(John 1:13)
�Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of will of man, but of God.�
This verse is speaking of those who have been born again into salvation through Jesus Christ. It is a continuation of the same thought as was expressed in verse twelve. Verse twelve spoke of the Christian as being adopted into sonship. Verse thirteen speaks of the Christian being born again in to a new life. Verse twelve speaks of the spiritual glory of our mansions of Heaven. (see John 14:2) Verse thirteen speaks of our physical responsibilities as Christians upon this earth.
There is an old piece of verse I heard many years ago:
To live up above,
With those that we love,
That will be glory.
To dwell here below,
With those that we know,
Is quite another story.
I don�t even remember where I heard this. But, it points out an accurate picture of most of us. Many of us will be quick to point out the glories of heaven, and all that entails. But, we�ll be even quicker to point out the shortcomings of our churches and Christian friends upon the earth!
When we look at our salvation, this should be an obvious wrong directed not at our brothers and sisters in the Lord, but at our very Lord, Himself. Salvation is of Him and we have no right to �second guess� those whom He has called unto Himself. He loved each of us because His Love is unfathomable. We must love others because He is our example.
As we consider our salvation, may we first look at the beginning defined. �Which were born...�
The term �born again� carries a couple suggestions within the very term. First of all, to be born implies a beginning.
A few weeks ago my granddaughter became a �school girl.� I was there as she rushed out the door for her first ride on, as she excitedly called it, �the big yellow bus!� Many children approach this first day of �pre-school� with fear. They are being torn away from their mother for the first time. Not Shandi. She was thrilled about the new adventure she was beginning.
In a few years, when she reaches high school age, she won�t even be able to look back on this day. She�ll have, probably, forgotten all her joy at reaching this new stage of her life. But, her mother, her father, even her old �grampa,� will each remember this special day in her life.
Do you remember the joy and excitement of the day when you accepted the Lord as your Savior?
The Bible tells us that there is a day when we cease to be sinners, and begin to be saints. You don�t just wake up one day and say, �Hey; I am a Christian.� There is a day when you first accept Christ as your Savior. If you can�t look back and identify that day that you asked Jesus to come into your life as Savior, you probably aren�t saved. The salvation experience is a choice. If you�ve never made that choice, you are not saved.
If you have made that choice, you are a child of the King. You�ve begun a new life. The old sins and shortcomings are forgiven. You have a right to boldly approach the throne of grace in prayer. (see Hebrews 4:16) As a matter of spiritual fact, you have an obligation to approach that throne. Shandi�s mother walked all the way to the bus door with her. This was her little girl going to school. She even took some pictures of this first day. God cares for each of His children and wants to have that fellowship with each of us. Pray. Often!
Being born also intimates the idea of a childhood.
We are not, no matter how much we might have a knowledge of the intricacies Christian dogma, fully developed in our spiritual lives at the moment of our Salvation. We must �search the Scriptures� daily to grow in the faith.
We also need to seek the support of our churches and pastors to grow into mature Christians. As I watched Shandi get on her �big yellow bus,� I thought about those days when she was a baby. How little and helpless she had seemed. Now she was climbing up the steps to that bus beginning a new adventure. When she was little, a baby, she couldn�t dress herself. She couldn�t eat without someone bringing her baby bottle to her and placing it in her mouth. She couldn�t even turn over to get comfortable.
He mother and father taught her. They nurtured her as she grew. Adding lesson upon lesson. Sometimes they even had to chastise her. That was part of her lessons. As she continued to grow she learned new skills. Now, she runs out to the bus with hardly a worry about what happens next.
That is a picture of our Christian life. We need to learn more of Christ. We need the guidance of those from our churches that have been down the path. We need to realize, and Shandi will learn this in the natural sense, that we do not �know it all.� To be willing to learn is the true mark of intelligence. To be willing to learn, in a spiritual sense, is also a true mark of our usefulness to our Savior.
When we begin to think that we know it all, or that we can do it all, is when we are most unable to find, or to lead others to, true spiritual maturity.
Being born also invigorates a family. It was a great thrill, just over a year ago, when my little grandson came to live with his parents. His aunt, his grandfather, his father, and his big sister, were all watching as his mother came through the door and he made his first appearance in his home. It was a time of joy.
So, also, it is a time of joy when a new Christian is born into the family of God. This gives encouragement to the church family. But, there is more joy than just this. �Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.� (Luke 15:10)
Have you ever typed something into your computer that just wasn�t needed? What did you do? I�m going to guess that you hit the �delete� button.
In this verse John also mentions some things negatively about the salvation experience. There are some things that man might think are necessary, but that God sees as, not only unnecessary, but as counterproductive to the concept of salvation from sin.
Notice that the bloodline of humanity is deleted. �...not of blood...�
Salvation does not come from human generations. Just because one comes from a Christian family does not insure his salvation. This fact of the family�s devotion in which one�s physical birth happened may be used of God to bring conviction upon a heart. But, this does not mean that one is a Christian simply because his parents were so.
Each individual must make the decision to follow Christ for his own life. Until this is done a person is still a sinner, as we all are, by birth. Our natural state, as humans from the race of Adam, is sin. It is into this that we are born. If this were not so there would have been no need for Christ to come and offer Himself as a sacrifice for sin.
Neither is anyone saved as an honest gentlemen. That simply means that salvation does not come from living a good, clean, moral life. Proverbs 21:4 says, �An high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked, is sin.�
The idea of sin residing within a �high look,� or a �proud heart,� is easily understood. But, the concept of sin lying with the act of plowing is harder to understand. Plowing is one of the most elemental, and most important, tasks of the human species. It is hard to consider this as sin. Well, that�s not what the Bible says. The Bible says that �the plowing of the wicked� is sin. The point is that one who is unconverted is a sinner. Everything that he does is sin because it is done from a sinful heart.
No one is good enough to deserve the salvation offered by Christ.
No one is so bad as to not be worthy of the love of Christ which will change that person from a child of Satan to a son of God.
Salvation is also not part of human governments. We often speak of Islamic countries, or Buddhist nations, or Catholic states, and so on. But, to be honest - speaking from a Biblical perspective, there can be no such thing as a Christian nation.
The idea of nationhood, or statehood from the standpoint of human government, is of time and history. The Bible presents a picture of God as the Author of these things. He stands outside of, above, the temporal powers.
The Christian, meanwhile, operates within an eternal framework. God is eternal. Our salvation is eternal. It is not possible that our salvation be tied to a human government since human governments fail while our God continues to work within His Holy objectives.
Besides this, salvation is a personal thing between an individual and the God of the Universe. Governments cannot make decisions for individuals on matters over which they have no control. No human government has control over God so they cannot call themselves Christian governments. They may be influenced, hopefully, by Christian principles; but, these governments are not of eternity and cannot be Christian for, or �Christianize,� their population. That is a job for the Holy Spirit working with the Christians who have been yielded to fulfilling the Great Commission.
When it comes to the matter of salvation, we must note that boasting is denied. �...not of the will of the flesh...�
Within the framework of the religious freedom offered by our constitution, the U. S. has become a haven for religious experimentation. I honestly believe that there is no culture in the history of the world which has spawned as many cults as have we in this nation. Mostly these have been based on new interpretations of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures.
For the most part, these cults were founded by persons who were given to visions, or prophecies, which led to �new insights� into the story of God�s actions on earth. Generally, these have included the writings of the founders of these cults which were elevated to the status of near Scriptural authority. Sometimes, these included completely new �additions�to the Scriptural record. Always these included the information that the Gospel which had been preached, before these self-appointed prophets came along with their new discoveries, had been corrupted by time and persons who had acted outside the perceived will of God.
In doing the above these religious leaders have always mocked the words of Jesus. Jesus said, of the churches which He established upon the great confession of Peter that Jesus is �...the Christ, the Son of the living God.�, (Matthew 16:16) �...the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.� (Matthew 16:18b)
Each of these manmade religious institutions have argued that the need for their rise was that the church had failed.
Many churches have failed. That is true. But, in each and every age God has kept unto Himself a remnant that has not failed. It is through these churches, established by Jesus Christ, that the Gospel message has continued down through the ages. We do not need new religious movements. We need more religious people who are committed to the old story that Jesus died in time that we might live in eternity.
The plans of humanity are not those of salvation.
Neither is the peace of humanity the plan of the salvation of God.
Man cannot bring true peace to his soul without accepting the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ. Everything that man has attempted, from self-flagellation to contemplative trances, can never bring peace between man and God. These are the works of man. The only work which God has said He will accept is the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary. (see John 3:36)
Neither can peace between nations be seen as peace between God and man. Salvation remains a personal thing. It can not come through the auspices of human governments.
Salvation is not of the place of geography. The location of a persons birth has nothing to do with his souls salvation. God does not save locations. He saves individuals.
We also see that the idea of brotherhood is dismissed. �...nor of the will of man...�
Salvation does not lie in religious observance. The old argument of the Baptist preacher still stands: �If I baptize a man who has not accepted Christ, all I have done is make a sinner wet.� There is truth in that!
Partaking of the memorial of the Lord�s Supper is not the same as accepting the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. This was an ordinance given to the people of the various churches. It has nothing to do with the sinner and can never save his soul.
The Lord�s Supper is a memorial of the real sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross of Calvary. One must partake of the purpose of that sacrifice if he is to obtain salvation. A couple of weeks ago I celebrated my 37th wedding anniversary. I was the only one there. Linda, my wife, passed on into glory back in May of 2000. That anniversay day means nothing to anyone else here on earth except to me. I was there on that day. It was one of the best days in my life to be able to spend those years as Linda�s husband. Had anyone sat down to celebrate with me, it would have been meaningless to them.
To celebrate the memorial of the Lord�s Supper without first experiencing the salvation available from the Lord�s Sacrifice, is meaningless. It is to celebrate that which one has not experienced.
Salvation does not lie in racial pride. There is much talk about this in this day. We, here in the U.S., have become a nation divided. Every group, it seems, wants to put �-American� after the place of the birth of their ancestors. There is nothing wrong with that - to an extent. Sometimes it is carried to such excess as to divorce the rest of humanity from the person so speaking.
Salvation does not lie in our ancestral home. Salvation is tied only with Him Who has promised to give us a heavenly mansion.
We are not saved by who we know, or by whom we came into this world. We are saved by Him Who died on a cross to take away our sin.
Neither is salvation of righteous men.
The Bible says, �As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.� (Romans 3:10)
Never allow your salvation to be tied to a preacher, or a religious teacher. There is only One Who is worthy of our faith and devotion - Jesus Christ. Others may lead us to Him. That is the most they can do. Remember that even the best of the Christian brotherhood is a sinner saved by the grace of the Lord.
Of our salvation, the Builder is Deity. �...but of God.�
First, notice that the salvation of souls was the plan of God.
John, speaking of beast of Revelation, says, �And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.� (Revelation 13:8)
The verse says that those who worship the beast are condemned. But, the important thing, from our present perspective, is that Jesus was considered as, �...the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.� Do you realize what that means? It means that God understood the end from before the beginning of time. He knew that mankind would sin. He knew that His creative acts would necessitate the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary.
Yet, He loved us, mankind, so much that He completed His creation and considered Jesus as slain from before the foundation of the world. Our redemption is not predicated on a surprised God. God knew what was going to happen. He created us even though it necessitated the death of His Son.
The amazing grace of God is greater than we could ever imagine!
This means that God placed the Sacrifice. It was not a miscarriage of justice that sent Jesus to the cross. It was a miscarriage of human justice. The outcome of His trial was predetermined by His earthly enemies. The cross was readied through political intrigue. But, the sacrifice was mandated by the dictates of the justice, and the great love, of God.
Many times we see things we cannot understand. Many times we fail to see purpose or reason in the acts of God and history. Be assured, when the dust settles from the events of this present time, when the sun of eternity shines upon the acts of time, we will understand that the worst case we could imagine is the best case God�s love could allow.
Remember, finally, that God pulls the converts. We are not saved because we are good. We are saved because God is Love. Jesus, Himself, is the sacrifice that will save your soul. He calls us to His offered salvation.
Why not accept Jesus as your Savior? Do it today. Do it now while He is calling. Jesus calls you right where you are. You don�t have to clean up your act or do any great work. All you must do is simply accept the sacrifice which Jesus made.
Accept Him now.