8.3 Out of the Same Womb
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29). The Greek word prototokos (firstborn) and the Greek word adelphois (brethren) include the meaning of having come forth from the same womb.
Jesus said, “…unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (John 3:3-4). Nicodemus was right on target with his question; most Christians who scoff at Nicodemus have no clue.
Conceived
The Greek word translated “born again” is gennao, which should actually be translated “conceived.” The Greek word for “born” is tikto, as in Mary brought forth a newborn Son or the woman brought forth a manchild. Jesus meant “conceived,” when He said, “Born again.” The time of the birthing is at the door, otherwise known as the apocalypse of Jesus Christ.
In order for us to be conceived again, there must be another male Seed come into us, a Seed that penetrates into the female seed inside of us, faith, that it might create us anew as a new creation. To be conceived again is literal in heaven and earth.
The Second Man
Now, the question we are considering is – What is man?
At the beginning of Genesis 3, Adam is the first man; by the end of Genesis 3, Adam is blinded to heaven, cut-off from the knowledge of God, and clothed with the skin of a beast. Adam is no longer inside our pursuit of an answer. Adam had entered the clearing because his heart was drawn to the tree of life. If he had eaten of life, he would have become the revelation of Jesus Christ, a true and complete man.
But we stop right there in our consideration and turn our eyes fully to the second Man. In Adam all die; in Christ all shall be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22).
Put on the Lord Jesus Christ
What is man? – The Lord Jesus Christ. And you and I are humans, real humans, only as we come out from His Person.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new, and all things are of God … (2 Corinthians 5:17-18a). – Put on the Lord Jesus Christ … (Romans 13:14a). These things are literal and absolute, spirit, soul, and body, heaven and earth. We may not see that because we are blind. But the Word God speaks is absolute, and it is true. We believe what God says.
The Reproduction of Life
The reproduction of life is the primary metaphor or pattern upon which the entire Bible is written. There are other patterns, yes, but all other patterns can be known to us only as they fit into the larger pattern of the bringing forth of life through a Seed planted in the womb of a woman.
Genesis 1:1-3 is a picture of the planting of a seed that it might bring forth life; Revelation 22:17-21 is a picture of the planting of a seed that it might bring forth life. The world calls it “sex,” though we are not speaking of smut, but of God. The words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are life (John 6:63).
Procreation
When Jesus said, “You must be conceived again,” He was speaking of procreation, of planting a Seed in our womb – the Word God speaks, Spirit and Life, planted in our faith. My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you (Galatians 4:19).
I am including as supplemental reading a letter I wrote in an attempt to define “Life.” Here, I want to carefully construct the genetic basis of our existence as humans of the new creation, coming entirely out from the Second Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our second conception and birthing are identical in form to our first conception and birthing, but very different in context.
The Seed Planted
In our first conception, the seed planted in the womb of our natural mother was from our natural father, bearing in it the genetic structure of Adam. In our second conception, the Seed planted in the womb of our mother, the Church, is the Word, Jesus, coming out from Father, bearing in Himself all the genetic structure of God.
In our first conception, the seed planted by our natural father entered into the seed of our natural mother and in that instant, we became a living human being. In our second conception, the Seed planted by our Father, God, entered into our faith, the seed of the woman, and in that moment, Christ Jesus became the only life we are.
The Spark of Light
I am speaking literally, here, by substance and all reality.
In our first conception, the Holy Spirit hovered over the moment our father’s sperm entered our mother’s egg so that, in a flash of light, you and I became a living soul In our second conception, the Holy Spirit hovered over the moment Christ entered our faith and we became sons of God.
In our first conception, the cells of our body multiplied rapidly, with each set of cells taking on the form of a particular organ. In our second conception, the cells of Christ in us, Christ our only life, multiplied rapidly, taking on the specific organs of Christ as Christ was formed in us.
The First Law of Life
Now here is the first law of life, a law that has two parts. Kind brings forth kind. Species bring forth the same species. All seed, whether, plant seed or animal seed, fish seed or human seed, bird seed or God seed, all seed brings forth only after its own kind.
And here is the second part of this first law of life. Kind brings forth only from kind; the crossing of species does not exist. Dolphins do not mate with leopards. Any attempt to cross species is an abomination to God. Genetic engineering, planting the genetic code of one species into another, is one of the great evils of our day.
How Can Christ Be Formed in Us?
Now, if both parts of this first law of life be true and absolute, then you and I need to face head on a terrible question. How does God plant His Seed in us humans? How can Christ be formed in us?
God cannot plant His Seed into another species. There is one way only that God can plant His Seed, Christ, inside of us – and that one way is that we must be of His same species, we must be created in the image and likeness of God!
What does this mean? We are addressing the question – What Is MAN?!!???!!! Only one answer suffices – the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Second Law of Life
Here is the second law of life; this law also has two parts. Christ, the Seed of the male, can be in Himself only what the male, the Father, is first in Himself. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself (John 5:26). In like measure, the seed of the woman, faith, can be in itself only what the woman, the Church, is first in herself.
The second part of this law, then, is that both seeds, the seed of the male and the seed of the female, become in the new child all that they were in the parents. Christ in us becomes in us all that He is in Father as Father is in Himself. – Christ who is your Life.
The Third Law of Life
The third law of life has only one part. The new child being formed in the womb of the mother is one. The new child is not half from the father, but all from the father; the new child is not half from the mother, but all from the mother, yet entirely one.
Yet, in spite of the fact that the entire genetic makeup of the father is the entire genetic makeup of the child, in spite of the fact that the entire genetic makeup of the mother is the entire genetic makeup of the child, yet this child that is one, is also utterly unique. A completely different individual, brand new. And He calls His own by name and leads them out (John 10:3b – modified).
Alone Is Not Good
Just as Jesus IS inside of Father, all that God is, so Jesus IS inside of us, all that we are.
John called Jesus the only-begotten, the monogenes Son five times. Mono means “alone”; here is the telling verse. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat (illustrating to us gennao, seed, the Word God speaks) falls into the ground and dies, it remains ALONE; but if it dies, it produces much grain (John 12:24). The word “alone” is monos. When Paul said that we no longer know Jesus according to the flesh (2 Corinthians 5), he meant that we no longer know Jesus as an isolated monos Seed.
It is not good for Man to be alone; I will make him a companion of His same kind.
Jesus Alive in our Hearts
If you SEE Jesus outside of yourself as an isolated Man in a separated body, you will know that you are dead and that you dwell now in Christian Hades, until someone cares enough to convince you of Jesus alive in your heart. And I’m not just talking about some time in the future, but very much also, Today.
HOWEVER, we do know this Jesus alive in our hearts as the very same Jesus that walked this earth as a Human, personal and real. And it is a Man who is seated now at the right hand of God.
Let’s bring this back into the third law of Life. You and I are one, just like Jesus.
Not the Same One
The Father and I are One (John 10:30). – For My Father is greater than I (John 14:28).
When Jesus says that He and the Father are One, He does not mean that They are the same one. Father God is a Person, unique and individual, a Person with a Heart filled with desire. God shows Himself only through individual persons who are one in themselves and who are one with Him, yet never the same one.
It is in this way that we know the Lord Jesus Christ, the One who IS our only life. And we know Him first as a Man, as a Man right now.
Humanity and Divinity
We know ourselves only by knowing Jesus the Man, the Seed in whom is all the genetic structure of God.
Jesus' humanity is fully divine; Jesus' divinity is utterly human. The problem with saying that Jesus is “fully Man and fully God” is our human definitions, definitions that instantly split Man and God apart into two. Jesus is not two, but one. The Man Jesus is, inside of God, all that God is in Himself. And the Jesus in us who is all that God is in Himself is utterly human.
Jesus is One; we are one in ourselves. We are one together with Him in Father, yet He calls each of us by name.
The Fourth Law of Life
Finally, here is the fourth law of life. Life is a specific process of development.
The first part of this process we call reproduction; the second part we call story. Each of these two has three parts. Reproduction begins with conception, but then passes through nine months of gestation in the womb of the mother, before the moment of birthing into the full light of day. Then story begins with childhood, with training and growing up into full strength and knowledge to become a young man in full victory defeating his enemies. Finally, story is an eternal 33 ½ -year-old-man living in the full wisdom and strength of a finished work.
The Moment of Birthing
If you want to know where we are in the pattern of life, we are in the birth canal ready to come forth into the full light of day. That moment of our birthing, our Church mother as a woman clothed with the sun bringing forth a male child, we also call the apocalypse of Jesus Christ. And we call it the resurrection of our bodies, our physical bodies being swallowed up by life. Only then will our real story begin.
When it pleased God … to reveal His Son in me … (Galatians 1:15-16). – When it pleased God to reveal all the genetic structure of His own Person and being in me.
The Four Laws of Life
Let’s list briefly again the four laws of life.
1. Kind only mates with kind; kind only brings forth kind.
2. The Seed is in itself only what Father and mother are in themselves, and the Seed is in us all that we are and only what the Seed is in Father and mother.
3. The Seed is one; we are one. All that Father and mother are in themselves are one in us, yet we are not the same one, for we are each called by name.
4. The bringing forth of life is a process passing first through conception, gestation, and birthing, and passing second through the passage of human life or story.
Jesus and us come out from the same womb.
What Is Man?
As I have progressed through writing this lesson, I see so many avenues of definition that we must know. As the increase of our knowledge of God is forever, so our increase of knowing what man is, what we are, is forever.
The next session addresses the question of What Is Symmorphy? You see, we must construct our responses to the questions What is God? and What is man? in a spiral fashion, going from one to another as our understanding deepens.
What is man? Man is God revealed. Man is the outward appearance of the Father. Man is the embodiment of God through whom God shows Himself to His creation.