The most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, comes embedded in a nighttime conversation with a Jewish religious leader.
Nicodemus recognized that Jesus had kingdom authority because he saw his kingdom power.
What this expert in Jewish law could not initially comprehend was that the only way for people to enter the Kingdom of God was to be born again…this is about invisible kingdom power that shows up in a visibly changed life.
In 1976 a former henchmen for disgraced President Richard Nixon wrote a book entitled “Born Again.”
Chuck Colson had been a cutthroat political operative who was convicted of crimes for his role in the Watergate scandal.
Colson became a Christian as he experienced the truth of the Gospel presented to him by loving Christians and as he, a brilliant attorney, ha found the truth claims of Jesus…compelling.
He lived the rest of his life impacting the world for the gospel that had completely changed his own personal world.
The book, its title, and its author were widely mocked.
How naive…”born again.”
How convenient…a criminal, disbarred…”born again”…pure as a newborn baby.
Most people didn’t know that the title came directly from the words of Jesus.
Like Nicodemus, they failed to understand that the powerful reality of new birth in Christ changes us in time and eternity.
Open your Bible to John, chapter 3.
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.” In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!” Jesus answered, “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. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. “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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
First, let’s get some biographical information on Nicodemus.
Then we will look at two important principles or realities in this passage.
- You must be born again.
- To not choose, is a choice.
Bio on Nick
The Pharisees were a group of Jews who were OCD in keeping the letter of the law but often missed the whole point of the law…that point being Jesus.
“You pore over the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about me. But you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life.” John 5:39
Some use this verse to say it’s not about the Bible but Jesus…this is foolish because it is through the Bible, Jesus said, that we know about him.
In him we find life. In him, we find life.
In it, we find him.
Nick was a member of the Sanhedrin, which was a local ruling body of the Jews.
Each major city had one of these and they functioned as a kind of lower court. Each major city had one of these and they functioned as a kind of lower court in Israel.
Under Roman authority the Jewish nation was allowed a small measure of self-rule and the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem was the final court of appeals for matters regarding Jewish law and religion.
This was the group that condemned Jesus, but they had to get Pilate’s approval since the death penalty was outside their scopescopelevel of authority.
Nick was a part of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem…so he had a lot of power.
We will find Nick again in John 19 after Jesus has been crucified.
He assists another well to do member of the Sanhedrin, Joseph, in burying Jesus. He assists another well to do member of the Sanhedrin, a guy named Joseph, in burying Jesus.
Joseph had secretly become a follower of Jesus.
Nick brought expensive spices to prepare Jesus’ body for burial…so he was clearly a man of means who had, at the very least, great respect for Jesus.
Was he a believer himself? We don’t know for certain.
John presents him in a favorable light.John presents him in a mostly favorable light.
He was allied with another member of the ruling council who was a believer…so I think the evidence points towards him being a genuine follower of Christ.
If so, it was not merely an intellectual change in his thinking…he didn’t merely switch political parties or change his mind about some religious ideas…he was born again.
*I’ve told this story before but years ago I was talking with the mom of a man who was playing for the Seatle Seahawks. (that’s an NFL team for those who don’t know or care about football…which is more than fine by the way)
*I’ve told this story before but years ago I was talking with the mom of a man who was playing for the Seatle Seahawks.
At that time there was kind of revival on the team with a number of players coming to Christ.
This mom, an older woman, a devout Catholic, was concerned about her son.
She said to me, “They are telling my boy that he needs to be born again. I told him you were born once by me;;, that’s enough for anybody.”
I didn’t laugh…She was sincere in her concern.
I told her, “That’s not what Jesus said.”
She was shocked, so I asked her to get her Bible.
I turned to John 3:7 and had her read, “You must be born again.”I turned to John 3:7 and handed it back to her and had her read, “You must be born again.”
She was a lifelong Catholic, but she had never read or heard those words…at least not in a way that she connected with her personally.
First important point, from this unbelievably important chapter.
You must be born again.
- You must be born again.
In order for what?
In order to enter the kingdom of God.
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. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
What is a kingdom?
It has a king, it has subjects, and it has rules, benefits, requirements…privileges and responsibilities.
In a good kingdom, with a good king, the subjects prosper and thrive…they are safe and secure.
In Scripture the kingdom of God is the “reign, or rule of God.”
In an ultimate sense, God is king over all things…whether people recognize this fact or not.
In a future sense, God will reign visibly in the remade cosmos where all will be restored to pre-fall status.
Nick had one idea of life in the Kingdom…it was focused on the land and the nation and it was more about time than eternity.
A Jewish kingdom on earth.
But Jesus was speaking of the reign of Christ in the heart, an experience with God that ushers humans into eternal life…a new kind of life with God that begins at new birth and never ends.
This was confusing to Nick.
Quick side note: There are four main views on what Jesus meant by being born of water and spirit.
- Water was John’s baptism of repentance and Spirit is new birth in Christ.
- Water Baptism and Spiritual birth.
- Natural birth and Spiritual birth.
-Water as a metaphor, referring to amniotic fluid
- Water and the Spirit is a figure of speech called a hendiadys (hen-dia-dis)
-Where you use two different words to denote a single thing
Born of the Spirit, Born from above
Full of…Grace and truth
Gen 1, “In our likeness, our image”
We do this ourselves…”nice and warm” “Comfy cozy” “Fair and square”
I lean towards this fourth option…the only option that Scripture (as its own interpreter) rules out is the view that baptism is necessary for salvation.
It is necessary for obedience after salvation…but not in order to become born again.
So what happens when a person is born again?
The Holy Spirit enters their heart…and gives them spiritual life.
You can’t see it…But it is a real event in a person’s life.
Jesus compared it to the wind.
You can’t see air moving, but you can hear it…and you can see the results as it blows leaves or houses around.
In Acts 2 the day the church was born, followers of Jesus were gathered in prayer, waiting, as Jesus told them to do…for the coming of the Spirit into their lives.
“And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting…they were filled with the Spirit.”
In Scripture there are things that happened in biblical history that are “Descriptive” it tells us what did happen.
And there are things that are “Prescriptive”…it tells us what should or must happen.
This was a descriptive event; it is not prescriptive for how it should or will be when individuals are born again.
Most of the time…we don’t hear or feel anything…some do, most don’t.
If you did…great.
If you didn’t…great.
God has his own purposes in your life…neither is better or worse…and all is a gift.
Most of the time you don’t feel or hear anything happen.
But all of the time…something actually happens
What happens is every bit as real as physical birth…that’s why Jesus called it being “born again.”
When my college friend Robert Lang was born again, his life changed…very dramatically…and also, very gradually.
He was anxious, angry, sometimes mean…he became a different man.
It was a work of God; it was choice Robert made…I was there when it happened and have tracked with him in the 45 years since it happened.
In Scripture, God’s work of grace is never at odds with human agency.
It is a work of God that requires a human decision.
-Being born again is a powerful work of God
-Being born again requires a personal decision to follow Christ
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. ”
- We must choose to believe…To not choose, is a choice
-To not decide is an ongoing decision
Whoever does not believe stands condemned.
People can get lost in the weeds on this, but Scripture presents two clear realities
God is sovereign in our salvation.
AND
We are responsible to choose to believe the gospel.
It is AND not OR.
CS Lewis gave a wonderful analogy of a man looking at a sign over a door that reads, “Whosoever will, enter here.”
Once inside, after a time of enjoying the warmth, joy, security of the new home, the man looks from the inside at the same door and the sign reads, “You did not choose me, I choose you.”
WE do well when we hold this biblical tension in place in our lives.
The tension is best kept, I think, by two persistent action items, or ways of training ourselves for godliness.
Be grateful
and
Be faithful
Be consistently grateful for what God has given you in Christ…the gift.
Be consistently faithful to choose to obey Christ…to choose to live faithfully in the gospel.
Let’s look at a Scripture that describes new birth in concise and precise terms.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
2 Corinthians 5:17
Here are several ways of describing new birth…this is that figure of speech again.
“In Christ”
“New Creation”
To be in Christ is the opposite of being what the Bible calls being “in Adam”
For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
1 Cor. 15:21
“In Christ” is the same as being born again.
“In Adam” is the same as being lost, still in your sin.
Because of his sacrificial death and resurrection…believers will escape spiritual death and enjoy resurrection life.
New creation means what it sounds like…we are remade into something different than before.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do. Eph. 2:10
Recently I spoke to a friend I have known for many years…he was on his death bed and would die just hours after our conversation.
He had only in that past week been born again and he asked me, “Have I wasted my life?”
I told him, “There is no second team in heaven.”
He had little time left to do the work God has for those who come to know him…but he was just as born again as those who came to Christ and served him for a lifetime.
Now, I want to talk about a few questions that I have wrestled with over the years, then make a final conclusion.
- I have been born again, I still sin.
Don’t confuse being born again with being mature in Christ.
We know the difference between a physical baby and an adult.
We also know the difference between someone who should be an adult but continues to act like a child.
Chronology doesn’t equal maturity for the Christian…faithfulness in obedience over time leads to maturity.
We are reborn into new creations in a moment.
We are made into the image of Christ over a lifetime of faithfulness…not just by hanging around, putting in time.
None of this is an excuse to sin, it is a reality.
God has saved us, he is saving us, he will save us.
Now, If you say you have been born again and continue to live in willful, ongoing, unrepentant sin…Scripture would tell you to doubt that you have been born again.
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer. Romans 6:1
If you often mess up and continually need to fess up…this is the normal state of affairs for the follower of Christ.
The evidence of new birth is in the conviction of sin…guilt feelings, when we are actually guilty…are a grace gift.
The evidence of being a new creation is that what was once normal and acceptable no longer is.
What brought us joy or meaning…no longer does.
Robert Lang after his conversion tried to dabble in his old ways of living.
He discovered that it made him miserable and guilty…what he used to find, at least temporary joy in, brought him only misery now.
He tried to blame me at first…I couldn’t not take credit…it was the Holy Spirit in him.
IMAGE OF HEARTS
New creation in Christ is not the same as being fully mature in Christ.
One is a moment; the other is a lifetime and beyond.
- What about the person who claimed to be a Christian then has walked away?
Two things:
Time will tell and God only knows.
In his letter to the Corinthians Paul speaks of church discipline for the one who claims to be a Christian but is living in persistent, public, unrepentant sin.
The church is to deal decisively and publicly with this person…for their good and for God’s glory.
Then he tells them to receive the repentant person back and to forgive them.
So you see the two sides of this:
We have to judge external decisions people make in order to be faithful as his people and his church.
We don’t stone them, we don’t mock them, we don’t go online to humiliate them…with broken hearts we tell them,
“you are not acting like a child of Christ…you cannot continue to pretend to be a member of his body here.”
Then, if and when they repent, we receive them back.
*Short side point here:
-Attacking bad or wrong ideas is the not the same as attacking people directly.
-To judge some idea as bad does not mean we are judging someone’s heart or their motives.
*Now, it is common to believe if you reject my ideas, you reject me.
-If you judge my beliefs, you are judging me.
This is simply not true…or need not be true.
We must judge ideas; we are to take rogue and wrong thoughts captive to Christ.
We must not judge the hearts of others…that is outside our domain.
A good friend sent me this recently: It’s just a pithy saying so don’t over apply it…but it does have truth it, so we should think carefully about it.
“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”
We don’t have the ability to judge the heart…that is God’s domain.
And we have to give God time to work in hearts.
I have known people who have wondered far and long away from God and returned many years later.
Where they believers who fell away and returned to the faith?
Where they never believers and finally came to faith?
I have no idea, how could I possibly know that?
If a person acts lost, like they do not follow Christ…we should treat them as such.
How…Love them, share the gospel with them, encourage them to believe the gospel.
If they assure us they are a Christian…we should warn them of their sin and encourage them to repent…call them to live in their birthright.
In no case, do we get to decide what is going on in a person’s heart.
- I believe in the New Birth…but it just seems, strange…doesn’t seem real…or as real as the “really real stuff” in my life.
I get it.
We all struggle to not live a two-story life…the sorta real and the really real.
Human Birth is astounding but we are used to it…we can see it.
An egg and a sperm become a living person inside another person.
That baby is born through the birth canal, and I get to know and love them as my daughter or grandchild.
How is that even possible? Are you kidding me?…I can’t get my mind around it.
It’s normal…but it is beyond real comprehension.
Because a scientist can explain some facts of a thing…it doesn’t mean they understand the wonder and mystery of that thing.
They can tell us what some things are, but they cannot tell us what anything means.
Like the Birth of child…or the smell of a rose…or the sound of music…or human love.
Spiritual re-birth is astounding but we can’t see it.
We see its results…but it’s by and large very incremental.
We have never seen a tree grow, but we have seen grown trees.
A man or a woman dead in their sins, far from God…becomes alive in Christ.
Maybe they are a relatively good or a bad person as compared to others…but spiritually dead none the less.
The Holy Spirit enters their lives, and they are reborn as new creations in Christ.
This formation inside them grows over a lifetime.
For me personally…Iwas not a relatively bad guy before I was born again…wasn’t all that good either.
I was just a guy who lived largely for myself.
I often looked at life and relationships through the lens of jealousy and pride and what could I get.
When I decided to fully follow Christ in the summer of 1978 the world became an entirely different place for me.
It didn’t change…I did.
It has not gone back to what it was before…though I have sometimes returned to my old ways of thinking or living.
I am still the momentary prodigal…but I have learned to return quickly to my father who waits ready to receive me.
I know that life apart from him is empty, spiritually and in every other way.
So here’s my final statement in line with John chapter 3.
*IF YOU ARE NOT BORN AGAIN, BELIEVE THE GOSPEL AND BE SAVED.
*REPENT OF YOUR SINS AND BECOME A NEW CREATION IN CHRIST.
TO NOT DECIDE TO FOLLOW HIM IS AN ONGOING DECISION…THE FINAL RESULT OF THAT DECISION WILL BE FINAL JUDGMENT