The Problem of Evil and Suffering

The Problem of Evil and Suffering Introduction
"Why do bad things happen to good people?" Rabbi Harold Kushner, a number of years ago, penned a book with that title. He had experienced the loss of his own child because of a dreadful disease. His faith and his understanding of what happened faced a serious impasse. His book was an effort to explain how his own views had changed on the nature of God and the existence of suffering. Kushner is not alone. Each of us frames the question in a slightly different way, but the sense of it is the same. Historically, this is know simply as "the problem of evil". The attempt to work out a solution is called a "theodicy", from the Greek theos (God) and dike (justice): providing a satisfactory justification of how God can allow evil.

Effort to work out a solution fall into different categories. We will look at the philosophical approach, the biblical approach, and then think about ways each of us wrestle with this probing issue. Another question should also get some attention: What impact does this issue have on our view of God, our own responsibility and how we respond to others who are faced with tragic circumstance? Clearly, this is not just an intellectual debate, but something which can weigh heavily on our minds. Moreover, true skeptics may hold back from faith precisely at this point: they find the existence of evil a telling argument on both the question of God's existence and on the sort of God he is, if he does exist. Making the issue clear and offering some approaches to dealing with it are important tasks facing the follower of Jesus.

The Philosophical Formulation of the Problem of Evil
"Is he willing to prevent evil, but no able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?" (Epicurus, 341-270 B.C.E.)

In western thought, Epicurus gave the earliest statement of the problem of evil. The argument boils down to some direct statements:
God is all-powerful and all-knowing (omnipotent and omniscient).
God is perfectly good (omnibenevolent).
Evil exists in the world.
If God, defined in 1 and 2, existed, there would be no evil in theworld.
There is evil (in 3) in the world.
Therefore God does not exist.

As it stands, on the face of it, the argument seems plausible. Some thinkers, who hold to this argument, are willing to modify #3 and #5 is such a way as to say "There is unnecessary evil" in the world, which is to say that there is evil which could be prevented. The argument receives further elaboration by writers like Dostoyevsky (1822-1881) in his Brothers Karamazov where the death of innocent children becomes the greatest evil and leads the antagonist Ivan to say: "It's not God I reject, but the world he has made". Contemporary writers, like Bruce Russell, will claim that it is not evil but the "amount of evil" that is the most telling part of the argument.

Some Historical Responses to the Problem of Evil
Some religions tried to solve or partly solve this problem. Most do it by reducing or abandoning one of the attributes of God. A few religious leaders have admitted that they simply cannot solve the puzzle. This takes courage when faced with multitudes of people who desperately want answers:

Deists believe that God created the universe, set it in motion, and then withdrew from the scene. He hasn't been seen since. They regard God as not having omniscience; he has not chosen to remain aware of what is happening on earth.
Zoroastrianism was once the religion of ancient Persia. It remains a small religion whose members live largely in India. Their religion has largely settled the paradox. They promote a cosmic dualism between two more or less equal forces: A powerful God Ahura Mazda, who is the only deity worthy of being worshipped, and an evil spirit of violence and death Angra Mainyu, who opposes Ahura Mazda. The resulting cosmic conflict involves the entire universe now and until the end of time. Humans must choose which deity to follow.
Conservative Christians, Muslims and others believe in a personal Satan, an all-evil devil who roams the world seeking whom he might be able to destroy. Most evil occurrences are attributed to Satan. God is often viewed, by Christians, as providing a protective shield around the righteous.
Atheists have no problem with the theodicy paradox for the simply reason that they have no belief in the existence of God. Some positively deny that God exists. Atheists are generally moral relativists and conclude that a given act may be considered immoral by some people, morally neutral by others, and moral by still others. Bad things happen simply because people want to do them in order to accomplish what they feel is a great moral good. God does not intervene because, according to Atheists, there is no evidence that he exists.
Rabbi Kushner, author of "When Bad Things Happen to Good People," concludes that the theodicy paradox can only be solved only by redefining the attributes of God. Viewing God as all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful leads to internal contradictions. At least one attribute has to be abandoned. He suggests that we reject the omnipotence of God and believe in a deity with only finite powers to influence people's actions, but who remains all-knowing and all-loving. Kushner's God didn't prevent the terrorists because he didn't have the power to do so. God can only cry with the victims.
Process thought was originally promoted the early 1900s by a French philosopher Henri-Louis Bergson. Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne developed it further. One of the three main areas of process thought is process theology. It teaches that that God affects history indirectly through gentle persuasion and not directly by coercion. He does not intrude directly in human activities; he does not violate the laws of nature by creating a miracle. Rather, "God gently persuades all entities towards this perfection by providing each of them with a glimpse of the divine vision of a better future. And yet all entities retain the freedom to depart from that vision." Individuals retain the freedom to reject God's messages and to engage in mass murder, genocide and other evils.
Open Theism, also called Free Will Theism is an alternate understanding of the nature of the Christian God. According to Dr. John Sanders: "God, in grace, grants humans significant freedom to cooperate with or work against God's will for their lives, and he enters into dynamic, give and take relationships with us....God takes risks in this give-and-take relationship, yet he is endlessly resourceful and competent in working toward his ultimate goals. Sometimes God alone decides how to accomplish these goals. On other occasions, God works with human decisions, adapting his own plans to fit the changing situation. God does not control everything that happens. Rather, he is open to receiving input from his creatures. In loving dialogue, God invites us to participate with him to bring the future into being." When faced with a terrible tragedy, God accepts it and attempts to make positive results come out of the evil. God is not omniscient in the normal meaning of that word; he does not foretell the future in detail because so much of the future is up to a complex interaction of countless decisions by individual humans, all of whom possess free will. God chooses to adapt to events and nudge the future along in what he feels is the correct direction. Open Theism is supported by more than 30 biblical passages in which God indicates that he does not control the future. In these passages, he repented of his previous decisions.
Limited human perception: Some theologians and philosophers argue that Theodicy does not exist. There is ultimately no conflict between evil and an omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omniscient deity. They would argue that from our limited human viewpoint, we cannot see the broad picture. God is beyond time and is capable of seeing the past, present and future. If humans had the wisdom of God, we would not be arguing about theodicy; we would realize that God always works in a moral manner.

The Problem of Evil Types
What do we mean when we say there is "evil" in the world? It might be easier to simply ask, "What is wrong with the world?" That question has at least four answers:
There are painful sensations: physical evil
There are painful emotions: mental evil
There are evil and undesirable states of affairs: state evil
There are evil actions: moral evil
The problem of evil, in a nutshell, asks "Why did God create such a world in which these kinds of evils exist?" In the case of the first three types, one could say that they are due to the "nature of the world and its laws". Given the laws of nature respecting geology, earthquakes will happen as will tsunamis. Some natural conditions must exist for these evils to occur. In respect to human beings, we could say that #1-3 are passive evils. However, when we get to #4, the exercise of human choice enters to the picture.

Evil Due to Free Will: Moral Evil
The very presence of "free agents" in the created world complicates the problem. The anti-theodicist (one who thinks there can be no explanation for evil) will argue, "God ought not to create evildoers", and that would mean even the possibility that a human being could become one. Presuming God can do anything, surely, this view argues, he could create a world without evil choices. But is that argument a good one? Alvin Plantinga, a contemporary philosopher, has responded this way:
It is not logically possible for an agent to make another agent such that necessarily he freely does only good actions.
Hence, if a being "G" creates a free agent, he gives to that agent power of choice between alternative actions, and how he will exercise that power is something which G cannot control while the agent remains free.
It is a good thing that there exist free agents, but a logically necessary consequence of their existence is that their power to choose to do evil actions may sometimes be realized.
The price is worth paying, however, for the existence of agents performing free actions remains a good thing even if they sometimes do evil.
Hence, it is not logically possible that a creator create free creatures such that necessarily they do not do evil actions."
But it is not a morally bad thing that he create free creatures, even with the possibility of their doing evil.

Plainly, the creation of free moral agents carries great risk and great promise. So, goes the argument advanced by Plantinga, God judged it a better thing to populate the world with free creatures (like human beings and angels) rather than not to do so. The risk was the choice of evil (which, of course was realized). But, to put it somewhat tritely, "nothing ventured, nothing gained" or "no pain, no gain". It might have turned out that free will creatures might have chosen only good. But freedom has no meaning in a universe when only one outcome can happen.

Evil in the Nature of Things?
We might be able to get God "off the hook" with regard to moral evil by acknowledging that it is the by-product of free will which is itself a good thing, at least better than the alternative. But what do we do about so-called "passive evil" (#1-3 above)? In those cases, things happen in the universe, it would seem, because that's the way the universe works. Does not the anti-theodicist make a good point in questioning, as Ivan does in Dostoevsky's novel, "the world God has made"? There are some large assumptions here, however, about the complexity of the world. Or that the world has always been as it is now. Or that the world is actually in its finished form. Several points could be made in response to the anti-theodicist:
The theist (one who believes in a personal God) makes the claim that God made the world and pronounced it "good" when he created it.
But the world included not only free moral agents who were human beings (earth-bound creatures), but also angels (intelligences without earth-bound bodies). These agents were present at the creation of our universe, having been a part of God's larger creation at some prior time.
These intelligences also had free will which God risked in making them that way.
Some of these intelligences misused their freedom and became fallen angels (demons).
Their presence in the created universe influences events in the universe, much in the same way human choices influence events.
The acceptance of other moral intelligences in the order of things adds to the complexity of the cosmos and makes the possibility of evil likely in the "passive sense".
God has chosen to make the world like this and continues to work within it to bring about a restored state of affairs.
In carrying out his project for the universe, God enlists the help of moral agents who freely choose to have a relationship with him, calling them his "children".
The universe is plainly "not finished" and God works together with his children to bring it to completion.
The presence of free will intelligences who oppose the work of God in no way stops his efforts in this task, but clearly results in a cosmic-wide conflict, a war, between good and evil. The casualties of that war are largely the "evils" we have already identified.

Some Implications for Understanding the Problem of Evil
This account attempts to preserve the freedom of God's creations, while at the same time it acknowledges the misuse of that freedom and the complications resulting from that misuse. It also has some important implications:
By making the world in the way he has, God has bound himself to relate to it in certain ways. In the case of free will, God chose not to force himself on free creatures, but attracts them through his love.
The attribute of omnipotence (all-powerful) cannot mean that God "will do anything", though it seems to imply he "can do anything". Scripture actually says "God cannot lie" (Titus 1:2), "Cannot deny himself" (2 Timothy 2:13), "Cannot fail" (Hebrew 1:12), etc. This is a bit like the time-worn philosophy student's question: "Can God make a rock too heavy to lift?" The best response is simply, "Why would he want to?" The whole idea of "power" as it relates to God is not some abstract concept. God's power, when looked at in all of Scripture, has more to do with his creative acts of love than his coercive ability. In fact, the notion that power means "always having one's way" looks more like a Greek philosophical idea than a teaching from the Bible.
God plainly surrenders his own power in the interest of his creation. This is seen most clearly in what we know of God through Jesus Christ, his most perfect expression. Jesus, as God, surrenders his power and dies in behalf of his creation, not to coerce them, but to save them. Any interpretation of the power of God which ignores this fact is an incomplete account of it.
Evil, in the context of Scripture, is something to be defeated, not just something to be explained. In the bigger "story", God declares war on evil, while seeking to rescue its casualties. Preserving the sacred notion of free will, God goes about the business of restoring the brokenness of the world redemptively.
Making sense out of evil requires attention on the importance of Jesus' arrival within the world where evil exists. If evil where just a matter of "how things are" or simply an illusion or part of God's larger plan for the world, why would God go to the bother of sending his Son into the world to identify with human beings by becoming human himself, heal sick people, raise the dead, cast out demons, and finally die on the cross?
Nothing we say about evil must suggest God wanted it here. Its existence plainly runs counter to God's intended project for his universe. It is something to be defeated and eventually eliminated.
Here we must avoid efforts to justify the existence of evil by either saying it is not real, or saying that God willed it to somehow make goodness look better.
The notion that one cannot have good without evil presumes evil belongs to the true nature of things: on the account given in the Bible, the world is "good" without evil and becomes "bad" when it arrives.
We must also reject the idea that God causes evil to happen in people's lives to bring about some greater good. We know enough about the nature of free will intelligences within the world to see how evil occurs without God making it happen.
Biblical Teachings on the Problem of Evil
God made the world and declared it to be good (Genesis 1).
Part of his creation were human beings, made in the image of God and given "dominion" over the creation to govern and manage it, tasks which require free choice (Genesis 1:26).
Angels where observers of the creation of our universe (Job 38:4-7).
At least one angel, Lucifer ("bearer of fire, light"), was in the garden of Eden carrying out an assigned role (Ezekiel 28:12-15).
By exercising free will against God's purposes, Lucifer becomes the "Adversary" (trans.of "Satan") and leads an angelic rebellion (Revelation 12).
Satan tempts human beings to question the character of God, arguing that God is depriving human beings of some greater "good" by denying them the right to decide what is good and evil and by forbidding them to be the independent judges of right and wrong (Genesis 3:1-5)
Human beings become co-dependent with Satan in their misuse of free will and fall into sin (Genesis 3:6)
The combined effects of Satan's fall and human sin were numerous:
A sense of unnatural shame about the human body (Genesis 3:7)
Estrangement and a desire to "hide" out of an unnatural "fear of God" (Genesis 3:8, 10)
Loss of relationship with God, such that God comes calling "where are you?" (Genesis 3:8)
The creation became damaged in various ways (Genesis 3:14ff)
Plainly, the abuse of free will on the part of angels and human beings is credited with the arrival of various evils within the world which persist to this day. But, the price of free will must have been worth the risk of what happened.
Satan continues to oppose the purposes of God in the biblical story, particularly as illustrated in the story of Job (Job 1-2):
Unknown to Job, God and Satan engage in a heavenly war over Job's well-being.
God sets boundaries on the extent of Satan's activity, but allows Satan to exercise his free will in bringing disaster to Job.
Job and his friends, over the course of most of the book, debate the reasons for his suffering.
Those reasons include the idea that Job has secretly sinned and this suffering must be a punishment for sin. This position of Job's friends is known to be wrong by the reader who already has the background of Job 1-2. But it shows graphically what happens when human beings try to make judgments about what they know as "good and evil" without the larger perspective of "what's really going on in the world".
The book reaches a climax when Job encounters God "out of the whirlwind" and has God put the question to him: "Where were you when the world was created?" Through a series of examples, God shows Job that his failure to understand the complexity of the universe leads him to make false conclusions about why he is suffering. It's not because God is malevolent ("bad willed"), but because the world is simply much more complicated a place than meets the eye. And so evil is not due to anything God has directly done to Job, but the consequence of the ongoing battle between God and Satan, among other things.
Job and his friends seem to give credence to what Gregory Boyd (in his book Is God to Blame?) calls the "blueprint" model for way God works in the world". Boyd describes this model and then rejects it as unbiblical:
The blueprint model assumes that God operates like a desert chieftain, ruling with absolute power over his subjects. This would have been Job's view and that of his friends. He is responsible for everything that happens, both the good and the evil. Everything is "controlled by God".
In fact, the Bible gives a different picture, that God's attributes of power, knowledge and goodness flow from his overwhelming love for his creation. He does not "have is way" through coercion, but through grace and love.
God's knowledge of the world does not assume he planned every detail, but built into the world tremendous possibilities ("potentialities") including the gift of free will to intelligent creatures.
When God looks at the future, he does not necessarily see all things "actually", but some things "potentially"; not only what "will be", but what "might be".
In the process, God includes the operation (and cooperation) of these free will intelligences when he works out his project of the universe.
When evil occurs, God indeed could foresee its possibility--nothing catches God off guard--but not its necessity.
God's entrance into the world in the person of the human being Jesus allowed him to show human beings what he was truly like. Jesus was the perfect expression of the character of God (see such texts as John 1:1-18; 14:7-9; Hebrews 1:1-3; Colossians 1:15-20).
When Jesus teaches, heals people, raises the dead and casts out demons, he is obviously interacting with the world in ways which show he wants to change what he sees. Evil is not just something to be debated, it is something to be gotten rid of.
Jesus' interaction with demons (fallen angels) shows that he takes seriously the participation of other free will intelligences in the world besides human beings.
On one occasion, when Jesus encounters a "man born blind" (John 9), his disciples query, "who sinned", in an attempt to explain the man's condition. Jesus responds that neither the man nor his parents sinned. John's use of the Greek language is terse and direct. Jesus simply says, "Let the glory of God be seen!" (9:3), and then proceeds to heal the man. The world of the disciples, like the world of Job and his friends, could only explain the man's condition based on his sin. And somehow God was judging it. And that's why he was blind. Jesus takes the approach that he is blind and needs to be healed, so let's get on with the work of doing just that (see 9:4).
It is a fundamental error on the part of Christians to imagine what God is like apart from what they see in Jesus. It follows, then, that the problem of evil can only be appreciated when seen in light of Jesus, the true expression of the character of God.
If asked, "why doesn't God take responsibility for the evil in the world?", we may safely respond, "He has and he does". Not because he directly caused it, but because he cares about the lives of his creations.
Jesus spent his earthly life doing battle with the underlying causes of evil. But he did not exert a coercive power to work his will. Rather, he allowed himself to be subjected to the humiliating death of the cross to demonstrate that God would sacrifice himself so that free will agents might be saved from their sin and restored to wholeness.
The resurrection of Jesus was God's way of showing what life free from sin and restored to its proper condition looks like.
In Jesus, God demonstrates that he is committed to removing sin from the world, redemptively, while at the same time preserving the sacredness of free choice.
Even in the closing pages of the Bible, where the risen Jesus appears on the proverbial "white horse" (Revelation 19) to mount the final assault on evil, he is dressed in a white robe "dipped in blood". When the followers of Jesus encounter Satan himself, they overcome him by the "blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony" (Revelation 12:10-12) and only in this way is "Satan cast down".
Ultimately, when the world suffers, God suffers with it, according to the story we read in the Bible. Read through the lens of Jesus' life and work, the Bible comes into focus on the question of evil. It is possible to read the Bible in isolation from Jesus' life and work--to grab this or that passage without thought for how it connects to the larger story. Satan did that when he quoted scripture to Jesus during the temptation. What's important for us is to know that "God is for us" and that "nothing can separate us from the love of God found in Jesus Christ" (Romans 8).



Robert I. Brown, 2005

The New Birth

The New Birth

Introduction

The Text
John 3:1-21 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him." 3 In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." 4 "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" 5 Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." 9 "How can this be?" Nicodemus asked. 10 "You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? 11 I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven-- the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."

Most people have, on occasion, had the painful thought, "I wish I could just start over." Or, they catch themselves saying, "I need to turn over a new leaf". Hindsight often convicts us of our failed past, while hope offers us the possibility that we can make a new beginning. C.H. Dodd in his scholarly treatment of the Gospel of John titles the section dealing with John 2:1-4:42 "The First Episode: The New Beginning". John's gospel begins with the familiar words "in the beginning", a phrase which carries the reader's mind back to Genesis 1:1 and the story of Creation. This literary technique makes the reader think about the life and work of Jesus as a new creation event. The very first miracle Jesus performed was turning water into wine (chapter 2), followed by the dramatic act of throwing the money changers out of the Temple, apparently to make way for something new to be put in their place (Note: John does not present his material in strict chronological sequence. And so he doesn't mind putting an event like cleansing the Temple at the front of his gospel even though the other gospels put it at the end).

It's not surprising then to find Jesus engaged in a discussion about "new birth" with Nicodemus in chapter 3. For what happened to the water when it became wine merely foreshadows what God intends to do in human lives as well. Curiously, chapter 2 ends with these words: "24 But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. 25 He did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man. " Turning water into wine and the dramatic Temple-cleansing provoked many to "believe" in him. But John comments that Jesus was not about to be fooled by first reactions to his work. He was not about to accept this public acclaim like some cheap politician huckstering for a following. Why? "He knew what was in a man." Those words cut to the heart of the human condition. They remind us of the Old Testament assessment of the human heart: Jeremiah 17:9-10 "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? 10 "I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve." One fundamental problem John's gospel addresses is the failure of the human heart to believe God. Faith cannot be just some thin intellectual exercise. Faith requires trust and commitment. But human beings are notoriously fickle and unreliable. At the core, human nature is flawed and in need of transformation. It is against this background, that Jesus commences his conversation with the Jewish Rabbi Nicodemus.

The setting of John 3 is nighttime. Darkness is a powerful symbol for evil in the Bible. It is also a way of speaking of the judgment of God on human beings. It's earliest references appear in the book of Genesis where darkness covers the deep waters just before God speaks his first creative word: "Let there be light". Before God spoke those words, the world was without form and empty, shrouded in the darkness. In the text before us John uses just such a setting to present the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. The religious world of Second Temple Judaism was the world in which Nicodemus lived. And that world was already puzzled by what it saw in the work of Jesus. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it was divided over him. Why Nicodemus chose the nighttime to meet Jesus, we can only surmise. Was he afraid that the other Jewish leaders would find out he talked with Jesus? Yet those same leaders publicly questioned him. Or was this a different kind of fear: he knew how he felt about Jesus ("a man come from God", "God is with him") and wanted the sort of privacy that would not be interrupted by the presence of many other people in broad daylight. Did he intend all along to make his commitment to Jesus, but was not free to do so in an open way? He clearly did not act that way when he defended Jesus in John 7:50. And he later assisted in the burial arrangements for Jesus (19:39). Still, there is something else we know from the Jewish Shulchan Oruch 238:1-2 and elsewhere: that studying Torah at night is even more important than doing so during the day. Jewish people were exhorted by their traditions to think about Torah throughout the watches of the night. Nicodemus might have been inclined to come to Jesus at night because he was devoutly Torah observant and saw this as an occasion to fulfill his obligations. He addresses Jesus as "rabbi", and may have come to receive instruction from him. Impressed by the signs Jesus performed, and expressing his belief that Jesus was a man come from God, Nicodemus comes for some Torah instruction.

But Jesus "knew what was in man". Nicodemus was no exception. He brought his own human condition to Jesus and reveals a bit of it when he says "Can a man be born when he is old?"--a statement leading scholars to think that he was, in fact, old. His life patterns were well formed and his attitudes towards the world around him deeply set. His times were not happy ones. He may have become cynical. Too much water under the bridge, he might have thought. But Jesus "knew what was in man". Cutting to the heart of things, he begins with "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." That kingdom was, of course, the great hope and expectation of Israel: that God would become king once again among his people as he had been in the days of David. Much militated against that kingdom, not the least of which was the Roman occupation. But even within Judaism, the skepticism of the age led some to think that it was just better to "live and let live", while others, like the Herodians, simply compromised with the ruling powers. The Zealots among them relied on violence and an eventual last battle when God would appear and destroy his enemies. The Essenes, down by Dead Sea, simply withdrew from corrupt Judaism and attempted to create something new apart from the rest, hoping for a day when the sons of light and darkness would meet in a final struggle.

Jesus had a different perspective. "Born again", he replied to Nicodemus. John's gospel was written in Greek, and the writer intentionally used a word with a double meaning, and, in the words of Jesus, he did it twice! First, he uses the Greek word gennan which can mean either "to be born" or "to be begotten". When birth is in view, the emphasis is on the feminine side of the idea: give birth, with all the associations of labor pains and the first appearance of the baby in the world. On the other hand, when the second meaning is intended, the focus shifts to the male image of impregnation which occurs at the beginning of the "new life" cycle. It's hard to isolate these two meanings, since one signals the first inklings of life, the other its promised arrival. Taken together they imply the process whereby new human life is brought into the world: begotten and then born.

The second set of meanings attach to the world translated "again" from the Greek anothen. This word can either mean "again" or "from above". Nicodemus could have heard either meaning for either word. It seems from his reply to Jesus that he picks up the birth image ("enter a second time into his mother's woman and be born"). Perhaps this misunderstanding was Nicodemus' way of trying to figure out what Rabbi Jesus intended. The student doesn't have to wait long for a clarification from the teacher. For Jesus employs two words to indicate how the birth takes place: ek hudatos kai pneumatos. The first word points to the environment from which the newborn emerges: "water". The second word points to the agent of the begetting: "Spirit". Jesus' answer points back once more to Genesis 1: "2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." This gennan of which I speak, Jesus tells his inquirer, is both a begetting and a birth, just as natural birth involves a father and a mother, an agent and an environment. Plainly, the agent of the begetting is the Holy Spirit and the environment of the birth is the human person over whom the Spirit "hovers", calling forth new life.

Human beings live the weak, frail and flawed human existence which Nicodemus knows only too well in his twilight years. Jesus calls this human existence by the simple Greek word sarx, usually translated "flesh". Human life, described in its mortality and weakness, is said to be "flesh". Jewish people were familiar with the solemn commentary on the human condition from Isaiah: 40:6-8 "The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: 7 The grass withers, the flower fades: because the spirit of the LORD blows upon it: surely the people is grass. 8 The grass withers, the flower fades: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. " This comparison of flesh and grass was fitting in the hot arid ecology of the Middle East. Pastureland was in demand and required water which was precious. The fiery sirocco wind could wither vegetation is a short time. Desert dwellers knew this. Israel's national life was grass-like. Nicodemus knew that. What Israel needs, says Jesus to him, is a fresh experience of the Holy Spirit sweeping across the watery, chaotic deep and impregnating it with the very life of God as once happened at the beginning of the first Creation. But like all wind , the Spirit (Note: the Greek word for Spirit and wind are the same) is commanded by the will of God, not man. Nothing that Nicodemus can formulate on his own can create this new life and result in a new birth.

By using gennan, John's portrayal of Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus underscores a process by which new life comes into being. First, a begetting; then, a birthing. God must do a work through the Holy Spirit in human lives, planting the seed which will result in a new birth. Human beings must be begotten from above and then born again. The mystery of the blowing wind is the mystery of the Spirit. It comes from heaven ("heavenly things", Jesus says) not from the earth. That is why Nicodemus is puzzled by it: "How can these things be?" His reaction is also ours. :Like Jesus' night visitor we also are perplexed by this begetting and birth. Nicodemus could only imagine the event in earthly terms: start over again. Jesus re-imagines it in heavenly terms: from above. Nicodemus sees the only hope in terms of the flesh. Jesus offers a new hope in terms of the Spirit.

Is Jesus merely offering some kind of mystical experience, similar to that offered by the Gnostics? Does he envision a trance or vision or appearance of angels? Plainly not. He talks instead about his own life's work. He has, after all, "come down from heaven". He will also return there, he tells Nicodemus. But this will only happen after he has been lifted up in the same way Moses lifted up the serpent of healing: (Numbers 21:9) "And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived." Humanity, like ancient Israel, has been bitten by the serpent (sin) and stands in need of healing. Jesus will do for fallen humanity what Moses did for Israel: provide the method of new life. He will be lifted up on a cross. All who look to him, who believe in him, will experience the begetting-birth process which leads to new life. And what lies behind this process which leads to eternal life? The great love of God for the world who gives His Son so that those who believe in him will have eternal life. It was not to condemn the world that God sent his Son, Jesus tells Nicodemus, but to save the world. Faith is nothing more than the human response of trust in the face of God's great love for the world in providing, not condemnation, but eternal life. Not a death sentence, but a commuted sentence and the opportunity for a new life. This is what the new birth means for Nicodemus and for us. It is God's gift of a new kind of life made possible by Jesus' death and resurrection. What Jesus offers to his conversation partner is not religion, but a relationship--one that begets and births a new life.

John's gospel contains, in the prologue, a background to these remarks made to Nicodemus. Listen to the themes of Genesis and Creation. Follow John's strategy of weaving the images of word, light and life until he finally climaxes his imagery with the arrival of Jesus into the world, born as a human being. I have highlighted the familiar expressions and printed the text in its entirety:

(John 1:1-18) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 ( John bore witness about him, and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.'") 16 And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

John's gospel contains no narrative of how Jesus was conceived by Mary while she was a virgin. Such accounts appear in Matthew and Luke only. But in his prologue he makes it clear that God's Son became flesh and in this way became the source of grace and truth for human beings. Moreover, God's Son made possible the conceiving and birthing of new children of God, "born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God." That is an extraordinary description the "new begetting" and "the new birth". When John says the children of God are born of God, he is expressing the same idea as Jesus when he said "born from above" or "born of the Spirit". To the Jewish mind, being a child of God meant being Jewish (born of blood). Jesus made clear to Nicodemus, much as John does in chapter 1, that the process by which human beings become God's children is completely from God. And John links the begetting of new children with the coming of God's Son into the flesh. Or, to put it differently: God's Son became a human being so that human beings could become sons (and daughters) of God. This is what the new birth truly means: to become a child of God. It means acquiring a new nature, a sort of spiritual DNA not based on the pattern of human genetics, but implanted by God.

The implantation of God's seed by God's Spirit happens at the beginning of the process. Sown in the human heart, grows into the new humanity. Paul in his second letter to the Corinthian Christians writes: (2 Corinthians 5:14-17) For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. 16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. We ought to notice how Paul begins (as John 3:16 does) with the "love of Christ" who died for all. As a result, anyone who lives after the death of Christ can no longer see life in the same way again. "If this man Jesus died for me", a person might say, "then my life is no longer mine but his. Whatever will become of me depends on him." But what did happen to Jesus? He died and rose again Paul writes. That means that frail mortal, weak and unreliable human nature ("the flesh", sarx) no longer sufficiently describes what human beings really are. Rather, once they find themselves "in Christ" (in relationship to Christ, joined to Christ, genetically link to Christ through the new birth), they are a New Creation. And what does that mean? That the old has passed and the new has come. Paul saw his life's work to proclaim the good news of this new creation which had already broken into the world. He looked at the lives of people touched by that word, much like a mother feels about a child about to be born: (Galatians 4:19) my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! Paul uses the metaphor of labor and birth in conjunction with the development of a baby in the womb. Christ is formed in us! That is the reality of the process which begins with begetting and climaxes with birth. In one sense, the present time of our lives is the formation of spiritual life, begotten first by God's Spirit. The realization of that promise for new life, in one sense, still awaits the future. In one sense, we have been begotten, and we await birth. In another sense, we have already been born and await growth. The metaphor used in the Bible is not a rigid one, but allows for different applications to our lives.

To illustrate the rich variety of "birth" images in the New Testament, consider the following text from Paul:

(Galatians 4:22-31) For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born (gennan) according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written, "Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband." (see Isaiah 54:1) 28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. 30 But what does the Scripture say? "Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman." 31 So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

From this text we see additional meanings of the "new begetting-new birth" experience. Paul tells his readers that the begetting and the birth is "from above", "according to promise", "according to the Spirit", and it is not "from slavery" or "the flesh" He also tells us that he is using a metaphor derived from the account of Abraham's two sons. Paul's decisive affirmation from this comparison is, simply, "We are not children of the slave but of the free…"

Echoes of the new birth are also heard in Peter's letters. Consider: (1 Peter 1:3-5) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again (Greek: anagennan, "begotten or born", "again" or "from above)--same dual meaning applies) to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Peter chooses a compounded root of gennan with the preposition ana to communicate a very similar meaning as we found in John's Gospel. Later in his letter he expands the metaphor: (1 Peter 1:23-25) since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for "All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, 25 but the word of the Lord remains forever." And this word is the good news that was preached to you. Because Peter uses the language of "perishable" vs. "imperishable seed", he clearly has the "begetting" connotation of gennan in view. The idea is of the implantation of a divine seed into the life of a person which brings new life into being. The seed is "the word of God", a connection also made by Jesus himself when he gave the parable of the sower and the seed. Here, Peter applies the planting of seed to the heart of human beings who receive the word of God found in the Gospel ("good news") preached to them. Using the imagery in this way, Peter is saying that God impregnates our lives with the word of the Gospel. If we receive that word, it conceives new life within us and the result is the new birth. Such a new birth is needed because we are "flesh-like-grass" (recall the text quoted earlier from Isaiah, now quoted by Peter). The word of God renews our lives through the new birth. Like the soil of Jesus' parable, we must be ready to receive the seed in order for it to grow within us. When it does, the new birth is the result.

The letters of John more fully develop "the begetting and birth" theme:

(1 John 2:29) If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. (1 John 3:9) No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. (1 John 4:7) Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. (1 John 5:1-5 ) Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world- our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:18) We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.

The common thread running through these passages in the Johannine letters is the evidence we have that we have experienced the new birth. A person who wonders whether the new birth has actually taken place in her life should look for such things as: 1) a righteous life, 2) a life that does not make a habit of sinning, 3) love for one another and 4)love for God, 5) obedience to the commandments of God, 6) belief that Jesus is God's Son, 7) victory over the power of the world and, 8)the protection of God. These are all identified by John as evidences of new birth and that the "seed of God" is bearing fruit within a person's life. The very fact that John supplies such a list of "reality checks" for the new birth suggests that people may at times wonder if they have actually undergone this experience. Perhaps they have heard others report some unusual awakening within them or a definite tug at their heart strings by the Holy Spirit. After a moving church service or other evangelistic meeting they may have responded to an invitation to "come forward" and "give your heart to Jesus"--something they promptly did. What happened to them in those moments they connect directly to an experience of the new birth. They tell us they can remember the place and the date. This becomes their testimony of how God saved them and forgave their sins. At this moment, they tell us, they were "born again". Yet, others who consider themselves equally God's children, may not report such a definite, datable event in their life. For them, the whole experience of being God's child was a process which took time. While they might be able to identify the first time they heard the gospel, they may not connect that "hearing" with the new birth. From a biblical perspective, they received the word like seed which was planted in their hearts. Over time, the seed began to show signs of producing new life within them until they made the remarkable discovery that they were truly God's children who had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Both cases are real and genuine expressions of the new birth experience. To them we could add more. What about the person who was "born into a Christian family", was baptized as a child, taught as a child and early in life embraced the Christian gospel. Their life was continuously nurtured by Christian truth and love. They too might find it difficult to point to a specific place and time. Yet, they have a consciousness of being God's children.

What John is telling us in his letters is to look for the signs of new life. Just as a paramedic might examine an accident victim for life signs (e.g. respiration, pulse, blood pressure, etc.) we are able to see spiritual life signs and pronounce ourselves alive in Christ, whatever the length of the process or its particular order of events. At some point we simply know that we are God's new born children whether we are exactly clear about all the steps that got us there. Imagine, for a moment, trying to prove that you had been begotten by your father and birthed by your mother. Do you remember your begetting? Do you recall your birth? Do you believe yourself to be alive physically, the product of a begetting and a birth? At this point in your life, it's wholly acceptable to simply reply to such questions, "Well, here I am a living, breathing, palpitating and conscious human being. What more proof do you require?" So, too, the spiritual born child of God may simply point to the life signs of spiritual life and say, "Yes, I have been begotten and born of God. Here's what I remember about how I got here. But, more importantly, I can now testify to the presence of God in my spirit, his love in my heart, his words in my mind, and his actions lived out in my life." With John, such persons can bear witness that they are "born of God". And so can we. Amen.