Chosen by Regeneration

Regenerated … created anew, born again, spiritually revitalized, restored, resusitated

by Richard Allan

There’s a lot of confusion and therefore conflicting opinions about what Christ meant when He spoke of being born again. If Nicodemus
was bewildered by the concept, then it’s no wonder that today’s Biblically literate are also perplexed by the whole idea behind God resur-
recting a person out of spiritual death to spiritual life. After all, Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a spiritual teacher of Israel, and a ruler of the
Jews (a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish High court). Here was a very rich, influential leader that knew the Old Testament Scriptures,
and the law, inside out and backwards. And he was so sympathetic to Jesus’ cause, that he requested the privilege of burying our Lord’s
Body. Of all people, Nicodemus should have suspected that Christ came to first set up a spiritual, not an earthly Kingdom. But like so many
today who should know better, he was clueless about the necessity of spiritual revitalization before one can even begin to see and appreciate
the things of God’s unseen realm.

Too many of today’s professing Christians have not actually been regenerated from above, and like Nicodemus are therefore in the dark about
the call of God on a person’s life and the mechanics of how He initiates and then carries out their rebirthing experience. We’re not talking about
just an emotional purging here, but something far more momentous and significant. To be sure, there should be a powerful emotional response
in someone whose eyes and ears have been opened by regeneration, and if there is no such response, then I would question what, if anything,
had occurred in one’s life. What was not discerned by Nicodemus, and many today, is that a person born of just flesh cannot begin to understand
spiritual things that are connected with the unseen God of Scripture. And that just as you can hear the wind, but can’t tell what it’s going to do next,
in like manner, we don’t know on whom the unseen Spirit of God will next bestow the gift of heavenly Life, something that begins when God takes a
spiritually dead person and by His Holy Spiritual Essence and His Word, He impregnates or quickens the spirit of His predestined, chosen, elect.
And by so doing, God becomes our Spiritual Father. And because of this glorious event, God tells us in His Word that we can then refer to ourselves
as having been born again, born from above, even though the full birthing process must wait until Christ’s return. So from our second conception/regen-
eration on, we who have been chosen and called are gestating in the womb of God, protected and nurtured until our full rebirth experience, a future
event earmarked by the return of our Lord to rapture “they that are Christ’s at His coming” (I Cor. 15:23).

During this gestation period (God’s Spirits calls it sanctification), God’s Plan for His children is to shape them more and more into His Image and Likeness, the Person of Jesus Christ, just like a fleshy fetus grows and is shaped in the mother’s womb, being conformed into the image and likeness of its parents. But with the spiritual transformation process, God transforms His fetal children, not by the use of the Old Testament law, but by a far higher standard, “the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus which has made us free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1,2). “The law of sin and death” is a New Testament term that speaks to the ten commandments, along with all the other mosaic laws. This law was designed by God to do a number of things during the time between two mountains, Mt. Sinai where the entire Mosaic law was given and Mt. Zion where the miracle of Pente-cost occurred 50 days after Christ’s crucifixion. It was at Pentecost that the Mosaic law no longer had relevance with those who became the first regenerated children of God, the infant Church. These two mountains (Mt. Sinai and Zion), separated by distance and a time period of about 1,500 years, are the two high places where God definitively revealed Himself to His people, His Old Testament nation of Israel and New Testament spiritual Israel, The Church. And both were actualized by God’s choice, not man’s. Israel did not choose God, nor does spiritual Israel choose Him. In the lives of individuals who have “come to Jesus”, it is God Who chooses and calls a person by first regenerating him (or her) and then, once a person is then able to see their unrighteousness, they repent and are on their way to final salvation, via the process of sanctification.

Returning to our two mountains, we see that mountains in the Bible represent kingdoms or ruling governments and therefore we see two Biblical Kingdoms of God, Mt. Sinai (the earthly Mosaic Old Testament government of God) and Mt. Zion (the unseen heavenly New Testament government of God). These two distinct governments both have laws, but the latter takes precedence over the former. In other words, the New Testament unseen (like the wind) “law of the Spirit of Life” will rule over the Old Testament observable set in stone Mosaic law, laws that in some capacity will be the basis of God’s earthly Millennial Kingdom. Different mountains, different covenants, different realms (seen verses unseen), different laws (Spirit laws more stringent then Mosaic laws, ie. forget adultery, lust needs to be dealt with) and most of all, different deliverers (Moses verses Christ, one of the flesh, the other of The Spirit). At some point in the future, these two governments will coexist with the heavenly governing Body (Christ and His Bride, the Church) holding authority over the earthly administration (restored Old Testament Israel ruling over an earthly Kingdom).

When Christ ascended to heaven, He indicated that the earthly kingdom of Israel would be restored, but in God’s timing, not man’s. Gleaning from Paul’s epistles we can further see that before God’s earthly kingdom is set up, His Plan calls for an over ruling Heavenly Kingdom to be in place, and this is where the Bride of Christ is brought into sharp focus.

The Kingdom of God is the rule of God, and because God is Sovereign, there has never been a time without His Kingdom or governmental rule. And be assured, God’s Rule is not a democracy, but a Theocracy (rule from the top down, not the bottom up). In other words, God is in complete control over His entire creation. However, He has the right to delegate His authority to those He chooses to represent Him, just as He chose the patriarchs, Old Testament Israel, and New Testament Spiritual Israel. As in all military forces, God also has His Chain of Command or authorized representatives to act on His behalf. We see this same pattern of Government from the opening verses of Genesis to Revelation, chapter one, where we read that God revealed His Plan to John through His Son, Who in turn gave it to an angel to deliver to John. God’s chain of command throughout the Old Testament was exactly the same, with His Will being carried out by His Logos/Word, via the “angel of The Lord” interacting with various Old Testament worthies. God, Being Who He Is, does not deal with His creatures directly, but through those He chooses to represent Him. The Logos/Word and angels represented and acted on behalf of the Almighty in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament we have the same Logos/Word taking on the form of man (in the Person of Jesus), Who acted on behalf of His Father. And along with His loyal angels, the Will of God was, and still is, carried out to the letter.

So when we speak of God’s Kingdom and His Sovereign Rule, we have to take into account that His Plan calls for both a heavenly and earthly phase of His Kingdom, with the spiritual phase holding authority over the earthly phase. And before the earthly phase can be inaugurated, the heavenly phase must first be completed and in place. And it is to the establishment of this spiritual Kingdom phase that the New Testament, in general, speaks to. God’s overall purpose was and is to rule the universe by Christ and His Bride, through a restored Old Testament Israel. And to accomplish this, He first created man in His Image and Likeness, and gave Adam dominion over the earth. That dominion was abrogated or set aside due to Adam’s disobedience, but God’s Purpose was not set aside and we see that a second, or last Adam, was brought to bear in order to bring about God’s Immutable Plan. In the same manner Old Testament Israel’s failure to fulfill its God given role made way for a spiritual Israel to accomplish what fleshy Israel failed at. And just as Adam’s failure did not and will not render Adam permanently lost, neither will Israel’s failure see her permanently lost. In other words, God’s Purposes will not be thwarted by Satan, sin, fallen angels, or fallen man, for as Scripture shows us over and over again, evil will always serve good. Nothing, but nothing, can sidestep the determinant Will of God. His Plan will be fulfilled regardless of intermediate circumstances. Said another way, God has a one track Mind and means to actualize in time and space that which He Planned in eternity.

What God’s revealed Will in Scripture tells us is that in order to have His heavenly Kingdom firmly in place, He has been bringing about its establishment “before the foundation of the world” through first His Logos/Word, Who became Christ, The Son, Who then redeemed all mankind by His death/resurrection/ascension and sprinkled Blood, and then began a two thousand year period of calling out His Bride (by His Spirit). These “first fruit” believers, when they have been completed into a corporate Body, will rule and reign with Him over a restored Israel and earth. Earthly Israel will be His representative ruling body over a restored mankind and an earthly kingdom. And Christ with His Bride, will be the Heavenly Ruling Body that will officiate over the earthly phase of God’s Kingdom.

It is here where many fall short of their understanding of God’s Divine Plan. Israel and its laws were meant primarily to drive people to a Savior (Christ), Who through His final Atonement accomplished what external laws could never do. Once accomplished (“it is finished”), and Father God’s Justice was thereby propitiated (satisfied), He could turn all of creation over to His ascended Son Who would then be, in the fullest sense of the word, the second and last Adam, Whose vocation was and is to be what the first Adam failed to become. And as a glorious conse-quence to Christ’s shed and applied Blood, all mankind is now considered or reckoned (by God) to be under the new federal Headship of Jesus Christ. So after His return to heaven, all that remained for the ascended Christ to do was to begin resurrecting by regeneration all mankind into the domain of salvation from the cursed syndrome of death. He began this process with His Bride-to-be and once this Body of believers is completed, He will (with His Bride) begin raising the rest of mankind out of the prison house of death. So in keeping with God’s Divine Plan, this spiritual regeneration/born again/new conception has been in progress since that first Pentecost after Christ’s death. So, first the “first fruits”, then the full harvest.

Unfortunately, what many sincere dedicated Christians today don’t realize is that the regenerative work of Christ, that’s been in progress for nearly 2,000 years now, is only the beginning of a far more vast general resurrection that is to take place during the soon to be realized Sabbatical Millennium, a 1,000 year period of peace and harmony and rest for all the vast remainder of mankind (the harvest), who were intentionally never called out of the world during the “Gospel Age”, to be a part of Christ’s Body/Bride. Once again, this Bride is made up from gathering just a handful of first fruits people and waving them before our Father God. These “first fruits” believers are, together, “a Royal Priesthood, a Holy Nation, a chosen race of predestined, foreknown, elect people that will finally be united to Christ, as a Bride is to her Husband. And because the rest of humanity is already proleptically (reckoned) saved by the Holy Blood of Christ, these billions of people (most of whom are in the grave) will be regenerated into new creation life and thereby they will constitute the children of the Holy Union between Christ and His exalted Church/Bride. Christ will then fully be their new Federal Head (Adam was their first) and Almighty God will then be called their Grand Father. And their mother will be all those who will corporately make up the Bride of Christ.

Here then are the particulars of what Nicodemus was not attuned to, but in his spirit discerned to be of the utmost importance. And in hindsight, we who are now considered born again, know that “old Nic” was truly blessed to have had the privilege of interacting with the greatest Person to have ever lived. And we who have been impregnated by The Holy Spirit’s Seed of truth can collectively rejoice in knowing who we are, Who lives in us by His Spirit, and what we are becoming. Truly there’s no greater honor or special gift, we who were once fallen and lost, could hope to receive then the gift that “keeps on giving” from a God Who “cared enough to send His very best”.

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