The New
Birth Voice of the Lord
The 29th Psalm is all about the voice of the Lord.
In verse 4 the
psalmist states, "The ‘voice' of the Lord is
powerful..." From the very
beginning of the bible we see the power in God's
voice manifest as he
said, "Let there be light: and there was light." By
simply speaking,
God created the natural universe in which we live!
Now that is power!
In contrast, the voice of man can either hurt or
soothe the eardrum, but
it cannot bring anything into existence. Only God's
voice has the power
to create.
God's voice gives life
to the dead. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the
dead, it was written that Jesus "cried with a loud
‘voice,' Lazarus come
forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand
and foot with
graveclothes..." Jesus with his voice spake the name
of Lazarus and he
came forth from the dead. In 1 Thes. 4:16 we read
about the
resurrection of our bodies from the grave, "For the
Lord himself shall
descend from heaven with a shout, with the ‘voice'
of the archangel, and
with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall
rise first. Then we
which are alive and remain shall be caught up
together with him in the
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we
ever be with the
Lord." Similarly this power of Jesus' voice in
raising the dead bodies
from the grave is written about in John 5:28, 29,
"Marvel not at this:
for the hour is coming in the which all that are in
the graves shall
hear his ‘voice,' and shall come forth..." Thus we
must conclude that
the efficient cause of the resurrection of the dead
bodies in the grave
is the "voice" of the Son of God!
Before we are born of
the Spirit of God (born again) the bible
describes us as being dead in trespasses and sins
(Eph. 2:1). When we
were dead in trespasses and sins we had no spiritual
life. As God is
the creator of all things, it is He who has "created
us in Christ Jesus
unto good works." This creation is the new birth.
Please note, as
follows, that it is the ‘voice' of the Son of God
and not the voice of
man that brings Spiritual life into the dead
faculties of our heart and
soul:
a. John 5:25, "Verily,
verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming and
now is, when the dead shall hear the ‘voice of the
Son of God:' and they
that hear shall live."
b. John 6:63, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the
flesh profiteth
nothing: the words that ‘I speak' unto you, they are
spirit, and they
are life."
c. John 10:16, "And other sheep I have, which are
not of this fold:
them also I must bring, and they shall hear ‘my
voice;' and there shall
be one fold, and one shepherd."
d. John 10:27, 28, "My sheep hear ‘my voice' and I
know them, and
they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life;
and they shall never
perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my
hand."
To the above I make
the following observations:
a. It is the "voice" of the Son of God that gives
life to those who
were before spiritually dead.
b. The flesh does not assist in giving spiritual
life because "the
flesh profiteth nothing." Thus the preacher,
teacher, friend, or parent
cannot give eternal life nor can my actions as a
fleshly being help
cause the new birth.
c. All those to whom the "voice" of the Son of God
is spoken hear
and are given eternal life.
d. All those that the Lord speaks life into are
preserved from perishing.
Now we may ask
ourselves the question, "Have I heard the voice of
the
Son of God and what did it sound like?" When Elijah
the prophet fled
from the wicked queen Jezebel, the Lord told him in
1 Kings 19:11 13,
"And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount
before the Lord. And,
behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong
wind rent the
mountains and brake in pieces the rocks before the
Lord; but the Lord
was not in the wind: and after the wind an
earthquake; but the Lord was
not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a
fire; but the Lord was
not in the fire: and after the fire a ‘still small
voice.' And it was
so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face
in his mantle..." A
still voice would make no naturally audible sound.
Yet the still voice
of the Lord is more powerful that the great wind,
earthquake, and fire!
God brings forth the new birth with a still small
voice that our natural
ears cannot hear. Yet we can know we have been born
again by the
evidences in our lives. This we shall address in
another essay.
Finally we read in Isa.
55:10, 11 of the certainty of the new birth to
those to whom God speaks, "For as the rain cometh
down, and the snow
from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth
the earth, and
maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed
to the sower, and
bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth
forth out of my
mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it
shall accomplish that
which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing
whereto I sent it."
When God speaks his word into the dead faculties of
the heart and soul,
it does not return to God void, but it accomplishes
what God pleases
(the new birth) and it prospers in the thing whereto
he sent it.
Praise God for his
powerful still small voice that caused us to be born
again.
The New
Birth Love in the Heart
When God causes us to be born again several things
happen to us. One
of the things that happened to us is that God wrote
his laws in our
heart and our mind. Several verses of scripture
point to this which we
quote as follows:
A. Heb. 8:10, "For
this is the covenant that I will make with the
house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I
will put my laws
into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and
I will be to them a
God and they shall be to me a people."
B. Heb. 10:16, "This
is the covenant that I will make with them after
those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into
their hearts, and in
their minds I will write them."
C. II Cor. 3:3,
"Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the
epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with
ink, but with the
Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone,
but in fleshy tables
of the heart."
D. Rom. 2:15, "Which
shew the work of the law written in their
hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and
their thoughts the
mean while accusing or else excusing one another."
From the above
scriptures several conclusions can be drawn. First,
the
laws of God are written into both the heart and the
mind. Secondly, it
is God who does the writing and not man. Thirdly,
these laws written in
our heart and mind serve as the basis or foundation
for our covenant
worship of God. The foundation of the law worship or
service was the
ten commandments written on two tables of stone. The
foundation of our
worship under the gospel is the laws of God written
in our hearts and
mind. Fourthly, these laws written in our heart and
mind along with the
conscience God gave us serve as the basis for the
self examining
courtroom of our heart and mind.
We may ask ourselves,
"Just what laws did God write in our hearts and
minds?" I Thes. 4:9 seems to be the key to answering
this question,
"But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I
write unto you: for
ye yourselves are taught of God to love one
another." Clearly God has
taught us to love one another and not man. Clearly,
this was a direct
teaching from God to man without any intermediator
(preacher). I John
3:14, "We know that we have passed from death unto
life, because we love
the brethren." Love for the brethren is a direct
evidence of the new
birth. Anyone who loves the brethren has been born
again! Therefore,
we know that God has written love into our hearts
and mind in the new
birth. Matt. 22:37 40 ties down for us that love
toward God is to be
manifest in our heart, soul, and mind, "Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God
with all they heart, and with all thy soul, and with
all thy mind. This
is the first and great commandment. And the second
is like unto it,
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these
two commandments hang
all the law and the prophets." Thus God writes these
two great laws in
our hearts and mind and as a result we are able to
love God and our
neighbor. Without these laws written in our hearts
and mind we would be
unable to love either God or our neighbor. James 2:8
says, "If ye
fulfill the royal law according to the scripture,
Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself, ye do well." Rom. 13:8 reads,
"Owe no man any
thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth
another hath
fulfilled the law.
Finally, we read in
Rom. 2:14, 15 "For when the Gentiles, which have
not the law, do by nature the things contained in
the law, these, having
not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew
the work of the law
written in their hearts. The basis of our love
toward God and toward
our neighbor is founded on the laws of love that God
wrote in our hearts
and mind when he caused us to be born again.
In our next essay we
will look at the subject of repentance and its
relationship to the new birth.
The New Birth
and Repentance
The scriptures teach that when people are born
again, God writes his
laws within their hearts and their minds. We quote
the following seven
passages that prove this principle:
A. Psm. 37:30, 31 "The
mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and
his tongue talketh of judgment. The law of his God
is in his heart;
none of his steps shall slide."
B. Psm. 40:8 "I delight to do thy will, O my God:
yea, thy law is
within my heart."
C. Jer. 31:33 "But this shall be the covenant that I
will make with
the house of Israel; After those days, saith the
Lord, I will put my
laws in their inward parts, and write it in their
hearts; and will be
their God, and they shall be my people."
D. Heb. 8:10 "For this is the covenant that I will
make with the
house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I
will put my laws
into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and
I will be to them a
God, and they shall be to me a people."
E. Heb. 10:16 "This is the covenant that I will make
with them
after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws
into their hearts,
and in their minds will I write them."
F. II Cor. 3:3 "Forasmuch as ye are manifestly
declared to be the
epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with
ink, but with the
Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone,
but in fleshy tables
of the heart."
G. Rom. 2:14, 15 "For when the Gentiles, which have
not the law, do
by nature the things contained in the law, these
having not the law, are
a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the
law written in their
hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and
their thoughts, the
mean while accusing or else excusing one another."
We draw several
conclusions from the above seven passages:
A. God writes his laws
directly into the hearts and minds of his
children, there are no intermediators.
B. These laws written in the hearts and minds of
God's people serve
as the foundation of the new covenant of worship.
C. These laws manifest themselves in the lives of
God's people.
D. These laws serve as the foundation of a court
room set up in the
hearts and minds of God's people.
Upon the last
conclusion we expand using Rom. 2:14, 15. There can
be
no trial or judgment without a law. No one can be
tried for breaking a
law when there is no law. In a court room there are
laws, witnesses,
prosecutors, defense attorneys, and a judge. First,
the laws are in the
hearts and minds of God's people. Secondly, God has
given us a
conscience whose purpose is to be a faithful
witness. Thirdly, our
thoughts thru either accusing us or excusing us
serve as both the
prosecutor and the defense attorney. Finally, our
hearts serve as the
judge (I John 4:20).
God has built within
each of his children a court room. The trials
within our heart and mind serve to convict us and
lead us to
repentance. First, we are convicted of our own
sinful condition which
causes us to see ourselves as condemned before a
just and holy God.
Afterwards, we are enabled, by faith in Christ's
atoning blood, to see
Jesus as our Savior. Thus the court room of our
heart and mind has
served to both convict us and to justify us. For an
example of these
principles I encourage the reader to look at
Isaiah's experience in
Isaiah Chapter 6.
Secondly, this court
room serves to convict us of individual sins, thus
causing Godly sorrow within us. This in turn leads
us to repent (II
Cor. 7:10, "For godly sorrow worketh repentance to
salvation not to be
repented of.") We do not repent in order to be born
again or to become a child of God, but we repent
because we are born again!
Finally, we ask ourselves, "What laws are written in
our hearts and
minds when we are born again?" I Thes. 4:9, tells us
that God teaches
us to love one another, "But as touching brotherly
love ye need not that
I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of
God to love one
another." Similarly, I John 4:7 reads, "Beloved, let
us love one
another: for love is of God; and every one that
loveth is born of God,
and knoweth God." Again, I John 3:14 says, "We know
we have passed from
death unto life, because we love the brethren." From
the above we can
conclude that love comes from God and is placed
within us when we are
born again. God teaches us to love directly by
writing the laws of love
within our hearts. The Lord taught us that there are
two great laws of
love in Matt. 22:37 40, "Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first
and great commandment. And the second is like unto
it, Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments
hang all the law and
the prophets. Rom. 13:8, 20 teaches us that "love is
the fulfilling of
the law." Likewise, Gal. 5:14 reads, "For all the
law is fulfilled in
one word, even in this; thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself." Paul
told Timothy in I Tim. 1:5, "Now the end of the
commandment is charity
out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and
of faith unfeigned."
Finally, James wrote in James 2:8, "If ye fulfill
the royal law
according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself, ye
do well."
On the negative side
we can conclude that before a man is born again,
he will not love his neighbor or God, he will be
totally selfish in his
actions, he will have no conviction of sin or sins,
and he will not
repent or believe that Christ is his savior. The
gospel is foolishness
to him (I Cor. 1:18).
Conversely, the man
that is born again, having the laws of love in his
heart, will love both God and his neighbor, will
manifest unselfish
love, will be convicted of sin and of individual
sins, will be led to
repent, rejoice in the gospel of his salvation, and
by faith see Jesus
as his savior.