But that is not the whole story. Although Jesus died for our sins, He did not stay dead. God raised Him from the dead, thus robbing hell of any claim on Him and vindicating Jesus’ work on man’s behalf. The resurrection broke the power of sin, death, and hell over man and is the victorious climax to Jesus’ life and ministry.
On the basis of Jesus’ death and resurrection, God can freely forgive man, for the penalty has been paid by God Himself. But again, God does not force this pardon on anyone. We are not puppets. God offers forgiveness to us; it is up to us to accept or reject. The final point tells how we may appropriate the new life God offers.
4. We may come to know God personally by receiving Christ as our Savior and Lord. God’s gift of forgiveness and eternal life is found in His Son. Thus, John states boldly, “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life” (1 John 5:11b-12). How then may we have the Son? John answers, by receiving him: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13, RSV).
Perhaps this is somewhat confusing. We have said that Jesus rose physically from the dead and then left the universe; He will return at the end of history. So how can one receive Him? I think the answer can be found in John’s further explanation that those who received Him were born, not by physical means, but of God. That clearly refers to the spiritual birth discussed in John 3:1-13. In a conversation with a Jewish leader, Jesus stated that no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born again. The Jewish leader thought Jesus meant physically born again, which is impossible. So Jesus explained that He was talking about a spiritual rebirth. “Flesh gives birth to flesh and spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3:6, Phillips). Jesus used the analogy of the wind: you cannot see the wind itself, but you can see its effects. “So is every one who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).
This discussion teaches that it is God’s Spirit who causes the spiritual rebirth in the soul of a man. According to John, after Jesus’ resurrection and departure from the world, the Spirit would take over Jesus’ ministry here. Jesus said:
And I will pray the Father and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. . . . I tell you the truth: It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. [John 14:16-17; 16:7, RSV]
It is clear that the Spirit would “stand in” for Jesus while Jesus was physically absent from this world. This implies, therefore, that when John talks about receiving Christ, he means, more technically, receiving the Spirit. When a man receives the Spirit of God, he is spiritually born again. The reason this can be spoken of as receiving Jesus is because the Spirit is acting on behalf of and in the role of Jesus.
That is confirmed by Paul’s use of certain expressions. Notice how freely he interchanges “Spirit,” “Spirit of Christ,” “Christ”:
But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God really dwells in you. Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness. [Romans 8:9-10, RSV]
Since the Spirit acts on behalf of Christ, He becomes so closely identified with Christ that He may be referred to simply as Christ.
Thus, it is by receiving God’s Spirit that a man becomes a Christian. That fact may also be vividly seen by one’s reading the book of Acts. Time and again we see that it is only when a person receives the Holy Spirit that he really becomes a Christian. James D. G. Dunn in his study of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament concludes,
The one thing which makes a man a Christian is the gift of the Spirit. Men can have been for a long time in Jesus’ company, can have made profession of faith and been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, can be wholly ‘clean’ and acceptable to God, can even be ‘disciples,’ and yet not be Christians, because they lack and until they receive the Holy Spirit.9
Later Dunn remarks, “This has an important consequence, for it means that the thing which determines whether a man is a Christian is not his profession of faith in Christ but the presence of the Spirit.”10 That has shattering implications. It means clearly that one is not a Christian because he is a member of a church or is religious or follows the Golden Rule or even is a minister or priest. It is one of the greatest and most tragic errors of our day that most people think that a person is a Christian because he goes to church or believes certain doctrines or lives a good life. This notion, which is preached from thousands of church pulpits, is not true. A person is a Christian only because he has received the Spirit of Christ and so has been born again.
If a person has truly received Christ (i.e., the Spirit), he knows it. As Dr. Dunn remarks, the gift of the Spirit was a fact of experience for the early Christians, and it would be unthinkable for them that someone could have received the Spirit and yet not be aware of it.11 For New Testament Christians, the reality of the Spirit in their lives was unmistakable. He was the source of power in their lives and gave them the firm assurance that they had been born again and were thus God’s children. It is the same today for anyone who receives the Spirit and lives in His power.
When a person receives Christ, certain consequences of sin are eliminated. Let us review the three consequences we discussed before and see how each is removed when a person receives Jesus.
1. He is forgiven of all his sin. We saw that man stands morally guilty before God. But since God Himself in Jesus has borne the penalty for our sin, we need no longer be punished ourselves. God offers us complete and free pardon. He promises, “I will have mercy on their transgressions and will no longer remember their sins” (Hebrews 8:12, RSV). In placing our trust in Jesus and receiving His Spirit, we receive God’s gift of forgiveness. Thus, we are free from the bondage of evil that enslaved us, and free to live for God.
2. His personal relationship with God is restored. We saw that it was man’s evil that separated him spiritually from God. But now that our sins are forgiven through Christ, the gulf separating us from God has been bridged. Jesus Himself is the bridge by means of which we come to God. In receiving Christ we come to have a personal relationship with God as our loving heavenly Father. Paul wrote,