“That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”(John 3:6 (KJV)

It has been well said that if there is anything good in any man it is because it was put there by God. And something good - Christ’s own sinless righteous life and nature has been imparted by God into every believer. So while there is still within us “that which is begotten of the flesh,” there is also “that which is begotten of the Spirit” (above), and just as the one is totally depraved and “cannot please God,” so the other is absolutely perfect and always pleases Him.

Adam was originally created in “the image and likeness of God” but he fell into the sin of rebellion. Later “(Adam) begat a son in HIS OWN likeness, after HIS image” (Gen. 5:3). It couldn’t be otherwise; flesh begets flesh. Fallen Adam could generate and beget only the fallen sinful offspring of his flesh, whom even “the law” could not and cannot change.

“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 for sin,” accomplished, “(so) that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after (in accord with) the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3-4).

As Adam was made in the “likeness of God,” but fell, so Christ was made in the “likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom 8:3), to redeem us from the fall. Today, by grace through faith in the operation of the Spirit, a new creation is brought into being in the believer - a “new man…renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him” (Col. 3:10). The believer then is “new man” in his spirit, “which, after God is created in righteousness and true (genuine) holiness” (cf. Eph. 4:24).

John does not use the term “new creation” but uses the words “born of” and “begotten of God,” referring to the impartation of the Christ’s life and nature to the Messianic believers of Israel to whom he is writing.

“Whosoever is born [begotten, born of] of God doth not commit sin, for his seed (Gk., sperma) remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born [begotten] of God” (I John 3:9).

“We know that whosoever is born [begotten] of God sinneth not…” (I John 5:18).

It’s evident that the “whosoever” (1John 3:9 above) does not refer to the individual as such, but to that part of the individual which Paul calls the “new man” of “the Spirit.”

We’ve already seen that John, in this same epistle, declares that if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and make God a liar. It is the new nature in the believer that “cannot sin,” it is the new nature, not the old, that was begotten of God.

Thus, in addition to our fallen Adamic nature we, through faith, have also become “partakers of the divine nature” (II Pet. 1:4). This is the “inner man” of which Paul speaks in Ephesians 3:16, and this “inward man” delights to do God’s will (Rom. 7:22).

“That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;” (Ephesians 3:16 (KJV)

Thank God that our old self is under the condemnation of death and has no power over… us except the lie. Judicially it has been dealt with. Our old Sinful self was put to death representatively “in Christ.” (cf. Rom 6:3), freeing us from the power of indwelling Sin. This liberty we enjoy will come to the full when our “earthly house…is dissolved (disintegrates)” (2 Cor. 5:1) in physical death, or when we’re “changed” (I Cor. 15:52), being “caught up…to meet the Lord in the air” (I Thes. 4:17) at the rapture of “the body of Christ.” 

Our new Christ-nature that is begotten of God in us will never Sin or die. This new nature was conceived in us, being begotten “not of corruptible seed (sperma), but of incorruptible (seed), by the Word (Christ) of God, which liveth and abideth forever” (1Pet. 1:23).

Paul emphasizes this fact as it affects believers in this present “dispensation of the grace of God,” for we are not only “begotten” of “the Spirit,” we are given the overcoming resurrection life of Christ, by which we belong to the “new creation” race (2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 2:10), which God will glorify “in the ages to come,” in order to “show (display) the exceeding riches of His grace” (Eph. 2:7).