Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well, "God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth." John 4

God is Spirit. To worship Him, we must worship in our spirits. Our salvation begins in our spirit. You and I are a living soul – mind, will, and emotions, at the center of which is our heart, our dreams and hopes - what makes us who we are. God, then, has given us two bodies to communicate through. We have a physical body through which we relate to the physical side of the universe and a spiritual body, our spirit, through which we relate to the heavenly side of the universe.

We understand that when sin entered the world, death entered both bodies. The spiritual body died, that is, it was disconnected from being able to communicate with the godly side of the heavenlies, and the physical body began its decline back to dust. Death entered both bodies.

I want to share with you my understanding of fallen man's fallen spirit. That fallen spirit became in man a driver of evil. I believe that when Paul speaks in the book of Romans of the old man, he was speaking in a large part of that fallen spirit that died in the sin of Adam.

Up until Jesus said these words, nobody could worship God through their spirit. In the beginning God gave man a spiritual body through which Adam communicated and walked with God and the godly side of the heavenlies. In the day that Adam sinned, that was cut off. The children of Israel, under the Old Covenant, could worship God only through their physical bodies. They could sing, clap their hands, bring an offering of sacrifice. They could offer the blood of sacrifice up to God. They could do many things of worship through their physical bodies. But they could not worship God with their spirits because their spirits were cut off from God.

And Jesus is saying to the Samaritan woman, "Yes, during the time when man could worship only through his physical body, God set a single place as His dwelling place, the temple in Jerusalem. And man was not to worship God on every high hill or on every street corner; they were not to offer sacrifices there. Because before Jesus died, the demonic realms of the fallen angels were all around, close and open. And it was so easy for any supposed physical worship of God to fall into the worship of false gods.

So God instituted a very strict order for worship. And it was a physical worship.

Jesus was saying, "Yes, that was true, but now God is looking for something more. God is a Spirit, and He is seeking worship from the spirit of man, from redeemed, born again, made alive, spirits. So Jesus is pointing to something soon to come in the experience of man on this earth, that is, the recreation of the human spirit. When God works with the human spirit, He does not restore the old dead spirit, He births a new spirit within us. And He gives us a new heart.

The dividing line between the human heart and the human spirit is hard to find. The human heart and the human spirit are so closely intermeshed that it would be difficult to find where one starts and the other ends. Our heart is on the side of us next to our human spirit. That is why when man has a fallen spirit, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Therefore, when God creates a new spirit within us, we get a new heart as well.

Jesus is declaring that God intends to bring this part of the human back to life so that He can relate to man once again through man's spirit.

When the disciples were in the upper room, Jesus came to them, "breathed on them, and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'" John 20:21.

In that moment, when Jesus breathed upon these men and women, when He breathed upon them and said "Receive the Holy Spirit," at that moment, for the first time since Adam had sinned in the garden, for the first time in human experience on this earth, men and women had living spirits. At that moment the people in the upper room were born again. Their spirits came alive. They didn't understand what had happened to them. They had not yet received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that would come several weeks later when they received power to be witnesses. But in that moment, for the first time in their lives, they were ALIVE!

We need to understand what the New Testament teaches us about this moment. Because every one of us who believe in Jesus had the same experience. There was a moment in our lives when we were dead, separated from God, with fallen spirits and hearts that were deceitful and desperately wicked. And in our darkness and death, at a certain moment, a word, coming through the presence of the Holy Spirit hovering over us, entered into our hearts, and in that moment, there was a flash, there was a light, and a new life was created inside of us.

There were quite a number of things that happened in that moment, drastic, awesome things. Different people experienced different things outwardly. Some felt wonderful, glorious and clean, with a huge weight lifted off; others may have felt next to nothing, with the joy and peace slowly unfolding over the next while. Each person had a different and personal experience on the human side of things. But on the heavenly side of things, what happened in that moment was beyond extraordinary.

We need to understand what the New Testament teaches us happened in that moment. Most Christians have a very vague idea about what really happened. But the New Testament does teach us exactly what happened and what God's plan and purpose is.

"Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin." Romans 6:6.

At the moment that the word from God entered into our spirits and we were born again, at that moment, the old fallen human died. At that moment, every thing inside of us that God hated, that was an abomination to God, everything inside of us that caused the death of Jesus Christ, at that moment, it died. It ceased. It ended.

"That the body of sin might be done away with." We know that cannot be the physical body because we still have our physical bodies. What was done away with was our spiritual body that was dead. The old man, the source of sin in our life, the part of us where demons operated. That part of us that was the source of sin flowing into our soul and into our body, died and was done away. I am no longer a slave of sin. You are not a slave of sin. "For he that has died is freed from sin."

The first thing that happened is that the spiritual body, the body of sin, the fallen human spirit, the old man, perished. It died. God did away with it.

But at the same moment, He did something else.

"And you He made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins . . ." Ephesians 2:1.

That deadness was the deadness of our fallen spirits and the deadness of our deceitful and wicked hearts.

And at the same moment God "raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus . . ." verse 6.

What does that mean?

You cannot live in the heavenly side of the universe unless you have a spirit that is alive and able to communicate in that realm. At the moment that God destroyed and eliminated the fallen human spirit, He created a brand new spirit, a brand new spiritual body, for you. He did not restore the fallen spirit. He ended the fallen spirit and in the same moment created a new spirit inside of you. And that spirit was filled with God.

We need to understand what our new spirits are and what they are for. [In this series, I am approaching an understanding of our spirits from an organic point of view. I intend to do a series, soon, on our union with Christ, which will approach our born again spirits from a slightly different point of view.]

In our new spirit, we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies.

"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things are passed away, behold all things are made brand new." 2 Corinthians 5:17.

Understand that our physical bodies were not created brand new at that moment, it was our spiritual bodies.

Let's look at what else has become new.

"You are manifestly an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart." 2 Cor 3:3

At the same moment that God created a new spirit inside of us, a new spiritual body, the part of us through which we can now communicate with the heavenlies of God, we can worship God, now for the first time, with our spirits. At the same time He gave us a new heart and wrote upon that heart – not just the laws of God. Jeremiah, when He spoke about the New Covenant, was limited in his knowledge of God to what had been revealed in the Old Covenant. But its much more than the law of God. Yes, it is the law of God, but it's much more than the law of God, it is a letter of Christ. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Our hearts. Your new heart. And you cannot have a new spirit without having a new heart. When you look at your heart today, you do not see selfishness and deceit, you see Jesus. Because written on your heart is the writing and nature of Christ. It is all the ways of Jesus, all of His thoughts, and habits and ways of doing things. The nature of Jesus is written upon your heart. You are a letter written by Christ.

Let's look at something else that happened at that moment.

"Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us." Romans 5:5

That means that the moment you were born again, the love of God is poured out in your heart by the Holy Sprint. My God, when you look at your heart, you are looking at the source and the well of the love of God in this universe. The Holy Spirit fills your heart to overflowing with the love of God. Abounding in your heart. The love of God overflowing.

Pretty awesome stuff happening. You didn't even know what was going on. But if you could have seen from the side of the heavenlies you would have seen awesome things taking place inside of you.

But we need to understand that as awesome and wonderful as these things are, something much, much deeper was taking place at the same moment. All those things are part of our salvation, they are all incredibly wonderful. But something much deeper happened, something that was the source, the purpose, or rather, all of those other things happened so that the most important thing could happen. And it is God purposing that this deeper thing happen that He lined up all the other things to happen.

In that moment you were born again.

"-- having been born again, [having been conceived from above] not with corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever . . . Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you." 1 Peter 23-25

Peter is saying here that you heard the words that some preacher spoke once, maybe it was words you read in a book, or maybe it was the words some Christian spoke to your heart in conversation. Peter is saying here that it was much more than just some natural man saying some words, much more than some vibrations in the air that you picked up by your ears and understood by your brain. Peter is saying that the word that in the gospel was preached to you was really the word of God that lives and abides forever.

Now we know that the word of God that lives and abides forever is Jesus. When God spoke that word in the beginning, "Let there be light," that was Jesus, issuing forth from the Father to bring about the Father's purposes in this creation. That is the same word that came into you at the moment you were born again. Don't think it was the words of some man or some book. No, it was the Word God sent forth in the beginning, God's own son, Jesus. A living word. That word was more than just a word spoken. That word came into you as a seed.

When you were born the first time - we must refer back to Nicodemus. Jesus said, "You must be born again." And Nicodemus said, "How can I go back into my mother's womb now that I am old, how can I be born a second time?" Nicodemus was groping for an understanding of what Jesus was saying, and he was on the right track.

Because you see, when you were born the first time, here is how you were conceived. We are not talking about the word 'born' as we use it in English. Let me distinguish between these two terms. When Jesus said "You must be born again," He used the term gennao, you must be conceived again. That word gennao means to be conceived in a womb again. Now there is a New Testament word that corresponds to the normal usage of our English word 'born.' It is the word tikto. That word is used when it says "Mary brought forth a new born son and laid him in a manger." That word "brought forth" is the Greek work tikto. The word tikto corresponds to what we normally call "born," the coming out of the womb. When it says 'born again,' here it is referring not to the coming out of the womb, but to the conception of the new born child as it begins in the womb.

And so, Jesus compares the second birth with the first. When you were born the first time, your natural earthly father planted a seed inside your mother's womb and that seed found a lodging place inside the egg from your mother, and the seed from your natural father entered into the egg from your natural mother. The moment that seed penetrated the egg, there was a spark, instantly a new creation came into being. The two seeds became fused as one and the cells began to multiply, more and more and in just a few weeks time the appearance of a new human became clear. Yes, it would be many long months of development before that child was ready to be brought forth out of the womb, but it was certainly a human child.

And from the very beginning that child shared all the characteristics that came into it from the seed of the father and all the characteristics that came into it from the seed of the mother. In fact, that new child growing in that womb consisted entirely of the seed of the father and the seed of the mother. It was made up entirely of both seeds together. It was not that the seed of the father worked on something else to create the new child. The child came entirely out of the seed of the father and the seed of the mother joined together as one.

We understand that when our natural father planted his seed in the womb of our natural mother, that seed was a corruptible seed, that is, it could die. But it was more than a corruptible seed, it was corrupt. Because we know that the seed coming from our natural father and also the egg coming from our natural mother contained within themselves the sin of Adam, and the corruption and death that comes through that sin.

That child that was you or me was conceived in sin and shaped in iniquity.

That child, coming out of that union, carried the nature of its father and its mother. It is a law of God that like begets like, that like comes into union with like. It is an abomination to God for one species to come into union with another species. Elephants cannot mate with dogs; turkeys cannot mate with sheep, it is an abomination to God. And so like must mate with like. Two sheep come into union together, out of their union comes another sheep just like them with all the nature and capacity of a sheep and with the ability inside of it to birth more sheep in the future.

When the seed of a human father comes into union with the seed of a human mother, the union of those two seeds becomes a human being with all the characteristics of the father and the mother. And the human you and I that comes out of that union have within ourselves the ability to reproduce more human beings just like ourselves when we come into marriage union with the mate God has chosen for us.

This is the principle that God has placed in the universe, the principle by which God brings forth life, the reproduction of life. It is a feature of the Holy Spirit who is the part of God that brings forth life. God has planted this picture of the reproduction of life all through his creation and all through the Bible, over and over again.

Abraham knew his wife Sarah and she brought forth a son, Isaac. Over and over again, all through the creation we have this picture. Whether it be in the plant realm or the animal realm or human history. Life begets life. God brings forth life by the seed of the male coming into union with the seed of the female and out of that union comes forth a new life that shares all the characteristics of the father and of the mother.

It is an absolute law of God that two species cannot cross. Like begets like.

Peter is saying something beyond our understanding

Jesus is saying something beyond our understanding.

Nicodemus was completely correct to be confused by what Jesus was saying, "How can I crawl back into my mothers womb to be conceived again?"

Peter was making this claim – a heretical claim, impossible to understand. A claim, that if people had understood what he said, it might have got him crucified. Well, he was crucified, wasn't he?

Peter claims here that when you were born again, the seed by which you were conceived the second time, the father's seed, the father's seed that come into the womb seeking the egg of the woman that it might come into union with that egg that it might bring forth a new life into the world, Peter says that that seed is not a human seed. He says it is an incorruptible seed, a seed from above.

Now angels are corruptible. Angels can sin. There is nothing that God created that is incorruptible. Everything created by God is capable of turning from God and trying to find its own way.

There is only one seed that is incorruptible. That is the seed that comes out of the bosom of the Father.

When you were born again the seed that came into you, finding the female egg, that seed was the seed of God.

Now, you were conceived, you have not yet been born.

You were conceived in that moment, you are looking forward to the moment when you will be born.

The seed that conceived the new life inside of you was the very seed of Almighty God.

Here is an interesting question. It is an abomination to God for species to mate across species. How on earth could God plant His seed in me.

How on earth would it not be an abomination for God to plant his seed in me.

Because you see, the physical father in the picture that God gives us of the reproduction of life in the natural realm – the woman has only a few eggs, one per child, but the man produces millions upon millions of seeds, each one of which could produce a child, but of the millions of seeds of the male, only one actually produces the new life.

God says that the word He spoke goes out over the earth abundantly. But the only way it will bring forth life is to find the egg of the woman. So there is much word spread across the whole earth. The gospel has gone out to the ends of the world. The word is cast across the heavens, God speaking His Word to man. But the word cannot bring forth its life unless it can find that one seed, that one egg of the woman, and come into union with it that it might bring forth its life inside the womb of the woman.

What is the seed of the woman?

"For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it." Heb. 3:19

The word of God goes out abundantly over the whole world. The seed from God which carries His life and nature goes out across the whole world; it always has. But it cannot bring forth the life that is in it unless it finds the egg of the woman, unless it finds faith.

What are we saying? What is the Holy Spirit saying in these words?

When you were born the first time the seed of your father was a human seed. When you were born a second time in exactly the same way the seed of the father that came into us to conceive the new life that is growing inside of us was the seed of God.

Now, we understand that it is an abomination for one species to mate with another species. How can the seed of God come into the egg of man – faith, and bring forth a new life, how can this be?

What is man?

Satan has taught us to mock and ridicule man. To entertain a very dim view of man. It is Satan who gets you to call yourself "nothing."

What is man that God could plant his seed in our spiritual seed – faith, and bring out of that union a new life that shares fully in one all the characteristics of its father and all the characteristics of its mother, completely joined and merged together?

Unless man has been created in the image and likeness of God?

Because you see if man were created in the image and likeness of God then it is not an abomination for the seed of God to be planted inside of us in our faith, to come into union with that which is human and out of that union bring forth a new creation that is a child of God.

What is man?

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