Will you come with me into the Word of God while we gather together several fragments therefrom?
The chapter which has just been read, the Gospel by Luke, Chapter 1, and verse 35:
The power of the Most High shall overshadow thee:
wherefore also that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God.
To the Gospel by John, Chapter 1, and verse 12:
But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name:
which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Chapter 3, verse 6:
That which is born of the flesh is flesh;
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Chapter 16, verse 33:
These things have I spoken unto you, that in Me ye may have peace.
In the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
To the first letter of John, Chapter 3:
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are.
For this cause the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not.
Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be.
We know that, if He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him even as He is.
Chapter 5:
For whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world.
The fragment from that statement is to occupy us for this time this evening: that which is born of God.
Now I want, at once, with all necessary emphasis, to make it perfectly clear that, in bringing these Scriptures together—those about the Lord Jesus and those about believers—I am not failing to discriminate, to recognize and acknowledge a great difference. We always have to safeguard this matter of the Person of the Lord Jesus, and I am not falling into any trap in that manner this evening.
He was very God, very God manifest in the flesh—Emmanuel, God with us. In that, He stands alone: unique, not another like Him.
His birth was different, even from the new birth of every child of God. It was different in kind; it was different in degree.
But, having said that, there are factors in His birth—factors in His own birth—which constitute the nature of the new birth of every believer. Deity apart, Godhead left with Him, nevertheless there is something in these passages about the believer’s new birth which corresponds to His birth.
It is to some of those features and factors that we are going to give attention this evening. You will not confuse the two, I trust, at any point on that matter—the matter of His uniqueness. But at the same time, I do trust that you will be able to recognize, on the other side, what John said: “That which is true in Him is true in us,” in its own realm and after its own kind.
In this matter of the birth and new life of the children of God, we shall be able to understand if we recognize some of these features in the birth of the Lord Jesus. For His birth does, as I have said, hold all the factors which go to make up a true child of God.
The first thing which is quite certain is that the birth of the Lord Jesus was a divine intervention in human life. And that is true of the new birth of every believer. It is nothing other, and nothing less, than a divine intervention in human life.
Do not stay with all the minute details of Christ’s birth, but it is perfectly clear in this way: from heaven there came a heavenly visitation. Heaven opened, and one came out making the announcement. From the same heaven, the Holy Spirit came into human life, intervened, and did something.
That something we shall see, I trust, in a minute. The point is that here is a breaking in of heaven—a breaking in of heaven into human life.
Now, for most of you who are here this evening, there is no difficulty about that, and you wonder why it should be stressed and given such emphasis. Probably you do understand it. But that is not what is very largely conceived and talked about as the new birth.
Even with the best of intentions, new birth is so often placed to man’s side—what man does. Man has got to do something: either raise his hand, or make some statement, or sign some document, or make a decision, make a profession, accept certain things that are being stated, and many more things like that.
Perhaps such things are meant to pave the way, or open the way, for God. But, if we allow that, so often people are left with this idea that it is something they have done. They have accepted Christ; they have accepted Christianity; they have made a gesture; they have done something. They have become Christians by what they have done on their own.
Now, being fully generous—not critical at all—it is very important, dear friends, to recognize that it is not so. The new birth never, never necessarily takes place by anything that we do.
It never really is consummated by some act of our own will, or of our own desire, or of our own making.
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
The man being the evangelist, perhaps, or any other man who would seek to bring it about—but not of man, but of God.
If God does not intervene in human life and in human history, break right in, as it were, from heaven—if the Holy Spirit does not overshadow and Himself produce that new life—that is not new birth. It is something like it.
You are wondering, perhaps, why this tonight. Well, I will tell you why. With a growing—growing—concern; concern is a weak word.
As one moves about the world, touching Christians and Christianity, the one thing that is borne upon one’s heart overwhelmingly, almost to the point of despair sometimes, is the need that those who bear the name of Christians should know the real nature of what it means to be a child of God.
There seem to be so many of them who have taken on something from the outside by their own volition, choice, and act; and they have not the faintest idea of what it means to be born from heaven, really.
In all the needed work of recovery in every department of divine purpose at this time, this is one of the needs: recovery of the real meaning of what it is to be born from above, to be a child of God.
I have sometimes wondered—and maybe I am wrong—that I have sometimes wondered if the enemy is not very pleased with making multitudes and multitudes and countless multitudes of people into a false Christian position, because he knows the day is coming when the wind will carry them away.
And for a Christian to fall away is a greater reproach to the Lord, a greater reproach perhaps than anything. Oh, how we do need our roots down. How we need to be grounded in the truth—the truth of our very nature as children of God.
That is why we come to this this evening. The day is coming when our standing as Christians will be deeply and terribly tested: a great shaking.
The prophet Ezekiel is very up to date, I believe. I think, rather, these words will have a very much larger fulfillment in a not very distant future than they had when Ezekiel uttered them:
I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is.
There is going to be a great overturning of what is not true, what is false. This judgment must begin at the house of God. So forgive me, if I must be forgiven, for this emphasis this evening.
We begin here: as with Christ, so it must be with every child of God. They must, at the very beginning of their Christian life, be the result of a divine intervention in human history—in their human life.
That is the great basic fact. Thank God, there are many others here tonight who understand that. I know what that means: God intervened in my life. God broke into my life. God came out, even as it were from heaven, into my life.
Well, it is not so difficult for many to understand, but we must know it. We have had the experience; we know the truth. But it is sometimes helpful to have it defined. This is it: God broke out of heaven when you and I were saved. Nothing less than that happened.
God Himself came out of heaven into our human life and interrupted its course of history, broke in upon its world. Things can never be the same after that.
Which leads to the next thing that is perfectly clear in the case of the Lord Jesus. An angel and the Holy Spirit indicated this intervention from heaven. No less than that, in principle and fact, is true with each child of God.
But the next thing that is perfectly clear in the case of the Lord Jesus is that this was something different. There is not only something new that had not happened before, but this was something different.
We dare not dwell too much upon the details of the account which we have read, but what it all amounts to is this: that this birth is different from all other births.
The angel made that fact very clear, and Mary knew that. It was no mere matter of perplexity or bewilderment. “How? How shall this be?” Here is the question of the ages: How? This contains a profound mystery which constitutes a deep and mighty difference.
This is not the common thing. This is not the usual thing. This you cannot find anywhere else. It is different. And that which grows up from this intervention contains in its constitution this fundamental difference.
Oh, that all who bear the name of Christians, who claim to be children of God, were fully alive to this. I think this is where the weakness lies with so many. It will not hurt us here tonight, who know it so well, to be reminded of it again.
So, you see, dear friends, we need to keep with us in our consciousness continually that by new birth we are fundamentally and constitutionally different from all other births and beings. You know it, hence in some measure of experience; but there it is.
The birth of the Lord Jesus was a different kind of birth—so patently so. Not in the usual natural way. Nature had nothing to do with it. Man’s will, choice, and decision had nothing to do with this.
It is different. It comes about in a different way. It is of a different kind and a different order of being. “Wherefore also that which is to be born shall be called holy.”
Do you find that in nature anywhere? That which is in its very essence holy? Holy—that is the contrast with every other creature and every other birth. The Psalmist cries:
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity;
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
That is true of us all. But that which is born of God shall be holy. It is different in constitution, in nature.
Now, when I say that that principle holds good in every new birth, it needs this explanation. We know quite well that these bodies are not born again; therefore, they are not holy. We know that it is not our souls that are born again.
If our souls are our minds, our reasoning powers, our emotions, and our power of choice, well, that is not different. That is the trouble throughout our whole Christian life: we still have so much of that which is not holy with us in mind and heart and will. There are our conflicts, our battles, our sorrow.
Something somewhere, nevertheless, has happened—has come in—that is not of that kingdom at all. It is of another heavenly kingdom, and that which is born of God is holy.
Do you know that? Do you know that? Well, probably most times you do. If it has not been explained to you, you know it in experience. You know that there is that in you which already protests against sin and unholiness.
You know that one of the great blessings of your life is an inward power of reaction when things are not right, not good. As we go on, truly we do know; we become more and more sensitive to the evil, to the sin of this world.
Peril may be sometimes to accept it. You have to take it because it is there.
I remember some years ago—I was travelling; it is quite a few years ago, as you will realize—I was travelling up north with Mrs. Penn-Lewis. We were in the dining car, and a dear girl came into the dining car and sat down at the next table, took out a cigarette, and lighted it.
Now, of course, it is accepted now. For Mrs. Penn-Lewis, it was new then. A look of consternation came into her face. Her eyes almost came out of her head. She looked at me, and I had the utmost difficulty in holding her from going to that dear girl and begging her to put out her cigarette and give up smoking.
You perhaps think I was wrong in restraining her. I perhaps was a little more a man of the world; I knew this common thing. But for her, it was the deepest shock.
Oh, within a while like that, perhaps much of the shock has gone. But nevertheless, it is true of every child of God that there is the feeling about it—a horror, a dislike for it, something, a tremendous inward revolt and reaction to sin, to evil, to unholiness.
What a safeguard that is. What a gift of God that is, to have that. Oh, God forbid that ever we should lose our sensitiveness in that realm—the capacity to sense and to be moved by the sinfulness of sin.
It is different, you see, with the child of God. There is a difference inside. His birth was different; our birth is different. And by that new birth we have become a different kind—a different kind of creature.
This is the main feature in that difference. Whereas once this world—its behavior, its conduct, its way, its talk—was our world, we had no shock except at something very, very extreme, perhaps; some better sensibility in us, but nevertheless that was our world.
Whereas, if it is so today, we find it difficult—at least difficult. Something has happened. There is a difference. That which is born of God is holy.
Beware, young people, that you do not blunt the edge of your new birth by accommodating yourself to this world’s forms and ways, customs and acceptances, and taking it all as inevitable.
Ask the Holy Spirit to keep you very sensitive to Him, very sensitive to evil. Keep alive this which is your birthright, a part of your very birth: a difference.
Well, I could, of course, speak much about this, but I should only be telling you what you know. If you are a true child of God, you know something about the difference as you go out into the world—not only in the matter of sin, but in all kinds of ways. Something happens to you.
If it has not, it is time for you to begin to look into this matter of whether you are a child of God.
If this difference has not, at some point, become quite clear to you—you know it not because you are told, not because of teaching, not because your parents are Christians and do not like you doing certain things, and you have a sort of conscience which is your parents’, really, not your own.
Not because of any of these things, but in your own heart, in your own self, you have got this consciousness of being different—different, fundamentally different, from those who are not the Lord’s.
If that is not true, there is a crisis needed in your life. And if that is not progressively true—progressively true, because it is not just one thing at a certain point more or less clearly defined as a crisis, although some have a violent breaking in as in the case of Paul—nevertheless, there has to arise at some point this sense: “I am a child of God. I am different. Something happened. A great difference has been made deep down somewhere.”
I am not the same as those who are not the children of God. But not only so, dear friends: that is the very nature of spiritual growth, that more and more that difference becomes accentuated.
It is a thing that is making this world more and more a foreign land to us—not our home, not our place. Or, shall I put it the other way, making our native land more and more so to us, making heaven truly to be our home.
Now, where heaven is, I cannot tell you. But I do know this: somehow or other, whatever heaven means—a word or a designation—I belong somewhere else. I belong—if heaven is the place, that is where I belong. And more and more I am discovering that I belong there, and I do not belong here.
It will be, it must be, like this. I speak to young Christians particularly, but this is the very nature of your new birth. More and more it must be like that. And do not be afraid of it. Do not rebel against it. Accept it.
It is a proof of something—the greatest thing God is doing in human history: breaking in to make this tremendous difference.
Now, it is on that ground that the greatest issue is going to be settled. We get our mental pictures of the judgments. Well, we will not argue as to the material side of that. But I know this: this judgment has already begun; it is going on.
The finality of it will be that there are those who belong there, and there are those who belong here, and there is no mistaking it. There is no mistaking to which realm these people belong. It is full now; it is complete now. The great divide has been made.
The Lord is seeking to bring that about now. What a tragedy that many Christians, and many young Christians, are trying to bridge that gap, to hold those two things together, and not allow the gap to widen. They are on the side that is moving further and further away from the judged world.
A difference. We leave that there.
The next thing that comes out in this matter of Christ’s birth and the birth of believers, children of God, is that by this birth there comes into us an inherent potency, an inherent power.
Now, the Lord Jesus said:
Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
And John says:
That which is born of God overcometh the world.
That which is born of God overcometh the world. In Christ, in the born-anew child of God, there is an inherent power and virtue which is going to overcome—overcome the world. It is there in the very nature of this, in the very constitution of the new life. It is going to overcome.
There may be failure. There may be frequent failure. There may be falling in the battle, maybe some casualties, maybe some dark patches, and maybe even some going away.
That is the most remarkable thing, and our most heart-ravishing thing: to see how this persists. I sometimes have to smile.
People tell me they are going to give it all up: “I cannot go on any longer.” And I say, “Take it when you do not sleep for a little while; get back again.” And that happens a hundred times—one hundred wonders.
Oh, how many people have said to me, quite recently, “I am giving it all up. I am finished. I am going.” And as far as they themselves are concerned, they may be. But they cannot do it. They are just like moths around the lamp; they cannot keep away. Back they come. Back they come.
And, yes, fallen and ashamed. You know, if it were natural, they would not do it. I would not do it, for very face-saving. I would not go back and show my face there again after that. Not at all. But there is something else—something stronger than our shame, stronger than our self-reproach, stronger than our self-despair, stronger than our constant delinquency—something persistent. It brings us up and brings us back.
That is the history of most children of God:
That which is born of God overcometh the world.
True of Jesus—how did He overcome? Not by physical force, not by resolves of will, not by power of brain, mind, and argument. He never did conquer the world and its prince in those ways.
By sheer force of divine character, by the kind of Man He was, by the divine nature in Him, He overcame. So with every child of God—so much less in degree than in His case, perhaps; so much slower in expression and manifestation—nevertheless, it is there.
Every true child of God knows it, knows quite well that, had it not been for that inward grip of something or Someone not themselves, they would not be where they are tonight, still seeking the things of God.
No, it is inherent in that which is born of God to overcome—to overcome.
And then the next thing, of course, comes perfectly clear: the inevitable antagonism.
Not very long after the birth of the Lord Jesus, the clash broke out. The kingdom of Satan knew Who He was and what He was, and the kingdom had a powerful instrument and means at hand in Herod. The antagonism broke out.
We are not told what happened during those thirty years of childhood and boyhood. That is passed over. It would not be surprising if there were many narrow escapes even then. But we do know that, from the moment of His stepping out under the anointing at Jordan to take up this work of bringing other sons to glory, all hell was on His track.
The atmosphere, as we have said before, became charged with antagonism whenever He came into a place. We know something of that atmosphere that our Lord must have known—He, with His very sensitive spirit—the terrible hatred and animosity of evil powers toward Him, working through men.
Oh, the constant, almost monotonous repetition: “They sought to destroy Him. They sought to destroy Him. They thought how they might destroy Him.” That is the atmosphere in which He lived.
Why? Well, it might be put down to many reasons and many causes, but the fundamental cause was this: He belonged to heaven. And the destiny of the heavenly One and the heavenly ones is to possess this world and to govern it by the final abolishing of its prince and his whole kingdom.
And they know. They said, “I know Thee who Thou art, the Holy One of God.” And make no mistake: they know everyone who is holy in that sense.
There is an inevitable antagonism in the spiritual realm, so often not traceable to any physical, material, or temporal cause—just there in the air, just there. But how true it is in this world: the antagonism, the antagonism of the spiritual kind that the Christian has to meet without provoking it deliberately or knowingly.
Oh, really, by word, deed, somehow or other, that consciousness comes alive when you are born again. You are a speckled bird. You are a marked man or a marked woman. Is it not true? Like that, here is the antagonism.
And so John says about these that are born of God:
Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not.
There is a deeper meaning in that word “knoweth” than merely being aware of us, knowing who we are. It is being able to place us, being able to explain us, being able to trace us—what we are and where we came from.
The world knoweth us not. We are inscrutable to the world. There is that about us which is inscrutable. It is very true. And that constitutes an antagonism.
Let me appeal to young Christians again tonight: do not try to cut out that kind of antagonism. Be careful not to give unnecessary offense. Try to commend yourself to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. Do things honorably before all men. Give them no occasion for accusing you rightly as a Christian.
But when you have done all, do not think that you are not going to meet this antagonism. You are. If you are a child of God, you cannot avoid it. You just cannot avoid it. And do not try to eliminate it.
Recognize that this is a part of the very fact, and it is an evidence—a wonderful evidence—of the fact that you are in the company of Jesus Christ. The world knew Him not; therefore it knows us not. It knows us not because it knew Him not.
May I spend a minute or two with Mary herself? Because she is characteristic, in some ways, of the vessel in whom the new birth takes place. Here there is a correspondence between that of the Lord Jesus and every child of God.
We have, of course, to recognize the divine sovereignty of eternal election—chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. That I accept and leave for the moment. Come into time; come into the operation, the activity of God in time.
On what ground in time, in our own lives, will this thing come to us? Are there some grounds? Are there some occasions? Are there some things which will always determine where God comes in in this way? There are, always.
One of the beautiful things about Mary, as characteristic of a vessel for the new birth, was that which the angel said to her. Our translation is unfortunate again: “Thou art highly favored.” The margin helps us get nearer: “Thou art endued with grace.”
That is the beginning of new birth: endued with grace.
If there was one person in that little country in those days who was aware—and this comes out so clearly—the wonder of this, the condescension of this, and her own unworthiness of it, it was Mary: “How should this be to me?”
He never comes to the proud and self-sufficient, the self-important. He never comes to those who are unaware that His coming would be an expression of infinite grace. We have to be brought there so often before it can happen—brought to the place where the only word that suits the situation in our consciousness is grace.
It is God’s grace. It is all of grace.
Thou art endued with grace.
Simple, I know, but that is the beginning of everything for the Christian life. There is one great miracle of God between us and Him: grace. Be deeply impressed, as she was, on the one side with our own worthlessness in this matter.
This could never be to us if we, in ourselves and our interests, were to be taken as the governing matter. It is God, in infinite mercy, infinite grace. That is a humble and a contrite spirit, and God is with it.
Is that too simple? Well, it is like that, you see, because the new birth is at the beginning. This which is of God and heaven has got to grow and grow. More and more there has to be an increase of Him, and it is all on the same basis: the emptying of ourselves, pouring out all that is self, to make way for the grace of God.
Now, that is a statement of fact and necessity that is very, very helpful, is it not? You feel like that: “If there were anything to happen to me, it would have to be in the grace of God.” Well, that is just what God means it to be. That is why you have come there; He has brought you there.
Thou art endued with grace. To be a child of God is to be one highly favored, if you like that—endued with grace.
The next thing about Mary is her simplicity and submissiveness. There is something very beautiful about her simplicity, is there not?
You know, we are far too complicated about all these things. We have made Christian life far too complicated a thing. We are standing in our own way, as we do so, with projecting our own intelligences, our arguments, our contentions, and our demands for explanations, and what not.
Here is all that; the Lord cannot get on. That is all rubbish in the way. He finds a heart like Mary’s—and I am not setting Mary up to be worshipped—if He finds a heart, I mean, simple, simple in this.
There is nothing here argumentative, querulous, awkward. I mean like that. It is a simple heart, an open heart—perplexed, true, not understanding, wondering how it can be, saying so—nevertheless, because of simplicity, honesty, and purity of heart:
Be it unto me according to Thy word.
Absolute submission, complete acceptance, even to the mystery and all that it would involve.
Submission. How slow so many of us are in our submission, our surrender, our giving way, our letting go. We will argue; we will demand some explanation; so round and round this eternal circle, getting nowhere, because we will not let go. We just will not let go.
So we come back to the point from which we started a thousand times. She put her whole life into this: “Be it unto me according to Thy word.” And the angel departed. That is what he was working toward.
I will not detain you longer with this. I remind you that it involved Mary in something. It involved her in suffering immediately; and then Simeon, eight days afterward, after the birth, told her:
A sword shall pierce through thine own soul;
that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.
I would like time to explain that, but I think there is something there tremendously helpful. You see, when the cross is at work in a life, people begin to betray themselves—their thoughts. They accuse, charge, and say, “This is because of so-and-so,” and so on, and so on.
It comes out when somebody is having a bad time. Everybody divulges what they are thinking and feeling about them—some sympathetic, some antagonistic.
So, “a sword shall pierce through thine own soul, that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.” If necessary, men should show themselves where they stood in the day of the cross, and Mary’s suffering was a part of it.
Well, that may be a mystery. You can forget that if it does not help. But the point is that this kind of thing that happened to her, and which happens to us, involves us in suffering. It involves us in the offense of the cross. It involves much misunderstanding and much ostracism.
The angel left her. She knew what it meant then, which we cannot speak of. But Simeon told her what was coming later on along this line. This is true, and very true, in principle.
Now, dear friends, ask the Lord to just leave out of all this what will help you. But when we have said all that we can say, one thing is the answer: this is something unusual, something different, something that is of God.
To be a child of God is no ordinary thing. It is the result of an intervention of God from heaven.