Person and work of the Holy Spirit, Lesson 7 question 5

Okay, so we are in Lesson 7, and we had gotten through four questions last week. We've got a couple more to go. This is a chapter on regeneration and the work of the Spirit in regeneration. The last thing we talked about was that the word, we were talking about what the word regeneration means, and it simply means to generate again, or be newly created, so one of those 25 cent Christian words in which we use an awful lot of and sometimes don't think about, well I wonder what that word really does mean. to be generated again means newness. So, the last two questions, which the first one we'll deal with today, on the write-out of lecture number two, he talks a lot about what is born of water and the Spirit.

And so the question is, what does he mean by born of water? What's he referring to? The Word of God. So the water refers to the Word of God. Let's put the pieces together. Regenerated or born of water, how do all those pieces go together? In other words, you're right Russ, water is a type in the Old Testament of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is the vehicle always used in regeneration. And so you see this expression, born of water and the Spirit. So when you get to the New Testament though, it's interesting.

Somebody take a look at 1 Peter 1.23. And while you're looking that up, somebody else look at Ephesians 5, 25, and 6, and maybe they'll help us explain. Anybody got 1 Peter 1, 23?

Go, go, go. Having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible through the Word of God, which lives and abides forever. So, born again, regenerated anew, you know, nothing added on to the old, but regenerated anew, and not a corruptible seed.

Why would he put not a corruptible seed in there? And then compare it to incorruptible. How would he do that? Nobody seems to know. The seed of the living God, incorruptible in Christ. What's the corruptible seed? Flesh. Where'd that come from? Adam. So anything that's born of Adam, or anything that comes from Adam, can be described as corruptible seed, right?

So you put seed in the ground and it always comes up whatever the seed is. This is the time where you plant flowers for those of you who are flower people or like Laura Epps, she's planting onions this week. Guess what? They're all going to come up onions. So when you plant something corruptible, guess what's going to happen? It's going to come up corruptible. Does that make sense? So then, when this word says, but incorruptible, it means I got a different kind of a seed. It's different than the old one. And so, he says, by the word of God, which lives and abides forever. So, the incorruptible seed, which we're all born of, It's by the agency of the Word of God.

The Word. What's the Word? Jesus. The Word is the Bible. The Word's the Bible. But you can say the Bible or the Word is two things. There's the written Word and the living Word. The written word is obviously the printed part. The living word is the Lord Jesus himself.

And that's what the written word is all about, is to reveal him, to reveal the information necessary. And then he says the word of God lives and abides forever. Really? So all through eternity we're all going to have these little black books that say the Holy Bible. I think that's referring more to the living word.

That incorruptible seed that we're born of is the resurrected life of Christ, which lives forever. And every human being is going to have continued existence. We don't get shoved into the cloud and forgotten. But this is a brand new life that's alive and it abides forever. So, Rydolf says, here the new birth is ascribed to the living word of God.

Ephesians 5, 25, and 6. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of washing of water with the Word. Okay, so the key part is Christ also loved the Church, He gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify it, the word sanctify means to set apart, put them all over here, unto Himself, and He might cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word. Now how does that go together?

You'll note in the Old Testament that study in the Hebrews on Wednesday night would find out that everything in the Old Testament was cleansed by what? By blood. It was all cleansed by blood, right? All the stuff in the tabernacle, even the people, the book, everything, were sprinkled with blood. In the Holy of Holies, how did the high priest went in there to cleanse it? How did he do it? Sprinkled blood around. Now it says in the New Testament in Ephesians that the body of Christ is set apart and here's the method. Cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. How does the word wash you?

Nobody knows. You guys awake out there? Do you have coffees? When you send me a verse It renews me. I feel like I'm washed. You know, when you send me a verse and I read it, it's the Word and it's like spiritual washing. Okay. So, yeah, what does washing do? Hopefully every one of you took a shower this morning. What did you do that for? You were getting rid of something, getting rid of whatever funkiness you had on your body. Right? And put this new scalp stuff on, funky.

The Word of God does the same thing. It washes you clean from the old corruptible seed and introduces you to who the new seed is for who you are in Christ. And it's the Word of God that's a washing process. It washes you so that you can understand. It dries? And so that you can enter into it, live into it, you know?

So Mike, going back to what you were saying, that blood is the washing. Blood, I thought, was just for forgiveness, for covering, for all that. Washing was more water, I thought, than blood. Well, my priest, they had the labor in there. He washed his hands and had to be clean before he went in there. But the people and the elements, spiritually, I put it this way, the flesh was washed with blood. Actually, when we were in Israel at the Wailing Wall, they still had the washing stations, and you had to have certain ceremonial washing, but that was water. Washing always was water to me. It was cleansing and ceremonial in the past.

So I said, I guess I had an associated blood with washing. I thought blood was more, what is it? blood there is no forgiveness is in. It's for forgiveness and covering or whatever, but not in washing. The blood happens once for us, and the washing happens every day for us, as Christians, right? The blood happened at the cross, unlike the old days. Ours is the blood of Christ, and now we get washed daily with the water. Yeah, the water of the Word.

Yeah, I agree with that. Let's see if I can quickly find it. Oh, wrong place. Do I want to chase that rabbit? I might, Courtney brought it up. I let the rabbit out. I just, like I said, when you said washing by the blood, I just really had, you know, again, going back to, you know, without blood there's no forgiveness or you know and that I think and it had really associated blood with washing. It's more covering or pavement or but the washing was always was of water I thought more. Here are the verses we were talking about on Wednesday. Let's see. Talking about symbols in verse 9 chapter 9 verse 9 says which is a symbol for the present time.

Accordingly, both gifts and sacrifices were offered, which cannot make the worshipper perfect in conscience, since they relate only to food, drink, and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of Reformation. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things having come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle great having obtained eternal redemption for if the blood of the goats and bulls and the ashes of the heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify the cleansing of the flesh how much more with the blood of Christ cleanse your conscience from dead work to serve the living God the living God so the blood cleanses your conscience that what it does I think that the water is for external, and blood is for internal, maybe. Yeah, I guess Ingrid was saying, go ahead, she's whispering back here. Well, the hymns we sing are not biblical or scriptural. Nothing but the blood, you know, what can wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

But that's more just what you said, more spiritual application, and then physical is more water. Yeah, washing of water in the Word. It talks about the Word being the water, the cleansing agent. Christ washed his disciples at the Last Supper with water, and he commanded us to do the same to each other, and I think it kind of means washing each other with the Word. I think that's really right, Jim.

He washed the feet of the disciples, because that's the part. I remember Malloy, whenever he referred to this verse, he would say, well, why do you wash somebody's feet? They're clean. And he referred to them as poopy feet. That's the part of the human body that has contact with the Earth all the time, so you need to have your feet washed. But the washing with the Word, we need that.

That same symbol is there every day for us. We live in a world that is not suitable for us, that is against everything that we are. Like it or not, we get contaminated, spiritually contaminated, by, you know, just thinking about what's going on, like Calvin, Calvin Tang says, you know, living to, or listening to the sin nature is like having earphones on all day, having to listen to CNN. But that's how we live. All of the input that comes to us from the world has nothing to do with God's Word. So we need the Word to get cleaned up.

You know, in Israel, They didn't have paved roads for the most part. Uh-huh. So the feet would be hard to see the body, and they would be in the snow, and the houses like here, you know, with light carpet. Did you take off your shoes in one of those? Sure. So it was the same thing. Sure. They had to take off their sandals and wash them. You hear it? Yeah. Yeah. You understand that guy talking? No. I'm going to take care of Ralph right now.

Mike, I need to be able to hear the person talking. They're trying to. We've got speakers in the classroom and some of them you can hear, some of them you can't. I'll tell them to speak up. So we've got these speakers on the desk, on the tables, that when you talk into them, if you push down on the button, you should be able to hear. I was listening, by the way, last night to the end, and you were coming through really clear. Yeah. Yeah. So let me know, Carol, if you can't hear, and then I'll just repeat it. OK?

So write-out says, here the cleansing and sanctifying action of water is said to be by the word. Thus most clearly water is a type or a symbol of the word of God and by it souls are born anew. It's really interesting the word of God gives us the information about salvation and about if I'm lost about my lack of standing before God and gives me the answer of what I need to do, like the Philippian jailer, what must I do to be saved? Because if the Spirit of God, through the Word of God, whether it's verbal or written, convicts me that I'm not in a good position before a holy God, then the obvious question is, what must I do to be saved? And so the Word of God tells you. Well, you're not going to see that anywhere else. William Shakespeare isn't going to give you a verse in one of his sonnets on how to get saved. It's not in there. If you're like the Philippians, you say, I want to be saved, the word of God is how it's done. Yeah, Russ?

I was going to say, one of the things Brightout said was, by the Spirit's power making use of the Gospel of the grace of God. So it seems like it's a combination of hearing God's Word in the Spirit of God making it real to the person. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a combination of God's Word and the Spirit enlightening us to it.

Well, and that's why I put two questions together, five and six, because six says, what's meant by born of the Spirit? What does that mean? You know what the agency of the Word of God, what it has to do, and what the purpose of the Word of God is in terms of, as we said, washing, but how do you, what, my question said, what is meant by born of the Spirit? So if you look at the Gospel of John, and we'll deal with the second issue here.

This guy Nicodemus comes to see Jesus in the middle of the night, sneaking around because he didn't want to be seen. And he's a member of the Sanhedrin. He comes in to see Jesus and with an attitude that he is already a Jew and he's already in the kingdom.

And so he starts this conversation and the Lord Jesus says to him, unless a man be born again, he won't even see the kingdom. So Nicodemus obviously doesn't understand what he's saying. So the Lord repeats it. He said, unless a man is born of water and the spirit, he will never enter into the kingdom. He won't enter in, he won't see it. He'll have nothing to do with it.

And what's the agency there? The water's there, and the Holy Spirit's there. What's the Spirit doing here? Salvation is of who? It's of God. It's not of me, it's of God, right? He's the one that is the Savior. So I can have all of the information correct, 1 Corinthians 15, and unless the Holy Spirit acts upon me, I don't get saved. Because what is salvation in terms of the transaction? What really happens in the Spirit?

Let's say, I'll pick on Donna. Donna's sitting there. as a non-believer, right? She's totally orbed an atom. Spirit of God begins to work on her by revealing to her that she's got a problem and it's a lot bigger than any other problem she's ever confronted and it's the fact like Nicodemus. Nicodemus didn't think he had a problem and the Lord Jesus said, you got a problem. You're not in the kingdom. oh, that just blew his jets because he thought because of his heritage and his office, oh, he had to be in.

It's like joining a Baptist church, they baptize you, hey, I'm saved. I'm reading a book now about salvation that's kind of cool that there's lots of believers that this author thinks that think they're saved that don't have the information and how could they be without the right information? You know, they think, well, I'm involved in ABC Church and the church says I'm saved so I must be. And this author did a survey through a Christian nursing home and everybody in there thought they were saved until he started asking them, well what do you mean by that? And over half of them didn't really know and he said, well if you're saved are you sure about that? And they said, well no, not really. and I don't know what it is, I just put it around here saved, I guess I am.

So, Donna, here's Donna sitting there and the Spirit of God works on her and informs her about her lost position and then which precipitates a question, well, how do I get out of this? How do I become unsaved. Maybe look at it that way. So then the Spirit of God, through the Word, presents the gospel to her.

And he says, do you believe that? And she says, yeah, I do. And now what happens? What takes place right then? The dawn. The Spirit places her into Christ. What does he do before that? What does he do before he places her in Christ? Crucifies her. Death before life. Yes, death before life. So she, in terms of the timeline, she's put into Christ at the time that he's dying.

Why then? because that's how you separate her from the incorruptible seed. You have to die to that. Most Christians have the idea that salvation is that nothing happens to change me, I just added something on. And now I have a necklace that says, I am a Christian. And I got this new book, it's called the Bible.

There's little understanding about the first thing that happens is that you die. That's the very first thing that happens. Now, you may not find that out until later, but who does that? Who effectuates that death of Donna? The Holy Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit who does that, because He's the one that did it for Christ.

She's buried, now resurrected to newness of life. Who did all of that? He did. See? So, what's cool about that is that salvation is of God alone. He does all of it. Donna exercises faith, which is a non-meritorious act. And when she does, the Spirit of God effectuates this transaction of new birth, new generation through the death of Christ. See that?

Well, I think if you understand that, it sets you up for actually spending time in the Word of God to where early in your Christian life you can learn something. When you read the book of Romans you go through the first three chapters and now you're saved. You go to the next three chapters and you find out you were crucified, buried and resurrected. You think that Romans chapter 6 is some sort of high spiritual information. No, it's basic. It's basic Christianity. So is Romans 8. It's basic stuff.

Because you know what's cool about the book of Romans? The Holy Spirit, through the book of Romans, never takes us off the planet. Everything happens here. Now you get to Ephesians and where are you? Off the planet. But in Romans, He never takes you off the planet. Everything is the Spirit coming here and dealing with you here.

Really cool, because that's the basics, that's the foundation. And so Romans, you know, one through eight is actually the beginning and the foundation of Christianity. That information. And so, like, if you want to teach those ladies down there, that's where you need to be. Yeah, because, and if you have to, just do those eight chapters. Because if you get through those eight chapters with people, they will understand salvation, they'll understand how it took place vis-a-vis the Spirit of God, they'll understand that God not only paid for their sins but took care of their sin nature, they'll understand about position, they'll understand about struggle with the law, and they'll understand about what it's like to be in Christ. Really cool stuff, you know. But it's basic.

I'm surprised how many Men that write books and they're famous Christian authors and pastors that don't know Romans 8 They just don't know it, you know So Right out says Or we saw that those who believed in his name were those who were born of God Here we see talking about Nicodemus here. We see the beautiful suitability of our Lords and presenting his cross and himself as the object of faith to a man like Nicodemus, who was outwardly moral, but who needed rebirth. And this new birth must be by the Spirit's power making use of the gospel of the grace of God. See how the word and the Spirit go together?

You have to have both. Okay, now I've got one question for you. It's not in your notes. Is there a difference between what is said to Nicodemus and what is said to the Philippian jailer? I just went through what the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus. What did Paul say to the Philippian jailer? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You and your whole family. So what's the difference in those two? Did Lord Jesus just water it down by the time it got to Philippi? What's the difference? What's the difference? Or is there a difference? It was a death, burial and resurrection.

Okay. If Nicodemus If his whole focus and interest is to get into the kingdom of God, is that the same thing as being in Christ? No, it's not. But the whole focus of the Jewish system was to be in the kingdom. And the Lord Jesus told Nicodemus, you want to be in the kingdom?

You have to be born again of water and the Spirit. The Sanhedrin would not have been happy to hear that. because, you know, they're like all those smart guys in Washington. They think they got it wired, you know. They all thought, well, we are in the kingdom.

Look, I mean, or if I'm a Levitical priest and I'm in the temple every day, you know, killing animals and the like, one of the interesting things about being a Levitical priest is you could be the most rotten moral person in the world and because you were a Levite, you were a priest. The only qualification, it had nothing to do with your moral character, it had to do with who you were born from. Right? So it didn't matter.

But for the Lord Jesus to tell Nicodemus, kingdom, okay, you want to be in the kingdom? You think you're in the kingdom unless you're born again? He doesn't. And what did he do? He danced around it. He didn't understand. He said, well, do I have to go back in my mother's womb? How do you get born again? So the word of God explains that. Now, the Philippian jailer, if he believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, what's the spirit do with him? Places him in Christ. Takes him through the exact same transaction that we talked about with Donna. And he ends up where?

In the kingdom? No, he's in the king. That's different. It's one thing to be a member of the British Empire, it's another thing to be a Windsor. But for Nicodemus to be born again, it comes back to the fact that he has to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. But he was in a little bit different dispensation at that point in time. Yeah, that's exactly right. And so let's follow up on that a little bit.

Do you think that Abraham was saved? Sure, God called them a righteous man. He called Lot a righteous man. Why were they righteous? Because they believed the information that God gave them up to that point. They didn't understand that their salvation was actually a born-again thing.

It was, though. Because for him to tell Nicodemus, you can't see or enter into the kingdom of God is not quite the same thing as being in Christ. Agree with that? Now, he was only days away or weeks or months away from the death, burial and resurrection of Christ and Pentecost. So, when the Holy Spirit showed up at Pentecost, maybe I shouldn't go there because that's coming up.

But Mike, also I think Even with Nicodemus, he's pointing to the new birth in Christ. I mean, he's saying what's going to happen. And it again goes to the washing, which is the word, you know, here we're going to give you the information, it's going to come. But then it's, you know, going back to the corruptible seed, and now you have a spiritual birth. And he's pointing out to him what, you know, it isn't, and again, it was all about, Jews were looking at, I'm Jew, it's like, we're in a Christian nation, we're Christian. And I think he was going, but I think he gives them the information to be reborn, and it would be, to be positioned in Christ, which is a rebirth, but it's spiritual, it's a spiritual birth. He's contrasting flesh, which is corruptible, to what now is gonna be, not based on your heritage or your flesh, it's gonna be based on a spiritual birth.

Well, and there's a whole group of Christians today that think that, you know, what we're really doing as the body of Christ is expanding the kingdom. Yeah, oh yeah. You know, it's really interesting, just the ignorance of God's word that the kingdom is not what we're doing today. You know, we're talking about the body of Christ, which is something different. Yeah, I love it. Yeah bringing that you know making the kingdom here now. It's like in this cesspool. Yeah, you know no We have a whole lot better than Being it bringing the kingdom here.

You know now I mean there be the millennial and that but we know the kingdom here is not what we want sure Well, I'm based on the Abrahamic Covenant, you know, I can understand why a Jew would think God said I promise you heritage and land, and you're going to be the nation on the earth. But I think God made it clear in the Old Testament that just because you're born a Jew doesn't mean you really are a Jew.

He made that really clear to Nicodemus. And if Nicodemus would have said, I believe, at that point in time, would he have been placed in the kingdom, or could he have waited around when Christ was crucified to say, I want to move over to the body? That's a great question, Jimmy, because he would have gone into the kingdom. Because there were lots of Jews, I'm assuming, lots of Jews who were in the kingdom, who were godly men and women. Back to what Jim said. He did, actually, because remember, he came to get the body of Christ. So he did kind of come back to the body. than with Pentecost after that. We don't have proof that Nicodemus... No, we don't. We really don't. Or, the other guy that I think about a lot is John the Baptist. Because the Lord Jesus said John the Baptist was the greatest man that ever lived on the earth. Wow!

Yet he was not in Christ. Because he died before the Spirit came in Pentecost. Can you clarify, yeah, hey, can you clarify the, um, had Nicodemus accepted, he would be in the kingdom? Um, cause I'm, I'm, I don't know how that works. Cause the kingdom is yet to come, so, what, how does, how does that statement fit? Um, the kingdom, and that's a great question, was the kingdom that the Lord Jesus is talking about, because it didn't play yet.

So, if you were a believing Jew, you know, I don't know, pick one of those guys, Ananias or any of them, when they were what? They were declared righteous? They had new life? They were, maybe say it this way, Jim, they were destined for the kingdom? That might be a better way of thinking about it.

In other words, the kingdom wasn't actually in play at that point. But when is this kingdom going to happen? Well, we know that there's going to be a thousand year reign of Christ. Is Nicodemus going to be there? What do you think, Jim? I would say Nicodemus was a citizen of the kingdom.

But when Jesus died, you know, He was one of the ones that buried him. I would say maybe then, after Pentecost, maybe he believed in that and became not a citizen of the kingdom, but a citizen of heaven. I think so. Yeah, I think the people that believe that Jesus was the Messiah, you know, when he was on earth, like the disciples, they're the perfect example. They all believed in who he was.

It's really interesting in the upper room discourse in the Gospel of John, the ignorance of these guys was amazing from a spiritual standpoint. But then on the day of Pentecost, what happens to them? It's like they wake up. Why? Because now they're involved with the Spirit. They can understand spiritual things. Like the guys on the road to Emmaus. The only reason they understood is because the Lord opened up their understanding. You don't understand spiritual things if you're plunking around in Adam, you know. So the kingdom was offered but rejected and is yet to come and belief is still the defining factor of the yet to come.

I think you're right and as I think about, is it Acts 8 with Stephen? Yep, where he goes after the Sanhedrin and he upsets them so bad that they stone him to death. He told them, you don't deserve the kingdom and guess what? None of you bums are going in there. And he just laid it out scripture-wise, a little water of the word, and what did it do? It didn't make them desire salvation, it made them angry. They rejected it. And then there's that verse, and I'm paraphrasing it, but at that point, Stephen says, God would have brought the kingdom in then, but you've rejected the king, so he's not going to do it. After Pentecost.

And one of the things that is happening, and has been happening for a long time, is the kingdom is now. So maybe you could speak on that a little bit. Kingdom is now. Kingdom is now. That's a reformed view. Yeah. But the kingdom is now. And rather than speak about that specifically, here's what I, I'll give you my attitude about that. What is it about us as Christians and human beings that we want anything but an intimate relationship with the person of Christ? What is the problem with that? Oh, the kingdom is now. Kingdom being the feature. I thought the Lord Jesus was the feature. It's Him. It's Him.

In the Hebrew study we're doing, we've discovered that we have been brought to, not the kingdom, but the mediator of the new covenant. We haven't been brought to the covenant. We're brought to the mediator, a person. See? And what's a mediator do? He makes sure that all the elements of the covenant get done. That's his job.

So we've been brought to Him. We haven't been stuck in one side of the covenant. Are we beneficiaries, say, of the eternal covenant? Yeah, we are, but we're saved by grace. But the covenant is much less important than the mediator, than the glorified Lord Jesus Christ, to know Him, personally and we've got all the tools to do it because we're indwelt by the Holy Spirit and we've got God's Word.

There it is. Got it all. So I don't know why Christianity jumps off the rails and goes into all the peripheral stuff and they skirt all around the one most important thing that God has in mind. He wants you to know Him. That's the most important thing to Him. That's what the temple was all about. He got as close to man as he could and the sinner could get as close to him but there was a veil there. Well now the veil is gone. It's all about intimacy and all about knowing Christ and the rest of it is infill information.

And it goes to John 17, 3. Hold on a minute, Russ. John 17, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom you sent. Now, Courtney, did you hear that, Russ? John 17, 3. John 17, 3, they might know you. Not know about you, but know you. Or what the benefits are. It's to know you, not the covenant, not the this or that. the person of Christ.

And that's intimacy. Yeah. Most important thing there is. And that's what he's working towards. Guess what? I'm seven minutes over. Great discussion there, though. Thank you for clarifying that. I had similar thoughts. I just was curious for us to explore that a little bit because there's a lot of conversation around that. I'm going to call you this week, J.D. Okay? Okay. Okay.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for the spirit and we thank you for the fact that we do occupy this wonderful position in your dear son. We desire to grow constantly in the knowledge and grace of him, to behold his glory face to face. We thank you, we pray in his name. Amen.