Sons of God.

This is the recurring description used for the believer that must be meditated on regularly for light to break forth.

1John 3:1 – Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.

John says we are called sons of God but our father who loves us greatly.

We are now sons of God.

Being a son of God in Christ is a present hour reality and not a futuristic expectation.

1John 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as He is.

Now in our spirits we look like who we really are but in our bodies it doesn’t yet appear like we are who we really are.

So we draw our identity and perception about our true nature from Jesus. We are of the same essence and nature as Jesus.

As he is so are we.

1John 4:17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world. What is the context of this statement? Well, if we read the pretext we find that John was talking of two things in connection to Christ.

One was that he is love and that the man who walks in love walks in God

Vs 16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him.

The second is that this man who walks in love is indwelt by God. He is not indwelt because he loves but his love walk is prove that he is indwelt .

So as Christ is the domicile of the God head in that the God head swells in him fully and bodily so also do God dwell in the man who is born of love and swells in love.

Col 2:9 For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

The man in Christ is born of God.

There are two expressions primarily in scriptures that describes the agency of this birth.

We have a birthing by the spirit.

And a birthing by the word.

They are one and the same.

Let’s examine the first one.

The birthing by the spirit.

John 3:5-6 – Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, He cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

So the womb that gave birth to this man is the Holy Ghost. The spirit of God. The father of the man in Christ or the born again is the Father of all spirits but this man was birthed by the Holy Ghost. Only this man lives in the Holy Ghost.

You live in the realm of him who gave birth to YOU.

We find another scripture to explain this.

Titus 3:4-5 But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared,

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;

So man was saved by the washing of Regeneration.

The word “washing “is taking from the Greek “lutro “which means baptism or immersion.

While the word Regeneration is taken from the word “palligenesia “ which is broken down into “ Pali” and “Genesia” it basically means “another beginning “ or a “re-birth” or “birthing something brand new “.

So salvation is a baptism that produces a new birth. This baptism is occasioned by the spirit because Paul goes on to call it a “renewing” in the Holy Ghost.

Both the expression “baptism of regeneration and renewing of the Holy ghost in the Greek rendering actually speak to the same thing. By that I mean that one expression actually implies the other.

There are three aspects to the Greek language in which the New Testament was written. You have the koine Greek (older firm), Classical Greek and then Modern Greek.

In studying the older manuscripts, it was discovered from a grammatical angle that when two words that where nouns appeared together in a sentence and where joined by the conjunction “Kai” which is translated as “And “ or “therefore “ or “that is “ in English with the definite article “de” which is “the” in the English then both nouns refers to one and the same thing .

This rule in Greek translation or interpretation is called the Grandville sharps rule of Greek grammar.

It is the same rule to be applied to John 3:5

Let’s examine it

John 3:5 – Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, He cannot enter into the kingdom of God

So some have erroneously thought that Jesus was advocating that men have to be baptized by water before they could be born of the spirit.

But by applying the rule I have just explained you find that the “born of water = born of the spirit “. The born of water was a metaphor used to draw a parallel between the natural birth and the spiritual birth. The born of water here is not to be born of the word but a metaphor describing the washing and cleansing action of the new birth like the natural birth gives rise to a new born baby .

Now let us look at the expression “born of the word “

We find peter using this in his first epistle.

1Pet 1:23: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides for ever.

The word seed here is the Greek “sperma”

This is the seed of man or any being that contains the life giving force.

The sperma or sperm of men contain the genetic material of man and has all the genetic coding and information.

The seed of God contains all of the genetic material and coding of God.

Inside the seed of God is the life of God.

The life of God is the Spirit of God.

Rom 8:1 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

The spirit of life in Christ is the spirit of God.

The man born of the word is the man born of the spirit.

This man is a son of God.

Why?

Because God has given birth to him by his word even by his spirit!

Glory to God!