How can I be born again?

"Born Again"

(John 2:23-3:21, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, January 25, 2009)

John 2:23 - 3:21 ²³ Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. ²⁴ But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people ²⁵ and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. 3:1 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 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. ⁶ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' 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." ⁹ Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" ¹⁰ Jesus answered him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? ¹¹ 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. ¹² If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." ¹⁶ "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹ And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. ²¹ But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God."

He knew what was in man. (2:23-25)

Jesus knew what was in a man, and He still does. That makes Him an interesting person to be around. When He went to the cross at the end of His earthly ministry, it was not because He was being fooled by people. He knew what was in the hearts of those who had made their secret plots, and He knew what this important man Nicodemus was all about when he came to visit Him one evening at a time when no one else would see him coming.

A man who needed to be born again (3:1-10)

This man came to Jesus with the apparent intention of giving him something of a secret seal of approval. He said to Him, "We know you are a teacher come from God." By this he must have meant that Jesus was a prophet, someone whom God had sent as His representative to speak to His people. Men like Elijah and Jeremiah were great prophets of God who were hated in their own day by many powerful people, but who were revered as great men in the centuries after their deaths. It was quite a compliment to say that Jesus was a teacher sent by God. Nicodemus also acknowledged that Jesus was performing great miracles that had to be signs of something big, amazing miracles that most certainly meant that God was with Him. As great as these compliments were, and they certainly were far above the words that others among the ruling counsel might have ventured to say about Jesus, they still were far below the reality. Jesus was not just a teacher from God, or just a man who had God with Him. Jesus was God with us, He was the Son of God, He was the Christ, the Messiah, He was, and is, God.

Jesus, who knew what was in a man, seemed to entirely ignore the compliment that Nicodemus had attempted to give Him. He switched the topic away from Himself and focused on His visitor. Who was this Nicodemus? What was His status in the kingdom of heaven? Jesus told Him plainly that He was not yet even born in that kingdom. This seemed a strange concept to this respected elderly leader. Nicodemus was born a long time ago. Would he now be born of a woman a second time? The words that Jesus had used, "born again," had a double meaning. They could mean born a second time, or they could mean born from above. Jesus meant both of these things, but Nicodemus was only thinking about one of them. The heavenly life above is known now through the deposit of that life in the part of our being that God calls our spirit. Nicodemus heard Jesus saying something about being born a second time, but He did not even think about the fact that this might mean being born from above.

Our Lord then made the contrast between being born according to the waters of physical fleshly birth, and being born again of the Spirit that comes from above. Physical birth was a marvelous miracle, but it was different from spiritual birth. There were many people who had been born physically, who had never experienced anything of true life by the Holy Spirit of God. Being confused about these things was not that unexpected. Spiritual birth came by the agency of an unseen spiritual God. Of course it was hard for the average person to think about these things. You could not catch the Spirit and study Him any more than you could contain the wind in your hands. But Nicodemus was not just any ordinary man. He was a leading teacher of the faith in Israel, a man with religious authority and responsibility. It was inexcusable for leaders who had the oracles of God given to them in the Old Testament to be completely unaware of the facts of spiritual life. There was far too much information about this topic for it to be completely missed. Nicodemus surely knew all about non-biblical washing rituals of the Jews. Could it be that he knew nothing about the biblical prophesies of the Holy Spirit bringing new life in the New Covenant? Was he unaware of the passages about this in Joel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and in the words of Moses in the Law?

God thus loved the world… (11-17)

Jesus did know about these things, not only because He was completely conversant in the Scriptures, but because He had come from heaven, and was entirely aware of heavenly life. Spiritual life on earth is a piece of life from heaven that is granted to those on earth. Those who would be born again by the Spirit of God in the coming New Covenant Age enjoy a down-payment of heavenly life right here and right now. This is one of the internal proofs of heaven to us: We know that heaven is real because we have been born from above, born again, born by the Spirit who comes to us from heaven. If a teacher in Israel could not understand this earthly manifestation of heavenly life, how could Jesus teach such a man anything about the kingdom of heaven itself? Jesus was uniquely qualified to be a teacher of these matters. He alone had come from heaven, and He alone would make the way for us to be with Him in heaven through His ascension. He could have given us the answer to every heavenly question that we could have ever asked, and He certainly could tell Nicodemus everything about what it meant to be born again. He should have been believed as the absolute expert witness on heavenly matters.

In addition to that, God had uniquely sent Him to be the One that people would look to in order to gain heavenly life. Being born again had something to do with looking to the unique Answer for our mortal woes. This too had been testified to in the Old Covenant. What was God doing in the wilderness when He instructed dying people to look at a bronze serpent on a pole in order that they would live? (Read Numbers 21:4-9.) We know He did not want them to worship the object itself. It became a snare to Israel that had to be destroyed (2 Kings 18:4). But He did want them to learn something. The spiritually aware reader of the Old Testament should have been asking himself a question about Numbers 21: What was the bronze serpent all about, the one that Moses made at God's command? Why this symbol of utter evil that would somehow be the object of salvation for all who looked to it when it was lifted up? Jesus tells us here what it was all about. This was an indication of His own person given so long ago, that the way people would have eternal life, which would begin even on earth with spiritual heavenly life, would be through looking to the Substitute who became sin for us, who was lifted up on the cross for our salvation.

This is the way that God loves the world: He has provided a Substitute for us in Jesus, who would become a sin offering for us. God gave His Son for that purpose, that whoever would believe in Him would not perish in eternal judgment, but would have communion with Him in the kingdom of heaven, even eternal life, but a communion that would begin even on earth with a spiritual birth, where we could experience life from above in our souls through our Savior Jesus Christ. This is the great love that God has for the world. He has provided His Son as a sin offering. His judgment of the world will come, but first He has provided the way of salvation for us through Jesus.

Believe in the Name and come to the Light. (18-21)

If any physical birth is ever to take place, there must first be a physical conception. For a true spiritual birth, there must be a spiritual conception. It is only by the work of the Holy Spirit bringing a new power of divine life to our dead spirits that we will ever experience true spiritual life. Spiritual life is more than figuring out what someone wants us to say and then saying some words that we think we might perhaps believe. Spiritual life is something that comes from the Holy Spirit, though we may not feel His presence. He works within us producing true faith in Jesus Christ, and planting within our hearts a seed of heaven.

Ever since the entrance of sin into the world in Adam, by our depraved nature we are unbelieving, and we run from God. We are like those among the Israelites, who when they were told to look to the bronze serpent, they refused to do so, so they died a physical death in the wilderness. Humanity locked in unbelief is already condemned, because they have not believed in the Name of the only begotten Son of God. It is necessary for God Himself by His Holy Spirit to convert someone, because by our nature we will only cling to the evil that we want. Because we are committed to what we want more than to God, we will not come to the light. We know that the evil within us will be exposed if we come to God. But if God's Spirit should save us, if we are thinking clearly, we should want Him, and we will want our lives to be filled with good things that can only come from the His work in us.

Hear the words of Jesus Christ to a man who was a leader of the Jews, but who had neglected the testimony of the Bible about spiritual life. He came to Jesus wanting to affirm that Jesus was a true prophet, and that God was doing great miracles through Jesus. What he heard from our Lord was this: "You must be born again." Remember that the One who gave this good message of heavenly life that can only come from God is the same One who said in another place, "Ask, and you shall receive." Ask Him. This is the way not only to be born again, but to grow in God.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. How has Jesus demonstrated a knowledge of "what was in a man"?

2. What do we learn about Nicodemus from this encounter with Jesus?

3. What do we learn about Jesus and the love of God?

4. How can I be "born again?"