Once Born, Forever Born

"I was born again, “according to the will of our God and Father” (Galatians 1:4)!

He is the perfect Father, who sought me out while I was His mortal enemy, deep in sin. If I am saved by grace alone, then “it is no longer by works” (Romans 11:6). He put the seed of the gospel in my conscience, gave me over to conviction of sin, and led me to the Cross of Christ. I confessed with my mouth and believed in my heart....and the word says “I will be saved” (Romans 10:9). My sins were washed “white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18); I have confidence in today to “come boldly unto the throne of grace”” (Hebrews 4:16); the Spirit is given to me as a promise, as a “seal of ownership” (2 Corinthians 1:22) and as confirmation of my enduring “sonship” (Romans 8:15). The Son ever lives to intercede for me before a willing Father, “Who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”. (John 3:16).

All I need to do I glance at Him in faith, inasmuch as the Israelites were healed of the deadly vipers’ poison with one glance at the bronze snake lifted up in Sinai (Numbers 21:8-9). He adorns me with grace gifts and convicts me in my conscience – from the inside out – of a life that pleases the Father. From hereon, all God’s dealings in my life are His fatherly dealings. Even the tough things are His discipline in me, “that I might share in His holiness" (Heb 12:10). God picked His fight with Jesus on the Cross, and now He has picked me as a son in Christ. The Lord does not change His mind. He has sworn on oath that I am His.

My salvation is a flawless, eternal work of the Trinity, into which I have been swept up. Just as no baby chooses of itself to be born, when to be born, and to whom to be born....so I was born into sin and darkness, but by the eternal foreknowledge of the Father, I was “born from above” into the Kingdom of light!

If Nicodemus struggled to understand how he could “enter the second time into his mother’s womb and be born” (John 3:4), how could I believe I could enter heaven’s womb a second time again to be born again....again? I am born from above, once for all time; the Cross has slain me and raised up the new Christ-life within...I am born again of imperishable seed…. “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” (1 Peter 1:23 )

I am a son. Even a worldly father would not disown his son for his sins – would he tear up his birth certificate or disavow his title? God is the perfect Father! And now, I have the new Spirit, genetic, name, family and Father, so I may grow up “by the Spirit” over the course of my lifetime. Having begun by the Spirit, I need to continue by the Spirit. But my status as a son remains unchanged. If any natural child started to believe they had lost their father’s favor - that they were on a long and painful road towards being rejected forever as a child - it would produce all manner of bad psychologies and behavior. The child would work to gain favor and approval incessantly. He would strive to show he was a “worthy son”. It would be a sad time for the parents, watching their son driven ever more by insecurities multiplying from such a core fear of rejection.

I am a son – I have not worked to gain my sonship. No servant can become a son through serving. The fact that a son chooses to serve with his Father does not add to his sonship – it adds to the quality and depth of his knowledge of the Father, and the quality of his life....but it does not define his status as son."

(excerpt from essay, "The Perils of Once Saved Probably Saved", Nick Davis 2009)