We
begin with an explosive text, teaching as it does about a mysterious, invisible birth- a mystic birth. Here is how it reads: He came to that which was His own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of
God, children born not of natural descent or a husband’s will, but born of God. (John 1:11-13) Such a text cannot be handled properly without getting into areas that some may consider radical. It cannot be handled without considering the fact that there are many people in this world who are
God’s creation but not God’s children…. It cannot be handled without considering the refusal of many ‘believing Christians’ to accept the terms of true discipleship, the willingness to turn our backs on everything worldly for Jesus’ sake. It cannot be handled without discussing the fact that receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior must be an aggressive act of the total personality and not a passive ‘acceptance’ that makes a door-to-door salesman of the savior. [See
Saving Faith] And it certainly cannot be handled without a warning that evangelical Christianity is on a dead end street if it going to continue to accept religious activity as a legitimate proof of spirituality. In this text God informs us about certain people being born. That is significant. God has stepped out of His way to talk of certain people being born, and we know that He never does anything without a purpose. Everything He does is alive, meaningful and brilliantly significant. Why should the great God Almighty, who rounded the earth in the hollow of His hand, who set the sun shining in the Heavens and flung the stars to the
furtherest corners of the night- Why should this God take important lines in the Bible record to talk about people being born?……. John says plainly that it is a birth on another level; it is not on a blood level. He says that it is a birth that does not have anything to do with blood or bones or
tissue. It is a birth that does not have behind it the urge of the flesh or the social arrangement that we call marriage…… Those of whom the apostle speaks had a mystical birth, a birth of the Spirit altogether contrary to any kind of birth that anyone knew about in the physical sense….
This other birth-this mysterious spiritual birth was by a particular grant. It was altogether other than, different from and superior to the first kind of birth. This new birth is one that gives an unusual right: the right to be born into God’s household and thus become a child of the Father……
So it is plain that a person who is a creation of God becomes a child of God only when he or she is born by a special privilege or grant of the Almighty……. [Also See Born Again] Now, how did people get that privilege? They believed and they received. I am going to pass over the believe part because we have ‘believed ourselves into a blind alley in many cases. Many who go around ‘believing’’ never really get much. … “they received” note that this word ‘receive’ is not passive. Passive is when I receive the action; active is when I perform the act. We have come to a religion of passivity in our day. Towards God everything is passive. So we ‘receive’ Christ; we make it a passive thing. But the Bible knows absolutely nothing about passive reception,
for the word ‘receive’ is not passive but active. We make the word ‘receive’ into “accept”. Everyone goes around asking, “Will you accept Jesus? Will you accept Him?” This makes a brush salesman out of Jesus Christ, as though He meekly stands by waiting to know whether we will patronize Him or not. Although we desperately need what He proffers, we are sovereignly deciding whether we will receive Him or not. Let me repeat passive reception is unknown in the Bible. There is no hint of it within
the confines of the sacred Writ…… We have been taught that passive acceptance is the equivalent of faith when it is not. In the Greek, this word receive is active, not passive. You can go to any of the modern translations and you will find they get across the idea of “take” and “took”. “As many as took him”, says one fine translation, “to them gave He the power to become the sons of God. [See Salvation]
It is taking instead of accepting. … It is an act of the mind and of the will and of the affections. It is an aggressive act of the whole personality. ….. every part of their being became a hand reaching forth for Jesus Christ. They took Jesus as Savior and Lord with all their will and affections
and feelings and intellect.. That is why it says in the Greek: “as many as actively took Him….” Evangelical Christianity is gasping for breath. We happen to have entered a period when it is popular to sing about tears and prayers and believing. You can get a religious phrase kicked around
almost anywhere, even right in the middle if a worldly program dedicated to the flesh and the devil. Old Mammon, with two silver dollars for eyes, sits at the top of it, lying about the quality of the product, shamelessly praising actors who ought to be put to work laying bricks. In the middle of it, someone trained in a studio to sound religious will say with an unctuous voice, “Now our hymn for the week!” So they break in, and the band goes twinkle, twankle, twinkle, twankle, and they sing
something that the devil must blush to hear. They call that religion, and I will concede that religion it is. It is not Christianity, and it is not the Holy Spirit. It is not New Testament and it is not redemption. It is simply making capital out of religion. I still believe, however, that if someone should come along who could make himself heard to thousands instead of a few hundred, someone with as much oil as intellect and as much power as penetration, we could yet save Christianity from the dead-end street where is finds itself. I warn you: do not for one second let the
crowds, the bustle of religious activity, the surge of religious thinking fool you into supposing that there is a vast amount of spirituality. It is not so. [See Section The Contemporary Church] This is the child of God, the believer in Christ that will meet any condition that the
Lord lays down, even to the forsaking of relatives and friends. “You are getting radical.” You protest. Maybe so, but did you ever read the words of Jesus, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters-yes, even his own life-he
cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26)? Jesus is asking us to place our love for Him, our Savior, before that of wife, husband, children. And if we do not He will not have us. That is the sum of Jesus teaching on the subject. [See Jesus and Division] “It is cruel-terrible cruel,” you object. The living God demands our love and loyalty, and we call that demand cruel? Actually, hell is so hot that God is still doing all He can to stir us into action…… To receive Jesus Christ as Lord is
not a passive soft thing-not a pre-digested kind of religion. It is strong meat! It is such strong meat that God is calling us in this hour to yield everything to Him. Some want to cling to their sinful pleasures. In our churches in this deadly, degenerate hour, we are guilty of making just as easy as possible for double-minded people. “Just believe on Jesus and accept Him, and then you can be as you were before. You can do whatever you did before, as long as you don’t get drunk and run after women. Everything else is all right. Amen!” This is the kind of marginal Christianity that is being passed along in too many circles. As a result we have a religion that is not much better that paganism. [See Is The Sinner’s Prayer Effective] I think I would rather follow Zoroaster and kneel twice a day to the rising and setting sun than to be a half-baked Christian who insists on ‘believing’ and then does as he pleases, violating the lordship of the Savior……… [See Section Living The Faith] Those who insist that the Lord God humor them, letting them continue as they are and still say in the end, “Come, faithful servants,” are fools. Someone needs to tell them so now. | 
