John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

• Jesus was not only born into this world by the Holy Spirit, but His “Life and Death” foretold as the “only begotten in his birth, life, and death.

Born Into/Raised From the Dead

The Apostle Paul also “Begotten” believers in Christ Jesus.

• Psalm 2:7 “I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You
• I Peter 1:3 A Heavenly Inheritance – Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
• I Corinthians 4:15 For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you (raised you up from death to life) through the gospel.
• Acts 13:33 God has fulfilled this for us their children, in that He has raised up Jesus. As it is also written in the second Psalm: ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.’ (According to Acts “begotten” means “raised from the dead”.)
• Hebrews 5:5 So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him: “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.”
• To be the only begotten Son of God means Jesus, the only Son who was raised from the dead, as a down payment for the future resurrections of all men of faith.

• Only Begotten is connected to being “born again”, like a resurrection:
  
  • Death to self to be raised again.
  • A picture of baptism.
    • Not the baptism of repentance, which is the baptism John the Baptizer performed to prepare the Jews for the coming of their Messiah. Nor is it the baptism of the Spirit.
    • Rather, it is the baptism of death to self, where believers visibly declare their belief in the Jesus who died for their sins, pictured by being lowered into the water like a grave, and then raised up to serve Jesus, who is God, calling Him Lord. It is called “dying to self”, just as Jesus, as the Son of God, died to Himself being obedient to the Father.
    • This is the turning point when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptizer, He would be the only begotten who died and rose from the dead never to die again, being a pattern, “a first fruit”, of all believers who would die and be raised again as a visible demonstration of their faith.
    • Dying to Self is to be “Born Again” .
    • When man is born, he is born “dead” because of his sins. When man physically dies, he is condemned to the Lake of Fire…UNLESS he has a sinless redeemer to save him.
    • Man is spiritually dead when he is physically alive. When he accepts Jesus as his Redeemer, as his Lord and Savior, he becomes spiritually alive (born again). Then, he is both physically and spiritually alive to serve their Creator (having died to his old “sin” nature). The believer has been born into sin, then died to sin, lives in life, then the physical death of the body, before being raised with a glorified body to a new spiritual and physical life.