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The Daily Word of Righteousness
You Must Be Born Again, #16
For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:18-22)
"Ye also [in addition to the believing Jews] are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit."
The "one new man" (Ephesians 2:15) is He who has been born in us. He is the "habitation of God through the Spirit."
This is the salvation God has provided for the Jews, for the elect Gentiles, and finally for the nations of saved peoples of the earth. The Jews, and we who have been made part of the commonwealth of Israel, are the firstfruits of what one day will be true of the saved creation.
This is the salvation the Lord Jesus offered to Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The fact that salvation always is of the Jews is demonstrated by the fact that the names of the twelve tribes of Israel are written on the twelve gates of the new Jerusalem, while the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb—all Jews—are engraved in the twelve foundations of the wall that surrounds the holy city.
The holy city is the glorified Church, the Body of Christ, the Wife of the Lamb, the eternal Tabernacle of God. The Throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it.
We must be born again if we would enter the Kingdom that is from Heaven. We must be born again because it is the Kingdom that is born in us. It is Christ in us, the hope of the glory of the Kingdom that soon is to come to the earth.
You will not find the expression born-again in the Book of Acts or in any of the Epistles of Paul, although Paul refers to the fact that Christ is in us. Today we are saying that an individual must be born again to be saved. The truth is, to be saved we must put our faith in the saving blood of the Lord Jesus, turn away from the malice and wickedness of the world, and be baptized in water. This is how people are saved from the wrath of God.
Being born again has to do with the Divine Seed of God being placed in us so we can change from a living soul to a life-giving spirit.
The Spirit of Christ and the Seed of God reside in every true Christian. The burden of the Lord today is that the believers might turn away from the life of the flesh and pay more attention to bringing to maturity that which has been conceived in them.
So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being" ; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. (I Corinthians 15:45-48—NIV) (from You Must Be Born Again)