Corruptible Seed

"In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." (John 3:3-8 NIV)

Man needs to be "born AGAIN" because his first birth is defective. The first birth Jesus called "being born of the flesh." All men are "born of the flesh." Not all men, however, are "born of the Spirit." All men are born once, but only a few are born twice. If one is born only once, he will die twice (second death - Revelation 2:11; 20: 6, 14; 21: 8), but if one is born twice, he will only die once.

By "flesh" in the New Testament scriptures is meant "sinful nature" and is most often translated so in the NIV, although the NIV did not so translate it in John 3.

Adam and Eve had no children prior to their becoming sinful and possessed of a fleshly or sinful nature. All their children were born of them after their change of nature had occurred because of sin. Ever since the fall of man like has continued to beget like, and sinful flesh has begotten sinful flesh. The "nature" of man has become corrupted and sinful, and averse to God and righteousness, and he "passes on" this fleshly or sinful nature to his offspring by natural generation.

Like begets like, reproducing after his kind. Thus, though Adam was originally made in the "likeness" and "image" of God, yet through sin he lost that image and likeness, which image and likeness chiefly consists in "righteousness and true holiness" (Ephesians 4: 24), and so, after his fall, when he "begat" a son, it is said that he "begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth." (Genesis 5: 3 KJV)

Children are born with the image and likeness of fallen Adam (man) and not with the image of God. Were they born with the image and likeness of God, they would have no need to be born AGAIN.

"Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." (Ephesians 2: 3 KJV)

"All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath." (NIV)

"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." (I Peter 1: 23 KJV)

By our natural birth, we are "children of wrath," people born under condemnation and legal wrath.

"By nature" is all the same as "by birth," as Paul said elsewhere - "we who are Jews by nature" (Galatians 2: 15), that is, "by birth."
Man, by his natural birth of the flesh (or sinful nature), is born "of corruptible seed." And, when he is born of the Spirit, the second time, he is born "of incorruptible seed."

"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." (Psalm 51: 5 KJV)

"The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." (Psalm 58: 3 KJV)

David realizes that he was born of the flesh or sinful nature, that he was born in a state wherein he was condemned and under divine wrath and judgment, that he was a member of a corrupted race, and that he was born with an evil disease inherited from Adam. Again, by man's first birth, he inherits a corrupt nature, and thus needs to be born again, of an incorruptible seed, and acquire a renewed or "divine nature." (II Peter 1: 4)

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned...Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." (Romans 5: 12, 18, 19 KJV)

God set up a system or method of dealing with our race. He appointed two men to be representatives of the human race. Adam and Christ are these two federal men. They were so constituted by divine decree that what they did became the deed of the race of men that they were appointed to represent.

Paul says that the "one act of disobedience," or "one sin," by the "one man," becomes defacto the sin of the entire race. It is a sin that God has sovereignly imputed or reckoned to the account of the entire race. Thus, every member of the human race is born under the general curse, and under condemnation for Adam's sin, and thus accounts for the fact of universal death and misery. None are "innocent," but all guilty, born guilty of the sin of Adam, the sin of our nature and race.

But, thankfully, just as God has condemned many for the one sin of the one man, so has he also justified and saved many for the one act of righteousness of one man, Christ, who died upon the cross.

"And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly." (II Peter 2: 5 KJV)

Infants died in the flood, and were a part of the "world of the ungodly." Their ungodliness and corruption is owing to the sin of Adam being reckoned as being THEIR sin. If the infants who died in the flood were not in any way guilty, then God is charged with injustice in "bringing in the flood" upon the innocent infants.

"Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the lothing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live." (Ezekiel 16: 1-6 KJV)

"The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD." (Hosea 1: 2 KJV)

Both these passages illustrate the truth of inherited guilt and corruption that has been taught in the preceding passages of scripture.

Every sinner is born in a "polluted" state. Every sinner is part of a race of whores. Gomer was a type of Israel and was designed to represent the sinful state of the nation. The nation was guilty of spiritual whoredom and adultery. God was "married" to a whorish people. How did they become whores? How did Gomer become a whore? She was a practicing whore, but it was owing to her being born unto a life of whoredom, being a child of whoredom. So is every sinner.

His "father" and "mother" are idolators, and he is one also. This is Israel's and the sinner's natural state as he is born of the flesh. On the other hand, to those Israelites (sinners) who are blessed to experience spiritual rebirth, of the incorruptible seed, are they who are conversely told to -

"Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him. " (Isaiah 51: 1, 2 KJV)

Israel's natural birth was of corruptible seed, of the sinful nature and flesh, and was "of the land of Canaan," of a "seed of evil doers" (Isaiah 1: 4; 14: 20), and of whores and idolators, and who's mother and father were pagan Hittites, but her spiritual rebirth was of Abraham and Sarah, of the true religion of God.

"For vain men would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass's colt." (Job 11: 12 KJV)

"For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?" (Romans 11: 24 KJV)

Man's nature is corrupt, sinful, and "wild." He is born with a spiritually untamed nature, one that is undomesticated, wild, and ferocious.

Only the Lord has power to tame the wild nature of man, to give him a renewed nature, the divine nature, to regenerate and birth his soul.