BORN OF GOD
[p. 208] BORN OF GOD
It was suggested that the subject of the work of God in the soul might be considered, with special reference to being “born of God”, and the difference between what is received through faith and what is formed by the Spirit.
FER We get in this epistle the characteristics of those born of God. “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin” (3: 9); “Every one that loveth is born of God” (4: 7); “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (5: 1); “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world” (5: 4); “He that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not” (5: 18). It is important to apprehend that there is a generation in the world begotten of God; not merely a number of people who believe, but there is a generation who are “born of God”. It is no longer a question of testing or improving man, but there is a generation born of God, and they carry the characteristics of those born of God. The two great characteristics of this generation are righteousness and love. With God the order is love and righteousness, but with the children of God it is righteousness and love. Man has departed from God and has got into lawlessness, and therefore to begin with God he must begin with righteousness. The law claimed righteousness from man but did not produce it; it had to be brought about by man being born again and submitting to the righteousness of God. We cannot practice righteousness until we have submitted to the righteousness of God.
The starting point of men being born of God was Christ coming into the world. The first allusion to it is in John 1: 12: “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons (children) of God, even to [p. 209] them that believe on his name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”. To be “born again” does not go so far as “born of God”; the Lord speaks of the former to Nicodemus in connection with the kingdom, but the latter connects itself not with the kingdom but with children. “Born of God” supposes full christianity; it applies to children in whom is expressed the nature of the One by whom they are begotten. Christ was begotten into the world — “This day have I begotten thee” — and in connection with Him there is a generation begotten of God. If we look at things in the light of “born of God” we look at them from God’s side; on our side we begin by believing God’s testimony, but in this epistle the Spirit of God presents things from the divine point of view, and we see that there is a generation whose practice proves that they are akin to God in nature — in righteousness and love. In the sermon on the mount and in the Lord’s teaching we get the idea of a generation — of children. “Children” does not bring in the thought of association with Christ as He is now; sonship does that, but “children” refers to a generation in which there is a continuation of Christ here. The order began in Christ and is continued in christians. We are “called the sons (children) of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not” (1 John 3: 1).
Born of God in John 1: 13 brings in the thought of divine sovereignty. Man has no hand in it; it is not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. Man cannot compass the bringing forth of a generation characterised by righteousness and love, and it is such a generation which the epistle contemplates. “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil” (1 John 3: 10). These last are never saved. There is salvation for man — and that universal — but there is a class (although we cannot point them out) to whom every testimony has been presented in vain, and they are here spoken of as the children of the devil. God’s testimony [p. 210] had been presented with force and validity, evidenced by works of power, to the Jews, and refused by them and then, seeing their character, the Lord said, “Ye are of your father the devil” (John 8: 44). God gave testimony and man refused it, and this proved that he was of that wicked one. There is something similar in the expression “sons of Belial” in the Old Testament. It is very solemn to reject God’s testimony.
We are not told the process by which people are born of God, but we are told the proofs and evidence of it. The process is not our side of it.
Rem The epistle supposes that all done; there are those who are born of God.
Ques What is righteousness?
It is the righteous requirement of the law; that is, loving God with all your heart, and your neighbour as yourself. When we come to practice, righteousness is love. If Israel had kept the law it would have been their righteousness, hence love is really righteousness. The first step in righteousness for man is to submit to the righteousness of God. We cannot get practical righteousness except by that. In believing the gospel we submit to the righteousness of God. God has come in by the gospel to enforce His righteousness in the way of grace. The righteousness of God is that on which God has a right to insist, and man has to bow to God’s rights. God has approached man in the gospel, and insisted on His rights of mercy, and that is the proof that God is love. God has been pleased to approach man in grace, and when man submits to God’s righteousness he is affected by that grace. There is power in what is morally right. The gospel may be preached in a dogmatic way; that on the ground of faith there is forgiveness; but what needs to be seen is that God has presented grace in the gospel in order that He may get His own proper place in the heart of man. God calls upon man to submit to what is proper on the part of man. With God everything begins in love; with us everything begins in righteousness.
[p. 211] God is entitled to the supreme place in the heart of every intelligent creature. When Israel keeps the law in the future, it will be love. Righteousness for man is to give God His rights, and to give his neighbour his rights; love is the fulfilling of the law. But if a man goes in for practical righteousness, be must begin by submitting to the righteousness of God; that is, bowing to the gospel.
The first mark of the generation born of God — the children of God — is that they practise righteousness, and they do not practise sin. Those born of God are the subjects of divine affections they are in the place of children, and so come under divine teaching. We are children by the acceptance of God’s testimony, and then we come under divine teaching, and the result is that we know God, and then we love Him.
You never get the thought presented of being “born of God” save by those who wrote to Jews. Paul takes up things rather differently and speaks of the new man and new creation. In Ephesians there is a kind of correspondence to John; it looks at things from the divine side. It is only John who shows us the church actually in heaven, and that in order to come out of heaven. The church is to come down out of heaven from God; John sees it there, and then he sees it come down (Revelation 21: 10).
The children of God come to light by the practice of righteousness; they escape from lawlessness by receiving the testimony of God’s grace presented in the gospel; then they come under divine teaching, and then they know and love God. We could not love save as knowing God; love is a matter of divine teaching and is the result of it. Christ is God’s testimony to man; God approaches man in Christ. Christ risen is the testimony, and it has a double character; He is the expression of God’s righteousness and He is also righteousness for man because He has met man’s liabilities. Christ expresses the moral rights of God, and He has also met the liabilities which lie on man. Christ came here to express God’s rights in regard of man, but man was under death and the curse of a broken law, and Christ took up man’s liabilities and in that way has become righteousness for man. The death of Christ is the declaration of God’s righteousness, but it also meets our liabilities, and this latter has to do with our righteousness. The way God has insisted on His rights is by coming in in grace; had He not done so it would have been a question of righteous judgement. It is important to see that Christ preached righteousness; He insisted on righteousness, and He was the expression of God’s righteousness.
Another interesting point in connection with being born of God is that he who is born of God believes that Jesus is the Christ (1 John 5: 1). It is genuine faith. A Gentile might believe that Jesus was the Christ; the Samaritans believed it.
If we recognise this generation — that is, those born of God — we shall not regard much else here. Natural feelings and distinctions have to go. “There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all” (Colossians 3: 11). Believing that Jesus is the Christ is connected with the testimony of the twelve; Paul’s testimony was additional, that He was the Son of God. The faith that Jesus is the Christ is what brings the generation to light.
The righteousness of God was fully made good in the death of Christ, but the resurrection is the testimony to it. If we had not resurrection Christ would be still in death. The assertion of God’s rights does not go beyond the measure of man’s responsibility. The counsels of God are what set a man in heaven. The righteousness of God is connected with earth, and shows how God asserts His rights in regard to man’s responsibility, and of meeting his liabilities in connection with that responsibility. The brazen altar is the place of man’s acceptance according to God’s glory in regard of the responsibility of man. The glory of God is the display of all that [p. 213] God is — His effulgence.
Ques What is becoming God’s righteousness in Him?
I connect it with the heavenly city which was measured by the reed of the angel (Revelation 21: 15 - 17). All answered to the required measurement, and will be the expression of God’s righteousness. It is wonderful to think — sin having come in and man having departed from God — that God should be able to have His place completely with man; that every liability on man should be cleared, so that God’s righteousness might be set forth in man. It is not our righteousness, it is God’s righteousness, and refers more to state than to liabilities being met. Christ is the testimony of God to man; He expressed the righteousness of God, and in Him all the liabilities of man were also met. God has come out in righteousness and love, and now He has a generation in accord with the way in which He has come out.