now let us discuss our next question..our text gives the answer: 'everyone born of god overcomes the world. i john 5.4 NIV it is obvious that this is universal - all who are born of God overcome the world. all of these individuals overcome and obviously it is implied that no one else overcomes. you may recognize those who are born of God by this characteristic -they overcome the world.
the next logical inquiry is, why do believers overcome the world? by what principle do they overcome? i answer, this victory over the world is a natural result of the spiritual birth, just as bondage to the world is a natural result of the physical birth.
entering the world by physical birth and bondage to the world - these two things are connected by a law that is easy to explain and easy to understand. the law is as follows: physical birth reveals to the mind physical objects - and physical objects only. it brings the mind into contact with worldly things, it is, or course, natural for the mind to become deeply interested in these objects that are presented through the external senses. this is especially true because most of these objects have an intimate relationship with our senses and become the first and foremost sources of our happiness.
therefore, our affections are gradually entwined around these objects and we become avid lovers of this world before our eyes have looked upon it many months.
117 this law that i have explained is a universal fact. now, there is another fact that is equally important and just as universal. it has to do with those powers of the mind that were created to take notice of our moral relationships and thereby counteract the bombardment of worldly objects. the truth is that these powers of the mind come into action very slowly. in fact, the amout of development that takes place with the moral-related powers in one year takes place with the object-related powers in probably one month...
..physical birth, with its laws of physical and mental development, becomes the occasion of bandage to this world.
i want to set side by side with this the birth into the kingdom of God by the Spirit. by this new birth, the soul is brought into intimate contact with spiritual things. the Spirit of God seems to usher the soul into the spiritual world. the result of the spiritual birth on our souls is exactly parallel to the result of the physical birth on our bodies. the great truths of the spiritual world are opened to our view thorough the illumination of the Spirit of God. we seem to see with new eyes and to have a new world of spiritual things all around us.
regarding physical objects, men not only speculate about them, but also see them as real. similarly, in the case of spiritual men, spiritual things become not merely matters of speculation, but matters of full and practical reality also. when God reveals Himself to the mind, spiritual things are seen in their real light and are seen to be reality.
118 ..let me ask, can there be a sinner on this wide earth who could not see that if God's presence were made as real to his mind as the presence of his fellowmen, it would supremely engross his sou, even though it might not subdue his heart? this revelation of God's presence and character might not convert him, but it would, at least for the time being, kill his attention to the world.
we often see this in the case of a person who is deeply convicted. perhaps you have seen a person so fearfully convicted of sin that he cares nothing at all about his food or his clothes. 'Oh, he cries out in the agony of his sou, 'what will all these things matter to me, even if i get them all, if i must dwell in hell!'..
when real conversion has taken place and the soul is born of God, then not only do realizations of truth awaken interest, as they might do in an unrenewed mind, but they also tend to excite a deep and ardent love for these truths. they draw out the heart. spiritual truth now takes possession of the mind and draws the believer into its warm and life-giving embrace...now, according to the Bible, God's 'seed remains in him'. I john 3.9 that very truth and those movings of the Spirit that gave him birth into the kingdom of God continue to have a powerful effect on his mind. hence, he continues to be a christian and, as the Bible states it, 'he cannot sin, because he has been born of God'. v9
119 again, the first birth acquaints us with earthly things; the second birth acquaints us with God. the first birth makes us acquainted with the finite, the second birth with the infinite. the first introduces us to things connected with our human nature, the second to those great things connected with our spiritual nature. these spiritual things are so lovely and so glorious that they overcome all the entanglements of the world...
..under the first birth, our citizenship is on earth. under the second birth, 'our citizenship is in heaven'. phillipians 3.20
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