Alienation in Nature and Standing

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 4
 
Besides our actual sins, there are two points of our state connected with the fall in Adam: our alienation from God in nature and will; and our alienation from God in condition, place, or standing. Both must be corrected. The former is by having Christ for our life, being born again; but this does not in itself take us out of law. The new nature feels the evil of the old, not only what we have done but what we are. It is not merely we cannot say we have not sinned, but we cannot say we have no sin. I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. The law is a mere means of discovering this. The remedy is not in dealing with it at all; but my place is altered in Christ. Not only I have a new nature, but I have died, as in the old, with Him. I am not in the flesh at all; I am in Christ who has died and risen again. I have a new nature—this must be; but Christ having died and risen again and I being in Him, I have a new place too. This is what Rom. 7; 8 teach us. Baptism is not the sign of life-giving but of change of place. We arise out of death, but death is the main point here. The “for” of verse 2 is not inferential. Verse 1 is the result of what goes before and stands by itself; verse 2 begins an explanation of the law of the whole matter in life—the change in nature, as previously the change of place or condition—deliverance, not new life. We must not confound παλιγγενεσία and ἀναγεννάω. Παλιγγ is a change of state, as Matt. 19 and used for a recovery of wealth when fortune has been lost. Ἀναγεννάω means to be born again, as with βλέπω, καινίξω. It has the sense of “up” often; but “again” or “back,” the beginning of something new with the sense of the contrary of what it was before. Of ἀναλύω, ὰωακἁμπτω, ἀνακαλύπτω. The other sense is pretty much our use of “up.” See 1 Peter 1:3, 233Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, (1 Peter 1:3)
23Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. (1 Peter 1:23); Titus 3:55Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; (Titus 3:5).