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Friends United Meeting |
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July/August 1999
You Must Be Born Again
By J. Rodney Powell
The streets are dark and nearly deserted. A lone figure makes his furtive way through their embrace. His robes are nondescript and concealing for he wants no attention. Perhaps the irony strikes him as he moves from recess to recess, for he is a religious leader, usually appreciative of attention.
The one he seeks is a teacher, a man who possesses unusual insight into the things of God. It is said that this man is also a worker of miracles and wonders, able to heal even those disabled from birth. These great feats have been performed in the open, even in the great temple before his colleagues, defying their ability to reason and explain away. But how they have tried to explain away this great teacher and his miracles! How they have tried to trap him in his words; expose him as a fraud; imply his lack of sanity; even suggest that he is a tool of Beelzebub. Yet this simple carpenter has defied them and escaped all their clever traps. Is it any wonder then that many of them loathe and hate him? Still this teacher from Nazareth doesn't seem to fear them; he grows bolder daily.
Bolder is perhaps an understatement. Recently, this simple teacher singlehandedly drove off the Temple moneychangers and the sellers of sacrificial animals. This man had the boldness to oppose Annas who owned the tables and booths that had been placed in the temple courts by his son-in-law Caiaphas' orders. He possessed the boldness to oppose both the former and acting high priests on the prin-ciple of the matter, with nothing to gain and everything to lose. Yes, this is a man who may hold a great many answers.
Finally, Nicodemus finds his way into the house he was looking for and is ushered into the presence of the great teacher. Trying his best to break the ice and show respect he says, "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."
Immediately, Jesus replies, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."
Stunned by this response to his platitude and confused by its meaning, Nicodemus asks, "How can a man be born when he is old? Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"
Jesus answers, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of the water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.'"
Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a legalist, a fundamentalist, a Bible-thumper if you will. Not only this but Nicodemus was a respected man, a member of the Jewish ruling council. Nicodemus was a good man, a man who devoted his whole life to the pursuit and service of God, yet Jesus tells him that there is something lacking in his life. This lack affects his spiritual understanding, for without it, "no one can see the kingdom of God." It even affects where he will spend eternity: without it, "no one will enter the kingdom of God."
Nicodemus has been physically born, but he is in need of a spiritual birth, a second birth. The implication is that something has kept him in a state of spiritual dormancy or death. That something is sin. Years later the apostle Paul, himself once a Pharisee, will write and tell the Roman Jews, that, "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23, NIV)
Here is the problem with thinking, "We are religious, and that is enough." Here is the fault in assuming that all is right between us and God, simply on the basis that we (or others) deem us to be "good" people. Being religious, being a good person, even being born into the right family and denomination does not convey to us a living relationship with God. Nicodemus had all those traits in spades, to a far greater degree than we probably ever could, yet he was still lacking. Years later the apostle Paul would confirm this status of all humanity by saying, " all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." The truth is that we, like Nicodemus, need to be "born again" spiritually. To fail to accept Christ and his atoning acts is to choose eternal condemnation and spiritual death.
Jesus indicates that this birth is a clear-cut act in a moment of time just like a physical birth. Furthermore, like a physical birth, this spiritual birth, rightly understood, is one into a family. People who experience this second birth are not merely the creations of God; they not only have a living relationship with God; they are not just friends of God; they become the children of God through the "Spirit of Adoption." As the apostle Paul wrote in his epistle to the Romans, "you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God." (Romans 8:15-16, NRS)
So how does this spiritual birth into the family of God take place? Jesus goes on to explain this also:
"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 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." (John 3:14-18, NIV)
You experience this second, spiritual birth by accepting by faith that God has loved you so much that He sent his only Son, Jesus, into the world to be lifted up on the cross and die for your sins. God's deepest desire is to not condemn the world for its sins, and so He has sent his Son to redeem and make as his children all who will be-lieve in his Son and this plan of salvation. The apostle Paul would later say to the Roman Jews, "But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe." (Romans 3: 21-22, NIV)
Coming to a living, personal, heart faith in Jesus, his birth, death and resurrection for us, is central to this experience of being "born again." Certainly there is more to this than a head knowledge of who Jesus is. Repeatedly in the gospel accounts, the servants of the Enemy recognized Jesus for who he was (the one and only Son of God) and they feared him, but they put no trust in him. In Jesus they saw no deliverance or salvation. There was no repentant attitude in their hearts and they knew there was no hope for them. We must, in our coming to faith, be willing to understand our condition of need. Like Nicodemus, we are missing something and, as a result, are condemned in our sins. In this honest humility we are freed to grasp by faith the hope that God offers us in his Son and his atoning acts. It is that of God in every person that enables us to perceive our condition and respond in faith by reaching up our hand as from a miry pit to grasp the hand of God reaching down to us through Christ's atoning works.
Jesus concludes his discourse with Nicodemus, saying,
"This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 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." (John 3:19-21, NIV)
Faith is a personal choice, which not everyone is willing to make. The choice of faith requires the humility to admit one's sins and failings and then to turn to God in the Light of Jesus. It requires us to put our faith not in ourselves, nor in our good intentions and good works, but rather in the Truth of the work of Christ. It requires us to admit that whatever good we do is not of ourselves, but rather is of and from God. We live by God's grace alone.
Rodney Powell is completing his eleventh year of pastoral ministry. For the last five years he has been pastor of Piney Woods Friends, North Carolina Yearly Meeting, with his wife Julie, his son Thomas, and a child yet to experience the first birth. Rodney has a bachelor of science from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his master of divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary.
Copyright (c) 1999 Friends United Meeting
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