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.