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was made to need another spirit–
the Holy Spirit of God.
How can one receive the Holy
Spirit ? Through C hrist , t he second
Adam, we can receive God' s gift of
his Holy Spirit. Upon repentance
and faith in Jesus C hrist, whose
death paid the penalty for sin in our
stead, we may be reconciled to God
and receive the Holy Spirit of God ,
which is
added
to our human spiri t
(Acts 2:38; John 7:38-39) . Thus we
become the
begotten
children of
God (1 Pet. 1:3; Rom. 8: 14-17).
The human spirit in man and the
Holy Spirit of God
join
to make a
begotten child of God, just as the
maJe sperm cell and the female
ovum or egg cell join to make a
begotten human, but not yet devel–
oped or ready to be born as a
human being.
God's Holy Spi ri t, when it
combines with the human spirit in
the human mind, does two things:
1) it begets the human with
divine, eterna! life to be later born
into the God famil y as a divine
being, then composed wholly of
spirit; 2) it imparts to the mind
the ability to comprehend
spiri–
tual
knowledge- to' u nderstand
the things of God.
The first human beings were
free ly offered t his second and
much-needed Spirit. Of the two
symbolic trees in the garden in
Eden, the "tree of life" represented
God's Holy Spirit. To have taken
the fruit of that tree would have
been to receive God's Holy Spirit,
which would have joined with their
human spi rits, impregnating them
as begotten (not yet born) children
of God.
But by taking of the fruit of t he
"tree of the knowledge of good and
evi l," our firs t parents rejected
God's Spirit, which would have
begotten the very life of God in
them and would have enabled them
to understand revealed
spiritua/
knowledge. Thus they cut t hem–
selves and thei r descendants off
from access to God's Spirit and
limited
themselves and the human
race to material knowledge and
unders tanding (Gen. 3:22-24), ex–
cept for those God specially calls
(John 6:44).
The Spirit-begotten Christ ian
now has, conditionally, the pres–
ence of eterna! life within him (or
November / December 1982
her) through a portian of the Spirit
from the Father. But this does not
mean he is an immortal spirit
being. He is not yet wholly com–
posed of God's Spiri t. He is now an
"heir" of God (Rom. 8: 16-1 7)–
not yet an inheritor or a possessor,
not yet " born again." But , if tbe
Holy Spirit dwells in us, God will,
at Christ's return to earth as King
of kings, give us immortal ity by his
Spirit that dwells in us (Rom.
8: 11 ) .
Now just as in human reproduc–
tio n the impregnated embryo,
whic h later becomes a fetus, is not
yet born, but must be nourished for
a period of time through the human
mother , so the begotten Christian
is not yet born into the God family .
''
Man, unlike the
animals ... rs
self-conscious, aware
of his own
existence as a unique
being.
''
The divine life has merely been
begotten.
It
must now
grow!
Why We Must Grow Splrltually
Included in God 's purpose for
creating man is the development of
righteous, spiritua/ character
within him!
Notice again what God
said in Genesis 1:26: "Let us make
man in our
image.
... "
The origi–
nal Hebrew here indicates far more
than merely the form and shape of
God-his o u tward li keness.
" Image" also refers to
mind
and
character!
God intended for man–
to whom he gave the gift of a think–
ing, reasoning mind- to ul timately
have the very mind and character
of
GOD.
God 's purpose in creating man is
to
reproduce himself
with tbe per–
fect spiritual character only God
possesses. Man was there fore
created in God's own image and
Jikeness, his own form and shape
with a mind s imilar to his, so God
could begin to
develop
the very
c haracter of God in him.
Just as in human reproduct ion,
when the human body and brain
gradually begin to form during the
gestat ion period, so now the righ–
teous and holy character of God
must begin to take form and
grow
once one is begot ten by God's Spir–
it (11 Pet. 3:18; 1 Pet. 2:1-2).
Obviously , we cannot become
absolutely perfect in character until
the resurrection when God will
complete the process by g iving
each of us a new, perfect spi ri t
body with its perfect- s i n less
(1
John 3:2, 9)- nature that will
be like Christ's and the Father's.
But meantime, God wants us to
grow
in bis spi ritual character daily
by obeying his commandments and
overcoming and rooting s in out of
ou r
lives- growing toward
that
spi r itual perfection!
Such perfeot, holy character can–
not be created by fiat. It must be
developed and that requires time and
experience. God gives us time in
which to learn that only his way of
life brings real peace, happiness and
a joyful, abundant Ji fe. We will have
learned that sin causes only heart–
ache, misery, suffering and death.
We will have seen the results of
Satan 's way of life and rejected it,
and will have been developing, with
the belp of God's Spirit, God's own
holy, r ighteous character unt il our
change to sinless immortal life!
We become a spiritual "embryo"
when, upon receipt of the Holy
Spirit, we are begotten of God.
And to grow spiritually, we must
take in
spiritua/
nou rishment. Just
as the embryo in a mother's womb
must be nourished with life-giving
food through the placenta, so we
must be nourished by the Word of
God. " .. . The words that
1
speak
unto you," said J esus, "they are
spi rit , and they are life" (John
6:63). T hose words are recorded in
the Bible-and J esus said we are to
live by every word of God (Matt.
4 :4) . We drink in these life-giving
words from the Bible through read–
ing, st ud y ing and meditati ng
(thinking) on what we read.
Spiri tual character development
requires time and comes largely by
experience- by putting the Word
(Continued on page 44)
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