Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
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Jesus was the first person to be "born again". He was born of the Spirit when he was baptized in the Jordan River by John, the holy Spirit descending upon him from God out of heaven in the form of a dove. Unlike the temporary coming of the Spirit upon the prophets and judges in the Old Testament, the holy Ghost, in John's words, "abode upon" Jesus (Jn. 1:32). In fact, the Spirit entered into Jesus and made him a new creature: a mortal man with God's eternal Spirit dwelling within. There had never existed such a creature since the beginning of the world.
Jesus humbly confessed that the Father had given him life (Jn. 5:26). By "life", Jesus was referring to the holy Ghost, for "the Spirit is life" (Rom. 8:10). Jesus himself taught that "it is the Spirit that gives life" (Jn. 6:63); therefore, when he confessed that the Father had given him life, he was confessing that the Father had given him the Spirit. This confession should be understood not only as a reference to the Father's creation of the Son before anything else existed (Prov. 8:22) but also as a reference to the Father's giving of the Spirit to Jesus when he was baptized in the Jordan River. And Jesus' great desire for us is that the Father will also give us that eternal life. That was, in fact, his very reason for Jesus' coming to live among us. Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly" (Jn. 10:10).
Paul described Jesus as the first of a new race of men, a second Adam (1Cor. 15:45). Unlike the first Adam, who generated only one son at a time, Jesus produced about one hundred twenty offspring at once when he became a father. Isaiah prophesied of the day of Pentecost, when those one hundred twenty followers of Christ Jesus were born again as being a day when an entire nation was born at once (Isa. 66:8). Amen! The nation of the upright was created by the power of God on the day of Pentecost. Those humble souls were conceived and brought to a new kind of birth by the holy Ghost, and when they were "born again", they were counted by God as the offspring of Jesus. "Behold, I and the children that the LORD hath given to me are for signs and wonders in Israel" (Isa. 8:18).
The calling of Jesus excluded having an earthly wife and natural children. Isaiah prophesied that the coming Messiah would be put to death without ever generating physical children (Isa. 53:8). But through the holy Ghost baptism, poured out from heaven on the day of Pentecost, many spiritual children were produced (Ps. 22:30), "and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ" (Rom. 8:17).
Jesus was the first to be born of the Spirit, but by his righteousness, he has produced for God's glory many other sons and daughters to Him. "Behold," the beloved disciple wrote, "what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God" (1Jn. 3:1). Amen. If we are so loved by God, let us love one another and bring glory to God, as Jesus did after the Father gave life to him.