American Christians within the Reformed and Evangelical stream are familiar with the phrase “born again.” While the concept has been around for millennia in the church based on Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3, the phrase gained prominence during the American Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries. The call to be born again was the call, not merely to come to faith in Christ (though that was certainly necessary), but rather to have something of a dramatic experience of conversion. This experience was pretty much divorced from the sacraments of the church and, in many ways, replaced them as true religion.
In the mid-to-late 20th century, being “born again” once again became a catchphrase among evangelicals. Billy Graham wrote a book, How To Be Born Again, and called packed stadiums around the world to be born again. Chuck Colson, who served as President Richard Nixon’s special counsel, wrote his memoir, Born Again, concerning his rise and fall in politics and eventual conversion. President Jimmy Carter was known for his profession of being a “born-again Christian,” which he ironically first proclaimed in an interview with Playboy magazine.
Being “born again” in the evangelical world has taken on a life of its own. It is all about a personal encounter and relationship with Jesus, which has little to do with the church. All that matters is if you have had this experience that you can put a date on and write it in the flyleaf of your Bible that this is the day God saved you.
While each of us must have a personal encounter with Jesus where we respond to the word of the gospel with faith and repentance, the freight attached to the phrase “born again” bears only a faint resemblance to what Jesus was talking about in John 3.
Nicodemus’s conversation with Jesus follows the scene in Jerusalem, where Jesus effectively shut down the temple due to its corruption. The Jews asked him for a “sign” that would vindicate his authority as Messiah to do these things. Jesus told them, “Destroy this Temple, and I will raise it up in three days.” He was speaking of his body (Jn 2:19-21). The sign of the Messiah is death and resurrection.
That is the new birth of which Jesus speaks: his death and resurrection.
Nicodemus is a Pharisee, and the Pharisees were concerned about the coming kingdom. Everything they did, they did to prepare themselves and Israel for the coming kingdom. Jesus knows Nic’s (may I call him Nic?) concern for the coming kingdom and abruptly and bluntly cuts to the chase and tells him, “Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless a certain one is born again (or born from above), he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Who is “the one?” Most read this as anyone and everyone. That is not completely wrong, but the entire context of the conversation tells us that this isn’t the fundamental meaning.
When Nic asks, “How can man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into the womb of his mother and be born?” “man” here can be taken as an individual man or mankind. Adam is both an individual and a family. Nic may be asking (because he ain’t stupid; he is the teacher in Israel; Jn 3:10), “How can mankind be born when he is this old? Can he go back into the womb of the earth and be created again?” (The ground in Genesis is feminine, adamah. Adam comes from adamah. Man is born of woman.) Jesus tells him that this one must be born of water and the Spirit.
From the beginning of creation, God has created through water and the Spirit. The Spirit hovers over the deep and creates. God re-creates the world through water and Spirit in the days of Noah. Water and Spirit cleanse worshipers from their uncleanness at the Temple, raising them from ritual death to life. On the Day of Pentecost, God creates the church through water and the Spirit (Ac 2:38).
When Nic asks later, “How can these things be?” Jesus tells him that he, the Son of Man, must be lifted up [on the cross] as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. When he is lifted up, the world will be saved.
The new birth is the re-creation of the world in the death and resurrection of Jesus. He is the firstborn from the dead. Once he is reborn, he will ascend and receive the kingdom as it was prophesied in Daniel 7. The kingdom of God is entered through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Our new birth occurs when we are united to the body of the Reborn One. When we die and rise again with Christ in baptism (Rom 6), being united to his body by the Spirit (1 Cor 12:13), we enter the new creation, which Jesus calls “the regeneration” (Mt 19:28).
Each person confronted with the gospel must respond in faith, total allegiance to Jesus as Lord. But the new birth is not some emotional experience separated from the sacraments of the church that Jesus specifically commanded. (He never commanded “the sinner’s prayer.”) Whether or not you are “born again” is not determined by an emotional experience that will leave you in doubt as to whether or not it was real. You have experienced the new birth if you are united with Christ and his church.
Because you have experienced the new birth, walk by faith and mature in Christ.
