New Creation Realities

Pastor Munashe

25 July 2024

YOU IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN YOU

(What Happens When You’re Born Again And When You Receive The Holy Ghost?)

📖 “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:13)

The first thing that happens when you come to Christ or receive eternal life is that you are baptised or immersed into Christ; this is captured vividly in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” To be in Christ, therefore, is to be recreated as a new person in Christ. This first experience happens when the Holy Spirit receives you into Him, as the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 12:13, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free...” This is the new birth—being born again.

The second part of the verse refers to the second experience: “...And have all been made to drink into one Spirit.” This is receiving the Holy Spirit to dwell in you to become one with Him in the same body (1 Corinthians 6:17, John 7:37-39). Receiving Him is a separate experience that follows the first experience. On the day of Pentecost, for example, the disciples were born again and also received the Holy Spirit to dwell in them on that same occasion. The same experience happens to many people today; immediately they’re born again, they receive the Holy Spirit. But this isn’t always the case.

For example, in Acts 19, the Apostle Paul encountered some disciples in Ephesus and asked them if they had received the Holy Spirit since they believed. They replied that they hadn’t even heard that there was a Holy Spirit. So, for some people, there might be a period of waiting, maybe due to a lack of knowledge about the Holy Spirit and His ministry in the saints, like these disciples Paul encountered in Ephesus. 

So, being born again is actually being baptised into the Holy Ghost, into Christ, and into God. John refers to it as “being in God” and distinguishes that from “He in you” (1 John 4:15) much as Paul the apostle distinguishes “being in Christ,” which begins at the new birth, from “Christ in you,” which begins when you receive the Holy Spirit into you (2 Corinthians 5:17, Colossians 1:27).

SPEAK

I’m inseparably one with Christ, for in Him I live, move, and have my being! I’m the embodiment and expression of His glory and divinity. Glory to God!