What Does It Mean to Be Born Again from God?

Jesus told Nicodemus that unless he is born again, he would not be able to see God’s Kingdom. A particular group of six-year-olds had a different view of these matters. A Sunday school teacher wanted to explain to the six-year-olds in his class what someone had to do to go to heaven. To find out what kids believed about the subject, he asked a few questions. “If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale, and gave all my money to the church, would that get me to heaven?” he asked. “No!” the children answered. The teacher was encouraged. “If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would that get me to heaven?” Again the answer was, “No!” “If I was kind to animals and gave candy to all the children and loved my wife, would that get me into heaven?” Again they all shouted, “No!” “Well then, how can I get to heaven?” A boy in the back row stood up and shouted, “You gotta be dead!”

¹ Well, yes and no. The key is to be born again before ‘you gotta be dead,’ that’s the ticket to heaven. The focus of today’s Light on Life is Jesus statement you must be born again.

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Conscience and the Inward Witness: A Look at the Spirit Led Life

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About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 42 years ago. He has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. Both he and his wife Sharon of 38 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is both the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

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Podcast Notes

Heavens Ticket: Born and Born Again

John 3:3–8 (ESV) — 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.”

In this well-known passage of scripture, Jesus lays out for us the two qualifications necessary for people to get to heaven: you must be born of water and the Spirit.

What Does It Mean to Be Born of Water?

Ageless discussions are surrounding the question what did Jesus mean by being born of water?
When I say ageless, I mean just that, like 2000 years worth of discussions and still there is no consensus among scholars.
But if you read these words yourself, it seems to me that when referring to being born of water that Jesus is referencing natural birth.
Nicodemus question to Jesus was on natural birth, “How can a man be born when he is old?”
Jesus then follows up with verse six and says “that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
So again, you have in verse six natural and spiritual.
So, you can see that the focus is natural birth versus spiritual birth.

The Great Need for Men to Be Born Again

There is a need for men to be born again.
Just attending church is not enough.
Being a moral person doesn’t get you into heaven.
Donating money and time to worthy causes and charities falls short of the mark.
No, a man must have a second birth.
One gentleman put it this way.

If you are born once, you are born in the devil’s family, if you are born twice, you are born in God’s family.²

That’s very close to scripture.

John 8:44 (ESV) — 44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

A Tale of Two Families

Jesus told the Pharisees who their real father was, the devil.
The Lord’s comments let us know that two families currently co-exist on planet earth, God’s family and Satan’s family.
Ephesians two fills in some more detail on the devils’ kinfolk.

Ephesians 2:1–3 (ESV) — 1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Children of God, children of wrath, two different families, that’s what the Bible teaches.
So, armed with that piece of information what does that tell us about how a person’s eternal destiny is determined?
It matters what family you belong to.

The Real Reason Why Some Go to Hell

Men do not go to hell because of what they do.
They go to hell because of who they are.
They go to the Pit of Darkness because they are children in the wrong family.
It’s not the heinous murders that men commit nor the lurid lusts of adultery that they engage in that gives a one-way ticket to the nether region.
Nor is it any deed broadcast as sin by the Holy Word of God.
That’s not what sends men and women downward when they die.
What sends them there is what family they are in.
Men go to hell because of who they are.
Their nature is wrong.
That’s what the born-again experience accomplishes.
It changes the nature of a man.

Two Bible Verses On Life and Being Born Again

There are two verses of scripture that you should read side by side to give you a further sense of what Jesus told Nicodemus about the new birth.
These two verses center up on the word ‘life.’

John 5:26 (ESV) — 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.

John 10:10 (ESV) — 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

The Zoe Life of God

The word for life in both of these passages is the word ‘zoe.’
Zoe is the life of God or the very substance that gives God life.
One Greek dictionary defines ‘Zoe’ as life source or the inherent capacity for producing (and maintaining) living beings; especially understood as a life characterized by healthiness, happiness, exuberance, energy, vitality, and the like.
So this life source and by that life source God’s life is characterized as healthy, happy, exuberant, full of energy and vitality.
You know God never sleeps.

Psalm 121:4 (ESV) — 4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

Life pulsates from God’s core.
It gushes forth from the Throne of God.
This life is what hits your dead spirit when you say yes to God’s plan of receiving Jesus as your Savior.
The good news is that you can have this life.
This life is what causes you to change families from Satan’s to God’s.
One gentleman said these words.

You cannot cure a blind man by increasing the light.³

That’s true for natural human light, but you can cure a blind by bringing him into contact with the ‘zoe’ life.
You can become an adopted son of God.
It’s all a very legal thing that was set in place by the sacrificial life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus Is the Way

He is the way, the truth, and the life.
Jesus is your ticket to heaven.
And, you can punch your ticket by saying Yes to His will and Yes to His plan.

Romans 10:9–10 (ESV) — 9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

When we are born again, we leave behind the corruption that devastated our souls.
This corruption is not found only in those who come out of dark gutters.
It applies to everyone—even you.

Dirty Rags Transformed

In England there is a paper factory that makes the finest stationery in the world. One day a man touring the factory asked what [the stationery] was made from. He was shown a huge pile of old rags and told that the rag content was what determined the quality of the paper. The visitor wouldn’t believe it. In weeks he received from the company a package of paper with his initials embossed on it. On the top piece were written the words “Dirty rags transformed.”

The same is true of the Christian life. It is a process of transformation from what we were into something new and beautiful. “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses ARE as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Is. 64:6). Being born again is the only remedy for the terrible filth of sin’s corruption.⁴

Your Spirit Is Born Again

It’s your spirit, your heart, which received the new birth.
It’s your spirit, or your heart, which becomes a new creature in Christ.
That’s how you change families.

2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV) – 17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

‘If any man is in Christ’, what man is this, that Paul refers to?
Paul is not talking about the physical man here.
You don’t become new physically when you are born again.
Your physical traits did not change when you said Yes to God.
If you were tall before you were saved, you remained that after your new birth experience.
Fill in the blank here, if you had beautiful dimples before you were saved, none of that changed with the new birth.
It wasn’t the physical man that changed.
The man that Paul refers to here is the spirit of man.
The spirit man changed.

Man Is a Spirit

I have taught this truth mega many times.
This truth in First Thessalonians Five changed my life.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 (AMP) — 23 And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you through and through [separate you from profane things, make you pure and wholly consecrated to God]; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved sound and complete [and found] blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah).

Man is spirit, soul, and body.
So, just by process of elimination, you can tell what part of man Paul references when he says ‘if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature.’
The physical man didn’t change when you were born again.
Your soul, which is your mind, will, and emotions, didn’t change when you were born again.
The thinking patterns of your mind remained the same after you declared Jesus as Lord of your life.
Your political affiliations didn’t change because of your born again encounter with Jesus.
That’s why the Holy Spirit teaches us in Romans twelve that believers after they have come to Jesus, should renew their minds.

The Soul Needs Renewal

Romans 12:1–2 (AMP) — 1 I APPEAL to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you].

So, if your physical didn’t change and your soul didn’t change, then all that’s left is your spirit.
Your spirit, or another way to say it is your heart, became a new creation in Christ Jesus.

God is a Spirit and So Are You

You are in the image of God.
Just like your chip off the old block where your earthly parent is concerned, so you are where your heavenly parent is concerned.

John 4:24 (NKJV) – 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

So God is a spirit; no one has a problem with that.
But what about you?

Genesis 1:27 (NKJV) – 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

The Hebrew word ‘image’ is the word ‘selem,’ and the word refers to a representation, a likeness. ⁵
Man is made, you are made, in the form, the representation, and the likeness of God.
God is a spirit.
You are one too.

Proverbs 20:27 (ESV) — 27 The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all his innermost parts.

Man is a spirit being.

What the Term ‘New Creation’ Means

Let’s get back to Second Corinthians Five if any man is in Christ; he is a new creature.
The word ‘new’ in Greek means unseen.
The word is an adjective and means an original of a kind not seen before.
There has never been anything like the born again man.
The Greek word ‘creature’ adds to the flavor of what we are trying to stir up here.
The word means to make or create something which has not existed before: a divine creation.
That is an object of creation brought into existence by God as opposed to the creation considered as a whole.
The creation of man is of divine origin.
He is a masterpiece of God.

Ephesians 2:10 (ESV) — 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

One translation says, ‘we are his handiwork.’
So, again what is the born-again man?
He is a divine creation of God which has never existed before.
So when Moses walked and spoke with God face to face as a man speaks with his friend, that powerful experience does not compare to what the simplest child of God has in their spirit.

Being Born Again Is Not An Overhaul

The message of salvation is regeneration—not reformation. Paul says, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.” The new birth is not an overhaul of the “old wreck,” or a new paint job. The old Adamic nature is so incorrigibly corrupt that even God will not attempt to fix it up. He insists on completely rejecting the old hulk and making a new man. Jesus said to Nicodemus, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again’“ (John 3:6, 7).

The old nature received at birth is hopeless, and dressing it up with education and culture only makes it more dangerous than before. The more we work on the “old man,” the more deceptive it becomes. Do you know why the sinner must be born anew? Because he was born all wrong the first time. He doesn’t have to be taught to go his own way—it comes naturally to him. But by the new birth he is turned around and headed in the right direction!

Spurgeon’s Born Again Illustration

Spurgeon told of a missionary who visited a primitive hut and became nauseated by the filthy floor on which he had to sit. He suggested to his host that they scrub the dirty surface with soap and water, but the man replied, “the floor is just clay—packed down and dry. Add water and it turns to mud. The more you try to wash it, the worse the mess becomes!” Yes, the hut needed something besides an earthen floor. So it is with the human heart: it is hard and dirty, and nothing will help it. Man needs a new heart. He must be born again from above!⁶⁶

That’s the essence of what Jesus said to Nicodemus, and it’s the essence of His message.
You must be born again.

References:

—Andy Stanley, How Good Is Good Enough? (Multnomah, 2003) Craig Brian Larson and Phyllis Ten Elshof, 1001 Illustrations That Connect (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2008), 165–166. ↩
Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc., 1996), 1200–1201. ↩
Ibid ↩
Leadership Ministries Worldwide, Practical Illustrations: 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude (Chattanooga, TN: Leadership Ministries Worldwide, 2003), 18. ↩
R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, eds., Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 767. ↩
M. R. De Haan, Our Daily Bread, Galaxie Software, 10,000 Sermon Illustrations (Biblical Studies Press, 2002). ↩
M. R. De Haan, Our Daily Bread, Galaxie Software, 10,000 Sermon Illustrations (Biblical Studies Press, 2002). ↩

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What Does It Mean to Be Born Again from God?

Podcast: Light on Life Season 6 Episode 13

by Emery Horvath

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