"Born of God" John 1:12-13
So many people today who experience difficulties in family, work, and many social relationships tend to blame their troubles on their background, birth or their parents, and regardless of how those factors may or may not have influenced the present, there is always the possibility of a NEW BIRTH in Jesus Christ.
Look at John 1:9 (esv): “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He (Jesus) was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” Last week we looked at verse12: “But to all who did receive him:” (Receiving Jesus is to entrust yourself to Jesus, to acknowledge all of His claims, and to confess Him as Savior and follow Him as Lord.)
“Who believed in his name”: (Knowledge of, Assent to {you are persuaded by the evidence}, Trust in and Surrender to Jesus {Allegiance}; we actively yield ourselves to the One who bears that Name, the Lord Jesus. If we are surrendering to Jesus, then we are also being obedient to Him. Obedience always accompanies believing, and believing always accompanies obedience. If you are obedient and believing, you are following Him. If you are following Him you are obedient and believing.)
“He gave the right to become children of God”: The authority to ENTER is by the Gift of God. The WORD, the Lord Jesus, gives the right to become children of God. Jesus was ALWAYS the Son of God in His Person and Deity. God in Christ issues the right for some who are spiritually dead and blind to come into the Family of God and BECOME His Beloved Children. It is God’s divine agency which initiates salvation.
NOT OF BLOOD
Now today, Verse13 explains three ways that you DO NOT become a child of God: “Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” This is also one of the main themes of John’s Gospel: The possibility of a NEW BIRTH through faith in Jesus Christ: The New Birth is the possibility of a NEW BEGINNING, a spiritual awakening, a totally NEW LIFE; If you truly want to be a child of God and live and experience His goodness and grace, the old structures must be removed if the new is going to be erected.
Our text tell us that a child of God is “BORN NOT OF BLOOD” (actually “bloods” in the plural) The word for “born” is “Genao” and it describes the commencement of life where previously none had existed. Where you are today has something to do with your physical birth: You are alive! You were born into this world, but your physical birth has absolutely nothing to do with you receiving a NEW BIRTH in Christ. Being a child of God has nothing to do with your heritage. It has nothing to do with “noble blood”. If you were born into a wealthy family, you may also be wealthy, but you are not a follower of Christ, because your parents were, and you cannot be eliminated from God’s Family if your parents were not.
There is the TV show “Blue bloods”: Everyone in the family is in law enforcement because they were “born into” their occupation. They are following their heritage. The downfall of Israel was their pride in their heritage: They so often said, “We are Abraham’s children. How could we be sinful?” God said in Deuteronomy 32:18: “You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.”
The truth is that we are not “born into” God’s family at birth, and our ancestry does not give us a “Kingdom of God” edge, but neither does our heritage deter us to enter in God’s Family: We are born dead in sin and sin keeps us from being a child of God. So being a child of God is NOT OF BLOOD(S).
NOT THE WILL OF THE FLESH
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, (the second part) not of the will of the flesh.” “The Will of the Flesh” is used here in the sense of our natural human appetites, instincts, desires and even emotions. It would even include sexual impulses. What God is telling us is that you will not become a child of God through any of those exercises. Your carnal instincts, desires or emotions will not transform you into a Child of God. The “will of the flesh” does not pave the way for becoming a child of God. Becoming a child of God is not initiated in the “senses” any more than it could be accomplished by your physical birth into a noble family. Your family background did not place you in God’s kingdom, and neither do your carnal impulses place you into God’s Kingdom.
“Many people believe themselves to be Christians simply because they get an emotional kick out of attending a certain kind of church service. This comprises much of popular religion today…Are such experiences valid? Not according to the teaching of the Bible! The Bible teaches that a surge of the emotions does not produce rebirth. Your can be moved to tears in a meeting, but that alone will not transform you into one of God’s children.” (J.M. Boice “The Gospel of John”, Vol. 1, p. 81)
A sexual exercise, a physical birth, nor an “emotional high” will transform you into or proves that you are a Child of God. Oh yes, you were certainly born into A family and that was because a Man and a woman initiated sexual relations, resulting in a new life, and you were it! but neither an act or emotion is of any substance in a new spiritual birth or rebirth. We will study more on this in John 3:3: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
NOR THE WILL OF MAN
Those who receive and believe in Jesus do so NOT by blood, not by the will of the flesh, and thirdly, not by the will of man.” How can someone who is inherently dead in sin produce a new spiritual righteous life by his will? Can a dead person produce life? No, it would be impossible. Human determination, wishful or positive thinking certainly can achieve great goals, but not new a BIRTH FROM God. You may be able to change your direction and goals, habits, and achieve great things by positive thinking, planning, even by reading a self-help book from the Christian section at the bookstore. You may be able to find a philosophy that may help you “cope” with life in the “here and now”, but YOU cannot plant DIVINE LIFE within yourself in order to bring yourself from spiritual deadness to spiritual life and vitality, to forgiveness, and to life eternal by HUMAN DETERMINATION.
You may THINK that you can, but you can’t! Proverbs 14:12 says: There is a way that SEEMS right to a man, but its end is the way of death.
To be BORN OF GOD
The Divine Son of God, the Lord Jesus, stepped into this world and was born of the Virgin Mary. The only way that we can enter His Kingdom is to be "born of God". TO be born of God is a work of and act by God alone …go back to verse 12 and read the two verses again, excluding the three negatives we just examined: “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were… born of God.”
Do you see the connection between verses 12 and 13? The “WHO” or the “ONES” are the ones who received the Word, the ones who were given the authority to become children of God, the ones who are born of God. The authority to enter the Kingdom of God is by His gift alone. JESUS ALWAYS was the Son of God throughout eternity; we BECOME children of God by adoption, and HE IS THE ONE WHO ADOPTS us, and we do not become His Children UNTIL He adopts us. Sonship is not the result of faith, even though Sonship involves faith and belief. “It is true that no one is born from God who does not receive Christ and believe on His name; but it is equally true that no one receives Christ and believes on this name who is not BORN OF God” first of all. (D. A. Carson, Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility p 181)
When God gives the authority to become a child of God, WHEN you are born of God, you will believe and receive, and NOT BEFORE. James 1:18 says clearly: “In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.”(another version says: He chose to give us birth through the word of Truth.) THE NEW BIRTH or REBIRTH of God as HIS CHILD has NO BASIS IN THE NATURAL ORDER. All human initiative is ruled out in the REBIRTH or “regeneration” because of one supreme reason: HE GAVE THEM THE RIGHT and He gave them THE NEW BIRTH and so they were able to receive and believe. Dead men don’t see, receive or believe! I am not trying to persuade you of anything but the TRUTH OF HIS WORD.
Why does God save this way? If God merely required that we gain an intellectual understanding of these things, then we could go to school to gain access into the Kingdom of God. God never said that. He said you must be REBORN, BORN AGAIN by God. He speaks of life, eternal life and rebirth which you cannot achieve through education. That’s why we can proclaim to God alone be the Glory! And He will NOT share or give HIS GLORY TO ANOTHER. 1 John 3:1 says: “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, (THE FATHER HAS GIFTED) that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.”
Ephesians 1:3-6: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”
This is NOT a step by step process or plan to follow. It is NOT a 3 or 4 step program! It is God’s work in salvation by Grace. God does it, we receive it, and we receive it when He does it! No other way. It is why God’s Word speaks about conversion as NEW LIFE or REBIRTH. If we could achieve the new birth, then Jesus did not have to come to die for us.
The Biblical doctrine of REBIRTH takes all glory away from MAN and gives it TO GOD. If you exalt man in your thinking so that he’s able to take care of himself spiritually and eventually inch his way to heaven, if HE ALONE does not receive the Glory, then there is no need for a GLORIOUS Savior to be Born and no need for the Sovereign God to be praised.
God SENDS out HIS WORD: The Word, JESUS, lights upon the earth and the Word will not return to the Father without the results that God has ordained. Jesus brings back with Him all whom the FATHER has chosen before the foundation of the WORLD. Isaiah 55:11: “So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” What is the THING that God accomplishes to those who are born of God by His Authority? SINNERS are FORGIVEN and raised from the dead and are given LIFE ETERNAL: They RECEIVE Him as their life and light and they BELIEVE in His Name, they obey Him and Follow Him, because He alone saves.
If you question whether or not you are saved, DO NOT SIT BACK as if you are waiting for the train to come and invite you for the ride. Throw yourself upon the mercy of God for your salvation. Examine yourself: “Am I trusting in myself, my works, my abilities to save myself? Or am I trusting in God alone?” The authority to enter the Kingdom of God is given by His Gift alone. Ask Him for that gift of new life. Beg Him for that gift, not on your merit but on His.
Read one of the Gospels slowly and prayerfully. 1 Peter 1:23 says, “You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.” You are born though Christ, and the revelation of Him as Savior and Lord is IN HIS WORD. You must be convicted of who Jesus is and what He is able to do, and the Holy Spirit will do His Work through the written and Living Word. TAKE IT and READ IT! Jesus said in John 6:37 says: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” Trust Jesus alone for your salvation and follow Him.
John 1: 12-13: “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” If you indeed believe and have been born of God, come and celebrate that new birth at the Table of the Lord, and proclaim it in your life in a way that God Alone will be glorified!
OUTLINE:
I. Three ways to NOT become a Child of God: (born” is “Genao”: the commencement of life where previously none had existed.)
1. not of blood(s): not by physical birth, not of “noble blood”, not of “blue blood”. Israel’s pride of heritage. (Deut 32:18)
2. not of the will of the flesh: not by natural human appetites, instincts, desires and even emotions.
3. not of the will of man: not by human determination, wishful or positive thinking. (Prov. 14:12)
II. The ONLY WAY to become a Child of God: TO BE BORN OF God.
(James 1:18, 1 John 3:1, Eph 1:3-6, Isa 55:11, 1 Peter 1:23, John 6:37)
1. The authority to enter the Kingdom of God is by His gift alone.
2. All human initiative is ruled out in the REBIRTH.
3. Sonship is NOT the result of faith, but INVOLVES faith and belief.
4. REBIRTH takes all glory away from man and gives it to God.
