The Germ of Eternal Life
First, notice that the Holy Spirit —the germ by which we are begotten — comes from the Father. God has masculine characteristics. That is why we call Him "Father." We are called the "begotten children of God" (I John 3:1).
God, then, has the power to beget us as His children. He begets us "by his Spirit." Each portion of the Spirit by which we are begotten is termed in the Bible a germ or "seed." Peter tells us we are "begotten again, not of corruptible SEED, but of incorruptible, through God's word, which liveth and abideth" (I Peter 1:23). Jesus completes this by saying we must finally be born again —at the resurrection — when we shall be spirit (John 3:5-8). Now we are only flesh with the spiritual germ of eternal life impregnating us.
Second, notice that an attribute of God's Spirit is perfect character. The Holy Spirit, the germ of eternal life, transmits that possibility into us. It is the Spirit of obedience — of perfection.
Every begotten child of God must ask God for the power to resist sin. We must let Christ live His life in us through the Holy Spirit. If Christ abides in us, through the Holy Spirit, we have the power which enables us to resist practicing sin. Notice what Paul wrote: ". . . for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is GOOD . . . For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not" (Romans 7:15-18).
Notice how weak and powerless to resist sin Paul really was. He needed divine help — the same power that was in Jesus Christ which enabled Him to resist sin. That power comes from the Holy Spirit of God!
The MIND of God
Conversion starts with repentance. Conversion means change. Repentance means a change, from the wrong to the right. It is a change of mind. But that change is not enough. We must receive the Spirit of God in order for that change to be permanent. Our minds need to be developed to become like God's mind. "Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2:5). But how is this possible?
Your Bible reveals there is a spirit in man (Job 32:8). It is not the man — it is something in the man. Connected with physical brain, it forms human mind. It imparts the power of intellect and personality that no animal can have. This spirit in man is not conscious of itself. It cannot know apart from the brain. It is spirit essence. It is a human spirit. Man, with this spirit, knows only physical things. It requires the addition of another Spirit — God's Holy Spirit — to open the human mind to comprehension of spiritual things (I Cor. 2:9-11).
"The mind of the flesh" — with which you were born — "is death" — it produces death through sin; "but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace."
Few grasp how GREAT and all-powerful God is — and how GREAT His kindness is in making it possible for us to have His Mind!
Now that we understand that the Holy Spirit imparts eternal life and spiritual characteristics of God, we can better understand the NATURE and attributes of the Spirit.
What It Means to Be BORN of God
Only when one is born of God at the resurrection does a person become perfect (I John 3:9-10). Christ is the only human being thus far born of God. He is perfect. If He, so to speak, lives His life in us by means of the Holy Spirit — that is the same as saying we are to live by every WORD of God, for Christ is the WORD personified — Christ is the Bible in action — we have at hand the power of spiritual SELF-CONTROL as we yield to His Spirit. We have the capacity to grow toward a perfect character like God!
Of course! If we are God's children, we are to grow up to become LIKE Him. That is true of all nature. It is equally true of Spirit as it is of matter.
Notice: "For his invisible attributes since the world's creation are clearly seen, being perceived through the things made, both his everlasting power and divinity" (Rom. 1:20). The physical creation reveals the divine attribute of God to reproduce us in His image. Nature reproduces — therefore it reveals that God does. And if He is our Father, if we are begotten of His Seed, the Holy Spirit, we shall become like Him. That is what the world does NOT know!
The Family of God
Since there is a Heavenly Father, and we are His begotten children, then God must be a FAMILY! And the Church of God must be composed of the begotten Family of God. It is the Holy Spirit that unites the Church.
Notice the family relationship in Galatians 4:6-7: "God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying `Abba,' " meaning "Father." It is the same Spirit by which we are placed or immersed into the Church. "For in one Spirit also were we all baptized into one body" — the Church (I Cor. 12:13).
In Hebrews 12:9, the Almighty is called "the Father of spirits." We are ultimately, at the resurrection, to be composed of spirit — members of the Divine Family (John 3:6).
In the resurrection the mortal bodies we now have will be changed to spiritual bodies" (I Cor. 15:44) imbued with the power of God.
Notice how often in Scripture we are declared to be heirs of the DIVINE NATURE — of immortal, incorruptible, perfect, all-powerful SPIRIT possessing the very MIND of God. We are to be full partakers of the "divine nature" (II Peter 1:4). But we may also receive a part of that power in this life — NOW! The apostolic church had that power — so can we!
We Are Like an Egg
Whenever we become members of God's begotten Family, we receive a portion — a seed or germ — of the Father's Holy Spirit. "On the nations also was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 10:45). This gift is called a seed. It is poured out from the Father in heaven and, like physical life-giving germs or sperms, unites with the human spirit in each of our minds upon conversion. Each human mind is like the nucleus of an egg to which the Holy Spirit or seed unites.
Just as the egg in a mother's womb must be nourished with life-giving food through the placenta, so we must be nourished by the WORD of God.
"The words that I have spoken," said Jesus, "ARE SPIRIT AND ARE LIFE" (John 6:63). Those words are the Bible. That is why man must live by every word of God.
Just as the physical life-giving nutriments circulate in the mother's uterus, so must the life of God circulate through our minds. We drink in the life-giving words of God from the Bible through reading and studying and meditating. Then, just as the physical poisons are carried through the umbilicus by the bloodstream away from a fetus in the womb, so must we allow our sins to pass from us by asking forgiveness through prayer to God, the shed blood of Christ figuratively bearing our sins away. But this is not all!
Not only must the words of God flow into our minds through Bible study, but SPIRIT must flow into our minds.
Notice that each converted Christian receives a seed — composed of spirit, not matter — which unites with the human spirit in each repentant human mind. That is what begets us. But that spiritual germ must spiritually grow like the fetus in a mother's womb. Let "Christ be formed in you," said Paul in Galatians 4:19. And, "we must grow up in everything" — in spiritual mindedness (Eph 4:15).
How is that seed, now united with our minds, going to grow?
By the addition of more Spirit — by the "supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:19).
Added to the germ which proceeds from the Father there must be a continual supply of Spirit sent from Jesus Christ so that our minds grow spiritually — till our minds become more and more spiritual — till we grow to mature spiritual minds. Spiritual growth comes through PRAYER — earnest, heart-rending prayer! Most people don't grow spiritually because they do not pray in earnest!
Just as a fetus in a mother's womb must have physical substance added to the original ovum (egg) and sperm, if that new physical life is to develop, so we must be FILLED WITH SPIRITUAL NOURISHMENT — "filled with the Spirit" so that our minds grow spiritually.
The Holy Spirit from Christ and the Father may be compared to a current of electricity flowing through a light bulb. We are that bulb. But there could be no light without a filament inside of the bulb. That filament is comparable to the spiritual seed from the Father. As we receive more of God's Spirit, we emit more power — more light! Our light literally fills the room!
The expression "filled with the Spirit" (Eph. 5:18) does not mean to be filled with emotional manifestations (which come from the flesh and not from Spirit). It means that we are imbued with Spirit from heaven administered through Jesus Christ in His office as High Priest.
Notice how Paul explains this in Romans 8:8-9: "But ye are not in the flesh" — we are not motivated by fleshly passions — "but in the Spirit" — motivated and guided by Spirit — "if so be that GOD'S Spirit dwelleth in you." That is the Holy Spirit in the form of a seed from the Father transmitting His characteristics. But notice what Paul adds: "But if any hath not CHRIST'S Spirit he is none of his." That is the Holy Spirit from the Father and Jesus Christ, filling our minds so that we can grow spiritually. This begettal and growth through the Holy Spirit most people have never understood.
Hidden in Old Testament Times
In the Old Testament, men did not pray to the Father. But we pray to the Father. No one addressed God as Father in Old Testament times. Christ came to declare who the Father is — to declare that we may be begotten of Him: "God no one hath ever seen; an only begotten" — Christ — "himself God, who is [ascended] unto the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him" (John 1:18, Panin translation).
Then what about the prophets and patriarchs of old? Did they not have the same power as we can have today? Did they not have the same power as the apostles?
How did they have access to the Spirit of God? Through the One who was to become Christ (I Peter 1:11). Christ, one of the members of the God-Kingdom, was the One who administered the Spirit to Moses, to Abel and to all the faithful of old. He sent the Holy Spirit of the Father to be in them, to give them faith and POWER. "And these all, witnessed through their faith, received not the promise, God having foreseen something better concerning us, that apart from us they be not made perfect" (Heb. 11:39-40).
It was not fully revealed to the patriarchs and prophets how one is begotten and born into the Kingdom of God. They knew only that through the Eternal, who would come to give His life a ransom for many, they would inherit eternal life. They knew that the Spirit of God was not made available to the people in general. They knew there would be a "new and living way" (Heb. 10:19-20) whereby all would have direct access to the Father through Christ — that "whosoever will" might partake of the Spirit of God — "the earnest of the Spirit of promise" (Eph. 1:14).
Today, we — and whosoever will — can have God's life and POWER as a very part of our being, enabling us to overcome and master our human nature!
The NATURE of Spirit
Spiritual qualities and entities seem so unreal to most people. And no wonder. Spiritual things are invisible, not discerned by the senses until revealed IN WRITING in the Bible!
When we speak of the Holy Spirit, many cannot grasp its nature. Yet the Bible makes clear the nature of spirit.
Notice, "God is Spirit" (John 4:21). The God family is composed of spirit. The Father and the Son, who are composed of spirit, have definite shape. From one end of the Bible to the other we are told about the shape and the parts of each member in the God family. The Father and the Son each have a head, hair, eyes, nose, mouth, arms, fingers, a torso, legs, feet, plus inward parts. Man is in the image of God. Man is matter, but God is spirit.
The Holy Spirit, like matter, exists in various states. It not only composes the members of the God Family, it also flows through our minds, and empowers us to do good works.
Also a Creative Spirit
Even though the Father and the Son are in definite locations with respect to each other, spirit proceeds from them and fills the entire universe much like air fills everything on earth! Note David's words that God's Spirit permeates everything (Psalms 139:7-11). Spirit is God's life. Air contains the physical life-giving oxygen of man. Notice how similar the comparison is.
The divine Spirit that fills the entire universe is the channel by which the Father and the Son create. The Spirit of God transformed the creative energy of Father and Son into the physical world we see around us. Man has no such attribute or power born into him. But man may form tools which transform man's expended physical energy into visible objects, into light, heat, and numerous other physical manifestations.
Man is put here on earth to learn to develop tools for limited creative work — to train himself for the ETERNAL GOAL — becoming part of the God family, which means sharing control of the creative Spirit of God. (Write for our free booklet Why Were You Born? See worldwide mailing addresses on the back page of this reprint)
God is a Family. The Father in heaven wants you to become a member of His divine Family. You can be His son if you surrender your whole life to Him — believe all that is in the Bible — believe Christ is your Savior and obey Him — and become filled with the power of the Spirit of God. This knowledge has now reached you. What are you going to do about it?
Personal Counsel
We can help you do something about it if you so desire. The Worldwide Church of God has ordained ministers available to help you personally. See the box below for additional details.