A New Birth

It is common for a creature in one stage of its existence to have a capacity for passing into a higher stage. But it is unusual for a creature to have a capacity which can be developed only by some agency outside of it and adapted to it. It is in this condition that man is born of his human parents. He is born with the capacity for life higher than that which he lives as an animal in this world. There is in him a capacity for becoming something different and higher. That capacity lies dormant and dead until the Holy Spirit comes and quickens it. The influence has to come from without. There must be the efficient touch of the Holy Spirit, the impartation of his life. The capacity to be a child of God is man's, but the development of this lies with God. We have to be quickened from without. We cannot give physical birth to ourselves, and we cannot give divine birth to ourselves.