“May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together – spirit, soul, and body” (1 Thes 5:23, MSG)
Before one can really appreciate the unbelievable event of rebirth, one needs some background of how mankind came to be in a fallen state, “having no hope … without God” (Eph 2:12).
The first person, Adam’s, relationship with God is characterised by the fact that he walked and talked with God; that he received instruction from Him; that there was relationship. The ability to hear God’s voice was a spiritual ability. It occurred on an intimate level – the words “to know” are also used in Hebrew in the context of intercourse.
Human beings consist of three parts: you are a spirit, you have a soul, and you live in a body. There is very often confusion between body and spirit. Your spirit is your ability to communicate with God and be able to function in the spiritual realm. Your soul is who you are: your will, your intellect, and your emotions. The soul facilitates between the body and the spirit.
When God warned Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden (Gen 2:16-17), he also warned him that, should he do it, he would surely die. After Adam and Eve ate of the tree, they did not die physically. Adam lived long thereafter (Gen 5:1-2). What did the warning actually mean then? It means that they died spiritually, literally their spirit became dormant, and thus their ability to hear God pretty much came to and end. God is spirit and when one worships Him, one needs to do so in spirit (John 4:24).
All of humankind has thereafter inherited the same condition as Adam. All people have inevitably died in the same way as Adam did (1 Cor 15:22). We have all sinned and do not have the ability to have a relationship with God. There is no-one who seeks God. “They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no, not one.” (Rom 3:11-12).
Everyone after Adam have thus learnt to know God at soul level – and that is the enormous danger that we fall into – it brings about religion. Religion is the external act that people do on the levels of soul and body to simulate a relationship with God. If you practice your religion through emotion, through a decision of the will, or through intellectual reasoning, it’s merely a soulish experience – it cannot become a relationship with God. Shocked!? Read John 4:24 again.
One’s spirit is only revived out of a dormant state when you are born again.
When you are born again your spirit, soul and body are integrated so that you can get to know Him on all levels of your existence.
Perhaps to consolidate what we have learnt, let’s go over the main points of the wonderful process that God has put in place to enable us to know Him thus far: We have learnt over the past few days that God has called you to follow Him, and this precedes your salvation. Jesus makes this awesome statement in John 6:44: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him”. Thus if you react to His voice, it is because you have reacted to His direct appeal to you: Follow Me.
This call comes to all people (Tit 2:11), not just specific people as some theological views present: “the saving grace of God has appeared to all people”. God always “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4).
Although the call comes to all people, you have to personally receive Him (John 1:12) – you must react positively to the call to follow Him. The Kingdom of God must be taken by force, Jesus says in Matt 11:12, and only those who do so, who want it very badly, will receive it.
Before we got to know God, we most probably knew a lot about Him. Because our spirit dimension was dormant, we could not know Him in spirit, and thus “we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way” (Is 53:6).
But when you became aware of God’s call to you, you answered –this we call conversion. Conversion is thus the concrete choice that you make to answer God’s call to you.
If you get to the point where you reach out to God, turn yourself towards Him, turn away from the path that you have walked till that point – that is your initial conversion.
Conversion precedes being born again. Conversion is your choice; God answers with your rebirth. In this way He brings you from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of Light (Col 1:13).
- Sela: Ponder and document your initial conversion in your journal. Perhaps you’ve had several significant turn-around experiences. Document these too; and, if necessary, ask Him that this one be for keeps.
- Read: Gen 6 & 7: Ps 6 & 7; John 6 & 7
- Memorise: John 6:35; 7:37-38
