(Ver 1.6)  This is Part 2 in an essential basic Bible study series on the subject of Savlation and the Spiritual New Birth of God.  What is it and how it occurs will be what I teach on today.  If you have not read the first lesson I would suggest that you go and start reading with “Part 1” first.  I had a Reader(?) try to tell me that being saved is not tied to any certain or specific observable process or stated steps found in the Bible.  He told me that “Salvation” was not a formula!  He implied that you just can’t ever be assured of your eternal destiny here in this life.  He clearly said that there was just no single point event that you could observe of when you were saved.  By stating that he implied that there are no given steps, instructions or ways in the Bible to be saved.  He implied you can just never know if you are really saved.  Call me different, call me unique, call me stupid I don’t care, that is just not what I see that the Bible says.  My question to this guy is, “Where do Babies Come From?”   Do you know how natural babies are made?  Can you ever know if you will have a baby or your wife will have a baby?   Does the mother ever know when she is pregnant?  Does the mother of a baby know when it is time to deliver a baby?  Is there a single point of time reference that goes on the birth certificate of when a natural baby was born?  Is not the birth of the natural baby the entry of the child into our natural present world?  This may not be a good set of questions to ask a male, but I bet you any mature female could answer these questions correctly.  This is what Jesus taught us in John 3:3.

Joh 3:3  Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

So have you ever thought about what Jesus said here?  Jesus says that a man must be “born again” in order to see the Kingdom of God.   To be “born again”, implies they were born once naturally already.  Doesn’t it, isn’t this what this verse says?  However, being born ONCE in the natural is not enough to get you into the Kingdom of God according to the words of Jesus.   If I said, I’m going to drive to Detroit again tonight.  Doesn’t that tell you that I have already driven to Detroit before?  If we are required to be born again, how was the first birth accomplished?  What you must realize is that Jesus is speaking of a first birth that is a completely NATURAL process.  Was there a formula for making natural babies in the world?  This is not a trick question!  Is it a difficult or unknown process to create natural babies in the world?  Come on and think with me for a moment!  God is comparing a natural process to a spiritual process.  Or are you spiritually blind enough to believe that THE spiritual things of God are somehow completely different than the natural things that God has created.  I believe that many people think that God created natural things to be totally separate and independent from spiritual things and this is just NOT the truth (Rom 1:20).  The natural process of things clearly point us to the unseen spiritual process and FORMULA!   Naturally created things are clearly patterns of spiritual things that existed prior to God creating our world.  God created natural sex as a pattern to spiritual things that you cannot see.  Maybe you just don’t know or understand what it means and that is the root of your problem right now.  But you should search your Bible and find the truth and then you will see that what I am trying to say is right.  Let’s look at some more verses in John 3.  When Jesus was speaking about being “born again” He was talking to a man named Nicodemus.  This was his response to Jesus’ statement of being born again:

Joh 3:4  Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?

Because Nicodemus was a carnally minded man, he was thinking only in natural physical terms.  He asks Jesus how can a grown man enter back into his mother’s womb to be born again?  Nicodemus obviously was smarter than a lot of men today, at least he knew where babies come from.  However, Jesus was speaking of spiritual things and Nicodemus was focused on the natural process of birth only.  This is the repeated problem with most Christian in the world today.  They think like Nicodemus and not like Jesus when they read the Bible.  Do you understand the difference and why it is important to see things from God’s point of view?

Joh 3:5  Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

So Jesus starts giving us the spiritual answer to Nicodemus’ carnal question.  Jesus in this verse speaks of both kinds of births, the first and the second in a contrasting comparison.   To be born of water is the natural process of you coming into the world when your mother’s water breaks and she gave birth to you physically.  This is the “First Birth” of all humans and it is only natural.  However, this natural birth is contrasted with the spiritual birth process of being born of the Spirit.  Being born of the Spirit is the “Second Birth” process that a man can experience.  Jesus clearly tells us that if you are not born naturally first and then spiritually second you will never see the kingdom of God.  Also note that Jesus did not say that you will be born again and again.  In other words spiritual brith is a onetime event, just like being born into the natural world is a one time event.  Your natural mother does not birth you over and over and like this process when you are born again spiritually it happens only once.  Always keep that in mind, that a man is never born again, again.  Let’s look at the next verse in John 3:

Joh 3:6  That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Jesus confirms what I have been saying in this next verse.  You can clearly see that only natural mothers give birth to natural babies.  You can see that only spiritual mothers give birth to spiritual babies.  A natural mother does not birth a spiritual baby and a spiritual mother does not give birth to a natural baby.  This is by God’s design and God’s laws of reproduction and procreation.  Is this too complicated for you so far?  Did you know that there were spiritual women who could give birth to spiritual babies?  So I’m going to stop and ask you again, where do natural babies come from?  Is there a formula for making natural babies?  If there is a known formula for making natural babies then there is also a known formula for making spiritual babies.  I am not spiritually blind to this truth like so many in the church!  Are you understanding this new spiritual principle that I am attempting to teach you today?  All you have to do is to open up your spiritual eyes, stop to look and study your Bible to find out the truth.

Let’ me now teach you that if you were “born again” to become a Christian right now that you had a spiritual birth mother.  Did you know that you had a spiritual mother?  Do you know that you had a physical natural mother?  If you are here in this world reading this article posted on the internet you must have had a natural mother.  It is just a biological fact of God’s designed creation.   Again I will say if you had a natural mother to be born here in the flesh the first time into the world, then you must have a spiritual mother to be born into the spiritual Kingdom of God.  So is there a corresponding spiritual mother for being “born again” into the salvation of the Lord?  Of course there has to be a spiritual birth mother.  You either never searched your Bible to find her or you must have just ignored her in the Bible and read right over the information.  Here is your spiritual birth mother if you are born again:

Gal 4:26  But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the MOTHER of us all.

Who was this letter and this verse written to?  You should be smart enough to see that it was written to us in the church of Jesus Christ.  If you are “born again”, here is your “spiritual mother” who gave birth to you to be in the new spiritual family of God.  God tells us very clearly in a statement written to the church that the “Jerusalem Above” is our spiritual birth mother.  Do you understand this?  Is this complicated?  So where do Spiritual babies come from?  Do spiritual babies come into existence the same way that natural babies are conceived?   Obviously NOT!  Spirits do not have sex with each other, but that does not mean that the spiritual process is not very similar to the natural process symbolically.  Natural things are most often used to symbolize spiritual truth that you cannot see.  It also does not mean there is not a process to be saved or to be born again.  If a natural woman gives birth to a baby and she knows when it occurs then a spiritual mother who gives birth to a spiritual baby would also know when she gave birth to a new child.  Before we go there, let’s establish who this woman “Jerusalem Above” is and where this spiritual mother lives using the Bible.

Heb 12:22  But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,

So we now have an established point of reference for the identity of the woman who gives spiritual birth to the church.   In this verse in Hebrews God says that this is the “Heavenly Jerusalem”, the city of the Most High God.  The location of which contains the throne of God and where the angels of the Lord reside and surround and praise God’s throne.  Did you know that a city can be a spiritual woman?  Did you even know that this spiritual woman Heavenly Jerusalem existed?  You should go back and study the Old Testament and see how many times the Earthly Jerusalem is called a woman, the wife of God, the whore, the harlot.   Read, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea to name a few great places to start.  See how many times God describes Israel as His wife in covenant.  See how many times she is described as being unfaithful and sleeping with other gods.  See how many times you can find where God says “I divorce” you for your unfaithfulness to me.  What we begin to see is a pattern that a woman to God is a nation of people in covenant with Him.  You can clearly see that if Jerusalem Above or Heavenly Jerusalem exists from the verses that I just gave you that this is a pattern of another woman called Jerusalem Below or Earthly Jerusalem.   What we have established is that we have a city on the earth called a woman and a city in heaven called a woman, both with the name Jerusalem.  You can clearly read about both of these women in more depth by exploring Galatians 4.  The Jerusalem Below is said to be a type of Hagar in the O.T.  The Jerusalem Above is said to be a type of Sarah.  Sarah births the child of promise and Hagar and her son are cast out.  Sarah was the older of the two women in the Bible and existed before Hagar.  Hagar had a child before Sarah had her child.  These are all physical patterns of the spirit realm and the woman that gave birth to the church.  So I probably just taught you a bunch of new things that you did not know.  Yet they are there in the Bible and you can choose to see them or go ahead and reject them like a spiritually blind man.  So let’s get back to the fact does a woman know when she has a baby?  A natural woman certainly does, but how about a spiritual woman?  Here is what Jesus taught us about this birth process:

Luk 15:10  Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

As you can see the angels of God rejoice when just one sinner repents.  What happens when one sinner repents?  They are born again!  Isn’t that what we are talking about?  Are we talking about a single point in time when a sinner is saved and born again?  If the angels rejoice when this occurs, they obviously have observed the second spiritual birth of the man.  Where are these angels?  You may recall that we read in Hebrew 12:22 that there were an innumerable company of angels in the Heavenly Jerusalem.  Are these the angels of God that rejoice over the new birth of one spirit on the earth?  You can try to explain it away if you want to, but I am convinced that these are the angels who rejoice.  After all it is that city which is said to be our mother and every mother knows exactly when she gives birth to any new baby.   People need to be smart enough to learn to put the pieces of the puzzle together correctly.  I can see it very clearly, I guess you can too if you choose to believe what you read.

Did you know that only people who want to be saved, will be saved?  No one repents if they do not want to repent.  God does not force salvation upon anyone.  Jesus says in Revelation 3:20 “Behold I stand at the door and knock, if any many will hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and I will sup with him and him with me”.  That was the basic formula for salvation and being born again in a nutshell.  Jesus first Knocks!  The man either ignores the knock or listens for who it is that is knocking.  Let’ me stop there and tell you that Jesus is speaking figuratively or symbolically in this verse in Revelation.  Jesus is not going to come to knock on your physical house or apartment personally.  No, your house where your spirit lives is your physical body.  God’s Spirit is the Spirit of Christ that comes to knock on your heart’s door.  The door that Jesus knocks on is your ears when a man like me comes and preaches the salvation Gospel.  Yes, the Spirit of God is the Key partner to any salvation.  No man comes to God unless the Spirit of God draws him.  But, God doesn’t come in person, physically anymore to save anyone.  Jesus Christ was God in the flesh and He came for a short time to fulfill the plan of God for our Salvation and Redemption.  But, He went back to heaven and has now turned over the responsibility of teaching and preaching to people like me and you.  So when a man comes to you and tells you the good news of salvation, that is Jesus working through that man to help you see the truth.  Then the individual who hears the words of God, now stands at a crossroad and at a time of decision; to either accept it or reject it.  If they accept it, they believe what was said and can ask Jesus to come and be their Lord with a repentant heart.  This invites Jesus to come in to sup.  Jesus them comes in at that exact point in time.  That is when you are saved, that is when you are born again.  If that person refuse to hear the Gospel, then Jesus has no choice but to walk away from the door.  Jesus is not going to kick the door down, just because He wants to save someone.

Any new born physical baby when first entering our world is sometimes smacked on the bottom and they take their first breaths of air and begin to cry.  This is a joyous sound for the mother who has gone through 9 months of pregnancy and then labor.  She now knows that all of the discomfort and pain was worth it.  So also then the baby knows when he or she is born into the world because they can cry and the mother knows when she has given birth to the baby because she can hear their cry, something that they never did before.  Is it any different in the spiritual realm?  No I do not believe it is.  Once a person believes in their heart that God raised Jesus from the dead and they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior like Romans 10:9-10 says they are “born again”.  The Spirit of Christ comes into their spirit and they are saved.  The angels see the birth and rejoice.  The mighty cloud of witnesses in heaven also see the birth and they now rejoice (Heb 12:1).  This is just how it works by God’s design, if you do not believe it, that is your problem and not mine and it does not change the facts.  I know that I am saved and I know how I got saved.  Salvation was not a long process, it was not a complicated proces, it was just following the formula that God gave us in His Word that worked for me.  So I’ll ask you one more time “Where do Spiritual Babies Come From”?   I believe that you can see that we still have a lot to learn about how God does things in the unseen spiritual realm.  If you are not a “born again” Christian and have had the pleasure of this new spiritual birth it is not difficult to make happen in your heart.  If you want to read about how to be saved, you can go to “Salavation and How to Know if You are Going to Heaven” and follow the instructions.  God Bless!

If you would like to continue reading in this series you may proceed to “Part 3“.

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If  you want to know how to get saved and know that you are with confidence you can go to:  How to know that I am saved?