New Birth (Regeneration)

Do not be amazed that I said to you, 

'You must be born again.' 

–John 3:7 NASB 

Maybe we humans are not so bad. Could it be we simply need an infusion of good teaching or perhaps just belonging to a church community in order to overcome our conflicts and moral lapses? No. It could not be. The issues in our hearts and in our societies run too deep to be reformed by education or community.

The old us has to end and a new us has to begin. And this is exactly God’s way.

Chosen before time, we were drawn by the Father toward Grace, toward Christ, and in a momentous moment the wind of the Spirit blew through us, making us new. Our dead spirit was resurrected. We were regenerated, recreated. The old self was crucified with Christ and our New Self was born.

Regeneration means being created again. Being born again. It also means being born from above—the Old Self came up from the ground in a biological process but the New Self transcends this world.

Death is the solution to sin. Rebirth and resurrection are the solution to death. God is for us from beginning to end.

But it is normal for people to think we do not need such a drastic solution. We can change. We can improve. Why can’t God just go easy on us and wait for us to change? And religious people often are the biggest believers in self-improvement programs. Can’t we just learn God’s commandments and find reconciliation?

So Jesus had a conversation with a leading Pharisee:

Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; 

this man came to Jesus at night and said to Him,

"Rabbi, we know that You have come from God [as] a teacher; 

for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." 

Jesus responded and said to him, 

"Truly, truly, I say to you, 

unless someone is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." 

Nicodemus said to Him, 

"How can a person be born when he is old? 

He cannot enter his mother's womb a second time and be born, can he?" 

Jesus answered, 

"Truly, truly, I say to you, 

unless someone is born of water and [the] Spirit, 

he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 

That which has been born of the flesh is flesh, 

and that which has been born of the Spirit is spirit. 

Do not be amazed that I said to you, 

'You must be born again.' 

The wind blows where it wishes, 

and you hear the sound of it, 

but you do not know where it is coming from and where it is going; 

so is everyone who has been born of the Spirit."

–John 3:1-8 NASB

Nicodemus saw what many of his peers were in denial about. Jesus was blowing apart their paradigm and so he seemed to be an enemy, opposed to God, opposed to righteousness. But he was healing lepers and raising widows’ sons—something none of the Pharisees could do. So Nicodemus the powerful came to Jesus the marginal and offered him praise.

Nicodemus saw something of Jesus, but he had not yet seen enough to understand. Doubtless he still thought of Jesus as a social inferior. Maybe Jesus would be grateful for praise from a leader of Israel.

Oblivious to flattery, the lowly rabbi from Galilee taught the Pharisee: “Unless someone is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus surely expected some other response, maybe gratitude. His next question has often been seen as a sign of ignorance. But I prefer to think that one teacher was having a high level conversation with another teacher. So when Nicodemus said, “How can a person be born when he is old?” I do not think he took Jesus literally. He was saying, “How can a venerable teacher like myself start over as an infant in the faith?”

But God is not satisfied with self-improvement programs and human capacity to overcome sin and death is very small. Even Nicodemus would have to start over as an infant with God.

Jesus makes a statement about being born of water and the Spirit which has been interpreted variously. What is the “water” he refers to? The common answers include ritual baptism or simply childbirth itself. Whatever he might mean by the water, we can clearly see Jesus calling for a New Birth, something that happens because God’s Spirit does it within us.

When Jesus—in the Gospel written by the Beloved Disciple (John)—speaks of two births, one in the flesh and one in the Spirit, he echoes Paul’s famous words:

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, 

[this person is] a new creation; 

the old things passed away; 

behold, new things have come.

–2 Corinthians 5:17 NASB

Theologian Karl Barth considers some deeper implications of this rebirth, this regeneration, this recreating of the old person:

In Him a new human subject was introduced, the true man beside and outside whom God does not know any other, beside and outside whom there is no other, beside and outside whom the other being of man, that old being which still continues to break the covenant, can only be a lie, an absurd self-deception, a shadow moving on the wall—the being of that man who has long been superseded and replaced and who can only imagine that he is man, while in reality he is absolutely nothing.

-Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1

What on earth is Barth talking about in this crazy, long sentence? The “new human subject” is you after regeneration, after being born again. It is the New Creation which is your New Self. But where does this New Self live, because we all still seem to be seeing the Old You?

The New You lives in God’s New Reality, which is here in some ways and not in others. How can God’s New Reality already be here when clearly we are still living in the world of broken images and shattered love? The New Reality exists for God because God is beyond time. God already knows you as you will be. And he disregards the flaws of your Old Self.

The Old You is a lie. At death, that “you” will be gone and only the new “you” will continue on. But do not think that this new “you” is not actually you. 

Your New Self is who you were made to be. Please don’t hear me incorrectly. I am not saying that God made a mistake when he created you and that he has to start over again. No, it has been God’s intention all along to glorify us. Somehow this journey of being recreated is the best way, the way God has chosen for us.

And people looking at us from the outside cannot see any difference. The New Birth does not transform us into saints or little Christs. Not yet. It is like the invisible wind, which travels high and far and moves things on earth. Being bound by time, we cannot see our New Self yet. 

But God can.