Being Born Again (2)

• Paul used a slightly different expression when describing what happens when a person chooses to follow Jesus. He said that we died with Jesus and rose again with him to new life.

  All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his... Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him (Rom 6:3-8).

  This passage is a fuller description of the process of becoming a follower of Jesus than the phrase “born again”. When we are united with Jesus by committing to follow him and trusting in his death and resurrection, we are raised with him to a new life. But that is the second step in the process. In the first step, we are united with him in his death. When we die with Jesus, we are dying to our old life controlled by sin and self. We cannot gain the new life, without dying to our old life first.

  Baptism is a good way of describing this two-pronged process. We go under the water, symbolising our death to our old life. We come out of the water, and the Holy Spirit comes down on us as an expression of the new life we have in Jesus.

• Paul understood the current and future aspects of the new birth. He explained that those who trust Jesus died and rose with him. He also stressed that we must continue to put off the old life and put on the new life as we grow in Jesus and serve him in the power of the Holy Spirit.

  Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature… since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator (Col 3:5,10).

  We must keep on putting to death our sinful nature and continue to put on the life of Jesus as we grow in faith and obedience.

• The “new” birth is a work of the Holy Spirit. We cannot see him see him working because he is invisible to human eyes. Some people may have a deeply spiritual experience, but others might not. So if a person says that they are born again, we have no way of validating if it is true. This means that using “born again” as the criteria for distinguishing true Christians from people who are not true Christians does not make sense. A criterion is only useful for discerning between people if it can be observed.

• Jesus had a different way of distinguishing those who are truly his followers. He said,

  A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (John 13:34-35).

  The best way to identify the true followers of Jesus is to look for those who are loving each other as Jesus loved us. His followers will be implementing his new commandment to love one another. The benefit of this criterion is that it is easy to observe. If people are loving each other in a sacrificial way, it will be obvious. Even people of the world will be able to discern who is real and who is not. A modern problem is that many people who claim to be born again are not very good at loving one another. Unfortunately, the world has realized that and is ignoring Jesus because of it.

• Nor should we describe what kind of Christian we are using a criterion that is invisible.

Being Born Again (1)

When a pharisee called Nicodemus came to Jesus with questions about the Kingdom of God, he told him that he needed to be “born again of the Spirit”. The church has taken the expression “born again” and built a theology around it. Being born again has become the standard by which Christians are judged. True Christians have been “born again”, but those who have not been “born again” are not true Christians. There are several problems with this situation.

• Jesus only used the expression “born again” expression once. It was not used by the apostles when preaching in the book of Acts. Paul did not use the expression in any of his letters to the churches. Building a doctrine of Christian initiation on the basis of an image that is used only once in the New Testament is risky and unwise.

• Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish ruling council. Jesus was explaining to him that his career as a Jewish religious leader was a waste of time. He would need to begin again and serve God with the help of the Holy Spirit. This was something that was beyond Nicodemos’s power on his own.

• People cannot choose to be born again. They cannot make themselves “born again”. This is something that Holy Spirit must do. Rather than just focusing on his role in delivering salvation, we must also take account of what we need to do to open the way for the Holy Spirit to do his work.

• In his preaching, Jesus used various other expressions to describe the first step of dying to sin and self.

  Change your thinking and trust the gospel (Mark 1:15).
  Come follow me (Mark 1:16).
  Take up your cross and follow me (Luke 14:27).
  Any of you who does not give up everything you have cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:33).
  You cannot serve God and unrighteous wealth (Luke 16:13).
  Sell your unrighteous wealth and give it to the poor (Luke 18:22).

  If these expressions are not part of our preaching of the gospel too, then our hearers will only get the wrong half of the stick.

• Nicodemus discovered the full cost of loyalty to Jesus. When he defended Jesus before the pharisees and chief priests by demanding a fair hearing for Jesus before they condemned him, he was mocked and insulted by them (John 7:45-52). When Jesus had died on the cross, Nicodemus helped bury him in the garden tomb. Asking for the body of a man killed as a rebel identified him as a rebel against Rome, so any political privilege he had would be gone. Nicodemus had to give up his position as a Jewish leader and as a Roman collaborator to follow Jesus and be born again. He had to die to his old life, before he could be born into the new Kingdom.

• The phrase “born again” misses out part of the process. It explains the new life we have in Jesus, but it does not explain that we need to die to our life with Jesus before we can enter into the new life. I wonder how many Christians believe that they have been “born again” because they prayed a prayer, but have never died to their old life, because they did not realise that was part of the process.