“You Must Be Born Again (From Above)”
“In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is born again” . . . “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3: 3, 5, 6).
Jesus was speaking to the Pharisee, Nicodemus, one of Israel’s theologians. Nicodemus was confused by Jesus’ words. “How can a man be born when he is old?”, he asked. Good question. Many today ask the same question – “Do I really need to be born again? Isn’t that Charismatic mumbo-jumbo?”
Every person is born of ‘the flesh’, which means each of us is born into the spiritual kingdom of the world; aka kingdom of self. According to Scripture, this kingdom is under the dominion of satan. When we live in the kingdom of the world, we live lives separated from God – separated from His life and His light; in the kingdom of the world we live in darkness, condemned to death. This is true for all people before regeneration.
The self-life is marked by attributes like self-ishness, self-seeking, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-righteousness, self-help, self-preservation, self-motivation, self-directedness, self-centeredness, self-seeking, and self-actualizing. This life always finds its ultimate value (treasure) in the things of the world. As Paul wrote, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served created things (or creature) rather than the Creator (Romans 1: 25). Finding our ultimate value as a person in the created things or the opinion of others is pride. Where pride exists, there can be no faith (not trusting or entrusting a life to Jesus). All your ‘faith’ is in self. ‘Faith’ in self means accepting the lie, “If you totally surrender to me (‘me’ being satan), I will totally fulfill you.” This is what Jesus meant when He said, “For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many will enter through it” (Matthew 7: 13).
We are born into the kingdom of the world and in this kingdom pride rules and reigns in our hearts. Pride has a satanic root, a dark power. We are powerless against it. This why we need a Savior – someone stronger and more powerful than the devil; someone who is willing to rescue us from the dominion of darkness and set us free from a power that wants “to steal, kill, and destroy”.
“God rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1: 13, 14).
That Person is Jesus. But to exit the kingdom of the world where we are in bondage to darkness and enter the Kingdom of God where there is light and freedom, we must be born again.
We must be born again (anothen, in Greek) by water and the Spirit. Anothen can be translated either as ‘again’ or ‘from above’.
From above? From another dimension – the unseen real. A supernatural birth by the Holy Spirit – spiritually born out of the kingdom of the world and into the Kingdom of God. When this happens, the person is a new creation – totally new; not modified or ‘added to’, but completely new. They are something that and someone who did not exist before.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come. All of this is from God” (2 Corinthians 5: 17).
And although this is a supernatural birth, it is a real as the beat of our heart and the breath in our lungs.
We are born from above by water and the Holy Spirit. Many interpret ‘water’ to mean baptism (baptism: sign and seal, but not saving). After all, at this time John the Baptist was using water for a ‘baptism of repentance’. Not everyone agrees with the ‘baptism’ interpretation. For example, John Calvin believed that ‘water’ simply means ‘washed by water’; to be made clean.
What are the marks of the born-again Kingdom life? What do we inherit when we enter the Kingdom of God? The marks of the Kingdom person are: the indwelling Holy Spirit, fruit of the Spirit, Spiritual gifts, and power and authority to obey the commands of Jesus – all manifestations of the indwelling Holy Spirit given by the Father in response to Jesus’ request, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of Truth” (John 14: 16, 17).
If born again means we receive the indwelling Holy Spirit, how does this happen?
“Repent and be baptized . . . in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins . . . and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2: 28).
To receive the Holy Spirit a person must repent. Therefore, to be born again involves repentance.
“Not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance” (Romans 2: 4).
“Godly sorrow brings repentance that lead to salvation (life, eternal life, Kingdom of God-life) and leaves no regrets, but worldly sorrow brings death” (2 Corinthians 7: 10).
Life, eternal life, salvation, saved, Kingdom of God – all the same thing.
So how do we get this born-again, eternal, Kingdom life? We repent. There is no salvation or Kingdom life apart from repentance.
James gives us a good road map:
“Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded (cannot have dual citizenship). Grieve, mourn, wail, change your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom (Godly sorrow). Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up” (James 4: 7 – 10).
“He will lift you up”: a new creation, born again.
Repent is turning away and turning toward. Turning away from evil and sin (the self-life – pride). This is renouncing and is accompanied by Godly sorrow. Turning toward Jesus – this is faith (belief, trust, entrusting my life to Jesus, a life of humility) – and then being transformed by the Holy Spirit. This is true repentance.
Before, I found my ultimate value, my entire worth as a person in the things of the world, even if those things were in the church – like positions of power, knowledge of Scripture, or serving. Now I am trusting that Jesus will be that value. That trust is like stepping off a cliff or jumping into the deep end of the pool, believing that Jesus will catch (fulfill) me. It is like the blind man, Bartimaeus, dropping his cloak as he runs to Jesus. His cloak was his most treasured possession.
I have a role to play in repentance. I confess my need for a Savior (I am a sinner, I am filled with pride, I need Jesus), forgiving and blessing, or asking for forgiveness, and then giving my sin or pride to Jesus with words like:
“Lord, I choose today to give all of my pride to you. Please take it and set me free”.
Then something supernatural and amazing happens. Jesus circumcises my heart and cuts away my ‘sinful nature’. What does that mean? Jesus cuts away my pride and sets me free!!
“In Him you were also circumcised in the putting off of the sinful nature (or “the body of the sins of the flesh” in NKJV) not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with a circumcision done by Christ having been buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him through your faith (belief, trust) in the power of God who raised Him from the dead” (Colossians 2: 11, 12).
When we are born again, we are circumcised by the Spirit associated with baptism (water) and faith. That is what it means to be born again.
“No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart by the Spirit, not by the written code” (Romans 2: 29).
One time! The Spirit cuts away the ‘sinful nature’ or ‘body of sinful flesh’, and we are rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the Kingdom – we are born again. By the Spirit, not by our works because we cannot rescue, redeem, save, or restore ourselves. Only by the power of Jesus.
Paul writes that circumcision is related to baptism. How? When an Israelite was circumcised in the flesh as a mark of God’s covenant with Israel, that mark was obvious to the world. But circumcision of the heart leaves no outward mark in the flesh. So, God chose baptism to be the mark to the world that the circumcised one was living in covenant relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Baptism is the outward sign and seal (as in a notary public’s seal pressed into a legal document) of the circumcised Kingdom Life and the presence of the King in that life.
Amazing! Our pride is cut away!
“The only true circumcision is when a man dies (to self) . . . in such a way that it is not part of his body which is cut away but his whole sinful self which is destroyed and he is filled with newness of life (born again, new creation) and the very likeness of God” (Barclay, Colossians, pg. 140).
Circumcision cuts away the self-life – the life we lived in the kingdom of the world – that keeps us from entering the Kingdom of God, prevents us from salvation and eternal life, and from coming into His presence.
“Even the most secret breath of pride, in self-seeking, self-will, self-confidence, or self-exaltation is only the strengthening of that self that cannot enter the Kingdom of God or possess the things of the Kingdom (like the indwelling Holy Spirit – “And if anyone does not have the Spirit of God, he does not belong to Christ” Romans 8: 9) because he refuses to allow God to be who He is (Murray, pg. 78).
“As long as we take glory from one another, as long as we seek and love and jealously guard the glory of this life, the honor and reputation that comes from men, we do not seek and cannot receive the glory that comes from God. Pride renders faith impossible” (Murray, pg. 78).
In John 3, faith = belief. There can be no belief where there is pride. Without faith we cannot please God or come into His Presence. When we are circumcised by the Holy Spirit, Jesus cuts away pride from our hearts. We are a new creation, walking now in the amazing Presence of God – restored to that relationship Adam and Eve enjoyed with God before they were infected with pride. Not by our works, but by His power. This is what it means to be born again.
To be born again requires our hearts to be circumcised by the Spirit. Circumcision has (at least) 4 outcomes:
Where pride exists, there can be no repentance. Repentance requires faith and faith is impossible with pride. No faith, no Kingdom life, and therefore no salvation.
Circumcision sets me free from the satanic power of pride, sin, and evil. Pride always enslaves us, and we are powerless to overcome it.
We are brought into the Presence of the Father from whom, in our self-life, we were estranged.
Now God sees us as “holy in His sight without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1: 22). Really? Yes! How is this possible? It is a mystery rooted in the cross. (But we still need to repent – to be repentant. As Jesus tells the disciples, the whole body is clean, but He must wash their feet).
To be born again means to enter new life – to leave behind the life of pride in the kingdom of the world (aka the kingdom of self), to be completely transformed – a new creation – and enter into the Kingdom of God for eternity, saved, free, and living in the Presence of the King, who is Jesus.
We do this through turning away from life in the world (renunciation) coupled with Godly sorrow and the kindness of God and turning toward Jesus (faith). The transformation, entirely the work of the Holy Spirit, is called repentance. I also call it healing.
Baptism is the sign and seal of this work, but not the work itself.
Who is eligible to be born again? Is it only a select few? No, it is the whole world.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (eternal life = Kingdom life, which begins now) (John 3: 16)
In Greek the word for ‘whoever’ is pas. Pas means, “each, every, any, all, the whole, everyone, all things, everything”; in other words: all people, everywhere. Furthermore, Paul writes:
“It is good and pleases God our Savior who wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ who gave His life as a ransom for all men” (1 Timothy 2: 3—6).
But not everyone will accept the gift of eternal Kingdom life. Some will reject it.
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever reject the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him” (John 3: 36).
God loves us with a profound, sacred, mysterious, and powerful love; no matter where we are in our faith – including nonbelievers. He loves the whole world (Kosmos; but God hates evil, we must live with this tension). His purposes are for each of us to live fully and intimately in His Presence, both ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ our authentic selves in the power of the Holy Spirit; releasing into the world all that He has purposed for us to do. We must turn to Him, find our ultimate value in Jesus (Jesus in me), receive our true self, and, walking in humility and partnership with the Holy Spirit, as the man or woman God is creating us to be – joyfully and powerfully live!
Living in His power and by the faith of Jesus in me, John