How can I find the door to the Kingdom?.......the Holy Spirit must open your heart and your eyes........you must be born again.
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3. Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again (ἄνωθεν – anōthen – from above) he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4. 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?” 5. Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
8. 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.”
“…….and he’s born again in this game”, the familiar voice of the BBC’s Wimbledon commentator distracted me from what I was doing. I turned around, fully expecting to see a Damascus Road happening, but no, it was a player who had suddenly regained his form and was now battling on to win.
Born again has become a very familiar term, it's a popular term, it's an overused term that the secular world frequently plugs as an improvement of the original; it appears there is a 'born again' shampoo for stressed hair, and many shops that sell second-hand goods are 'born again' this or 'born again' that. Even locally, I discovered a 'born again' media company and a 'born again' kitchen fitter....and it appears that 'born again' athletes are athletes who have a sudden successful return to form.
Jesus also used the term while speaking to one of Israel's most powerful men, Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel. Nicodemus had come late at night to see Jesus.
This least likely candidate is the most revered Jew in Israel, a Pharisee, one of the top 70 Pharisees, and a member of the Sanhedrin.
As the teacher of Israel Nicodemus was used to people coming to him for advice, so it makes sense that he would have come to meet Jesus while it was dark. Being seen talking to Jesus would not have done anything to enhance his reputation.
Nicodemus had everything a person could want at the time: position, power, and piety, but he lacked spiritual life.
v3. Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again (ἄνωθεν – anōthen – from above) he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
If you ever wanted to see an example of the omniscience and deity of Jesus here it is; Jesus is responding to a question that Nicodemus hasn’t asked yet!...it’s why Nicodemus came but he didn’t need to ask his question because Jesus saw the lifelessness of Nicodemus' spirit as he looked into his heart, Jesus read Nicodemus like an open book, and he can read us the same way.
Jesus’s message to Nicodemus is that he must be born again, nothing else mattered, and that message is for everyone; it doesn't matter if you go to church, were raised in a Christian family, repeated a prayer at some point, raised your hand in a meeting, if you're a member of a Christian organisation, or if you're a member of a religious group……it applies to everyone.
So, what is this new birth all about? – it’s when God gives new life to a spiritually dead soul, the old passes away and everything becomes new. It is God's life in a person’s soul that gives them a new mind, a mind that can now understand the things of God, it gives a new heart, a new disposition, new emotions, new desires, and a new will.
Being reborn or anōthen – meaning ‘from above’, (just throwing a little Greek in there!) changes us fundamentally; it alters who we are and instils new life within us, transforming us into someone wholly different. Unlike a reformulated shampoo, we are not an improved version of the old……… we are a completely new creation.
Because of these dramatic changes we can also use the theological word regeneration.
Regeneration or the new birth is a component of salvation, it sits together with justification, sanctification, and glorification; yet, regeneration is the process, the component that changes us inside, that gives us a new life from the inside out…and Nicodemus needs this birth from above.
Truly truly Jesus says, he is underlining the importance of his next statement…stand back Nic this is going to shock you. Jesus is underlining his statement, for Nicodemus and us, he is saying that what follows couldn’t be any more important.
“I say to you” he says, he is direct with Nicodemus, and he is direct with us, this is black and white, there is no grey in these words: unless you are born again you cannot see the Kingdom of God.
Jesus is emphasising that a natural birth just isn’t enough. Sorry, Nicodemus, but being an Israelite or a Jew by birth isn't enough to know the Kingdom of God; you need a second birth, a birth from the throne of Grace, not from anywhere else, not from church attendance, not from a teacher, not from good parents, a good family line, no, this second birth comes from a realm of glory - the life of God himself must be implanted into your spiritually dead soul.
No, Nicodemus, no matter how much scripture you know, how many times you go to synagogue, or how strictly you follow the law, unless you are born from above, you will never even get a whiff of God's Kingdom...... You not only won't get in, but you also don't know where the door is!
Jesus says the same thing today, regardless of upbringing, background, regardless of your knowledge, your status, unless you are born again you will not be able to see the Kingdom of God, you won’t see. Unless you have the life of God you won’t understand anything about the Kingdom, you won’t sense it, you won’t see it, you won’t understand it, and you will be blind to its truth.
We speak a lot about the wide and narrow ways; two gates, two ways, two destinations.
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few”.
The way that leads to life is narrow and hard but Jesus also says very few find it…..before we can take it, before we go through it…we first have to find it…and in order to find it, to see it, we need to be born again.
v3. Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again (ἄνωθεν – anōthen – from above) he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
But, once born again from above, you will have an awareness that you did not have before, the scriptures will be more alive to you, your mind will be enlightened and your heart will be moved, and spiritual truth that didn't make sense to your mind or certainly didn't move your heart now does.
Back to the text - Nicodemus is stunned, no one has ever talked to him like this, "how, how can this be?" he says, he questions the physical logistics of this remark from Jesus, Nicodemus is thinking on a physical level, Jesus is speaking on a spiritual level….but Jesus is using the metaphor of birth and we don’t want to miss the intensity of what Jesus is saying. When you were a baby being born you did nothing to be born…who did all the work? – your mother.
And it’s not hard to understand the analogy that Jesus is making here, just as we did nothing to be born, we do nothing to be born again. It is so clear if you think about it.
To be born again, or to be born from above is a work in which you play no role, just as your physical birth happened to you, your spiritual birth is the same, you have no part in it, it is a work of God.
Back to Nicodemus who is struggling to understand what Jesus is saying.
Once again Jesus underlines his words “truly truly” he says…..here it comes again Nicodemus…….
v5 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
“Does that jog your mind, Nicodemus? water?, Spirit? water-Spirit; have you heard that anywhere before Nicodemus?”
Here is Jesus trying to jog the memory of Nicodemus because Nicodemus knows the scriptures, he doesn’t need a bible with cross-references, he recognises the words of Jesus, ‘water and Spirit,’ and he realises where that comes from, he knows it comes from Ezekiel ……..and he knows what it says.
Look at these verses and see the number of times God says “I will” because this is a work of God, this is a work of God from heaven.
“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
The water and the Spirit here are simply a reference to the regenerating work God does in the heart and soul of a sinner.
“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.”
There is no let-up from Jesus and what Jesus was saying here is that, while the origins of both wind and Spirit are unknown, their effects are observable. Our understanding of wind movements has vastly improved in modern times, but the wind was unpredictable back then... Remember the gale-force winds on the Sea of Galilee? The wind blows wherever it pleases. The analogy Jesus was making was that, just as the wind cannot be controlled or understood by humans, but its effects can be seen, so can the effects of the Holy Spirit be seen. Although He cannot be controlled; He cannot be started, stopped or steered by man, the evidence of His work is obvious. There is undeniable and unmistakable evidence of where and when the Spirit works.
I think we have to realise just what a great miracle this is, thinking of all the miracles Jesus performed, this is greater than any other miracle, greater than raising the dead because here Jesus raises those who are dead in their trespasses and sins into new creations, new creatures in Christ Jesus. This is when God commands spiritual light that causes spiritual illumination in a heart, when He causes new spiritual life in the heart and the soul……when God turns a sinner into a saint.
In John 3:6 and 6:63 Jesus reiterates that the initiation of this miracle is by the autonomous work of the Holy Spirit in bringing spiritual life into being where it did not previously exist.
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all.”
But where do we come in? Here is Jesus saying you can’t do it, you can’t enter, you can’t contribute, you have to be born from above. If this is perplexing to us, imagine how Nicodemus felt; all his life was about keeping rules, works, religion, ceremony, morality…human achievement….everything he had believed was focused on the idea that he had to do something to obtain life with God for eternity….to enter the Kingdom.
What must I do to be born again…nothing! “the wind blows where it wishes.”
You have no control. You cannot contribute to it, but you must believe what God has done to make it possible, to believe what God has done in Christ to provide salvation as a gift of grace.
Our responsibility upon hearing the Gospel message is this; with a heart and a mind that the Holy Spirit has now enlightened, belief and faith in Jesus are awakened in our hearts, and a desire to repent arises, not repentance that is just an “I’m sorry for my sins” moment, a sorry that we have hurt and offended people, and now have a desire to avoid punishment, but a realisation that we have spent our lives facing away from God, we have offended God, with our thoughts, our speech, our actions, our desires and we want to turn from that way of living and put our faith in Jesus, to see and realise what it cost Christ to save us and to believe and rest in his work. To see that it’s His works that have saved us and we contribute nothing.
The new life God gives us as he causes us to be born again makes this understanding, this repentance and faith possible.
Another duty that we have is to preach the Gospel, to tell people about Jesus.
Paul puts it clearly in Romans 10:14-15 he uses a series of questions to show the actions required so people can “call on the name of the Lord”: messengers must be sent, the message must be preached, people must hear the message and this hearing must be met by faith and that faith comes as people are regenerated, as they are given new life by a sovereign act of God......as they are born again.
John the Baptist, Jesus, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the New Testament writers never tell anyone to do something to be born again, to say or to pray something to be born again, to take a series of steps to be born again, their message, their message for new life was to repent and believe.
We are united to Christ in the new birth as a result of God's sovereign actions. That is exactly what the Holy Spirit does. By faith in Jesus, we experience this union through our actions. The two are inextricably linked.
We are all trying to assess our Christian lives. We can see positive changes in our lives, but we also see things we don't want to see—things we don't want anyone to see.
So, when examining the state of our souls, and our progress in our walk with Christ, the vital question is not where we were when we were reborn, nor how it occurred. Instead, we must inquire whether there is any evidence of a new disposition, new desires, new emotions, a new will to love the things that Christ loves and hate the things that Christ hates.
One of the goals of my blog is to bring people's attention to the Bible, to God's inerrant word, to inspire readers to read the Bible more thoroughly, to pray, and to seek God for guidance in understanding the meaning of His word…to dig deeper.
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Whatever your position on the theology of salvation, it is abundantly obvious from the Bible that God must act in order for people to accept Christ and His work as true. God must, at the very least, bring people to Christ and allow them to see with their eyes and hearts.
The crux of the matter is that before people have the insight to believe in Christ for salvation, God must do a miraculous work in their lives.
“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
As a result, God deserves all the honour, all the glory, forever.
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be glory forever. Amen.
And the last look at the book of John, just skip to the end of chapter 19 and you will see Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea asking for the body of Christ and personally dressing the body for burial…now this doesn’t necessarily mean Nicodemus was born again and saved but something is clearly happening here; think about the implication of asking for the body of a reviled and executed man, of holding him in your arms, washing and preparing his body for burial, doing the work that was usually done by women…….I’ll leave that with you.
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