“born of the Spirit”
Yesterday evening was the end of the week, and we did the atypical action: We stayed home rather than going out for dinner or attending a ballgame or anything such as we typically do. Instead, we took a walk, as we did, the wind blew against our faces as we turned and walked home. It was there, on the road, where the Spirit of God gave to me these words.
- We can somewhat understand the concept of Holy God—God the Father; God the Creator; God the One who spoke the world and everything we experience into existence. &
- We can somewhat perceive the concept of God’s Holy Son—God the Son of God and Son of man; God in the flesh; Jesus the Savior; Jesus the Redeemer; Jesus the One who will come again in the rapture. BUT
- We struggle to comprehend the identity of God’s Spirit—One that breathed on the apostles during the day of Pentecost. God who is Holy Spirit; One who moved over the surface when chaos and darkness ensued; Spirit of God who completes the Holy Trinity.
As we walked in the breeze, I wondered why.
When I was a child, the church where we attended referred to Spirit of God as The Holy Ghost. Now, to be honest, I was totally ‘wacked’ out by this whole idea of a ‘ghost’ coming into me, given to me by God. Laugh if you must, but as a child, I just did not understand the third person of the trinity, and if I am totally honest, even as an adult, I still struggle to comprehend everything the LORD reveals to me.
See the opening scene, when the world began—
“In the beginning
(Genesis 1: 1-2 NASB)
God created the heavens and the earth.
The earth was formless and void,
and darkness was over the surface of the deep,
and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.”
He is “the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.” (Nicene Creed of AD 381)
Like the Father and the Son, Holy Spirit is sinless; He is divine and He was, is, and will always be.
When we come to the place where we begin to ponder the existence of God, it is Spirit of God who has brought us to this place, who convicts our being, who intercedes, and who helps our eyes to be opened.
As a child of the Scriptures, Holy Spirit is seen as the One who comes at Pentecost, there in Jerusalem, right before the apostle Peter stands to preach his sermon.
“When the day of Pentecost had come,
(The Acts of the Apostles 2: 1-4 NASB)
they were all together in one place.
And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind,
and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.
And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves,
and they rested on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues,
as the Spirit was giving them utterance.”
Supernatural power!
As a child growing up in the flatlands of Indiana, this whole concept of Spirit of God coming upon the apostles, changing them and making it possible for them to speak in tongues just seemed weird. So, the concept of God’s Spirit changing and making me able to speak in tongues just seemed almost unfathomable. My earliest Bible teacher, Mrs. Pohl, taught us about Almighty God and about Jesus, the Son of God, but truthfully, I do not recall if she ever really said much about the third Person of the Holy Trinity.
Nonetheless, maybe I was just not paying attention in her class because the Bible says—
- Spirit of God was present—there “In the beginning. . .”
&
- Spirit of God was also present—there “When the day of Pentecost had come, . . .”
Clearly, the third Person of the Trinity has existed from the beginning. Therefore, the question becomes: What are we to do with this presence of God within us? For this answer, we turn to Jesus, Who answers the questions asked by the religious leader Nicodemus, the man who was struggling to understand the concept of ‘New Birth’ through God’s Spirit. It was THERE in the dark of night when he came to seek Jesus, to seek the answers he needed.
“Nicodemus said to Him,
(The Gospel According to John 3: 4-8 NASB)
“How can a man be born when he is old?
He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?”
Jesus answered,
“Truly, truly, I say to you,
unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh,
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Do not be amazed that I said to you,
‘You must be born again.’
The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it,
but do not know where it comes from and where it is going;
so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Just like the wind blowing, we struggle to know the way from which it comes. We just sense it blowing against our skin. We feel it and are cooled by it, but we do not fully understand where it originates. We sense Him moving, we are internally touched, and we believe, leading to the eternal life He breathes into us.
- It is there, in the fully unknowing—that a person believes.
- It is there, in the darkness—that one first believes in Jesus.
That night, when Nicodemus came to ask Jesus his questions, the Savior told this religious leader, who had studied the Old Testament his entire life, what he needed to know.
‘You must be born again.’
We may not fully understand the presence of God’s Spirit, but we must accept the truth to believe, & there, we believe anyway, even though we do not fully comprehend. So, we believe in the wind that is unseen, and we believe in the unseen Holy Spirit. Jesus tells us we must be born of the Spirit in order to truly become a child of God. It is there in the in-between: the void of darkness and chaos—that one believes in the Son of God, Jesus, the Savior and the Messiah.
- The One who penetrated the darkness, the chaos—Holy Spirit was there “In the beginning. . .”
&
- The One who was present with the apostles when the church of God began—Holy Spirit was there “When the day of Pentecost had come, . . .”
It is true with all mankind—It is THERE in the dark, in the place of chaos, in the lack of fully understanding, where one comes to seek Jesus, to seek the answers he needs, to receive God’s Spirit & to be BORN AGAIN.