Programme 8: Regenerated by Resurrection - Part 1

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 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 All the old things that were true about us because of our position in Adam, have been replaced by new truths now that we are in Christ.
  
 2Corinthians 5:17,18: “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 are of God, 
who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ.” 
 
 It is essential that we know who we are in Christ and what we have in our inheritance, for although all these things are ours, if we don’t know about them it is impossible for us to enjoy them.
 
 *One day the famous preacher Charles Spurgeon was called to the deathbed of a retired servant in her rundown cottage who had faithfully served the lady of the manor for many years. He was shocked by the poverty he saw, but was interested to see a legal document hanging on the wall. He asked about it and she said that the lady of the house had left it to her when she died. She could not read and so she put it on the wall as a memento. Meanwhile she lived in poverty. Spurgeon took it away to look into it and found that it was the deeds to the whole estate! The servant was rich but did not know it. Her ignorance meant she continued to live in lack when she could have had whatever she wanted! That can be like us. Jesus has left us so much in His Last Will and Testament and yet if we fail to read and study it, we will not know what is ours and so we will not enter into the enjoyment of it. That’s why He said in John 8:31,32: 
If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth and the truth (you know) shall make you free
 
 *This reminds me of another story about a man who saved up and bought a ticket for an Ocean Liner to cross to the USA. All his money went on the ticket that would get him to his final destination, so he had nothing left for sleeping accommodation or food. So after a few days of sleeping rough he was in a sorry state, starving and begging for scraps. Eventually he came to the attention of the captain who asked to see his ticket. He said: “don’t you realise that all your meals and accommodation are paid for as part of the price of the ticket!” Once he knew what he had he could start to enjoy it! 
 
 On the Cross, Jesus announced: ‘It is finished’ which meant: ‘PAID IN FULL’, ‘the price is paid in full.’ With His blood Jesus did not just pay for us to reach our final destination (heaven) but also for everything we will need on the journey of this life. Christianity is not just pie in the sky when you die but steak on the plate while you wait! But if we don’t know about it we will live in poverty and lack.Jesus has come to give us both eternal and abundant life, but until we know about it through His Word we will not experience or enjoy it. 

So it is vital that we know what happened when we were born-again!
 
In John 8:12 Jesus described the New-Birth: 
“I am the Light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have (possess in himself) the light of life.”
 The world is in spiritual darkness, but when we receive Jesus who is the Light, His light comes into our spirit and changes it from darkness to light, so that we have the light of God’s life in us!
 
 In v24 He gives the key to the New Birth: “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I AM He (Literally: I AM), you will die in your sins.” 
 
 You cannot be born-again until you believe that Jesus is the I AM, the Son of God, the God-man! In v25 He confirms this: 
“Then they said to Him, “Who are You?” And Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning.” Literally: “Just what I have been saying to you: 
The Beginning (the Alpha - that is God Himself in the flesh).” That’s the problem with the cults that deny that Jesus is God, they prevent people from realising that Jesus is God and so as a result they will die in their sins according to Jesus’ own teaching here.
 
 In v28,29 Jesus predicts that as a result of His death on the Cross many will realise who He really is, and that His death was part of God’s plan to save us: “Then Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM He (literally: I AM), and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things. And He who sent Me is with Me: the Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things which please Him.”
 
 v30 As He spoke these words, many believed in Him. 
 v31,32 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, 
“If you abide in My Word, you are My disciples indeed. And 
you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
 God’s first priority for you is that you believe in Jesus Christ, that He is the I AM, the Son of God, so that you are saved from your sins and are born again. Once you are a born-again believer His next priority is that you discover and know the truth of who you are now through abiding in God’s Word, for you will only find the truth in His Word.
 
 In v33-36 Jesus told them some of the truths that they needed to know about what happens to a man when he is born again. He is changed from being a slave of sin without eternal life, to a son of God with eternal life, abiding in God’s House forever, whose spirit has been set free from sin: “They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, 
whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not 
abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. 
Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” 

Here Jesus promises that in the New Birth He will personally set our spirit completely and forever free from sin and make us sons of God with eternal life in God’s Kingdom. However its only as we abide in His Word that we will know this truth and experience this freedom and new-life. So let us investigate further what happened in us through our New Birth. 
 
 One of the key things we need to know about our New Birth is that it is literally a RESURRECTION. Our old spirit was dead in sins and so it needed to be made alive by a spiritual resurrection: “When we were dead in trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ (by grace (His power released into our spirit) you have been saved) and has raised us up together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5,6). 
 
 The New Birth is just as much a resurrection, as our future physical resurrection will be. This means our spirit was so completely dead in sin that only a miraculous act of God’s resurrection power could save it by raising it up from death.
 
 We see this in John 5 Jesus claims to be the Son of God who will do the works of God - performing works that only God can do. These works include our future physical RESURRECTION as well as the spiritual RESURRECTION that happens when we are Born-Again. 
John 5:21 is a statement where He claims to be the One who will raise us from the dead: “For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.” This applies to our resurrection from both spiritual and physical death (In later verses He will enlarge on both resurrections). 
 
 In v24,25, He describes the work of the New Birth as a spiritual resurrection: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has (possesses in himself) eternal life, and shall not come into judgement, but has passed from death into life. (When we believe the Gospel we receive forgiveness of sins and eternal life is imparted to our spirit in the New Birth). Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the(spiritually) dead will hear the voice of the Son of God (revealing Himself to them through the Gospel); and those who hear will live (come alive spiritually).” Those who hear and believe in Jesus as the Son of God will live. Although they are described as being physically alive to hear the Gospel, they are also described as being spiritually dead. But through hearing the word they are resurrected from death to life. This is not the future resurrection of the body for Jesus says: “the hour is coming, and now is” - in other words this resurrection is happening already. 
 
 Then He goes on to describe our future physical resurrection in v28,29: “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming(future) in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.” 
 
 Notice that Christ describes 2 resurrections in parallel. 
(1) The present resurrection of our spirit from death to life, and 
(2) The future resurrection of our body. 
The New Birth is the RESURRECTION of our dead spirit to life. 
 
 We see the same two Resurrections in John 11:25,26, after He had raised up Lazarus as a demonstration of His power to raise all men from the power of both spiritual and physical death: 
 
 v25: “Jesus said to her, “I am the Resurrection and the Life. 
 Our physical resurrection after death: He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. 
 
 v26 Our spiritual resurrection before death when we believe in Christ: “And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die (spiritually).” Obviously He is not talking physically. This refers to our New-Birth when we receive eternal life into our spirit, so that our spirit comes alive and will never die. When we die physically we will just go into God’s Presence.
 
 The origin of this spiritual resurrection bringing us forth as a 
New Creation is nothing else but the RESURRECTION of Christ: 
1Peter 1:3,4: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has(also) begotten (BIRTHED) us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.”
 
 This implies that the resurrection life and power of Christ has been applied to us. That is, we share in Christ’s resurrection. The same power that raised Christ from the dead has been applied to our spirits raising them from death to life! You see, Jesus, in His humanity suffered the fullness of death (spirit, soul and body), and so His whole humanity (spirit, soul and body) was resurrected (not just His body). When we were put into Christ we were identified with Him and the resurrection power that raised His spirit from death to life also raised our spirit from death to life. We were made alive together with Him and raised with Him in our spirit far above all sin, curse, death, principality and power! One day that resurrection power will also be applied to our bodies also and we will then be just like Him! 
 
 Romans 6:4,5: “We were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 
For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be (in the likeness of) His resurrection. 
 
 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.”
 Colossians 3:1 says: “you were raised with Christ.”
 
 Ephesians 2:5-6: “when we were dead in trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together with Christ.” This describes something actually being done in us, a change being effected in our life/being (subjective in us, not just objective in the mind of God). The tense of these verbs indicate a completed work accomplished for all believers (we) - we have already been made alive, saved, raised up. Therefore it must have happened at the moment of the New Birth. This is the rebirth of our spirit (John 3:5). Therefore these things have all been done in our spirit when we received Christ. Our spirits were made alive and raised with Him, our spirits have been saved!
 
 Clearly these verses describe a resurrection that has already happened in believers, and so it is not talking about the resurrection of the body.Therefore they describe the resurrection of our spirit in the New-Birth Moreover, if our spirits were raised WITH Christ from death to life, then Christ’s human spirit was also raised from (spiritual) death.
 
 Ephesians 1:19-21 tells us that: “the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe” IS “according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named.” 
 
The same power that raised up Christ from death is also at work in us. It has been applied to our spirit, raising it up from death to life. The very same resurrection power that made Christ’s spirit come alive and raised it far above all enemies, has also made our spirit come alive to God and raised it above all the power of the enemy! This means our spirits originate from the resurrection of Christ and therefore they have the same nature as Christ’s resurrected spirit. They have been made alive with the resurrection life of Christ. They have been raised up with Christ far above all sin, satan and death!Therefore through the New-Birth our old spirit man has died with Christ and has been replaced by a new spirit man that is risen with Christ. Since it possesses the resurrected life and nature of Christ Who has conquered sin, satan and death once and for all, it has already risen above and overcome sin, satan and death. Therefore sin, satan and death have no more dominion over our inner-man:
 
 Romans 6:8-11: “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him (we share in His resurrection as well as in His death), knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead dies no more (likewise our spirit will never die - it has eternal life). Death no longer has dominion over Him. (Likewise death has no dominion over our spirit). For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Our spirit resurrected with Christ is recreated in the image of His resurrected spirit and therefore it is risen above and truly dead to sin and alive to God!