That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (約翰 3:6).
We have a spirit, 靈魂和身體. The question you might ask yourselves is: am I carnal and do I live after the flesh? In other words: does my flesh direct my steps and actions? Or do I live after the Spirit, and does my spirit direct my steps and actions?
You can live after the flesh or you can live after the Spirit. If you walk after the flesh, then the result will be bad. But if you life after the Spirit then the result will be good.
What a man sows, he will reap. 如果你在肉體中撒種, you will reap corruption and if you sow in the Spirit, you will reap life everlasting (另請閱讀: 你播種什麼, 你將會收穫).
But let’s have a look at what Jesus meant by the new birth. What He meant, when He said, that you can only enter the Kingdom of God if you are born of water and Spirit. (約翰 3:3, 7)
If Jesus needed to restore the union, it means that union was there once, but was broken. 所以, we need to go back to the Garden of Eden to understand the necessity of the new birth.
Throughout human history we see, that people chose the way of the flesh; walking in obedience to the devil, instead the way of the Spirit; walking in obedience to the Father. This started already in the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve chose the carnal tree of knowledge rather than the holy tree of life. Because they desired and chose the carnal tree above the holy tree of life, God was compelled to pronounce the sentence of dead upon them.
Adam was a living soul
Adam was a living soul, born out of the Spirit. He was one with God. But after he sinned, the death sentence came upon him. And God said to him, that as he came from dust, and was dust, he also would return to dust.
Before Adam sinned, his predominant characteristic was spirit, but after he became disobedient to God and sinned, his predominant characteristic was flesh.
That sentence of death, that carnal disposition, was passed on to the entire human race. 每個人 都, who would be born of the seed of man, would carry the death. Therefore everyone, who is born on this earth is carnal, and is a prisoner of the sin nature. There’s no one excluded.
How do you enter the Kingdom of God?
Because we are carnal and carry the sin nature, we cannot enter in this status the Kingdom of God:
But the natural man receive not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 哥林多前書 2:14)
Now this I say, 兄弟們, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption (1 哥林多前書 15:50)
God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth (約翰 4:24)
What is the necessity of the new birth?
Now you see the necessity of becoming born again. Only by the new birth can we receive eternal life and enter the Kingdom of God.
This spiritual life can ONLY be achieved through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is the catalyst that brings us to an encounter with the Holy Spirit, who regenerates us, so that we are born into the heavenly realm just as you were once born into the earthly realm.
Necessity of the new birth emphasised in other places
The necessity of the new birth is emphasised in other places:
- The universal results of sin demands it:
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned (Rom 5:12)
正如它所寫的, 沒有一個是正義的, 不, 沒有一個 (Rom 3:10)
- Unregenerate man is unable to understand or receive the gifts of God
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Co 2:14)
- Without the new birth everything we do, every impulse and action is defiled
For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, 謀殺, Thefts, 貪婪, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man (Mar 7:21-23)
- Unless we are born again we have no escape from the judgment of God
And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worth in the children of disobedience: 我們從前也都在他們中間談論肉體的私慾, 滿足肉體與心靈的慾望; 生來就是可怒之子, 即使和其他人一樣 (Eph 2:1-3)
