"Born Again"--How?

How is one born again?

Jesus answers this question a little later in His discourse with Nicodemus. John 3:16 says,

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

We must simply believe in Jesus Christ.  However, the belief Jesus talks about here is not a flippant, wavering belief, but a convicted trust in God’s words and complete reliance upon the Lord—the Spirit—with whom He desires us to walk.  It demands an increasing revelation of God’s Holy nature, Sovereign will, and Divine power, and an increasing desire to be like Him.  It also demands an increasing revelation of my nature, my stubborn will that will lead me to death, and how powerless I am to save myself—let alone anybody else.

The apostle Paul writes in Romans 6:23,

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

  There are three ways that I saw to examine this truth, and each way has two things being compared to one another (notice the word “but”) .  First, it addresses something worked for or earned (“wages”), and then there is something given as a free gift.  Second, it addresses what or who is working in either case.  Third, it addresses the outcome of each of those two entities working. 

In the first part of Romans 6:23, Paul is describing sin’s work.  It earns something—death.  But it is not just sin working by itself.  It is sin working in a person.  He is describing a person who is allowing sin to work in them—someone who is living by the flesh instead of the Spirit.

Romans 3:23 says,

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

The glory of God being His very nature—His life.  This verse also points out that everybody starts off on the same level playing field—utterly sinful.  All we could ever earn in the natural, without being born of the Spirit, is death.  This can also be seen in the Old Testament law, which often mandates that a person be stoned or otherwise put to death if they commit just one sin.  So just one sin is enough for God to justify putting us to death!

Some supporting verses...

Proverbs 11:18-19 says, “The wicked earns deceptive wages, But he who sows righteousness gets a true reward.  He who is steadfast in righteousness will attain to life, and he who pursues evil will bring about his own death”—The evil here being whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it, regardless of anybody else, including the Lord.  That is a deceptive wage, or earning, though, because that leads to death.   He who sows righteousness, though, gets a true reward—life.  Just like you have to wait for the plant to grow when you sow seed, you may not see immediate results when you sow righteousness, which is being pleasing to the Lord.  This is living by faith.

A similar idea in 1 Peter 1:22-25, “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is through the living and enduring word of God.  For ‘All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the grass.  The grass withers, and the flower falls off, But the word of the Lord endures forever.”  --To sow righteousness is to cling to God’s Word sharing it with and encouraging others.  I would say it is to live God’s Word, in becoming like the Lord.  This is true love from the heart.

Galatians 6:7-9 says, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.  For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.  Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.”  --So salvation is the result of sowing righteousness by faith  (“reap eternal life”).

Romans 1:16-17 says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’ “ –So salvation—eternal life—occurs when the righteousness of God is received by someone through faith because of the faith of another person to “sow” it. 

This is the gospel—That God has this “magnificent and precious” gift for us.  (In the words of 2 Peter).

The second part of Romans 6:23 speaks to God working in a person to bring eternal life—once the gift is accepted.  There is a conundrum, then, because if God were to give this free gift to a person who is living in the flesh—not born of the Spirit—they may mistake the gift as their just payment (which would actually be death.)  So God must give payment to us before He can give us a gift.  I don’t know about you, but I am still drawing breaths and my heart is still beating.  There must be a disconnect somewhere.  The truth is, God is a merciful God, and He wants us to see how merciful He is, so we can love Him in return.  His mercy can be seen from the very beginning with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. 

In Genesis 2:17 He says,

“ but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

When they do eat from the tree, however, God does not kill them.  Instead, He kills an animal to clothe them and takes them out of the Garden so they will not be eternally in their “fallen” state.  (By the way, this illustrates the very first animal sacrifice atonement for sin.)  In the same way God had mercy on Adam and Eve, He is having mercy on us.

So to whom has God paid the debt that He has owed mankind from the beginning?

Jesus Christ.  He took on every sin that was ever committed and ever would be committed, and He suffered and died so God could offer us the gift of eternal life. 

Hebrews 2:10-11 says, “For it was fitting for Him, for who are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.  For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren,”—What does it mean ‘it was fitting’?  In short, Jesus succeeded where mankind failed.  This verse is not just speaking to His death on the cross but his life on earth.  I think of Matthew chapter 4 where Jesus is tempted by the devil.  Jesus is tempted with three things, which the devil even pulls from scripture:  1) To turn stones into bread (Hunger), 2) To throw Himself down from the temple (God’s word and power to save Him), 3) And to worship the devil in order to become powerful (God’s authority).  Jesus obviously did not succumb to temptation, and rebuked the devil with scripture.  He was faithful to His Father in heaven.  However, in Genesis chapter 3, we can see Eve fail where Jesus succeeded.  The devil tempts her with the same things:  1) she saw that the tree was good for eating, 2)  God said she would die, and she did not believe or respect God’s word to her, 3) “You will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  So Eve, just like all people, even up to this day: 1) want what they want when they want it, 2) Doubt and do not want to obey God’s word—want to go their own way, 3) They want to be powerful.  So we can see we need to be saved from ourselves.  This Jesus accomplished with His life, death, and resurrection in giving us His eternal life.

And as Romans 6:23 says, it is a “free gift...”  it could not have been earned or merited by us in any way. 

Thinking about this idea of the gift, then, it must be received by the one to whom it is being given, otherwise it is useless.

Not only must it be received, it must be opened.  I think of the gift of life like a suit.  It must be opened, tried on, and worn in order to be of any use to me or the one from whom the gift came.  This is how we are born again—it is a willingness to set aside what we used to wear, and to be clothed in something new.  And the Giver of the gift would have me always wear this suit, and not go back to the old rags I used to wear.   I can relate to God as my Father now that I have been born again. Would a loving Father want His son to wear rags if the son can be clothed in something clean? I think not. So salvation is something not just to be received, but something to be walked out—something to be lived. 

Paul gives a similar picture in Ephesians 4:17-24, “So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of the heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which is in the likeness of God and has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”—So to “put on the new self” is a choice, a practice, a constant reminder to myself. 

Likewise, being born again is intentionally living this new life--the life of Christ--in obedience to God, my Father.