Regeneration by the Holy Spirit

n the article we have titled "Sealed With the Holy Spirit," I gave you the specific verses from the Bible that show us that not only do we receive the Holy Spirit at the exact moment of our conversions to the Lord, but that we are also sealed with His actual presence on the inside of us.

This divine seal now becomes a very powerful bond between God and us and we are now sealed for all of eternity as a result of receiving the Holy Spirit on the inside of our human spirits.

However, in addition to receiving the Holy Spirit and actually being sealed with His presence, one other thing will occur at the exact moment of our conversions to the Lord - and that one other incredible thing is that we will be "regenerated" by the Holy Spirit.

Here is the verse that will specifically tell us that we will be regenerated by the Holy Spirit at the moment of our conversions to the Lord:

"But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." (Titus 3:4-7)

Notice two very important things in this verse:

First, this regeneration is being directly tied to us getting saved in the Lord. The words "but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit " are definitely telling us that we are saved by God's grace and mercy and that when He does save us - He is saving us "through" the regeneration of the Holy Spirit.

Second, this regeneration is done directly by the Holy Spirit Himself. The words "regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit" are telling us that this regeneration is being done directly by the Holy Spirit Himself.

As I explained to you in my article on "Sealed With the Holy Spirit," when the Holy Spirit comes to live on the inside of us at the moment of our conversions to the Lord, He comes to live and take up residence in our human spirits. The Bible says that we have three parts to our being - body, soul and spirit. The Holy Spirit will move in and take up residence in our human spirit. As a result, our bodies have now become His actual temple.

What this means is that our human spirit is what will actually get regenerated at the moment of our conversions to the Lord - not our souls or our bodies.

As you will see in some of the definitions I will list below, once our human spirits are regenerated by the Holy Spirit at the moment of our conversions to the Lord, several incredible things will immediately happen. But before I get into the actual specifics as to exactly what will happen in this regeneration, here are some of the basic definitions of what this regeneration of the Holy Spirit is all about from some of the different Bible Dictionaries and Commentaries:

• Spiritually reborn
• Spiritual rebirth producing a new beginning
• A spiritual rebirth, being renewed, reformed or reconstituted
• Renewed or restored after a decline to a low condition
• New birth, the begetting of new life
• Renewal of moral and spiritual nature
• The rebirth of the human spirit to a restored relationship with God
• Renewed to life and salvation by faith in God
• An act of God through the Holy Spirit resulting in an inner, personal resurrection from sin to a new life in Jesus Christ
• The radical spiritual change in which God brings an individual from a condition of spiritual defeat and death to a renewed condition of holiness and life

All of the above definitions perfectly describe what happens in this regeneration. To think that the Lord will literally allow His Holy Spirit to enter into our human spirits at the moment of our conversions to Him so that we can have His divine life and power start to flow and operate through us for ministry and sanctification - is enough to knock you right off the couch when you really stop and think about what is really in this regenerative work by the Holy Spirit.

So that you can really grasp how powerful and wonderful of a thing it really is to literally be regenerated by the Spirit of God, I will break down all of the incredible blessings and benefits under the captions below. It is one thing to know that you have been saved by the blood that Jesus has personally shed for you - but it is quite another thing to fully realize and fully understand exactly what we have as a result of this new spiritual rebirth in the Lord.

Study these benefits and blessings very carefully if you really want to know who you really are in your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Without question, our personal salvation and regeneration in the Lord is absolutely the greatest and most profound and powerful thing that can happen to any human being this side of heaven. There is absolutely nothing greater than to be truly born again into the kingdom of God.

1. Regeneration is Instantaneous Through the Holy Spirit

The first thing you need to know about your regeneration in the Lord is that it is an instantaneous event. It is not something that has to be worked out over the course of time. It is a one time event and it is perfectly completed at the time it is done by the Holy Spirit.

Regeneration occurs immediately at the time that you receive the Holy Spirit into your human spirit. In other words, it occurs at the exact moment of your personal salvation and conversion to the Lord. It is not a progressive process like our sanctification in the Lord is.

Not only is our personal salvation in the Lord a direct free gift, but so is our personal regeneration in Him. It's a full package deal. In our personal salvation is our personal regeneration in the Lord. There is nothing that we have to do on our end to earn it or achieve it. It's all given to us as a direct free gift from God the minute we are willing to admit that we are sinners in need of a personal Savior to save us from our sins.

2. Only Our Human Spirits Are Regenerated At Salvation

The Bible says that we have three distinct parts to our beings - body, soul and spirit. As explained above, the Holy Spirit initially only comes to live and dwell in our human spirits - not in our souls or our bodies. What this means is that only our human spirit is immediately regenerated at our conversion with the Lord.

The body is obviously not regenerated as it is still subject to the aging and death process as a result of the Adamic curse that is still in full operation on this earth. Our physical bodies will eventually be giving out and dying on us.

Our soul is who we really are. It is our total personality. It is our mind, will and emotions. However, our souls are not regenerated at this new birth.

The Bible tells us that we have to enter into a sanctification process where God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, will start to mold, shape and transform us into the express image of His Son Jesus Christ. This sanctification in the Lord is a progressive process. It is not something that is instantaneously received at our conversions like our regeneration in the Spirit is.

Part of the sanctification process with the Lord is done by the renewing of our minds. The Bible tells us that we are actually transformed by the renewing of our minds. But this renewing of our minds is a progressive and constantly on-going process and it is something that will go on for the rest of our earthly life.

Bottom line - only our human spirits are immediately regenerated as soon as we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

Our human spirits are immediately regenerated because the Holy Spirit has now moved in and has taken up full residence in them. As a result of the Holy Spirit's presence and power now residing in our human spirits, our spirits are immediately and instantaneously regenerated with a new divine spiritual life.

3. We Are Now Born Again Into the Kingdom of God

As a result of accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior and receiving the Holy Spirit into our human spirits - the Bible tells us that we have now been "born again."

Here is the verse that will give us this incredible revelation:

"... I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God ... unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." (John 3:3,5)

Notice that being born again is referring direct to being born of the Holy Spirit Himself. In other words, if you do not have the Holy Spirit living on the inside of you, then you are not truly born again in the Lord.

It is only when the Holy Spirit enters into your human spirit are you truly born again - and the only way to be able to get the Holy Spirit to enter into your human spirit is to be willing to accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. There is no other way into the kingdom of God. We either come through Jesus and the blood that He has personally shed for all of us on the cross or we do not come through at all.

As a result of being truly born again, our spiritual relationship with the Lord has now been fully restored.

When Adam and Eve first sinned in the Garden of Eden, not only were they banished from this most incredible environment, but they also lost their direct spiritual connection and relationship that they so perfectly had with the Lord.

Their spiritual relationship with the Lord was completely severed and completely broken the minute they sinned by eating the fruit off of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In other words, Adam and Eve suffered a direct spiritual death as a result of their one transgression against the Lord.

However, as a result of Jesus coming down to our earth in the flesh to die on a cross for all of our sins, we now get our spiritual relationship fully restored back with both God the Father and Jesus Christ if we are willing to fully accept Jesus and His sacrificial death on the cross. That is why the word "again" comes after the word "born."

Being born "again" means that we are getting something back that we had originally lost - and that specific something is our spiritual relationship with the Lord. As a result of accepting Jesus as our Savior, we get to receive the Holy Spirit. And as a result of receiving the Holy Spirit on the inside of our human spirits, we now get our spiritual relationship once more fully restored back with the Lord. This thus is a spiritual rebirth.

Without the Holy Spirit living and dwelling on the inside of us, we would all still be spiritually dead - spiritually dead in all of our sins and trespasses against the Lord. This is why it is so vitally important that all Christians know exactly what it means to be born again.

5. Our Human Spirits Are Fully Resurrected

As a result of what happened in the story of Adam and Eve, every single human being that is born into this world is born into this world in sin and iniquity. We are all born into this world with a fallen sin nature and no amount of good and holy works, no matter how many good works we may do, and no matter how holy and good those works may be, will ever be good enough to get us back into the good graces of our Lord and Savior.

As a result of being born into this world without the Holy Spirit living on the inside of us - our human spirits are now born "dead" into this world. In other words, we have no God-life anywhere in our beings. Our human spirits are born completely dead into this world as a result of the first sin of Adam and Eve.

Here is the verse that will show us that we are all spiritually "dead" in our sins and trespasses as a result of being born into this world in an unsaved, fallen and corrupt state.

"And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world ..." (Ephesians 2:1)

Once we are willing to accept Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior, then the Holy Spirit will come and enter into our human spirits. And once the Holy Spirit comes and enters into our human spirits - then our human spirits are fully resurrected once again! We now have God's divine spiritual life running through our spirits.

Just stop and think for a moment of what kind of spiritual reality we are dealing with. We are born into this world with completely dead spirits. As a result of being born into this world with completely dead spirits, we have no lifeline back to the Lord and no chance to be able to enter into heaven once we die and depart from this life.

But once we are willing to accept Jesus as our personal Savior, all of this completely changes within a matter of seconds. Here is what will happen the minute we accept Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior:

• We are immediately born again
• We immediately receive the Holy Spirit into our spirits
• Our dead spirits are immediately resurrected and regenerated 
• We immediately get to go into heaven after we die and cross over

Just as Jesus Himself fully resurrected on the third day from His crucifixion, so too are our human spirits fully resurrected the minute we get saved in the Lord. In other words, our human spirits are going from maximum death to maximum life in just a matter of seconds after we are saved!

Any unbeliever can thus transition from total death to total life in the snap of a finger if he is willing to take the big step of admitting that he is a fallen sinner in need of a personal Savior to save himself from his sins.

6. All Of Our Sins Will Be Fully Forgiven

As a result of accepting Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior, all of our sins - both past, present and future sins will be totally and fully forgiven.

The Bible tells us that at the exact moment of our conversions to the Lord that:

• Our sins will be fully forgiven
• Our sins will be fully blotted out
• Our sins will be fully washed away
• Our slates will be fully wiped clean
• Our sins will no longer be remembered by the Lord
• God will remove our transgressions from Him as far as the east is from the west

All of your sins will be totally and completely forgiven by the Lord if you are willing to admit that you are a sinner, that you need a personal Savior to save you from your sins, and are willing to confess out all the wrong and sinful things that you have ever done in your life in an appropriate sinner's prayer to the Lord.

What this means is that there is no more baggage, no more weights, no more anchors, no more guilt and no more burdens that you have to be carrying around on you.

The blood that Jesus has personally shed for you on the cross has now set you totally, fully and completely free from your sinful and guilt-ridden past - no matter how bad your past may have been and no matter what kinds of vile, bad and heinous sins you may have committed in your past.

With the exception of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, there is no sin that is too vile or too heinous that the Lord cannot fully forgive you for if you are willing to accept the full pardon that He is willing to offer you through His death on the cross. As a result, you are now free to start fully living again in your present and future with whatever the Lord has in store for you from here on in.

7. We Now Have the Power of the Holy Spirit For Ministry and Sanctification

As a result of immediately receiving the Holy Spirit at our conversions to the Lord - we now have His divine power available to us to help us in the sanctification process that the Lord wants to start with each and everyone of us - and we now have His divine power available to us to help us be very good and very successful at whatever God will be calling us to do for Him in this life.

In other words, God's divine power is immediately available to all of us for service, ministry and sanctification if we are willing to fully yield and surrender ourselves to Him and the call that He wants to place on each one of our lives.

So not only do we get our dead spirits fully resurrected and fully regenerated, our lifelines and spiritual relationship fully restored back to the Lord, all of our sins fully forgiven, and full entrance into heaven after we die and cross over - but to top it all off, we now get to have the power of the Holy Spirit Himself flowing and operating through us so that we can become everything that the Lord is calling us to become in Him (sanctification) and accomplish everything that He is calling us to accomplish for Him in this life (ministry).

So not only does God want to get us into heaven when we die and cross over, but He wants to start the real show with us right down here on this earth.

We don't have to wait until we get to heaven to have God start the sanctification process to make us into a better and more holy people. We don't have to wait until we get to heaven to be able to start to go to work for the Lord in what He will be calling us to do for Him in this life. It can all start right now - right where you are standing at with the Lord.

8. We Have Now Become New Creations - All Things Are Now Brand New

I will now leave you with one whopper power verse that will put the icing on this entire cake. This next verse will now tell us as a result of all of the above benefits and blessings - that we have now become "new creations" in Christ, that all "old things" have now "passed away," and that everything has now become brand "new."

Once you really meditate and chew on all of the above benefits and blessings - you will see that God the Father is now giving each person that will accept His Son as His personal Savior a completely brand new start with their lives.

God is telling us that not only is our past and all of the bad things of our past fully behind us - but that we have now been made into "new creations." The reason God the Father can now state that we are all now new creations in Him is because we now have the Holy Spirit and His divine power living and operating on the inside of us to transform us into those new creations.

Before we had received the Holy Spirit, we did not have God's supernatural power operating in us to transform and sanctify us. Due to our fallen sin nature we have been born into this world with, we do not have the natural power or ability within our own beings to change ourselves for the better. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit operating on the inside of us can we change and transform into the true sanctified saints that God is calling us to become in Him.

As a result of this divine power now residing in us in the Person of the Holy Spirit - we now have the power, the ability and the means not to only change ourselves for the better, but we now have the power, the ability and the means to change our whole lives for the better. Not only can the Holy Spirit help you with your inner life, but He can also help you with your outer life.

Once you get saved and then fully surrender your entire life to the Lord so that He can fully guide you into His divine destiny for your life, you will then be given a completely brand new and different life from the old life that you had been living in. Once you enter into God's perfect plan and destiny for your life, you will then find out what you were really created to be in this life.

As a result of this brand new life and brand new direction that God will now be giving you - all things will now become brand new as this next verse will tell you.

Here is the verse that is giving us this powerful piece of revelation:

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Notice that you have to be "in Christ" before you can be given this brand new life. And the only way to be "in Christ" is to become a born-again believer. Unbelievers are not in Christ and as a result, they are all living in dead and fruitless lives.

Conclusion

As a result of this new rebirth and regeneration in the Lord, we now have a new restored relationship with the Lord.

With the Holy Spirit now living and residing in our human spirits, we now have God's divine life, power and abilities flowing and operating through us to help us to:

• Overcome different types of temptations
• Pull out of any sins that we may have fallen into
• The power to defeat Satan and all of his demons
• The power to be able to be truly sanctified in the Lord
• The power to be able to fully serve the Lord in whatever He will be calling us to do for Him in this life

I believe that many Christians are totally unaware of all of the above benefits and blessings. As a result of not fully realizing who they really are in Christ and exactly what they have immediately available to them as a result of the Holy Spirit now living on the inside of them, many Christians are living defeated, joyless and unproductive lives for the Lord.

There is no true spiritual growth occurring in their lives - and as a result of not truly abiding and growing in the Lord, demons and the rest of the world just keep beating down on them and keep driving them further down into their defeated and depressed worlds.

Before they know it, they start to lose all desire to even want to try anymore. Life is just too much of a hassle and they would just prefer to throw in the towel and spend the rest of their lives doing and accomplishing absolutely nothing for the Lord.

If you really step back and objectively look at the big picture, each Christian only has one of two roads they can take in this life.

We can either choose to believe that we really are brand new creations in Christ, that God the Father has a perfect plan and destiny set up for each one of our lives - and that God, through the power of the Holy Spirit operating on the inside of us, can give us the grace, the power, the ability and the means to perfectly complete and fulfill that divine destiny.

Or we can choose not to believe and realize who we really are in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ - and choose to live this life only seeking after own ways, our own interests and our own desires - completely ignoring God and the call that He wants to personally place on each one of our lives.

You thus only have the fully surrendered Christian who is walking and operating in God's perfect will for his life - or the carnal, fleshly and worldly Christian who is only living this life for themselves and for whatever they can get out of this life while they still can.

The choice is yours as to which road you will choose to embark and travel on. All God can do is show you through His Word exactly what we have available to us and exactly what He is wanting from each one of us. The Lord has made all of His divine life, power, opportunity and destiny available to each and every born-again believer who will fully surrender their lives over to Him.

It simply doesn't get any better than this - even in the fallen, cursed and depraved world in which we still live in.

Remember - you are now a true born-again child of the Most High God. You don't have to settle for mediocrity or second best in your personal life. You can enter into God's personal best for your life and it can immediately start right where you are at right now - no matter what age you are currently at - and no matter how bad, how bloody or how sinful your personal past may have been.

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Baptism of the Holy Spirit

Sealed with the Holy Spirit



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Michael Bradley
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Scripture taken from New King James Version.
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2005-2008 by Michael Bradley.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.