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Some Results of the Birthing continued.
Part 3 THE BIRTHING continued
Born-again Defined Written
By Warren Litzman
Charismatics would rather chase the Devil than preach a gospel that says he will not touch whoever is birthed by God without God’s permission. A remarkable thing happened to me years ago. In my Baptist background, we were never taught much about the Devil. When I began to preach in Pentecostal churches and with Charismatics in the faith movement, all I heard was the Devil. I became Devil-conscious. Later I decided that if I were the Devil, I would want people to be conscious of me. If I were the Devil I would want everyone casting out devils and calling everything from a stumped toe to a burned down house the work of the Devil. By distracting them with Devil-consciousness, there would be fewer opportunities for them to know that whoever is birthed of God cannot be touched by the Devil without God’s permission. That is big, isn’t it?
The verse also says, “Whoever is birthed of God keepeth himself.” We need to ask ourselves how that works. A believer cannot save himself, and he cannot stay saved on his own efforts. How then does he keep himself? I think the answer is by doing what he knows he ought to do to be true to the Christ within him. This is the best thing James ever said. “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). Sin, then, is a violation of your knowledge. Think about a diabetic person. If a diabetic takes his pill or his inoculation on schedule, he lives. He is keeping himself by doing what he ought to do. Most of us do not do what we are supposed to do most of the time. You cannot have a love affair with Jesus until you know He has been birthed in you.
The Holy Spirit and the Liberating Secret. In the last series of messages Jesus gave in John 14,15 and 16, He laid out something very important concerning the Holy Spirit. These three chapters introduce the Holy Spirit, who was yet to come. In (John 14:20) Jesus specifically said, “At that day (the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit comes) ye shall know that I am in the Father and ye in me, and I in you.” That is a very important statement Jesus made. If we do not understand what Jesus said, we will not understand the liberating secret. Jesus said only when the Holy Spirit comes would you know what God had done and who you are. You would know that “I am in you and you are in me.” It is obvious to me from reading the Scriptures that the Holy Spirit came and multitudes did not understand what Jesus had said at all! They did not have any knowledge about the birthing. They did not have any understanding about how Christ was in the believer and the believer was in Christ. Nothing is written about this truth in the book of Acts. The whole of what the Holy Spirit came to do, as far as Jesus was concerned, was missed. It is the same in the Christian world today with multitudes of believers misusing the Holy Spirit. They think He is power and the blessing, and they make Him the gifted one. They teach that He is the one that empowers man to be something in and of himself, but Jesus never spoke of that being the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said when the Holy Spirit came; He would not do anything of Himself. He would not speak of Himself but would take the things of Jesus and reveal them to the believer (John 15:26); 16:13-14) it was a mystery that needed to be revealed. That mystery was Christ in man (Col. 1:26-27). The Holy Spirit would perform and reveal that ministry.
Jesus did not answer Nicodemus because it was the Holy Spirit’s work to reveal the Son. The Holy Spirit reveals Christ in and to the believer! This was missed in the book of Acts. As blessed as the book of Acts is, we have no record of Christ as the life of the believer until some years later when Paul received a revelation of Christ as his life (Galatians 1:15-16). The mystery is very important! Paul said only the Holy Spirit could reveal the mystery. Paul speaks of several mysteries, but the mystery of godliness is Christ in you, your only hope of glory (Col. 1:26-27). You come to know that only by the Holy Spirit.
The New Creation in Christ Jesus. He who is saved is “created in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2.10)”In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature”(Gal. 6:15). This creation takes the place of the old creation in the first Adam. “If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Cor. 5:17). This new creation is “the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. (Eph. 4:24)
The new man is the born-again man, the one born of the Spirit, as distinguished from the old man, or carnal man, the one born of the flesh. The old man has a corrupt sin-nature, with inborn tendencies of evil. The new man is partaker of the divine nature and life. In no sense is the old man made over, or improved
(Eph 4:24; Rom.6: 6).
God created Adam in His own likeness (Gen.5: 1-2) Afterward, “Adam …begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image (genetically) and called his name Seth” (Gen. 5:3). This is the beginning of the generations of the human race. But something happened in the interval between the second and third verses of Genesis 5.
Adam, through sin, had lost his likeness of God. When Seth was begotten in Adam’s “own likeness, after his own image,” It was not in the original likeness to God, but it was in the likeness of sinful Adam. Scripture
said of Adam “and he died,” So it was also said of Seth “and he died.” The observant reader will find the following formula throughout the chapter. “And all the days of . . . are . . . years: and he died.” However in the case of Enoch, it is not said, “and he died.” Enoch who was “translated that he should not see death” (Hebrews 11:5) is a type of those saints who are to be translated when Christ comes for His Church.
Ever since, that same formula has applied to man. Every descendant of Adam, from Cain and Seth down to the present day has been born in the likeness and after the image of Adam, with a sinful nature and subject to death. There is absolutely no exception from this condition. Therefore, “As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned.” (Rom, 5:12). Thus, by the offence of one judgment came upon all men” (Rom. 5:18). These words are written large over the first creation, of which Adam is the federal head: Sin Hath Reigned unto Death. That condition is unalterable, for God had commanded Adam not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and had made death the penalty for disobedience. That means death in its fullest significance: physical death, spiritual separation from God and the second death, which is the final everlasting separation of the body, soul and spirit from God. God’s commandment had been broken, and the penalty could not be avoided.
When the Son of God became flesh and came into the world, He dwelt among men of the old creation, but He was not of it. He was not the seed of Adam; He was of the seed of His heavenly Father. Therefore He did not possess Adam’s sinful nature. He was full of truth (John 1:14). He was in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom.8: 3), but no sin was in Him.
Through love, Christ identified Himself with the first creation and took upon Himself its guilt. He was the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. As a result, He tasted death for every man (Heb. 2:9)
But God raised Him up, “having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that He should be holden of it” (Acts 2:24). He rose victorious over death. The Son of God? Yes, but also the Son of Man. With His resurrection, there was a new creation raised by God out of the death of the old. All who are saved are quickened by Christ in this resurrection.
“But God . . . even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” (Eph. 2:4-6).
As the first creation has one man, Adam, as its federal head, so also does the new creation: Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:15). The first creation received its sinful nature from its federal head. The new creation receives its righteous nature from its federal head. “By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (Rom, 5:19)
In each case the nature of the creation depends upon the act of the head. It does not depend upon the acts of those who issue from the head.
As the unalterable law of the first creation is sin unto death, so the unalterable law of the new creation is grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life.
“For if by one man’s offence, death reigned by one: much more they which have received abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:17).
Since the head of the new creation cannot be condemned (Rom.6: 9-10), the members cannot be condemned. To be saved is to be re-birthed into the new creation under the law of righteousness unto eternal life. If one who has been re-birthed can be un-birthed, it must be possible to bring him back into his original position in the old creation. That is impossible! To say this could happen contradicts Jesus’ own words: “e that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me . . . shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). Furthermore for everyone who is in the new creation, the old has passed away (2 Cor.5: 17). There can be no return to it. To say a saved person, one who has been quickened (re-birthed) together with Christ, can be lost is to reject completely God’s teachings concerning His new creation.
For the most part, in Christianity today, we have a religious idea that a new creation means we are an old person made better. Because Christians do not understand the birthing, they keep this idea, which they are getting better; however, it was never God’s intention that we be better. It was never God’s intention that we be good on our own. We have missed the point, and that is why we fail as Christians. That is why we are not steady; that is why we don’t quit our sinning. Our thinking and actions do not change because there is no concept change. A Christian is not a changed person, he has a totally exchanged life! That is what “new creation” means.
Next: Part 4 – The only life there is, is in the Son. Scripture Quotations are from the King James Version of the Holy Bible
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