Another Key Passage

In every lesson we examine key passages of Scripture which unlock the meaning of the Seven Realities. Today we’ll look at another, one which defines the Hope. The One Hope is one of the Seven Realities. Let’s read the passage right now, to start the lesson, and then we'll unpack its meaning.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a Living Hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead (1 Peter 1:3; NASB).

The picture shows Peter, who wrote this verse, being taken away to prison. Peter knew what the Hope was. He rejoiced when he was arrested and counted worthy to suffer for Jesus. That happened at the beginning of his ministry. Near the end of his ministry, he wrote:

... in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a New Heaven and a New Earth, where righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13).

A History of Hopelessness

It’s commonly said that Christians are “born again.” In fact, it was popular from the 1980s to the early 2000s to call all Evangelicals “Born Again Christians.” That was because the message being preached by popular evangelists was that people needed to be born again. What they meant was that a person needed to start a new life, be renewed, and transformed. And the evangelists were right.

But their message wasn’t sufficient. The evangelism we inherited from the 80s and which exists up till today has not been powerful enough for the Church to be renewed. People need to be born again—it’s true, but it’s more than a new start we need. We need to have a start and a finish. We need a Hope that will strengthen people throughout their lives.

More specifically, we all need to be born of the Holy Spirit. One weakness of the “born again” movement was that only the Pentecostals dared to call that new birth what the Bible calls it—the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Pentecostals insist (even today) that to demonstrate a new birth, you must manifest a spiritual gift—and they are right!

But the Pentecostals too came short. Their big error was not that they made speaking in tongues the default gift. Their big error is not that tongues became their star gift, and that they were negligent with the other gifts. That was a big mistake, and many Pentecostal churches since then have learned their lesson. They are now focusing now on other gifts: prophecy, healing, miracles, faith, word of knowledge, and service—and they're doing it without abandoning tongues. Kudos to them!

The use of gifts has expanded since the 1906 Azuza Street Revival in Los Angeles, California. Now you can find discernment of spirits and interpretations in churches. You will find many more gifts than tongues these days. These are good developments.

No, the Pentecostals' main problem is not their use of tongues at the expense of other gifts. Their main problems is that they have not buttressed the new birth—the baptism of the Holy Spirit—with a new focus, a new outlook, a new vision.

Pentecostals have been unsuccessful inculcating a Kingdom worldview into their people. They have not reinforced the experience of a new birth with the Hope of the Kingdom. If you track the history of the modern Evangelical Church, you will observe this pathetic history of hopelessness.

Where is the One Hope? Why has it never, since the times of the Apostles, taken center stage they way it should? Jesus did, after all, proclaim that his central message was the Good News of the Kingdom!

A Living Hope

Regardless of the failures of the Church, every true believer is ‘born again to a Living Hope.’ We are spiritually born again into a new outlook.

The same way that a baby is born into a family--and the direction, commitments, values, and vision of that family becomes the heart of that child’s life, so a person born of the Spirit is gripped by the Hope of the Kingdom as they start their new life. The vision of the Church is the Kingdom. That's the direction we walk in every day, until Jesus brings it to us!

What can you say of an impoverished child born on the streets of Calcutta, India? They call a child from the streets of India an “untouchable.” Compare him to a child born into Britain’s royal family. The latter is born into a great hope—the hope that they will rule a nation. The other child is born hopeless. The only hope of an “untouchable” in India is that they might not die of starvation. They are locked into a caste system that makes them sub-human.

The New Birth

You, on the other hand, are born into a new life and a new direction in life. Your new life begins when you are baptized by the Holy Spirit. Only when you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit do you become a new person in Christ.

This new birth (also called being “born again”) will happen after your baptism in water if you are properly guided and the person who evangelized you lays hands on you. Why must they do that? In order to transmit the power of the Holy Spirit to you. During laying on of hands, you get one or more spiritual gifts!

The new birth occurs right after baptism in water if you are on God’s normal schedule of salvation. But with the prevalence of bad teaching and the huge deficiencies in Christian ministries these days, you likely will not get the baptism of the Holy Spirit after you’re baptized. Churches overlook it.

The vast majority of churches don’t teach repentance, they don’t teach who God is, and they don’t administer baptism for salvation. Today’s cheapo version of Christianity is simply to “receive Jesus in your heart as your personal Lord and Savior” with what they call “the prayer of faith.”

The result of the cheapening of the Gospel is that our congregations are filled with people who never have actually been born of the Holy Spirit. They have never been born again.

Key Word: Through

Let’s get to the Bible’s definition of the new birth. It tells us that God has ‘caused us to be born again to a living Hope.’ So the new birth leads the believer to a Hope—but not just any hope. It’s a Living Hope! It’s an active, energizing, breathing Hope.

We get instilled with this Living Hope ‘through the resurrection of Jesus.’ That’s the way Peter explained it. Let's read our key verse again:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a Living Hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead (1 Peter 1:3; NASB).

As you read Peter’s declaration—notice the importance of the key word through. It’s right in the middle of Peter’s statement. It’s the lynchpin of Peter’s words. His message revolves around the word through.

How do we get born again? How does the Hope of the Kingdom become our new worldview, our vision, our new perspective on life? It happens through the resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the Dead.

The word through speaks of a means. It indicates that Christ’s resurrection is the instrument by which the new birth is achieved—the means.

The Mechanics of Hope

So, how does this work exactly? How do we become born again? It’s directly related to the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead, so consider what it means to believe that Jesus was resurrected from the Dead. If you believe that Jesus was resurrected, you believe that:

• Jesus, rejected by men, was vindicated by God. So men are wrong. God is right.

• Jesus was free from sin. He was spotless--otherwise God wouldn't have resurrected him.

• God declared Jesus to be Lord, Christ, his Son, and the Heir of the Kingdom by resurrecting him.

• We now have someone in Heaven to intercede for us before the Father. That's a relief!

• We can trust in everything Jesus taught and promised. God proved that Jesus was true by resurrecting him.

• That Jesus will come back again in glory. He's alive today, and he'll live forever.

Belief in the God Who Resurrects

We believe in God, but not the same way demons believe in God. They believe in God and shudder. We don’t believe in God the way children believe in him either. They believe that God exists because they’re amazed at the World around them.

We believe in God in this way: that the same God who resurrected Jesus will also resurrect us who believe in Jesus. Our faith in God instils hope in us—but not just any hope, it instils in us the Hope of the Kingdom.

Men condemned Jesus, but God glorified him. Men crucified him, but God brought him to life. Men called him a blasphemer, while God called him the Savior! If we die with Christ, we will also live with Christ.

We are born spiritually to a Hope—which means that when we first believe, our belief is the doorway to a new life characterized by Hope in the Kingdom. Our faith opens our hearts to believing in the World to come—but why? Because Jesus has already attained to that World. He rules in Heaven even now.

Our new birth is made possible by Jesus’ resurrection because what God did in Jesus proves that the Kingdom is real. God made Jesus (who was condemned to death) into a King. If there’s a real King, then his Kingdom must also be real.

With Jesus resurrected, we know that God’s promise of a Kingdom will certainly come to pass. It's a guarantee that what God did in Jesus, he will also do in us! You have been born again unto that Hope.