If Jesus Christ is going to regenerate me, what is the problem he is up against? I\u2019ve inherited a sinful nature, a heredity I had no say in. I am not holy, nor am I likely to become holy. If all Jesus Christ can do is tell me to be holy, I\u2019ll end in despair. But since Jesus Christ does more than tell, since he is a regenerator who can impart to me his own heredity\u2014the heredity of holiness\u2014I begin to see what he\u2019s getting at when he tells me to be holy.<\/p>\n
Redemption means that Jesus Christ can remake anyone by putting his own holy nature into them. The standards he sets for us are based on this new heredity; his teaching is directed at what he puts into me, not at what I was before I received him. The moral obligation on my part is to agree with God\u2019s verdict on sin in the cross of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
What the New Testament teaches about spiritual rebirth is that when people are struck by a sense of their need, God will begin to put the Holy Spirit into their spirit, not stopping until they have been fully remade\u2014that is, \u201cuntil Christ is formed\u201d inside them (Galatians 4:19). The moral miracle of redemption is that God can instill in me a holiness that enables me to live a totally new life. But it isn\u2019t until I reach the frontier of need and understand my limitations that Jesus says, \u201cBlessed are you\u201d (Matthew 5:11). God cannot put the holiness that was in Jesus Christ into someone who is still convinced of their own morality. I have to be consciously in need of him to receive his heredity.<\/p>\n
Just as the disposition of sin entered humanity through one man,
\nso the Holy Spirit entered humanity by one man. Redemption means
\nthat I can be delivered from the heredity of sin and receive the spotless
\nheredity of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If Jesus Christ is going to regenerate me, what is the problem he is up against? I\u2019ve inherited a sinful nature, a heredity I had no say in. I am not holy, …<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":2296,"template":"","collection":[],"class_list":["post-2711","modern-classic","type-modern-classic","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic\/2711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/modern-classic"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic\/2711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=2711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}