“Born” — “not of the will of man.” Regeneration has no connection with natural relationships. God uses the faithful preaching and teaching of the Word by pastors and Sunday school teachers, the believing prayer of parents and friends, the earnest exhortation, warning, and pleading of the personal worker to show another his need of a Savior and to teach him the way of salvation, but no effort of theirs can beget in another the divine, supernatural life of God. No ordinance or rite, however sacred and holy, administered by a priest or preacher has life-begetting power.

“Born” — “but of God.” Regeneration is solely the work of God. It is patent that no one can give the life of God to another but God Himself. To become a son of God, one must receive the life of God from God. God, the Holy Spirit, is the sole author of this new life, which He implants by a creative act in the sinner.

Sin’s first devastation was wrought in the human spirit. So, the Holy Spirit begins His work in regeneration here. The life of God is implanted in the believer’s human spirit.

Ephesians 2:1

“And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.”

Ephesians 2:5  

“Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved:).”

The Holy Spirit comes to dwell in this renewed human spirit. Here, He will operate to make the implanted life a living reality. So, the believer will be transformed into the image of Christ from glory to glory.

Ezekiel 36:26-27

^26 “A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments and do them.”

1 Corinthians 3:16

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”

In regeneration, the Holy Spirit uses both a divine and a human instrument. The divine instrument is the Word of God.

1 Peter 1:23

“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.”

James 1:18

“Of His own will, He begot us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.:

God uses human instruments to put the Word of God in the hands of those who have not yet been born again or to unfold its truth to them.

1 Corinthians 4:15

“For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet ye have not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel.”

Galatians 4:19

“My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.”

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

Lord, thank You that we have been regenerated, and the Spirit of God now dwells within us in our spirit!