All Power — The UNIVERSE
Most people have passed right over many vital statements in the Bible, not recognizing their tremendous import!
Let me give you a few. Ask yourself, have you ever recognized the true import of these statements in God's Word?
Matthew 28:18: "And Jesus came and spoke unto them [after His resurrection], saying, ALL POWER is given unto me in heaven and in earth."
Matthew 11:27: Jesus said: "ALL THINGS [the whole universe] are delivered unto me of my Father . . ."
John 3:35: "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given ALL THINGS into his hand."
John 13:3: During the last Passover, "Jesus knowing that the Father had given ALL THINGS into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God . . ."
John 16:15: "ALL THINGS that the Father hath are mine . ."
I Corinthians 15:27: "For he [the Father] hath put ALL THINGS under his [Christ's] feet. But when he saith ALL THINGS are put under him, it is manifest that he [the Father] is excepted, which did put ALL THINGS under him. And when ALL THINGS shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put ALL THINGS under him, that God may be all in all."
And — incredible, yet true! — we, in Christ, are made co-heirs with Christ in this ultimate supreme rule.
Incidentally, I Corinthians 15:27-28, along with verses 22-26, indicates that our reign over the universe shall follow the thousand years' reign on the earth.
Must GROW During Gestation
Human life starts with what the Bible terms "corruptible seed" — physical male sperm. Divine life starts with that which is incorruptible — the Holy Spirit of God entering the human person. But as the human embryo must GROW till it becomes a fetus, which must GROW to the point of being born into the human family, so the Christian in whom divine life has been started by the gift of God's incorruptible Spirit must GROW toward perfection to be born into the GOD family. He will then be perfect, unable to sin.
Peter gives an analogy of this:
"Being born again . . ." (I Pet. 1:23). Being — in process of — not having been — not yet an immortal person — but being "born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible . . ." (Other translations use the term "begotten.") Greek: annagennao — to beget anew — (Young). Peter is here referring to the process having started within us by the incorruptible Spirit of God — not as our human life was begotten by human physical sperm. Peter here shows that the Spirit of God is the incorruptible "seed" that imparted the presence of eternal life within us. Continue: " . . . By the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever."
Peter continues, chapter 2: "Wherefore . . . as newborn babes . . ." Not that we are already-born perfect divine spirit persons having entered into and inherited God's Kingdom. He is comparing the Christian's spiritual "gestation" period to the growth of a newborn human physical baby simply because it would be awkward indeed to compare it to a physical embryo or fetus. He is not saying we are already born babes in God's Kingdom — but as — or like newborn human babes. It is an analogy, which Webster says is a comparison or "likeness between two things . . . consisting in the resemblance not of the things themselves, but of two or more attributes, circumstances or effects."
Peter is simply showing that, as a newborn human babe must be nourished and GROW physically (even, for that matter, as must the unborn fetus), so Christians must grow spiritually. Continue: ". . . Desire the sincere milk of the word" (RSV has: "long for the pure spiritual milk") "that ye may GROW thereby" (I Pet. 2:1-2). Paul styled it "unto the perfect man" (Eph. 4:13) — unable to sin. When born again, we shall not be helpless spirit BABES, but spirit beings of perfection unable to sin. This Christian spiritual GROWTH is in spiritual character and knowledge in this present human life. As a physical babe must grow physically, so we in the Christian life must grow in spiritual knowledge and character (see II Pet. 3:18) to become PERFECT, which we shall never attain UNTIL born as spirit beings.
The Comparison
During our converted human Christian life, we are already children of God, as yet unborn. We have within us, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the presence of ETERNAL LIFE — Spirit life — divine life — BUT, only from and through GOD. We do not, yet, have any eternal life inherent — of ourselves, independent of God! And, WE COULD LOSE IT — be aborted!
This compares to the unborn physical fetus in the gestation period. It has human life — but only through the umbilical cord and FROM the mother — NOT independently of itself. And it can be aborted!
This is so clearly brought out in the Bible, in I John 5:11-12: "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." It is not inherent in us. We do not now in this life have born life of our own, independent of Him. Our contact with Him through His Spirit is the umbilical cord through which we are partaking of eternal life from Him. Continue, verse 12: "He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son hath not life." If one is cut off from Christ, he has NO eternal life.
A BORN human baby has human life on its own — independent of its mother. That defines the difference between the state of begettal and a born state! The only difference is, in the Christian life we are fed and protected by and through the spiritual Mother — the Church — while our actual eternal life comes into us through and from GOD. But when BORN again, of GOD, we shall have ETERNAL LIFE INHERENT — of our own! We are NOT now in that state!
HOW Jesus Was the ONLY Begotten Son
King David of Israel had God's Holy Spirit. Praying for forgiveness, following his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah, he implored: "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me" (Psalm 51:10-11).
The prophets had received God's Holy Spirit. Peter wrote: ". . . Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (II Pet. 1:21). They could not be called "holy men" unless God's Spirit was within them.
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are to be seen in the Kingdom of God. Jesus said so. Therefore God's Spirit was "dwelling in them" — they were begotten of God — but THEY WERE NOT BORN of GOD — for Jesus is the firstborn of many brethren.
But if they were begotten of God by the Holy Spirit — and hundreds of years before Christ was born, how could Jesus be called "the ONLY begotten Son of God"?
ANSWER: The scriptures calling Jesus the ONLY begotten Son of God all apply to His begettal as the human Son, His first birth — born of the human mother, Mary. Jesus was the ONLY human ever begotten by God prior to HUMAN birth. In Revelation 1:5, the A.V. speaks of Christ as the first begotten — but other translations render it, properly, first-BORN — referring to His resurrection, not His human birth from His mother Mary.
Jesus was NOT the first begotten in the sense that Abraham, David and Old Testament prophets were begotten.
Before Jesus was conceived by Mary, He was not the SON of God. God is the divine FAMILY. He was one of that Family. In John 1:1, He is called the "Logos" — the Word. He, like the Father, had existed eternally. But He is nowhere in God's Word referred to as a SON of God prior to conception by Mary. His human birth was His first birth. He gave up the GLORY He had with the Father in order to be born into the world to save the world.
Abraham and many others — prophets and writers of the Bible — were begotten. of God — they were in the same identical state as human Christians who have God's Spirit within them today. But they have not, even yet, INHERITED — entered into — the Kingdom of God. They have not yet been BORN of God.
Jesus had to be the FIRST to be BORN of God — the FIRSTBORN of many brethren. That was His second birth, as the resurrection will be ours! "And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise [were not born into the KINGDOM]: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect" (Heb. 11:39-40).
This, again, PROVES that the conversion in this life — receiving the Holy Spirit — is only a begettal — NOT a birth! For Old Testament fathers and prophets received God's Spirit — but they were not "born again" because Jesus was the first so born!
How does this PROCESS of being born again take place?