9.1 Conceived of God

We have not yet fully addressed the fact that Christians are “born again,” that is, conceived of God. The reality of our conception is woven all through the prior chapters, however. – Anyone conceived out from God does not do sin, because the Sperm of God lives inside of him, and he is not capable, does not have the ability, to fall short of or to disconnect from God, because out from God he has been conceived (1 John 3:9 – rough JSV).

What does it mean to be “conceived of God?” John and Paul addressed this reality in different ways, and I believe that John, having thought deeply for decades about both Paul’s gospel and Jesus’ words, had the deeper understanding.

A New Spirit. The human spirit is the “God-side” of our construction, whereas the physic is the “earth-side” of our construction. Since God is Spirit, He first connects with us through our spirits. Except – a human who is not conceived of God possesses a human spirit that is “alienated” from God. This darkened spirit is hostile to God and cannot know Him.

When Paul said, “the old man,” he was referring specifically to this alienated and darkened human spirit. Our “old man,” then, irreconcilable to God, vanished entirely the moment Jesus entered into our hearts. And in that same moment, a new spirit became inside of us, as Paul said, “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him” (1 Corinthians 6).

Conceived. Now, the word John and Peter used, gennao, means conception and is the beginning of the child in the womb. Then, John used the word tikto in Revelation 12:5, as “brought forth,” that is, the actual birthing of the child from the womb. In Paul’s definitions, then, this “birthing” is the resurrection, the redemption of our physics.

Nicodemus questioned Jesus, “How is a man able to be conceived, being old? Is he able to enter the womb of his mother a second time to be conceived?” Let’s paraphrase Jesus’ answer. “Just as the natural conception takes place in the flesh and a child is born, so in the same way, a conception takes place in the Spirit and a child is born.”

The One Seed. Yet in both instances, whether in the natural or in the spiritual, there is a time period between the conception and the birthing out of the womb, called “gestation.” For us, it is the season of our lives in-between the entrance of Jesus into us and the transformation of our physical bodies. Paul called it “until Christ be formed in you” (Galatians).

Both Paul and John use the Greek word “sperma,” that Jesus is the Sperm of God. Yet Paul is clear that there are not many sperm cells, as in the natural, but only One, that is Christ. Nonetheless, this One Seed that is Christ Jesus, the Seed that enters into us through our newly created spirit, now one with God’s Spirit, is every Word God speaks, all the “DNA” that orders the fabric of God-Revealed.

Gestation. We know that the Son of God IS presently and actively come [into us as the Sperm of God, containing all the Word that orders the fabric of God] and has given us an understanding, a through-mind, so that we might know [Him who is] the true [that we might know God] (1 John 5:20). To know God is to know that our humanity is filled with all the fullness of God, that is, God-LIFE, a son birthed out from God in glorious liberty, unfolding the ages.

In the next lesson, we will consider again God’s principle of substance and appearance, as it has to do with our human nature and construction. In this time of “gestation,” then, we are sons by substance, though not yet by visible appearance.

Of His Same Kind. Christ Jesus being the firstborn among and in MANY brethren, the first one of our kind (Romans 8:29). To be “like” Christ Jesus, then, is literal. That is, as He is a Son, so we also are the same kind of sons. – We are just like Him IF we see Him as He is. – As He is, so are we right now (1 John 3 & 4).

Our existence as sons birthed out from God, then, comes in three distinct steps. The first step, a brand new spirit, happens in a moment. The third step, a physic swallowed up by life happens in a moment. But the in-between, as we have seen in the last chapters, this mighty entrance of God-Word into our souls, is the purpose of our present lives, the proving of Christ inside of us.

Fellowship and Synergeia. The marked characteristic of God, then, that He cannot sin, means that the thought of forcing His Words into the Christian soul never enters His mind. Because such a thought never enters His mind, then, it is apparent that He designed us in the first place to participate with Him in this ongoing influx of God-words and the consequent elimination of Satan-words inside the weave and pattern of our human self-story.

This participation with God for which we are designed has two aspects, or is called in two ways, fellowship and synergeia. Fellowship is the essence of synergeia; synergeia is the out-working of fellowship.

Shaped by the Present. Fellowship is what we are in God; synergeo is what we do with God. But this synergeoing of which we are speaking now is not that which impacts creation, but rather the formation of what we are as sons of God.

Here is what we realize. Our humanity through all the ages to come is right now being shaped by the Words that are God spoken into us through the Lord Jesus Christ (begetting) INSIDE the context of our present lives and circumstances. A million years from now, you might discover some new aspect of yourself in God, new avenues of joy and action, yet in this discovery you will also know – “Oh my, this wonder is familiar to me, for it comes out from that moment when I spoke His word inside of all my blindness and hurt.”

Synergeoing with Father. Having The Jesus Secret II places you and me among the most privileged of humans. Yet those confessions of faith, speaking God’s words as ourselves, are only part of our formation. You see, my change comes when those same words come to me in the press of ongoing circumstances and I agree with God in faith, synergeoing with my Father, that those words do indeed define me and order my steps. Christ Jesus as every Word God speaks is proven faithful and true in my life and as me as I agree with God that His words do, in fact, describe me.

All synergeoing with God outwardly, which action we will discuss in later chapters, comes only out from the completion of synergeoing with God in the shaping of our own souls.

Five Witnesses. Now, this fundamental reality of what a human is, the very off-spring of God, in just the same way that Jesus is the Son of God, is attested to profoundly by five individuals in the Bible. That means this is fully established gospel truth.

We have Jesus’s words in John 3 – you must be conceived of the Spirit; John’s words in 1 John 3 – that which is conceived of God cannot be separate from Him; and Paul’s words in Galatians – you are sons of God – until Christ be formed in you. Then we have seen Peter’s words – You have been conceived from above, not out from perishable seed, but out from imperishable Seed, through the living and abiding Word of God.

The Sperm of God. And finally, James’s words – Out from His own desire, He gave birth to us by the Word of truth, for us to be specific firstfruits of His created beings. All five of these witnesses assert that it is Word, coming out from God as His Sperm, singular, that conceives us of God, in just the same way that a child is conceived in the womb of its mother. To treat with Word as anything other than the Sperm of God by which we are conceived, formed, and birthed, is to ignore the most important truth of our lives.

Redemption, as wonderful as it is, is only a means to an end. The end is, as we have seen – that creation itself will also be made free from the slavery of decay into the freedom and liberty of the glory of the children birthed out from God.

God Is My Father. When you say, “God is my Father,” you are not speaking metaphorically, but literally. And you are asserting that your human NATURE is made by every Word God speaks. Even more than that, you are asserting that you are in this world as an emissary out from God to re-create everything as Goodness and Trueness, all death swallowed up by the LIFE of God flowing out from you.

When you say, “God is my Father,” you are placing yourself front and center as a normal human being, what God intended from the beginning. And for anyone who wonders at the strength and clarity of the truth in this lesson, at no point have we discussed anything other than – Christ lives inside of my heart through faith.

However, as John and Paul said, what we ARE does not yet appear, and that is the topic of the next lesson before we arrive at a specific definition.