IV. REGENERATING THE REPENTANT
AND BELIEVING SINNERS
The all-inclusive Spirit regenerates the repentant and believing sinners. This is shown in John 3:5-6. Regeneration is the imparting into us of another life, the divine life, a life other than our human life. D. L. Moody said that regeneration is the greatest miracle in the universe. In an instant a person can become regenerated. He becomes another person, not only with another life but also with another person. The life and the person are one. Christ is His believers’ life; Christ is also His believers’ person. Before a person is regenerated, he lives merely by his life, by his person. But once he is regenerated, he receives another life, another person. Actually, the person is the life, and the life is the person. Thus, from the time of our regeneration, it is no longer we that live, but another person, Christ, lives in us (Gal. 2:20a). Now Christ is within us as our life.
V. SANCTIFYING AFTER
THE BELIEVERS’ REGENERATION
After regeneration, the second section of sanctifying begins. We are regenerated, but we are still full of our natural peculiarity. Therefore, the Spirit functions to sanctify the believers after their regeneration (Rom. 6:19, 22; 15:16). This sanctification involves a transformation from the natural disposition to a spiritual one by Christ as the life-giving Spirit saturating all the inward parts of our being with God’s nature of holiness.
VI. RENEWING THE BELIEVERS
Because of our oldness, we all need to be renewed. The all-inclusive Spirit renews us (Titus 3:5). We are renewed first in our spirit and then in our soul, including our mind, emotion, and will. All the inward parts of our being have to be renewed. We should not think, feel, or decide according to our old, natural man. We are Christians, so we should be renewed in everything. Even in the way that we comb our hair, we need to be renewed. In the way that we keep and arrange our rooms, we need to be renewed. In selecting a pair of shoes and in shining our shoes, we need to be renewed. Everything in our life should bear a sign that we are God’s children, because we are renewed. We need to be renewed in our thinking, in our loving and hating, in our deciding, and in everything.
(The Christian Life, Chapter 4, by Witness Lee)
