“Born Again”

It’s a privilege to be here. My task is to say something concerning the Scripture that is before us. And because I can’t be sure that you’ve all read it, I’m going to read it again in your hearing and encourage you to follow along. You’ll find it in the bulletin. And it’s the fifteen verses of John chapter 3. It’s always very important when someone is speaking about the Bible to make sure that you have a Bible so that you can check whether what he’s saying is actually in the Bible. That’s the great control.

“Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you[’re] a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, 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 its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’

“Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I[’ve] told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.’”

Thanks be to God for his Word.

A brief and, by now, familiar prayer before we study this:

Father, what we know not, teach us; what we have not, give us; what we are not, make us. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

John, of the Gospel writers, does us as readers a great favor when he lets us know the express purpose for his writing. It’s the same as is true of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but only John tells us. Towards the end of his Gospel, he says, “There were many more things that Jesus said that have not been written in my book. Many more things could have been reported. But these things that I have written to you—I have recorded for you these signs in order that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, or the Messiah, and that by believing you might have life in his name.”[1]

So I find that very helpful. When I read the Gospel, I realize that what John is doing here is not writing a biography, although the data is biographical. He’s not writing a history, although the events are historical. He’s actually writing a Gospel. He is writing with the deep desire that people might encounter Jesus.

And so we have the record of all these various events as they unfold—and, here in the text for this morning, the encounter between a man who was a Pharisee, “a ruler of the Jews,” according to verse 1, and a “teacher of Israel,” as we read later on. And it is in this context that Jesus makes this statement: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Now, it’s an interesting encounter on many fronts. First of all, here you have this man who is “a ruler of the Jews,” he’s a “teacher of Israel,” and he comes under cover of darkness to he who is—self-proclaimed—“the light of the world.”[2] Whether he comes under cover of darkness out of the desire for secrecy, so that none of his colleagues will know, or whether he comes because of a strategy, whereby Jesus is very busy during the day, and so a chance to talk with him might afford better chances and opportunities in the evening, we don’t know. But nevertheless, he comes. It may be that he is akin to others who John has already mentioned, who have seen the signs that Jesus has been doing, and they are intrigued by them, and they’re attracted by them.

And so Nicodemus speaks for more than himself, you will notice. Immediately he says to him, “Rabbi, we know…” “We know.” Not “I know.” “I’m part of a larger group here.” And there may be a sense in which he’s rather patronizing in the way he speaks to him. Later on, in chapter 7, in a similar encounter, the religious authorities will say, “Who does this fellow think he is? We’re the learned intelligentsia. He hasn’t even gone to school. Why is he doing this?”[3] And here he says, “We know that something very spectacular is happening with you. It would seem, Jesus, that you’re really on to something.” And so Nicodemus, devout, because of his commitment to his religion, was anticipating the coming of the kingdom of God at the end of history.

And from a human perspective, there would be nobody who had better credentials for entry into the kingdom than somebody like Nicodemus. Because he was from the elite. He was a leading member of the right race, keeping all the right rules. And as a distinct Pharisee, he believed that that was the way to make entry into the kingdom—not dissimilar to many people today, who have a notion that if there is a God and he is a good God, then, presumably, he will reward nice people if they just do their best. And Nicodemus is working largely on that premise.

Now, Jesus knows Nicodemus. He knows him inside and out, in the same way as he knows each of us this morning. And he preempts any further discussion along the lines of Nicodemus’s investigation by making this dramatic statement: “Truly, truly, I say to you, Nicodemus, you must be born again.”

Now, let me just pause for a moment and acknowledge something about this phrase, “born again.” If you’re of my vintage, you know that it came to prominence largely during the ’60s and out of the West Coast of America with the Jesus movement. And people like Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel and so on, with long hair and sandals, were engaged in letting the whole of the West Coast of America know why Jesus had come. It took on some prominence then. At the same time, simultaneously, Billy Graham would be known for at least two statements. One statement was “The Bible says…” and the other one was “You must be born again.” And he said those two things ad infinitum, and we were left in no doubt.

But at the same time, what happened—because I lived through this era—the phrase “born again” immediately was pushed to the fringes by more, if you like, apparently cerebral individuals, who then said, “Oh, ‘born again’? That refers to a certain kind of Christianity. That refers to a sort of emotional Christianity, or an enthusiastic Christianity, or an evangelistic Christianity, and often with political overtones.” That was in the ’60s. But it was all in the Bible from the very beginning.

Let me say four things.

The New Birth Is Essential

First of all, being born again is not optional; it is indispensable. Or, if you like, it is essential. Who says? Jesus says. Being born again is absolutely essential.

Now, Nicodemus responds to this statement by thinking in strictly literalistic terms. It’s staggering in one sense, isn’t it? Is this because he feels immediately pressed upon? “How can a man be born when he[’s] old?” What a ridiculous question to ask, as if Jesus was actually suggesting such a thing! Not for a moment.

Becoming a Christian is always and in every case a miracle.

And Nicodemus should have known, because he knew the Bible. He knew his Old Testament. He knew that the prophecy of Ezekiel spoke of a day, in chapter 36, when the one who was promised would come, and people would be washed by pure water—a picture of the cleansing of the Spirit—and God would place his spirit in the hearts of men and women.[4] Nicodemus should have known something of that—of this essential condition.

The New Birth Is Supernatural

Secondly, it’s not only essential, but it is supernatural. It is supernatural. Again, you need to notice the way in which Jesus contrasts these things. Down in verse 6—although there’s no verses in this, you will see—Jesus said, “[Listen,] that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Human birth produces human beings. You don’t have to be a genius to figure that out. We have produced the earthly family of humankind along the lines of God’s created order. Now Jesus is saying, “As flesh gives birth to flesh, it is Spirit that gives birth to spirit.” In other words, it’s not just something that we acquired along the way. He gives birth. Gives birth.

In other words, it is a supernatural work of God, whereby God brings about a radical change of our nature. It’s not an external renovation job, nor is it a baptismal regeneration strategy. Becoming a Christian—being born again—is always and in every case a miracle. Who says? Jesus says. When Peter, who had a kind of start-stop relationship with Jesus, later on begins to write his own couple of letters, this is what he says as he opens his letter: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope.”[5]

So, let’s just be clear about what it says: a complete change of heart and character produced in the life of a man or a woman by the power of the Holy Spirit. You see, what we sang about this morning in these songs, and particularly the song that spanned the globe, is the fact that the purpose of God Almighty for all of creation, for humanity, is a radical transformation in a new heaven and in a new earth—in other words, a cosmological regeneration of everything that we know now. That is why there will be no cancer. That is why there will be no tears. That is why there will be no breakdown and brokenness. Because he alone who created the universe will recreate the universe. So what happens when a person is born again is, if you like: that future cosmological reality is brought into the personal reality of an individual who looks to Jesus and believes in him.

The New Birth Is Experiential

The third thing is not simply that it is essential and supernatural, but it is experiential in its effects. Experiential in its effects.

Incidentally, I can see some of you looking at me quizzically, and I’m used to that. It’s good. It means that not everyone has gone into the third stages of anesthesia, and some are actually thinking. But let me just give you a quote from God in the Dock by C. S. Lewis to respond to some of your quizzical gazes. This is Lewis: he says, “I never regard any narrative as unhistorical simply on the ground that it includes the miraculous.”[6]

The Christian story is … of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into … human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with Him. … If you take that away there is nothing specifically Christian left.[7]

It is experiential. What happens? Well, it gives us a whole new family. Again, the ’60s—I was thinking about it this morning as I reread my notes—in the ’60s, Carol and Jimmy Owens wrote musicals which ran around America and came across the ocean to the UK as well. I remember being present at the Royal Albert Hall and participating in one. One was called Come Together, and the other one was called If My People…. And in one of the two of them, they sang a song which goes like this.

You are the children
Of the kingdom of God;
You’re the chosen ones
For whom the Savior came.
You’re his noble new creation
By the Spirit and the blood;
You’re the church that he has built
To bear his name.[8]

Now, what they’re actually saying was this: that when a person is born again, not only are their sins forgiven and their guilt is vanquished, but they’re given a whole new family.

You see, church, actually, is unlike anything else—real-church church. Because you sit next to people that you wouldn’t want to go on vacation with.[9] And you can’t actually control it. And the folks are weird, and you’re like “Oh, I want to sit at the back.” I mean, I know for a fact that a ton of my congregation, they would never go on vacation with me. But I don’t feel bad, ’cause I don’t want to go on vacation with them! That’s the facts.

People sing that song, you know, “I’m so glad that you’re part of the family of God.”[10] Really? Let’s be honest. Some of us are going to sing, “I’m surprised that you’re part of the family of God!” And every single one of us ought to be surprised we’re part of the family of God, because we didn’t make ourselves that. It was a supernatural reality into which we came—a new family, a new identity.

An identity. Most of us have spent our lives carving an identity: “Who am I? What am I? What have I achieved?” No matter whether we got to the top or halfway to the top or over the top, in Christ, we realize that the things that have marked us out by way of social or financial or intellectual distinction are things for which we ought to thank God for the grace and benefit we’ve enjoyed—but in the awareness of the fact that the person who sits next to us, who may not share that same status or intellectual capacity, is there for the very same reason that I’m there: by the grace of God.

A new identity. A new family. A new mentality. The contemporary focus of our world is bolstering our background, fulfilling our expectations—a bigger and a better self-image; on social media, if you have a number of likes and if your likes are better than your unlikes. “Love yourself. Respect yourself. Assert yourself. Make yourself. Forgive yourself. Be yourself.” Good golly! What a lot of energy that takes! I’ll have to get up even earlier in the morning to work on that project. And I could never work on it to my own satisfaction, nor my wife’s satisfaction, nor the satisfaction of anybody who knows hardly a thing about me at all.

No, the indispensable sign of regeneration, according to the old Anglican vicar in Cambridge, Charles Simeon—he said the indispensable sign that a man or a woman is born again is a humble, a broken, and a contrite spirit.

Nicodemus’s failure in this encounter was not a failure of his intellect. It was a failure on his part to believe Jesus’ witness. He says to them, “You people do not believe our testimony.” And what he’s saying there is “If you stumble at the point of entry”—“If I’ve told you earthly things and you don’t believe”—“if you stumble at the point of entry, what’s the point of me keeping talking?” Somebody says, “Amen.” Good!

The New Birth is Personal

So, that brings me to my fourth and final observation: that the new birth is essential, it is supernatural, it is experiential, and it is personal. Personal.

Now, why would that ever surprise us? No infant has a say in being born. No infant contributes in any way to their birth. Their birth is not conditional upon their acceptance or rejection of the idea—although I do remember Johnny Carson years ago now… Someone was talking to him on the couch there. They talked something about children, and the guy said, you know, “My boy said to me the other day, ‘I wish I’d never been born.’” And Johnny Carson said, “Yeah. One of my kids said that to me, and I said, ‘Yeah, I feel the same way about you. I wish you never had been born!’”

But actually, it’s true. Babies arrive. Some of you know this. You’ve experienced it. Some arrive kicking and screaming. Others just emerge, seem rather nonplussed about everything. We could never know the date of our birth if our parents hadn’t told us. The reason we know we were born, although we can’t actually remember the occasion, is that we’re enjoying life today. That’s how we know.

So it doesn’t really matter at all if we can record for the benefit of a listener the occasion, the moment, the week, the day when we turned to Christ. The inability of an individual to describe the details of their physical birth does not call in question the reality of their life. And the same would be true.

Bottom line is this: the new birth is not something we do; it is something God has done. And Jesus here, in this encounter, is not demanding that Nicodemus has some kind of immediate existential encounter with him. He’s not suggesting to him, “Nicodemus, you must be born again. Hurry up about it right now!” No, he’s actually saying to him, articulating the fact, that the only way to enter into the kingdom of God is by way of a new birth. “That’s why you need to be born again. You are the teacher of Israel. You’re an educated fellow, Nicodemus. You’re all about the kingdom of God coming.” Simeon in the temple, who took the baby Jesus in his arms, and he says, “Lord, let now thy servant depart in peace”—it’s the Nunc dimittis—“for my eyes have seen your salvation.”[11] He’d been “waiting for the consolation of Israel.”[12] So Jesus says to this man, “Listen, you should know this.”

Let me end in this way. If you ask the question, “How can I be born again? What can I do?”—technically, the answer to that question is: there is nothing you can do, any more than there was anything you could do about your physical birth. You say, “Well, this is a real dilemma. Jesus says you got to do it. There’s nothing we can do. What are we going to do now?” Well, let’s ask another question, which is really the same question: “What must I do to be saved?” Answer: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and [you will] be saved.”[13] Remain in your unbelief, and you won’t. Who says? Jesus.

The new birth is not something we do. It is something God has done.

That’s why he finishes with an Old Testament picture. He reminds Nicodemus, “You’ll remember that when the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, when the people were all under the plague, the word to them was simply ‘Look at that, and you will live. Just look, and you will live.’” And there were people then who said, “That’s ridiculous! The most ridiculous thing I ever heard.” It’s the same thing that people say to me today: “I’ve never heard anything more ridiculous in all my life than ‘The death of a Galilean carpenter is the key event to all of human history and is the entryway into heaven.’ I never heard anything so ridiculous. I won’t believe it! I flat-out won’t believe it!” And people died, plagued, because of their ego: “I’m not going to look. I’m not going to look.”

Now, here it is in theological terminology—and with this I move to a close: “The gospel of Christ is … sovereign, efficacious, irresistible regeneration. … Unless God by sovereign, operative grace has turned our enmity”—opposition—“to love and our disbelief to faith, we would never yield the response of faith and love.”[14]

So, you see, the initiative lies with God. Do you have a problem with that? Do you have a problem with your husband sitting next to you now, who said, “You know, I used to see you across the campus before I ever met you, and I looked at you, and somehow or another, I longed after you. I loved you before I met you.”

You say, “That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard in all my life! I don’t want to hear anything about that.”

“No,” you said. “Oh, come on! Honey! Here we go.”

Yeah! That’s what is happening here. A true looking of faith is looking away from myself and looking to Christ.

Read history, and you’ll find that there are notorious stories of fellows who were very good guys who encountered Jesus in this way, and it fixed them forever. For example, [John] Wesley, the Methodist. He was coming across America on horseback, telling people the gospel, and he didn’t even understand the gospel himself. He had a program, but he had no personal relationship with Jesus. And then you remember his story: how on one occasion, in that place in England, he found in an encounter with folks there that his heart was “strangely warmed.”[15]

Or what about Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great Baptist, the Victorian Baptist? One of my favorites. Dwight L. Moody once chided Spurgeon because Spurgeon smoked cigars. And Moody, of Moody Bible Institute, said, “You know, that’s not good. You’re a Christian man. You shouldn’t smoke cigars.” Spurgeon said, “Well, I don’t do it in excess.” And Moody said, “What would you call excess?” He said, “Smoking two at once.”

So, that same fellow—that same fellow, Spurgeon—recounts the fact that as a fifteen-year-old boy on a freezing-cold morning in England, he went dutifully to church. He went to go to the church building that was his normal church. The snow and the ice and everything was so bad that he wasn’t going to make it, so he turned into a church building just as he came along the street, and he sat down in the building. There were a handful, literally, of people there.

The vicar of the church hadn’t shown up because of the storm, and they had put in a substitute fellow who, Spurgeon later said, had, you know, like, about one string to his bow, and it was broken. And he said that the fellow ran out of steam early on, but he was trying to speak from this passage in the Old Testament about looking to the serpent. And so he said, “And look and live.” And then: “And look and live.” And then he started to point at people and go, “And you! You look and live!” And then he points at Spurgeon, and he says, “Young man, you look like you need this! You look and live!” And Spurgeon gets out of there, and he goes home. Later on, this is what he writes:

It was on a day, never to be forgotten, when I first understood that … salvation could not be of myself, but must be through One [stronger] and [better] than I. … I heard … that the Son of God had taken upon himself our human nature, and had, by his life and death, [provided] a perfect salvation, finished from top to bottom, which he was ready to give to every soul that was willing to have it, and that salvation was all of grace from first to last, the free gift of God through his blessed Son, Jesus Christ.[16]

January 6, 1850. And he’s dead. But he still speaks, because he spoke truth from the Word of God.

[1] John 20:30–31 (paraphrased).

[2] John 8:12; 9:5 (ESV).

[3] John 7:15 (paraphrased).

[4] See Ezekiel 36:25–27.

[5] 1 Peter 1:3 (ESV).

[6] C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1958), 109.

[7] C. S. Lewis, “The Grand Miracle,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 80.

[8] Carol Owens and Jimmy Owens, “Children of the Kingdom” (1974).

[9] Christopher Ash, Teaching Romans, vol. 2, Unlocking Romans 9–16 for the Bible Teacher (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2009), 163.

[10] Gloria Gaither and William James Gaither, “The Family of God” (1970). Lyrics lightly altered.

[11] Luke 2:29–30 (paraphrased).

[12] Luke 2:25 (ESV).

[13] Acts 16:30–31 (KJV).

[14] John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), 99–100.

[15] Journal of John Wesley, May 14, 1738.

[16] Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “Under Arrest,” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 41, no. 2402, 104.