We now come to the second question, closely related to the first, and it will help us to understand even more clearly what the New Birth is. _What are the results that follow when one is born again?_ They are numerous.
1. The first of these results is found in 1 Cor. 6:19, where we read: +"Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have from God?"+ These words were spoken to believers, to regenerated men, and they plainly tell us that _when one is born again, the Holy Spirit comes to take up His permanent dwelling in the man and that the man who is born again thus becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit_. It is true that we may not always be conscious of this indwelling of the Holy Spirit, nevertheless He dwells in us.
2. The second result of the New Birth is found in Rom. 8:2-4, where we read: +"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."+ In the 7th chapter of Romans, we have a picture of the man who is awakened by the law of God which he approves after the inward man, which he sees "is holy and just and good," which he tries to keep in his own strength, but utterly fails to keep, until at last he comes to an end of himself and is filled with despair of ever being able to keep the law of God outside of him, because of the law of sin and death inside him, which law of sin and death says, "the good which you would do you cannot do, and the evil which you hate and would not do, you must keep on doing." When a man is thus brought to a consciousness of his own utter helplessness and turns to God and accepts Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus Christ gives to him who dwells in him, sets him free from this law of sin and death so that by the power of the indwelling Spirit he is enabled to obey the law of God and to get the victory over the evil things that he would not do and to do the things which he would do. Whereas in a man merely awakened by the law of God, "the law of sin and death" gets a perpetual victory, in a regenerate man, the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" gets the perpetual victory. Doubtless many of you here to-day are still struggling to keep the law of God and utterly failing in your attempt to do so. What you need is to be born again, and thus have the Holy Spirit come to dwell in you, and then to walk by the Spirit, and by the power of this indwelling Spirit to get victory every day and hour over the law of sin and death that wars in your members against the law of God.
3. The third result of the New Birth is found in Rom. 12:2, where we read, +"And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind."+ From this it appears that _the third result of the New Birth is in outward transformation of our lives by the inward renewing of our minds so that we no longer are fashioned according to this world_. Of course the regenerated man does not at once manifest perfectly that of which he has the germ in himself. He begins the new life just as we begin our natural lives, as a babe, and he must grow. As Peter puts it in 1 Pet. 2:2, we must +"As new born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that we may grow thereby."+ This new life must be fed and developed. It is irrational, and unwarranted by the Word of God, to expect one who has just been born again, and who is consequently a babe in Christ, to be as perfect in character as one who was born years ago and who has grown to maturity. But the moment we are born again we receive in germ all the moral perfection that is to be ours when this germ is fully developed within us and comes to its perfect manifestation.
4. The fourth result of the New Birth we find in 1 John 5:1, +"Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God."+ _The fourth result of being born again is that the regenerated man believes that Jesus is the Christ._ Of course this faith that comes from the New Birth is a _real faith_. The faith that John here speaks of is not a faith that is a mere opinion, but that real faith that Jesus is the anointed of God that leads us to enthrone Jesus as King in our lives. If you are not making Jesus King in your heart and life you have not been born again. But if you are making Jesus King in your heart and life and absolute ruler of your thoughts and conduct, then you are born again, for +"Whosoever believeth that Jesus is Christ is begotten of God."+