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.