You Must Be Born Again, Part 2

Last week I mentioned that we’re essentially doing a two part mini series within our overall series walking verse by verse through the gospel of John. And in today’s passage, we get one of the most important theological conversations in the entire New Testament. In John 3:3, Jesus says, “unless one is born again he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” And the fullness of what it means to become a Christian as well as what it looks like to live as a Christian rests on your understanding of what Jesus means by that statement.

John 3:3 ESV

³ Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

If you’re not a follower of Jesus this morning, I hope our study in these first 15 verses of John 3 can be both clarifying and freeing as you get more of a picture of life in Christ—both what it is and what it isn’t. If you are a Christian, then I hope looking at the incredible beauty of what Scripture calls “new birth” will stir your hearts to worship our sovereign God as well as challenge you to think more deeply about your faith and what God has done to redeem and restore you in a right relationship with himself.

This is a glorious passage of Scripture, but it is not an easy passage of Scripture. Even if you’re not familiar with Jesus’ conversation with the man named Nicodemus in verses 1-15, chances are you know how it ends in verse 16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Jesus ends by pointing people to believe in him, so that they would not perish but have eternal life. And yet, if you remember from last week, John 2 ends with a story of people believing in Jesus’ name after seeing him perform miracles. But Jesus sees their belief and doesn’t accept it. Verses 24-25 says, “[he] did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.”

Last week we dove into what’s known as the doctrine of total depravity, and both that passage of Scripture and this one have to go together. You can go back and listen to that sermon, but I also feel like I need to do a brief recap before we really dive into chapter 3 because only in the context of understanding the depth of our need can we truly appreciate the magnitude of God’s provision through Christ.

The doctrine of total depravity essentially means that, since the garden of Eden, our human nature has been corrupted as a sinful nature—we are naturally predisposed against God, which leaves us unable to follow God on our own.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re free creatures, but just like any other living thing, our free will operates within our nature. A dog can’t choose to fly. A mosquito can’t choose to not bite me (it seems). God can’t choose to sin.

And humans cannot naturally choose God’s righteousness. It’s against our nature that’s been corrupted by sin. That’s what Romans 8:7-8 that we read last week tells us: “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Now, that doesn’t mean we can’t do things that are good for others or good for the world. We’re created in the image of a good God, and you reflect a part of his goodness whether you know him or not. There’s a lot of good in the world.

But what makes an act righteous is when it rightly points to the God who makes it good. It gives him glory. So, we might still have good motivations for our actions but they be sinful because they don’t reach the culmination of the goodness we were created for—they don’t point to our good God. When the Bible talks about “sin”, it’s more than simply a statement of morality; it’s ultimately a rebellion and a misdirection of where we ascribe glory—disordering our affections and putting things in the central position of our heart that only God should occupy.

We can’t naturally choose God’s righteousness, But even more than that, we can’t understand it. 1 Corinthians 2:14 tells us, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” And why is this? The Apostle Paul sums up our natural position well at the start of Ephesians 2 when he says, “you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.”

So, across the end of John 2 through the first half of John 3, John tells us there is a wrong way of believing in Jesus that does not lead to eternal life, and there is a right way of believing in Jesus that does lead to eternal life. He’s told us why the wrong way was wrong: there’s an issue in our hearts—what we’ve described as our sinful nature—we’re dead in our trespasses and sins—and John 2:24 says that’s true of all people.

So, what’s the solution? How do we go from the wrong kind of belief, which we can’t help but do because our hearts are predisposed against God and unable to understand or submit to the things of God—how do we go from the wrong kind of belief that doesn’t lead to redemption and reconciliation with God to the right kind of belief that John 3:16 says leads to eternal life?

That’s what Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in verses 1-15 sets out to answer. That’s why it’s put smack dab in the middle here to help people move from wrong belief to right belief, and it’s why the doctrine of the new birth is one of the most liberating and hope-filled truths in the entire Bible.

So, what I want to do this morning as we walk through the dialogue in these verses is to draw out 6 characteristics of what it means to be born again and what that means for our lives, whether you’re curious about Jesus or currently following Jesus.

And just one more disclaimer because I want to make sure we’re all on the same page when I use the term “born again”. Today, that phrase can often be used to describe a political voting block, and people might understand it as a certain type of Christian. But I want to be clear, this is just what it means to be a follower of Jesus in the book of John.

In the 1970s, Charles Colson, who was an adviser to President Nixon, became a Christian and wrote a best selling book called Born Again. A few years later, President Jimmy Carter called himself a “born-again Christian.” Since then, that phrase has been a normal part of our culture.

But the idea of a born-again Christian is redundant, like describing a car that drives. As we’re going to see in this passage, every Christian is born again, and in order for someone to become a Christian, they must be born again.

Okay, so characteristic number 1. What does it mean to be born again? First, it’s a matter of the heart. Look with me at verses 1 and 2.

John 3:1–2 ESV

¹ Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. ² This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”

This is the first moment since the introduction of the book where we don’t see John establish the chronology from one event to the next. He’s been telling us, “the next day”, “the next day”, “on the third day.” But here in verse 1, he just sets the scene for Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus. It seems like this might not have happened immediately after the events of chapter 2, but John is intentionally placing this account after chapter 2 because of how it ties in our spiritual need with God’s provision of new birth.

Here, a man named Nicodemus approaches Jesus, and right out the gate, we learn a couple things about him. He was a Pharisee, which means he was a religious leader of the Jews. He followed every letter of the law. He would’ve had the entire Old Testament memorized. Like verse 1 says, he was looked up to as “a ruler of the Jews.”

And then the other thing we learn about him we read in verse 2: he “came to Jesus by night.” And that makes sense. This guy’s supposed to know the Jewish faith backwards and forwards, and here is a man that is reforming worship practices in the temple and teaching about God and doing miraculous signs, and Nicodemus doesn’t know what to do with any of that. Whether it was trying to avoid being seen or being looked down upon by his his peers, he clearly wanted the conversation to be in private.

Interestingly, in every other instance where John uses this same Greek word for “night” throughout his gospel—whether metaphorically for spiritual darkness or literally for nighttime—John uses it to draw out the same kind of symbolism. Nicodemus was more in the dark than he realized.

In verse 2, he doesn’t ask Jesus a question. He reflects on what he believes about Jesus with a statement. He believes he’s a teacher come from God, he believes God is with him, and he believes he can do signs (or miracles). In other words, Nicodemus’ belief was very similar to the way the people in John 2:23-25 are described. He seemed to believe in Jesus, but he didn’t understand who Jesus really is and hadn’t submitted his life to him. He thought of Jesus as a good teacher, but not as the Messiah, much like many people do today.

Nicodemus didn’t have an issue with what he saw; he had an issue with what his heart hoped in. He was only looking to understand Jesus—not to worship Jesus. Maybe that’s some of you here this morning. You’ve resisted following Christ because you feel like there’s so more to know about him.

I can tell you now: if a person can be married 50 years and still have more to learn about their spouse, then you will never arrive with a full understanding of our infinite God. Stop waiting till you “know enough”. There will always be more to learn, and it’s part of what makes him worth following! He’s bigger than you, and you fit under his understanding rather than him fitting under yours.

But at the same time, understanding who Jesus is and what he’s done certainly matters. Romans 10:14 says, “how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard.” If following Jesus is about the heart, then sincerely living for him will require you to grow in your affections for him, which are be fueled by what you know about him. Nicodemus needed to know and understand who Jesus is and what he came to do, just like all of us. But salvation is more than just a matter of our understanding, and Jesus’ response in verse 3 points that out. He says,

John 3:3 ESV

³ “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

You see, not only is the new birth a matter of the heart—the second characteristic is that it’s also required in order to be saved. For a Pharisee in the first century, the “kingdom of God” pointed to the kingdom at the end of the age—being able to experience resurrection and eternal life. And Jesus doesn’t mention our belief here. He doesn’t mention our good works. He says, “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Now, this isn’t Jesus saying you don’t have to believe. The Bible tells us elsewhere that you must. Just look a few verses down to John 3:16. He’s also not saying it doesn’t matter if you demonstrate the fruit of good works in your life. The book of James is pretty clear on that topic. But what Jesus is saying in verse 3 is that your beliefs and your effort will not save you if you haven’t been born again. This “new birth” is essential and fundamental for every Christian.

I’ve been watching team USA play in the World Cup (that’s soccer, by the way). I certainly don’t understand the rules like I do for basketball or football, but I get what’s going on in the game. They’re playing in North America this year, so I could even go to a game and run on the field and try to play if I wanted to.

But that won’t work out well for me. Because it doesn’t matter if I understand the sport or can get on the field and kick the ball—if I’m not on the team, then none of those things will count for much. They’ll actually probably work against me when I get caught by security.

So, it really matters that we know what it means to be “born again” because it’s our foundation for everything else. In that phrase, the Greek word for “again” is anōthen. In the three other places that word’s used in the gospel of John, it’s translated as “from above”. And to a degree that seems to fit here as well: “unless one is born [from above] he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

That seems to be what Jesus means as we get further into the passage—we need a spiritual birth that comes from God. That’s also what John told us all the way back in the introduction to the book in John 1:13. And it points to the third characteristic we see in our passage about the new birth: it addresses a spiritual need.

But that’s not how Nicodemus understands what Jesus is saying. In verse 4, he replies with confusion asking, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” It seems like Jesus is saying “born from above” but Nicodemus is hearing “born again”, and the Greek word anōthen accommodates both.

I think that’s intentional on John’s part in how he’s recorded this conversation. Jesus and Nicodemus wouldn’t have been speaking in Greek. They would have used Aramaic. But when John goes to write it down in Greek, he intentionally uses anōthen for its dual meaning in order to convey the inability of Nicodemus to understand what Jesus is trying to say. Like we read in 1 Corinthians 2:14, the natural person does not understand the things of God, and that’s made clear here.

But in that passage in 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul continues on to address the other side of the coin.

1 Corinthians 2:14–15 ESV

¹⁴ The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. ¹⁵ The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

So, Paul says there are two types of people: the natural person and the spiritual person. How do you go from being one to the other if the natural person can’t understand or accept the things of the Spirit of God? Jesus tells us here in John 3: You must be born again. You must be born from above—a spiritual birth that makes us the spiritual person that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 2:15.

Let this be an encouragement to you because Jesus doesn’t just say this to some random guy, he says it to the religious elite—the cream of the crop. Even with all his knowledge and experience and sincerity and reputation, Jesus still tells Nicodemus, You must be born again. And that means that if you feel like you don’t measure up to Nicodemus or a pastor or the person sitting next to you or anyone else, Jesus’ prescription for your sin problem is still the same: You must be born again. We’re all in the same boat.

Of course, Nicodemus is still confused on what Jesus actually means by that, which we see in verse 4, and maybe you’re confused as well. Thankfully, Jesus’ starts to offer some more clarity in verse 5:

John 3:5 ESV

⁵ Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

If you were trying to learn how to do something new at your job, and your boss explains it to you but you don’t understand, and then he just says exactly the same thing again, would that be helpful? No, of course not. It would be frustrating. Clearly, that explanation wasn’t enough. I know the information is the same, but I need a new angle to understand it better.

That’s what Jesus does for Nicodemus in verse 5. Nicodemus misunderstands what he means by the phrase “born again” (or “born from above”), so Jesus reframes the same statement to provide a different angle. We can tell that’s the case by the way verse 3 and verse 5 both end. Verse 3 talks about seeing the kingdom of God and verse 5 mentions entering the kingdom of God. Since there’s a parallel in the backend of each verse, we can trust there’s also a parallel in the frontend of each verse.

In verse 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus, “unless one is born again.” In verse 5, he shifts the angle and says, “unless one is born of water and the Spirit.” This tells us that being born again and being born of water and the Spirit are referring to the same thing. While there’s much more to say about this connection in the coming verses, what we can see so far is that the act of new birth is, in fact, a spiritual act. Which makes sense, because as we’ve already seen, we have a spiritual need.

We’re predisposed against following God. On our own, we’re unable to live righteously for God. Our sincere attempts at goodness might benefit those around us, but they ultimately fall short of glorifying the good God that made us. Unless there is a spiritual work done in us, we will not be united with God in eternity.

Once again, this sounds like bad news, but I think it can be encouraging news. If God must do a work in us for us to be saved—and he is able to do it—then that means he can do it for anyone. We all have a spiritual need. And Jesus is able to meet that spiritual need for anyone—your family member, your friend, your co-worker, yourself. No one can see the kingdom of God without the work of our Savior, but also no one is too far gone and out of his reach whom he can’t save.

Our fourth characteristic, and our primary reason for hope in the new birth is that it’s not something we can do for ourselves. It’s not something we earn. It’s not something we initiate. The new birth is the spiritual work of our sovereign Lord. Let’s keep reading in verses 6-8.

John 3:6–8 ESV

⁶ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

So, Jesus offers a different angle on being born again in saying you must be born of water and the Spirit—which we’re going to come back to—and then he continues on in verses 6-8 to explain the implications of this being a spiritual work. First off, in verse 6 he says that, because it’s spiritual, only the Spirit can do it. Rabbits give birth to rabbits. Humans give birth to humans. And God’s Holy Spirit gives birth to our spirit.

While that might seem like an obvious truth, it is an incredibly hard truth. John was preparing us for this way back in verse 13 of chapter 1 when he describes those who become children of God, saying they “were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” Neither our background, nor our actions, nor our choices can bring us from spiritual death to spiritual life. We are not decisive in our own salvation. We were dead, but by God’s grace, we have been made alive.

Personally, I find this hard for two reasons: one, it requires my humility. Because the doctrine of the new birth means I am a sinner saved by God’s grace alone. I’m not someone who was smart enough to find the right way to heaven. I’m no more deserving to be forgiven by God than the vilest person our world has ever known. Compared to our perfectly holy God, we all fall infinitely short. I am a child of God because he is great, not because I am.

But also, the doctrine of the new birth requires me to rest—and that’s hard. I’m a doer, and when there’s a problem that needs to be solved or someone that needs help, I tend to default to trying to take the burden on myself. I think I can do more, I can help more. But our need for the new birth tells me there’s nothing I could do.

I was spiritually dead and separated from God. Dead things can’t make themselves come alive. I couldn’t do more or help more to solve the problem, because I was the problem. The gospel isn’t about my effort; it’s about my rescue, which means I have to constantly remind myself of what Jesus has done for me and rest in his work rather than my own—rest in what he has done to give me new life rather than what I could do for myself.

And because he’s the only one who can do it, then the security of my eternal identity is dependent on my all-powerful God to sustain it. I don’t have the burden of trying not to fall away from him. He keeps me and will finish the work he’s started in me.

Like Jesus points out in verse 8, the work of God’s Spirit is like the wind—we don’t get to choose where the wind blows, and especially back then they didn’t really understand how the wind even worked. Clearly, Nicodemus is still struggling. But in verse 9-10, we see our fifth characteristic of the new birth: It’s always been God’s plan. In verse 9,

John 3:9–10 ESV

⁹ Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰ Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?

If this passage has been challenging for you up to this point, verse 10 is where we get the key that starts to unlock everything. Jesus has said, “You must be born again” and “You must be born of water and the Spirit.” And Nicodemus is clueless. But in verse 10, Jesus calls him out on it: “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” Why would he say that? It’s as if Jesus is telling Nicodemus that his position and expertise as a Pharisee should enable him to get what he’s trying to communicate.

If you’re a doctor, and I come to you and say, “I think I need help. My finger fell off.” You’re response shouldn’t be, “I don’t understand. Why is that a problem?” No, you’re a doctor. You know fingers should stay attached to people’s bodies.

So, what is it about Jesus saying, “You must be born again” and ”You must be born of water and the Spirit” that should have triggered Nicodemus’ knowledge as a Pharisee? Some people think that the idea of being born of water and the Spirit is referring to our natural birth and our spiritual birth.

But that doesn’t connect to Nicodemus as a Pharisee. And in the Greek there’s only one preposition that carries the weight of both water and Spirit. Those two words are describing one thing, not two. It’s not born “of water and of the Spirit.” They are, as one act, describing being born again. Which means water also doesn’t refer to baptism here like some people have thought, and that would have been a foreign connection for Nicodemus in his day as well.

No, Nicodemus’ knowledge as a Pharisee was steeped in the Old Testament. He would have had the whole thing memorized. And there’s one primary place in the entire Old Testament that refers directly to water and Spirit as part of a new birth: Ezekiel 36:25-27. As God speaks to Ezekiel and promises his people that there will be a day when he’ll restore them and cleanse them from their sin, he says this:

Ezekiel 36:25–27 ESV

²⁵ I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. ²⁶ And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Long before Jesus came and dwelt among us, God promised that he would clean and renew us. Notice who the primary actor is throughout these verses: God says, I will sprinkle clean water on you. I will cleanse you. I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove your heart of stone. I will give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you. And I will cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

This process of being cleansed of our sin and given a new heart from God is known as the doctrine of regeneration. And immediately after God tells this to Ezekiel in chapter 36, he provides a vision of a valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37. God raises those dead bones to life as a demonstration of what he does when he cleanses us from our sin and gives us a new heart to live for him. That’s the new birth.

Last week, I poked fun at one of the guys in our church for being a Falcons fan. The Falcons are still awful, but that’s not the point. I’m naturally predisposed against that team. No one is going to convince me to cheer for them because my heart is against them.

Our hearts are born against God’s rule in our lives. Ever since Adam and Eve rebelled in the garden of Eden, we’re naturally inclined to try to be the ruler of our own lives. So, when faced with the teaching of Jesus and the miracles of Jesus in John 2, people like Nicodemus believed in what Jesus could do, but they did not submit to him for who he is as Savior and Lord. In order to do that, in order to be forgiven of our sins and enter the kingdom of heaven, Jesus tells us in John 3 that we must be born again. God must do a work in us that enables the right kind of belief in him.

And I want to be clear here. He doesn’t force our faith. He gives us a new heart, and with that new heart comes new desires. The heart of a Falcons fan doesn’t have to be forced to cheer for the Falcons. He freely, of his own will, chooses to come and be a fan.

The new birth and our faith work together like fire and heat. The second you have fire, you have heat. There’s no lapse in time between the two. They occur together. And yet, it is also the fire that is the decisive cause of the heat.

God places a new fire within us as he removes our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh. And simultaneously with the new birth but also through the new birth, we freely come to him in faith. How? In verses 11-15, we see our sixth and final characteristic: The new birth leads us to Jesus. In verse 11, Jesus is saying he’s the source of the new birth, but Nicodemus doesn’t believe it.

Then, in verses 12 and 13, he alludes to Daniel 7 as he talks about the Son of man descending from heaven to us as our Savior, so he can ascend back to heaven and reign as our Lord. This makes him the bridge for us to be “born from above”. And what does that look like in our life? Verses 14 and 15 tell us. Jesus says,

John 3:14–15 ESV

¹⁴ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

Here, he brings Nicodemus to Numbers 21:4-9 where the Israelites were disciplined for their sin against God with fiery serpents that bit them. They only way they could live was to look up to the bronze serpent God had Moses make and set on a pole. Numbers 21:9 literally says, “if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.”

Jesus tells Nicodemus that he is the true and better bronze serpent and that one day, he too would be lifted up. Looking to the bronze serpent on the pole kept people from dying. Looking to Jesus on the cross gives people new life. That’s why the immediate next verse is the invitation of John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

You cannot control the wind, and you cannot choose to be given new birth. But the gospel is good news because we are invited—not to try to figure out if something has happened to our hearts—we’re invited to look to Jesus rather than ourselves and live. The clearest sign that you’ve been born again is your faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

Nicodemus came into this conversation with the wrong kind of belief in Jesus, but we see him two more times in the gospel of John. In John 7, he speaks compassionately to the other Pharisees about Jesus, and then after the cross in John 19, Nicodemus prepares his body for burial, now as a follower of Jesus. Anyone can look to Jesus and live.

Let’s pray.