Born Again:
What Does It Mean?
Copyright 1995:
William A. Simpson
When Nicodemus came
to Jesus at night, professing a desire to know more about Him on account of all the
miracles He was performing, Jesus had a strange answer for Him. He did not shrug and say,
"Aw, shucks!" He was not intimidated by this ruler of the Jews. Jesus knew who
He was, and no earthly power could ever scare Him. He looked old Nicodemus right in the
eye and said,
Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God.
It was an enigmatic
answer, to be sure. It is certain that Nicodemus did not understand Him
because he asked Jesus,
How can a
man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's
womb and be born?
Nicodemus
obviously was sincere in his questioning of Jesus. Had he merely wanted to
taunt Him or refute Him, he would have done so publicly, during daylight hours,
so that his fellow Pharisees could witness his effrontery of this One who
claimed to be the Son of God. Instead, he came to Jesus at night,
privately. He addressed Him as Rabbi, which meant that, unless Jesus said
or did something to alter his opinion, he was willing to give Him a chance to
explain how it was that He was able to perform the miracles and provide such
irrefutable teaching.
But
Jesus wasn't about to "prove" Himself to Nicodemus or any other of the
Pharisees. Instead, He merely told them the truth. That was the
single thing that gave Jesus His greatest freedom while He ministered on the
Earth. It was also His straightforward telling of the truth that got Him
crucified. It enraged the Pharisees to hear things that were not
politically correct, and especially things about themselves. Still, Jesus
was not out to "offend" Nicodemus. What He told the man was
simply the truth. To this first question from him, Jesus responded:
Most
assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and
that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to
you, 'you must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you
hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it
goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.
Of
course, Nicodemus did not understand those words any more than he had understood
Jesus' first statement. Nor do many Christians understand those words very
clearly. Those who teach a doctrine of salvation by works believe that the
water that Jesus spoke of is the water of baptism. Nothing could be
farther from the truth.
Jesus
would later say in a public proclamation,
If anyone
thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the
Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. (Jn
7:37b-38)
The
evangelist would explain Jesus' words like this:
But this He
spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the
Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Years later, Paul
would say of this "water,"
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also
loved the church, and gave himself for it; That He might sanctify and cleanse
it with the washing of water by the word, That He might present it to Himself
a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it
should be holy and without blemish.
What Jesus was saying to Nicodemus is that believers are born of the
flesh and of the Spirit. Water is one of several symbols that the Bible
uses for the Holy Spirit. It's symbolism, like all Scriptural symbolism,
is authenticated by the Bible itself. One cannot claim that a thing is
symbolic unless the Bible specifically declares it to be so, as is the case of
this symbol in Jn 7: 39.
If a person is to experience the new birth through baptism, then works
must be added to faith , so that grace ceases to be grace, but is then works.
The two are incompatible. If one must "do" anything in order to
be saved, then he has "earned" his salvation by doing something.
But if one must believe only, then he is saved by grace. Grace is
unmerited favor. It is receiving something one does not deserve. If
a man could be saved by baptism, then grace is no longer a factor. If he
is baptized, then he has become worthy of salvation by his works. The new
birth is only available by grace, through faith (see Eph 2:8-9). Paul said
to the church at Rome,
And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise, grace is no
longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise
work is no longer work (Rom 11:6)
So, let us return to the passage in John 3 in which Jesus reveals to
Nicodemus the necessity of the new birth. Jesus told Nicodemus that those
born of the Spirit are like the wind. Actually, the same Greek word (pneuma)
is used for both Spirit and wind in this passage. There is an ethereal
something about Christians that non-Christians cannot grasp or comprehend.
We blow into their lives and we blow out again, and they are left wondering
exactly what just happened. Of course, since wind and Spirit are both the
same in this context, we understand that it is not the Christian himself who is
mysterious to the unbeliever, but the Holy Spirit who indwells him. It is
really a truly lovely verse (3:8), and one that is rarely preached on simply
because few preachers understand its depth. (This, because most seminaries
only require divinity students to undergo about four semester hours of pure
theology while they focus on homiletics and counseling and church administration
and what have you. Few preachers are theologians at all. This is how
the professing church came to adopt the social gospel that now characterizes
it.)
Anyway, Nicodemus listened to Jesus' words, and then he said,
"Huh?" He asked how those things could be. He clearly did
not understand. Because he didn't understand, Jesus chided him, saying,
Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most
assuredly, I say to you, 'We speak what we know and testify what We have seen,
and you do not receive our witness. If I have told you earthly things
and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
Jesus was ever and always having to explain Himself to the Jews.
At least, to the leaders of the Jews. The common man in the street seemed
to have little trouble understanding Him. He told Nicodemus that he should
already have known and understood the things He was saying because the prophets
had written of them. Then He said another enigmatic thing:
No one has ascended to heaven but he who came down from heaven, that is,
the Son of Man who is in heaven.
What Jesus was telling Nicodemus is that no man had gone up into heaven
so that he might learn the things Jesus was telling him. And no one had
come back down from heaven to explain them. That's all plain enough.
But notice that He said, "...the Son of Man who is in heaven."
Jesus was standing right in front of Nicodemus. He could have
reached out and touched him. But, while He was standing there, He was also
in heaven. Only God could do that. This is a little-recognized
affirmation of Jesus' deity. He was claiming to be God.
Following this affirmation of His deity, Jesus proceeded to explain to
Nicodemus how one goes about being born again. He had told him of the
necessity, but He had not yet told him how to go about being reborn. In
order to explain it to this slow-witted Pharisee, Jesus reminds him of something
that Moses had recorded (Num 21:9) concerning the days of Israel's wilderness
wanderings. He said,
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but
have eternal life. 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.
It was millennia before. After the Jews left their captivity in
Egypt, they wandered in the wilderness for forty years. During that time,
they had nothing to eat except manna, that bread-like material that miraculously
appeared each morning. Of course, it was wholly adequate. They did
not have to run down to the health food store and buy supplements. The
food that God provided was complete in every way. Still, they remembered
the tasty vegetables they'd had to eat while they were in Egypt. They
remembered the onions and garlic and other flavorful foods, and they began to
complain. they said things like, "It would be better if God had left
us in Egypt. At least there we had good things to eat instead of this
monotonous manna. They grumbled and complained, and God sent a plague of
snakes into their camps. The snakes began to strike the Jews, killing all
those whom they struck. It was a terrible catastrophe. A great
judgment.
Moses fashioned a serpent (symbol of sin) out of bronze (symbol of
judgment). He fastened this bronze serpent to a tall pole. Any Jew
who looked upon that bronze serpent and trusted God would be spared. His
temporal life would be saved, either because the serpent did not bite him or
because he simply would not die. Trusting that God would use that bronze
serpent somehow to save their lives, they were spared.
It was this incident which Jesus indicated was the path to the new
birth. He said that He must be "lifted up" like that serpent
was. He would bear the judgment (bronze) for our sins (serpent) upon that
cross at Calvary. Jesus was prophesying His crucifixion, saying that
anyone who looked upon Him on that cross, recognizing what He was doing there,
and believing, would not be condemned, but would qualify for the kingdom of
heaven through the granting of everlasting life. The way to be born again
is not by any works, but by faith in the crucifixion of Christ to pay the
penalty for every sin.
Everyone quotes John 3:16. That verse reference is seen at many
public events on signs and banners. Certainly, it is very clearly stated.
Whoever believes in the crucifixion of Christ will not perish, but will have
eternal life. However, the next two verses make 3:16 even much more clear:
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but
that the world though HIm might be saved. He who believes in Him is not
condemned; but he does not believe is condemned already, because he has not
believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Being born again is as simple as that. Salvation is as simple as
that. What happens in the process? Oh, so very much! A new
nature is created in the sinner. That new nature is born of the very Seed
of God (1 Jn 3:9), and it cannot sin. From that moment on, God no longer
sees the old nature, which is reckoned to be dead indeed, having died with
Christ (Gal 2: 19-20). With faith in the crucifixion comes repentance and
rebirth. It all happens simultaneously. Because that new nature
cannot sin, the sinner has become a saint, though in the flesh he will remain
sinful. Eternal security is assured. Entry into the kingdom of God
is assured, not because the believer has suddenly become "good," but
because God has graciously decided to save those who believe.
It is a simply concept, really. For many worldly-wise people, it
is too simple. But for those who believe, it is the very power of God.
It is our entrance into the very glory of God, and our adoption as sons, with
citizenship in heaven forever. It is the new birth!
For further information on this topic, please see
Regeneration
.