Born of Incorruptible Seed
The one born of God carries a new nature from a seed that cannot die, beside an old flesh that still sins, so sin shows the flesh is still there, never that the seed is gone.
One other cluster builds on this: The Everlasting Dominion.
Scripture shows this in five steps:
Underneath it all lies 1 John 5:18.
“Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin” (1 John 3:9). Some read this and say a real Christian never sins. Others read it and fear: I still sin, so maybe I was never born of God at all. Both make my standing with God hang on how well I behave. But John wrote his letter so that we “may know that ye have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). The chain shows how.
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.”
1 Peter 1:23
Begin with the seed. What is born is like the seed it came from. A seed that can rot gives a life that can die. This seed is God’s word, which lives and lasts forever. It cannot rot.
1 John 3:9
“Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”
1 John 3:9
John gives the reason the one born of God cannot sin, and it is not willpower. It is “his seed remaineth in him.” The seed stays. What is born of God cannot sin. John is speaking of the new nature, not saying that my flesh has gone quiet. The new man does not make sin his way of life, and he cannot.
And notice: the seed remains. It does not leave when I fail. A seed that stayed only until my next sin would not be the seed that cannot die.
The same John also says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). So he cannot mean that believers never sin. He means the new nature does not.
John 3:6
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
John 3:6
Jesus tells Nicodemus why. Being born again does not turn the flesh into spirit. It brings a second, new thing into being beside the first. The flesh stays flesh. What is born of the Spirit is spirit. So after I believe, I am not one nature cleaned up. I am flesh, from my first birth, and spirit, from my new birth, in one body.
Romans 7:18-25
“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.”
Romans 7:18
“I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.”
Romans 7:21
“I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”
Romans 7:25
Paul loves God’s law in his inner man, and still he finds no good thing in his flesh. The flesh was not made new. It fights against the new mind. His last sentence names both.
I know this fight. It is mine. I want the good, and evil is right there with me. But that sin comes from the flesh. “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me” (Romans 7:20). Its being there is no surprise, and it does not prove that I was never born again.
Galatians 5:16-17
“This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”
Galatians 5:16-17
So there is a walk. Paul does not say the flesh is gone. He says the two are against each other the whole way. And he gives a command: walk in the Spirit. Live from the new man.
My birth is settled and cannot die. My walk is the daily choice of which one I feed. This is no licence to sin. When I fail to walk well, I lose fruit and closeness with God, and reward. I do not lose the seed.
1 John 5:18
“We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.”
1 John 5:18
What is born of God is kept, and the devil cannot touch it. He can tempt my flesh, and he does. But the seed is out of his reach.
What this means
When I sin, I have not lost my new birth. I have met my flesh. The sin shows that the flesh is still there. It never shows that the seed is gone.
This is not a reason to sin. “Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid” (Romans 6:15). Sin is foreign to the new man, and it ruins the walk. But my safety does not rest on me. It rests on a seed that cannot die, that remains, and that the wicked one cannot touch.
So I can stop asking after every failure whether I was ever His. I was born of a seed that cannot rot, and the One who planted it keeps it.
Connected chains
This cluster is built on The One Work Is to Believe, No Root, Still Purged, Perfected Forever and The Reward Is Not the Gift. It also goes hand in hand with The Fulness of God Is His Character.