The new birth, a work of the Spirit

We have already described what the 'Core of the Christian life' is. You could say this is 'our side of things'. It is then about what you as a believer have to do from a responsibility to God. But there is another side and that is God's side of things. For by ourselves we are absolutely incapable of 'living for God'. God knew that and that is why He has given us His Holy Spirit.

That is why it is about the Holy Spirit and His work below. Precisely because today there is quite a bit of heresy about the work of the Holy Spirit and much is attributed to the Holy Spirit that does not come from Him, it is necessary to understand what God's Word itself says about it.

The love of God

Much, if not most, of Christendom starts with the book of Acts to know what the "doctrine of the Holy Spirit" is. But the Acts is not a textbook, but more of a history book. Of course you can learn things from it, but to know what and how the Holy Spirit works in the believer now you have to be especially in the letters of the New Testament.

Paul deals with his "doctrine about the Holy Spirit" in chapter 8 of the letter to Romans, but here in Romans 5:5 he already says something very important.

“(…) the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us“.

I think you can say this is the gist; the first thing the Holy Spirit does when a person turns to God and believes in Jesus Christ. At the same time he is justified by God, he receives the Holy Spirit (he is born again) and

… the first thing the Holy Spirit does is pour out the love of God in his heart!

When you ask Christians today what is the proof that someone has been born again and received the Holy Spirit, you can get all kinds of answers. Many think it's proof that you can "speak in tongues." But that is not what the Bible teaches. We read here that the Holy Spiritlove of God pours into his heart'. That's where it starts.

But the question is, of course, can you see that? How do you know that someone has the love of God in their heart? Does he suddenly start doing all kinds of loving things for people or something? What are we actually talking about?

What does 'the love of God' mean?

We must ask ourselves what 'the love of God' is all about and what it means.

Well, the one who has said the most about 'the love of God' is the Lord Jesus Himself. He has made it clear that the highest love of God go out to Him, the Son, the Lord Jesus! God the Father loves the Son; Christ was the joy and pleasure of God the Father from before the foundation of the world. Just look at the following verses spoken by the Lord Himself.

• “I was with Him, His favorite child, I was His source of joy day by day, playing before His face at all times(Proverbs 8:30)
• “As the Father has loved Me (…)” (John 15:9)
• “(…) as you have loved me” (John 17:23)
• “(…)  because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24)

But then our text in Romans 5:5 means that God through the Holy Spirit has poured out into our hearts the same love that He Himself had for His Son. That is unbelievably big!

A person who is born again receives through the Holy Spirit the same love for the Lord Jesus in his heart as God the Father has!!

Loving the Lord Jesus

A man who repents to God is aware of his hopelessly lost condition before God, and believes that Christ died for him and suffered God's judgment in his stead.

But then something amazing happens! Then you suddenly notice that you love the Lord Jesus! You love Him who gave Himself up for you. Through Him you are released from your guilt, your sins are forgiven, you are reconciled to God and justified by God. The Lord Jesus has made it right for you for all eternity! You cannot help but love this Person!

And the wonderful thing is that the love you then experience for Him is the same as the love of God for the Lord Jesus.

God wanted to share His love for His Son with us!

But it was also the desire of the Lord Jesus Himself, as He expresses it in the well-known prayer to His Father: “(…) that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26)

I think we can hardly comprehend what this means. We list below a few things that are related to loving the Lord Jesus, as He Himself expressed it in His last conversations with His disciples.

The love of the Lord is based on His work on the cross of Calvary

“By this we came to know the love that He gave His life for us” (1 John 3:16)
“In this the love of God is revealed to us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the propitiation for our sins(1 John 4:9-10)

The Father and the Lord Jesus love us and we get to know the Lord Jesus more

“(…) You have loved them as You have loved Me” (John 17:23)
“(…) whoever loves Me, him My Father will love; and I will love him and reveal Myself to him.” (John 14:21)
“If anyone loves Me… My Father will love him, and We will come and dwell with him” (John 14:23)
“(…) for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and believed that I proceeded from God” (John 16:27)
“We have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him.” (1 John 4:16)

If we love the Lord Jesus, we also love God's Word

“If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15)
“By this we know that we know Him, even if we keep His commandments.” (1 John 2:3)
“Whoever keeps His Word, in him the love of God is truly made perfect. By this we know that we are in Him” (1 John 2:5)

When we love the Lord Jesus, we also love our brothers and sisters

“No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12)
“Anyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; and whosoever loveth him that begat, loveth also he that is begotten of him” (1 John 5:1)
“By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments” (1 John 5:2,3)

The work of God's Spirit in our hearts

To summarize the foregoing, you can say that God has poured out His love into our hearts through His Spirit, resulting in three things:

• Community – a relationship of love – with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3)
• Love and obedience to the Word of God (1 John 2:5)
• Love to all those who are born of God (1 John 4:12)

In a picture, you could illustrate this as follows.

What wonderful consequences the fact that God has given us His Spirit indwelling! If we cannot live for God on our own, then God has miraculously provided it. He has given us His Spirit and through it also love for Himself, for the Lord Jesus and for everything that comes from Him!

The Lord Jesus Himself asked the Father to send His Spirit because He knew that the disciples and we ourselves could not love Him and His Word.

“If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever.” (John 14:15,16)

The basis for the Christian's personal and communal life

What we have described here is the core of the personal life of faith. But it is also the basis for the common life of the faithful. After all, they have been “baptized into a Body by a Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13), which means that through the new birth they have also been joined by the Holy Spirit into the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Read more what it is to'walking to the Spirit‘.