians 1:18 “He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the Firstborn from the dead, that in all things
He may have the preeminence.”
Clearly this refers to what happened at His resurrection and describes Jesus as one REBORN from death. More than that, He is called the FIRSTBORN from the dead, indicating He is not the only one reborn from the dead, but that there are many more who are brought forth with Him from the same womb, by the same operation of God’s power and therefore made after the same pattern or image. If He is the Firstborn, then there must also be the 2nd, 3rd, 1000th born sons. As the Firstborn Son, He is the First and Head of all those who have become sons of God through the Resurrection. He has become the Head of a new human race - the New Creation, and is therefore the prototype and blueprint of all the other sons coming forth after Him. In Him we see the full potential of our sonship realised & manifested.
In Christ we have received the same working of God’s power in our spirit that raised up Christ’s spirit up from death, causing His rebirth. This means our reborn spirit is in the very image of the resurrected Christ possessing the same life and nature and victory, for we have the same origin, we are His brethren who share in the same birth. Therefore we are predestined to ultimately become like the Firstborn.
There is therefore now a whole family of sons of God who have been reborn with our Lord Jesus Christ from spiritual death, and He is the Firstborn Son among many brethren. Through His birth (regeneration) we have all received our rebirth, and have become new creations in Christ, so by His resurrection He is now the Firstborn Son among many brethren, and we are destined to become just like Him.
This is exactly what Romans 8:29 says: “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brethren.”
He is the FIRSTBORN SON among many brethren! That means many others will share in the same rebirth that He experienced. We have been reborn with Him. We are now His brethren. In Him we are also sons of God! We are called His brethren because we have the same Father as Him, we share the same birth as Him, we come forth from the same womb, we are born of God through the same working of God’s resurrection power. What happened to Jesus in His resurrection was not just for Him. The spiritual rebirth and physical resurrection He received was for us too. Inwardly, in our spirit, we have been made like Him, and also outwardly, in our body we are predestined to be conformed to the image of the Firstborn Son. We have received the same spiritual resurrection from spiritual death and will also receive the same physical resurrection as He did.
This is when His glory will be released through our whole being.
Hebrews 2:10-12: “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many SONS to glory, to make the Captain of their Salvation (Jesus, the Firstborn) perfect through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one (origin or womb), for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: “I will declare Your Name to My brethren” (from Psalm 22:22 - a prophecy of the result of His death and resurrection). We are His brethren, because we are born from the same womb. We have the same origin in the resurrection. We have become sons of God with Him by the power of the same resurrection. We have been reborn from the dead as new creations with Him. This agrees with Romans 8:16,17: “If children (of God), then (we are) HEIRS — HEIRS of God and JOINT HEIRS with Christ.”
As sons of God we are automatically also HEIRS of God’s wealth. As Christ’s brethren we are also JOINT HEIRS with Christ. That is, we share in the same inheritance as our elder brother, the Man Jesus Christ. At the Resurrection Jesus received from the Father both for Himself and for us all the blessings (inheritance) of the New Covenant paid for by His Blood. Through our union with Christ (in Him) all that He received is also ours. Now our inheritance includes all that was accomplished in us in the rebirth and resurrection of our spirit, when eternal life (God’s life and nature) was imparted to our spirit.
This means Christ must have also received (inherited) the Rebirth and Resurrection of His human spirit along with us, for He (in His human nature) is a Joint Heir of eternal life with us. So in His resurrection He was given every spiritual blessing, including the rebirth of His spirit. Whatever He received from Father God in His Resurrection Rebirth, we receive it with Him as Joint-Heirs with Him. This means that as His Joint-Heirs, we received the same Rebirth and spiritual Resurrection as Christ. Thus we were made alive with Him and raised with Him far above all principality and powers. He is the Firstborn among many brethren, our elder brother, the Pioneer of our Salvation. We are joint heirs with Him of eternal life, sharing everything with Him including a common origin (birth) with Him in His Resurrection. On the day of His resurrection, Jesus declared that this was now an accomplished reality. Through the resurrection, God has literally become our Father and Jesus, our elder brother, the Firstborn Son:
John 20:17: “Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethrenand say to them: ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.” All believers are sons of God together with Jesus, the Firstborn, through His resurrection from the dead.
Now you might be asking how can Jesus be the ONLY begotten Son of God and be the FIRSTBORN of many? This seems to be a contradiction. If we don’t understand this we can get into serious error. It is not true to say that He used to be the Only Begotten Son but now He is the Firstborn of many, for in 1John 4:9 which was written well after the resurrection He is still described as the Only Begotten Son: “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.” So what is the answer?
Jesus is the unique God-man. He is both fully God and fully man.
He is the eternal Son of God who took upon Himself a human nature.
In His Deity, Jesus was and is the only begotten Son of God:
John 1:14: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.
John 1:18: No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish
but have everlasting life.” God gave us His only begotten Son by sending Him into the world. If God gave us His only begotten Son,
He must have already been the only begotten Son of God in eternity before He was sent into the world and born as a man. Moreover, it is essential for us to believe in Him as the Only Begotten Son of God:
John 3:18: “He who believes in Him is not condemned;
but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he
has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
So in His Deity Jesus was, is and always will be the only begotten Son of God. Then through the Virgin Birth He received a human nature and so God also then became the Father of His humanity through the power of the Spirit, so He was the son of God in that respect also. Then on the Cross His humanity took upon Himself the full sin, curse and death of the human race, but on the 3rd day His human nature was regenerated spiritually and resurrected physically. On that day, in His humanity, He was begotten again from the dead, the Firstborn Son of many brethren who were born with Him. All those who are in Christ become New Creation sons of God with Him by the power of His resurrection. Therefore in His humanity through His resurrection, Jesus became the Firstborn Son of many brethren.
In His Deity He is the only begotten eternal Son of God. But in His Human Nature He became the Firstborn Son of many at His resurrection. So when God is called: “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” this refers to His human sonship as well as His eternal Sonship. Let’s read 1Peter 1:3 again with this in mind:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (who begat the Man Jesus Christ from the dead) Who according to His abundant mercy has (also) begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
What does this mean to us? Our spirits have been reborn in the image of Christ through His resurrection, so that we are now sons of God pre-destined to become like the Firstborn Son, Jesus, the Head of the New Creation, the New Breed of man. If we know these truths about who we are in Christ, we will start to walk and talk as New Creations risen with Christ, sons of God with purpose and destiny, and our life will rise up to that level.