Many Christians prefer to describe themselves as “born again” Christians, as a way of distinguishing themselves from other Christians who are not quite as real. I find this practice odd, because I suspect that very few of these people could describe clearly what the expression actually means. I presume that most would be hard-pressed to explain what actually happens when a person is born again.
For many people it just means that they have raised their hand and prayed a “sinners’ prayer” at a church service or outreach meeting. But if I asked if everyone who has said a sinner’s prayer is actually born again, I imagine that most would say no.
Some will say that being born again means that they have become a new person, but in many ways, they are still the same person, so what really changed? We need a better understanding of what Jesus meant when he spoke of being born again.
Jesus used the expression “born again” when a pharisee called Nicodemus came to him with questions about the Kingdom of God. He told him that he needed to be “born again of the Spirit”. This was not a parable to make a complicated experience simple. It was a powerful image that Jesus used deliberately to jolt Nicodemus into a radical change of thinking.
Nicodemus was smart, but he struggled to understand what Jesus was saying, so it is not surprising that many Christians do not understand his meaning either.
Rare Expression
Jesus used the expression “born again” on one occasion only, but the modern church has 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 phrase.
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.
Interesting Choice
Being born again is just one of the expressions used in the New Testament for accepting the gospel of Jesus. Various other expressions are used.
Take up the cross (Luke 14:27).
Accepted the word (Acts 2:41).
Obey the gospel (Romans 1:5, 1 Peter 4:17).
Come to the light (John 3:20-21)
Passed from death to life (John 5:24, 1 John 3:14)
Repent and turn to God (Acts 26:20)
Deny himself (Mark 8:34, Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:23)
Die daily (1 Corinthians 15:31)
Renounce all that he has (Luke 14:33)
Sell all and give to the poor (Mark 10:21)
Suffer with him (Romans 8:17)
These expressions suggest a whole range of labels that Christians could give to themselves that would be equally descriptive.
Carrying the Cross Christian
Obeying the Gospel Christian
Repentant Christian
Deny myself Christian
Renounced all that I have Christian
Sold all to give to the poor Christian
Suffering with Jesus Christian.
I imagine that most Christians would choose not to use these labels, because they might be hard to live up to. People of the world might challenge us for failing to measure up to our name.
“Born again” is a more comfortable name to use, because its effect is invisible. Therefore, no one can accuse a Christian of not being born again, because there is no decisive way to observe them and be sure that they are not. The “new” birth is a work of the Holy Spirit. We cannot see him working because he is invisible to human eyes. Some people may have a deeply spiritual experience, but others might not. So if a person says that they are born again, we have no way of validating whether it is true. This means that using “born again” as the criteria for distinguishing true Christians from people who are not true Christians does not make sense.
A criterion is only useful for discerning between people if it can be observed. Describing what kind of Christian we are using a criterion that is invisible is a safe option, but it is not very helpful.
Jesus had a different way of distinguishing those who are truly his followers. He said,
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (John 13:34-35).
The best way to identify the true followers of Jesus is to look for those who are loving each other as Jesus loved us. His followers will be implementing his new commandment to love one another.
The benefit of this criterion is that it is easy to observe. If people are loving each other in a sacrificial way, it will be obvious. They don’t need to call themselves “Loving One Another Christians”, because their love will be visible to everyone. Even people of the world will be able to discern who is real and who is not.
A modern problem is that many people who claim to be born again are not very good at loving one another. Unfortunately, the world has realised that and is ignoring Jesus because of it.
Incomplete Description
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 on 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.
Paul used a slightly different expression when describing what happens when a person chooses to follow Jesus. He said that we died with Jesus and rose again with him to new life.
All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his... Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him (Rom 6:3-8).
This passage is a fuller description of the process of becoming a follower of Jesus than the phrase “born again”. When we are united with Jesus by committing to follow him and trusting in his death and resurrection, we are raised with him to a new life. But that is the second step in the process. In the first step, we are united with him in his death. When we die with Jesus, we are dying to our old life controlled by sin and self. We cannot gain the new life without dying to our old life first.
Baptism is a good way of describing this two-pronged process. We go under the water, symbolising our death to our old life. We come out of the water, and the Holy Spirit comes down on us as an expression of the new life we have in Jesus.
Paul understood the current and future aspects of the new birth. He explained that those who trust Jesus died and rose with him. He also stressed that we must continue to put off the old life and put on the new life as we grow in Jesus and serve him in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature… since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator (Col 3:5,10).
We must keep on putting to death our sinful nature and continue to put on the life of Jesus as we grow in faith and obedience.
Work of the Spirit
Modern Christians make it seem as if being born again is something that we can choose and do for ourselves. That is misleading, because the new life is a work of the Holy Spirit. It is beyond our power.
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 Nicodemus’s power on his own.
People cannot choose to be born again. They cannot make themselves “born again”. This is something that the 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.
Problem to be Solved
To understand what happens if we are born again, we need to know the human problem. We need a clear understanding of what happened when Adam and Eve were deceived by the powers of evil and chose to disobey God.
When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, they were in unity with each other and with God. They could perceive spiritually, as well as physically. They could talk with God, and they could see him, in a way that was real. They were free to choose how they would behave. God taught them his will, but they were free to disobey.
Adam and Eve committed their first sin well before they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They could hear God's voice, but they chose to listen to other voices and decide if they really were evil. This was an insult to God, who is good and perfectly wise. Deciding not to trust God was their first sin. When they made this decision, God's presence left them.
He was already gone when the serpent approached them, because he could not have come near to do evil if God had been there. The serpent could not tolerate God's glory, even when he was planning to do evil.
Serious Consequences
Being expelled from the presence of God and sent into a world controlled by the powers of evil without any spiritual protection was a disaster for the first humans. The powers of evil hated God and wanted to destroy his earth.
Humans had been given authority on earth, but they had surrendered it to the powers of evil by obeying them. If the powers of evil could keep humans hostile to God, they could retain their stolen authority forever. They were not able to destroy humans, because this would destroy the basis of their authority on earth. If there were no humans, God would be free to take back his earth again, because it would release him from his covenant that gave authority on earth to humans without recourse.
To cement their authority on earth, the powers of evil set about doing their best to modify the brains (flesh) of the people created in God's image, so that they would never escape their clutches and turn back to him. They achieved this by making subtle changes to human flesh, and particularly the brain, which is made of flesh. They could not change them too much, or modify them to be sub-human, because they would cease to be human, and they would lose their authority on earth that came through God's covenant with humans.
The corrupted flesh that has been inherited by all human descendants affects us in a variety of ways. See more at What is a Person.
Mind - the human mind still operates in the same way, but is vulnerable to deception and can sometimes miss the truth (2 Cor 11:3; 2 Tim 3:8).
Emotions - emotions still operate in the same way, but good feelings now have a distorted form: rage, dread, melancholy, horror.
Imagination - human imaginations remains powerful, but they are drawn to evil.
The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth (Gen 8:21).
Will - the human will has been distorted, so that it is difficult to please God and hard to make decisions that align with his will. (Rom 5:8).
Desires - these have been biased away from God and towards evil.
The flesh lusts against the Spirit (Gal 5:17).
Corrupted by its deceitful desires (Eph 4:22).
Memory - still operates in the same way, but the spiritual powers of evil make sure that it is filled with bad/evil experiences that corrupt our mind and imagination.
Spirit - this is the faculty that seems to have sustained the most damage. Humans still have the ability to perceive spiritual things, but it has been significantly weakened. They are not aware of the presence of the powers of evil, even when they are attacking. They also find it really difficult to hear God.
Every human inherits the flesh that manifests these problems.
What Happens
Jesus was conceived when the Holy Spirit overshadowed his mother Mary. This broke the line of the flesh from Adam. He did not inherit the corruption of the flesh that troubled the rest of the human race.
When a person trusts in Jesus and is born again of the Spirit, the harm to their flesh/brain is restored. The Holy Spirit restores the damage to our flesh (including the brain) that was inherited from the first man, who was attacked by the powers of evil.
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Gal 5:24).
When we are born again to become a new creation, the harm done to Adam that we inherited is restored. The Holy Spirit changes who we are. We are born again with a restored brain.
Our Spirit is brought to life. We become intensely aware of God's voice. We can perceive the power of evil at work around us. This is huge, but we have to learn to understand clearly all that we are now perceiving. If we are not careful, we can let our perception be deadened by what we learned in the past.
Our Will is restored, so we are able to seek and do God's will. This is the most important change. However, we are still free and need to listen to the voice of the Spirit and do Jesus’ will. Although our will is set free, we will still need to learn how to obey gladly. The big difference from the situation of Adam and Eve is that we have spiritual protection through what Jesus has done.
Our Mind is restored, so that we can think the way God thinks. Unfortunately, we will have taken on many bad ideas in the years before we are born again, so the Holy Spirit will need time to teach us and clear out all the junk. He gradually renews our mind.
Our Desire for God that was deadened is restored.
Our Emotions will continue to work as our internal senses, but as we begin to see things as God sees them, our emotions will begin to respond more like Jesus would respond.
Our Imagination has the capability to receive dreams and perceive visions from God.
Our Memory continues to retain most of our experiences. A problem is that our memory will be full of bad thinking and lies, and bad decisions and their pleasures from the past. These will keep popping out and leading us astray, even after our mind has been restored. Evil spirits will stir these memories up if they get a chance. By giving thanks, we fill our memory with positive experiences.
Being born again reverses the damage done that we inherited from Adam and Eve, but that is the first step. While living with corrupted flesh, we have picked up a lot of junk that we have to learn to let go of by putting the old life to death and learning to walk in the Spirit. That is the purpose of discipleship.