Why Christify One's Life? (part 2)

In the last post I considered the fact that the whole subject of "Christifying" one's life (see this post for definition) is a subject that to the natural man is ridiculous, and so, really unworthy of consideration. I also briefly showed from the Scriptures that if anyone's ever going to see the need for "Christification" they must be first born again. That leads to the question of how does one get "born again"? Which is the question that I want to try to, as succinctly as possible, begin to answer in this post.

There are two perspectives from which we can look at this question: God's perspective and man's perspective. I am convinced that it is a failure to consider this differentiation of perspective that often leads to misunderstandings. In this post I will focus on what I am calling God's perspective.

If you've ever been a part of a church that has "altar calls" or "invitations" at the end of the service (note: if you are part of a church that sees that as an absolute necessity in any service just be advised that not all do, which is why I include the "if" - I am not here questioning their validity) where the pastor does something like have everyone bow their heads and close their eyes and then asks them to come up front if they want to receive Christ, then you may have heard something to the effect of "Come and place your faith in Christ today and be born again", or something along those lines. Now while from man's limited and finite perspective that may be a reasonable thing to say, from the Bible's perspective, and hence ultimately from God's perspective, the order of that statement is confused.

In other words, man doesn't place his faith in Jesus Christ (more about what that means later) and then get born again, man first gets born again and then he places his faith in Jesus Christ.

There are several places we could go to in order to find the Bible's teaching on this matter but let's just consider one: John 3:3.

In this text Nicodemus, a ruler of the religious leadership in his day, approaches Jesus presumably looking for some answers. As Nicodemus approaches Jesus he (Nicodemus) gives Him some accolades for the miracles he has been performing and Jesus responds by saying this:

...“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
John 3:3b (ESV)

A quick definition of the Kingdom of God may be helpful. For simplicity sake, we may define the Kingdom of God as "the spiritual realm over which God is rightfully and rightly acknowledged as King."

Part of what believing in Christ entails is acknowledging Him as King, becoming a subject in His Kingdom, bowing before Him as "King of kings and Lord of lords" (Rev. 19:16). But, according to Jesus here, unless one is born again they cannot even "see" the Kingdom of God. Now, to be clear, He's not speaking here about "entering" the Kingdom (more commonly referred to as getting "saved"), He does that later on in the passage in v.5, here Jesus is specifically speaking about one's ability to "see" the Kingdom.

You see, the natural person, the person who is still in the state into which they were born (i.e. the "of the flesh" of v.6), is unable to even "see" the things of the Kingdom, and therefore must first be born again. The natural person cannot place his faith in Christin order to be born again for they cannot even see their need for Him! To them, as we considered previously, the things of the Kingdom are "foolishness".

When viewed from God's perspective then, as opposed to finite man's limited perspective, the new birth is the first event that takes place in a person's coming to faith in Christ - which to keep with the main purpose of this blog is absolutely necessary for seeing the need to Christify one's life. It is not an event that man can in and of himself manufacture, nor is it one that he can control. Just like you couldn't control your natural birth, so too you can't control your spiritual birth. Jesus, later on in the conversation with Nicodemus puts it this way:

"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
John 3:8 (ESV)

Simply put: You can't control the wind. You can't control the Spirit. Each moves as God ordains.

In conclusion, maybe it would be helpful to clarify what I mean by perspective. In fact, it may be a bit misleading to use the term perspective.

What I do not intend by that is that there are two different right ways of understanding the new birth, God's and man's. There is only one right way: God's. What I mean is simply man's experience of the new birth (i.e. his perspective) is often confused with the order in which the Scriptures tell us the new birth takes place.

In other words, if you have been born again, you most likely did not feel that happen first, before you believed in Christ. The first event that took place on your timeline was believing in Christ, and you were probably unaware that the Spirit of God had been already "blowing" in your heart, and hence it would just seem logical to you that the first act in the drama of your redemption was your belief. That is the normal experience, but it is a mistake to then confuse that experience with the order in which the Scriptures tell us that these events take place.

But I'm moving ahead. More next time...

In Christ,
Matt