“so we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” through a spiritual birth.  And as no man in this world is a spirit, so no man has in reality passed the new birth.  When we were born into this world, we were brought from insensibility to an existence entirely new.  So in order to enter the kingdom of God, which is not of this world, we must be born again from the insensibility of death into a new and happy existence beyond the grave.

The question now arises, when does this new birth take place?  We reply when this mortal puts on immortality through a resurrection.  When we shall be aroused from the sleep of death to a precipient existence in heaven—­when we shall awake satisfied with the likeness of God.  Paul, in the xv.  Chap. 1 Cor.  Plainly states that the spiritual body is prepared and put on after death.  Birth then must follow, not precede that spiritual body.  It is impossible that birth should take place, till the body is first prepared.  Man’s natural body is organized in the womb, and then born into this world.  He drops to a state of insensibility in death, a reorganization of the spiritual body takes place to the natural eye imperceptible, and its nature indestructible.  It is gradually brought forward through a resurrection similar to the grain of wheat to which Paul compares it, is awakened to a conscious existence, and bears the image of the heavenly as it once bore the image of the earthy.  The resurrection is therefore every moment progressing, and every man is raised in his own order of time.

But says the reader, if the resurrection be the new birth, then Christ, himself must have been born again, in order to enter the kingdom of God!  Certainly.  But inquires the reader, where do the scriptures teach that Christ was ever born again?  In Colossians chap. i:15. are these words—­“Who [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature.”  This cannot mean that he was the first born into this state of existence; but he was the first one whom human eyes ever saw alive beyond the destruction of death to die no more, and the only one that mortal eye will ever see, for he arose in his natural body, (being the only true witness, appointed of God,) to bring life and immortality to light through the gospel.

But that passage, says the reader, does not satisfy me, that Christ was born again.  Then listen once more—­verse 18—­“who is the beginning, the first born from the dead that in all things he might have the pre-eminence.”  Rev. chap. i. 5.  “Jesus Christ the faithful witness, and the first begotten from the dead.”  Here it is plainly stated that he is the “first born from the dead” “the first begotten from the dead” These scriptures in connexion with several others, that might be quoted, prove that Christ was born again, and that the resurrection is called birth.