Ye Must Be Born Again: What the New Birth Actually Is

A man came to the Lord Jesus Christ at night, and he was not a sceptic. He was a teacher of Israel, a member of the ruling council, and by every visible measure a religious success. What he was told, before he had finished his opening compliment, was that he could not so much as see the kingdom of God.

Not that he needed correcting. Not that he needed to try harder. That he needed to be born again.

1. The night visit

"There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." (John 3:1-2)

Nicodemus opens with courtesy and orthodoxy. Everything he says is true. And the Lord Jesus Christ does not answer the compliment at all: He answers what the man came about, which had not yet been spoken:

"Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3)

Read what has just happened. A man at the top of the religious system in Israel is told he is on the outside, not badly positioned within it, outside it, unable even to see.

And note the reason given. Not that his doctrine was defective. Not that his conduct fell short. That he had never been born.

Consider who this man was, because the whole force of the passage depends on it.

A Pharisee, which meant a life ordered by the law down to the smallest detail. A ruler of the Jews: a member of the Sanhedrin, the seventy who governed the religious life of the nation. And later in the chapter, the teacher of Israel, with the definite article: not one teacher among many but a man of standing among teachers.

If any man alive had grounds to assume he was inside the kingdom, it was this one.

And notice when he came. By night. Scripture does not explain it, and men have guessed at fear of his colleagues or a wish for an unhurried hearing. Either way, something had unsettled him enough to come, and enough to come when nobody would see.

That is worth noticing if you have found yourself reading a page like this privately, without telling anyone you were curious.

2. Why a birth, and not a repair

The picture God chose is exact, and He could have chosen others.

He might have said except a man be improved, or educated, or reformed. Every one of those assumes something already alive that needs work done to it. He said born, which assumes something not there at all.

"And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." (Ephesians 2:1)

Dead. Not weakened. Not ailing. That word decides the whole question, because you can nurse the sick and you can rehabilitate the injured, and you can do nothing whatever for the dead but raise them.

A birth is also something you contribute nothing to. Nobody assisted at his own. Nobody chose the family, the hour, or the country. It is the one event in a person’s history in which he was entirely passive and entirely the beneficiary.

Which is precisely why God chose it.

There is a second reason the picture is exact, and it explains why religion so often makes the problem worse rather than better.

A dead man can be dressed well. He can be positioned respectably, surrounded by flowers, and spoken of warmly. Everything about him can be improved except the one thing that matters.

That is what religious effort does to a man who has never been born. It improves the arrangement. It does not address the condition, and the better the arrangement looks, the less likely he is to notice.

Which is exactly why the Lord Jesus Christ said this to a Pharisee and not to a prostitute. She knew she was dead. He did not.

"They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick." (Mark 2:17)

3. The objection Nicodemus raised, and why it was fair

"Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?" (John 3:4)

He is not mocking. He is a serious man taking a statement seriously and finding it impossible, and his objection is the right one, because it is impossible. That is the point.

No man can arrange his own second birth any more than he arranged his first. If the new birth were something a man could do, the Lord Jesus Christ chose an unfortunate picture. He did not choose it unfortunately.

"Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." (John 3:5-7)

That which is born of the flesh is flesh. There is the reason no amount of effort will serve. Flesh produces flesh, and never anything higher. A man may polish his flesh into something admirable and it remains what it was.

4. What "born of water and of the Spirit" means

This phrase has been made to carry a great deal, and it is worth handling carefully.

It is often taken to mean baptism, which would make the new birth depend on an act performed by another man with a basin. That reading collapses on two facts.

First, Nicodemus was expected to understand it already. The Lord Jesus Christ rebukes him for not knowing:

"Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?" (John 3:10)

Christian baptism did not yet exist. Whatever the phrase meant, it was something a teacher of Israel should have found in his own Scriptures, and he could have, in Ezekiel, where water and Spirit appear together as God’s promise to cleanse and renew His people.

"Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean... A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." (Ezekiel 36:25-26)

Second, Scripture names the agent of the new birth elsewhere, and it is not water.

"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." (1 Peter 1:23)

The Word is the seed. The Spirit is the One who gives the life. And water in Scripture is repeatedly the figure of that cleansing Word:

"That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word." (Ephesians 5:26)

Cleansing and life: the Word applied and the Spirit working. That a master of Israel should have known.

There is a third consideration that settles it for most readers.

If water here meant baptism, then the thief on the cross was excluded, and he was promised paradise that same day, unbaptized, with no possibility of remedy. Whatever verse 5 requires, the thief had it while nailed to a piece of wood.

And the apostle Paul, writing to Titus, puts the same two elements together in a sentence that leaves no room for a ceremony:

"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." (Titus 3:5)

Not by works of righteousness which we have done. Baptism is a work of righteousness which a man does. The verse rules it out in the same breath that it names the washing and the renewing.

5. The wind

"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8)

Three things are true of wind, and each is true of this.

You do not command it. No man schedules wind. He may hoist a sail when it comes, but he does not make it come.

You cannot see it. You see what it moves. Which means nobody watches the new birth happen: they watch a life afterwards and infer it.

But you know when it is there. The invisibility is not uncertainty. A man in a gale is not in doubt.

This answers a question anxious people ask constantly: why do I not remember the moment? Some do; many do not. You did not witness your first birth either, and you are not therefore unsure that you were born.

There is a fourth thing about wind that the illustration carries, and it may be the most useful of all.

Wind is not uniform. It comes as a gale on one coast and a breath through a window on another, and it is the same air.

So it is with this. Some are converted in an hour they can name, with a violence they never forget. Others cannot tell you the week, only that at some point they came to believe what they had not believed, and to want what they had not wanted.

Neither has a better birth than the other. The evidence of life is not the drama of its arrival. A quiet baby is as alive as a loud one.

Men have been made miserable for years by comparing their conversion with somebody else’s testimony. Scripture never asks a believer to produce a dramatic account. It asks whether he has the life.

One more thing about the wind, and it is the reason the illustration was chosen for a man like Nicodemus.

He had spent his life inside a system that could be inspected. Sabbaths kept, tithes measured, washings performed, all of it visible and auditable. A man could stand back and see how he was doing.

And he is handed an image of something nobody can inspect at all, which must have been the most disturbing part of the conversation for him. Everything he had built his confidence on was countable. This was not.

That is still where the offence lies. Men would far rather be given a standard to reach than be told they must be given something. The first leaves a man in charge of the outcome. The second does not.

6. What is actually new

The phrase can sound like an intensified version of turning over a new leaf. It is not the same order of thing.

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17)

A new creature. Not a repaired one. The word is the word used of creation itself — God making what was not there.

What is new is not the personality, the memory, or the circumstances. A man converted on Tuesday has the same face on Wednesday and the same difficult relatives. What is new is a nature that did not exist before: a capacity for God where there had been none.

"Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature." (2 Peter 1:4)

Which explains something believers find puzzling. If the new birth put an end to the old nature, the Christian life would be effortless. It does not. It adds a new nature alongside the old, and the conflict a believer feels is not evidence that nothing happened — it is evidence that something did. A corpse does not struggle.

"For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other." (Galatians 5:17)

This is worth pressing, because it settles a question that troubles honest believers more than almost any other.

A man is converted. He expects the old appetites to fall away, and some do. Then, weeks or years later, he finds himself wanting something he thought he had finished with, and he concludes that the whole thing was imaginary.

But look at what the apostle Paul, writing as a mature believer and an apostle, says of himself:

"For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I." (Romans 7:15)

That is not a man describing his life before conversion. It is a man describing the war that began at conversion, and he wrote it under inspiration so that no believer would mistake the war for an absence of life.

Before the new birth there is no war. There is one nature, going its own way, occasionally restrained by conscience or consequence. The conflict itself is new. It arrived with the second nature, and it is the surest evidence that the second nature is there.

7. It cannot be inherited, achieved, or arranged

Scripture closes three doors in a single verse, and they are the three men reach for.

"Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 1:13)

Not of blood, not inherited. A Christian home is a mercy and it is not a birth. God has no grandchildren.

Not of the will of the flesh, not achieved by resolve. A man may determine on reform with his whole heart and remain exactly what he was.

Not of the will of man, not arranged by another. No parent, no minister, no ceremony can perform it for you.

But of God. Which is either the most humbling sentence in the chapter or the most freeing, depending on how long you have been trying.

The first of those three deserves more than a line, because it quietly ruins more people than the other two together.

A child raised in a believing home hears the truth from infancy. He can answer the questions. He knows the hymns, the arguments, the vocabulary. He has never rebelled and never doubted out loud.

And he may reach forty having absorbed everything except the life, because none of it transfers by proximity. God has no grandchildren. Every generation comes to Him one at a time, personally, or not at all.

That is not written to alarm Christian parents. It is written because a child who has never been told this may spend a lifetime resting on his upbringing, and be more difficult to reach than a man who knows he is outside.

8. Then what does a man do?

Here the honest reader will object. If he cannot achieve it, arrange it, or inherit it, is he simply to wait?

No. And the same chapter that says it is of God says plainly what a man does:

"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)

Received. Believe. Those are not works; they are the actions of an empty hand. A gift is not earned by taking it, and nobody boasts of having accepted something.

And the Lord Jesus Christ moves, in the same conversation, from the mystery of the wind straight to the plainest verse in the Bible, which is not an accident:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

He had just told Nicodemus the thing was beyond him. Then He told him what to do about it. Both are true, and the second is not cancelled by the first.

Both halves must be held, and dropping either produces a recognisable error.

Drop the first: that it is of God, and you get a man who thinks he converted himself, who will trust the sincerity of his decision rather than the finished work of Christ, and who will be shaken every time his sincerity fails him.

Drop the second: that a man receives and believes, and you get a man who waits. He agrees with every word of the doctrine and does nothing, because he has been given the impression that there is nothing to do but hope he is among the favoured.

Scripture never leaves an enquirer there. Not once in the New Testament is a man who asks what he must do told to wait and see.

"And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." (Acts 16:31)

9. How a man may know

The First Epistle of John was written for this exact purpose, and it gives marks rather than feelings.

"These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life." (1 John 5:13)

A different attitude to sin. Not sinlessness: the same letter says a man who claims that deceives himself. But sin becomes intolerable to him in a way it was not.

"Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." (1 John 3:9)

Read that in the light of chapter one rather than against it. It is not describing a man who never fails; it is describing a nature that cannot make peace with failing.

A different attitude to God’s people.

"We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." (1 John 3:14)

And a different attitude to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

"Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." (1 John 5:1)

Notice the order in that last one. Not whosoever is born of God comes to believe, though that is also true. It is written so that a man may look at what he believes and conclude something about what has happened to him.

One caution about these marks, because they can be misused as easily as used.

They are given as evidence, not as a qualification. The apostle John wrote them so that believers may know, not so that they may audit themselves into despair.

A man who reads the marks and finds them faint should not conclude he was never born. He should conclude what a doctor concludes from a weak pulse: that there is a pulse. The right response to faint life is not to doubt it but to feed it.

"As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby." (1 Peter 2:2)

Newborn is a category Scripture expects. Nobody is born mature, and the marks in an infant are real but small.

10. For the reader who is not sure it has happened

Some who read this will recognise everything described. Others will read it and find nothing in themselves that answers to it.

If that is you, do not conclude that the door is shut. The very fact that the description troubles you is the wind in the trees. A man with no life in him does not grieve over having none.

And you are not being asked to produce a birth. You are being asked to receive a Person.

"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." (Revelation 3:20)

Nicodemus went away that night without a recorded answer. But he appears twice more in the Gospel — once speaking up for the Lord Jesus Christ among men who wanted Him dead, and once carrying spices to His grave in the open, when the disciples had scattered.

Something happened to that man. Scripture never tells us when.

11. The serpent in the wilderness

Nicodemus was still unconvinced, and the Lord Jesus Christ did not repeat Himself. He took the man to a story he had known since childhood.

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:14-15)

Israel in the desert had grumbled once too often, and God sent serpents among them. Men were dying. And the remedy God gave was strange enough that it has been remembered for three thousand years.

He did not send an antidote. He did not send physicians. He told Moses to hammer a serpent of brass onto a pole and lift it where the camp could see it, and He attached the whole cure to a look.

"And it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived." (Numbers 21:9)

Notice what the dying man was not required to do. Not to reach the pole — some were too far gone to walk. Not to understand the mechanism, nobody could. Not to feel a particular way about it. He looked, and he lived.

Notice also what was lifted up. Not a medicine, not a symbol of health — an image of the very thing that was killing them, hung up in the sight of all Israel, dead and harmless on a pole.

That is why the Lord Jesus Christ chose it. On the cross He was made sin for us: the thing that kills, lifted up and judged in public, and everyone who looks to Him lives.

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Corinthians 5:21)

And a man too weak to crawl could still turn his head. That is the measure of what is being asked of you.

12. Why this matters more than anything else about you

Every other question about a person has a limit on how much it decides.

Whether he was healthy, whether he was educated, whether he married well, whether he was remembered — all of it is settled inside a lifetime, and a lifetime ends.

This one is not settled inside a lifetime. It determines what happens when the lifetime stops.

"He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." (1 John 5:12)

There is no third category in that verse, and the apostle John was not a careless writer. Men are divided by it into two companies and there has never been anybody in between.

Which is why a page like this cannot end politely. Nicodemus came in the dark with a compliment, and was told before he finished it that he could not see the kingdom. It was not rudeness. It was the kindest thing anybody had ever said to him, because it was true and he still had time.

You still have time.

Ye must

There are three words in the chapter that no one has ever managed to soften.

"Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." (John 3:7)

Not ye may. Not it would be better if ye were. Ye must — spoken to the most religious man in the room, which is why no one else can claim exemption.

And it was spoken by the One who came so that it could happen, and who went to a cross to make it possible. The same chapter that says you must be born again says why He came, and it was not to condemn you.

"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." (John 3:17)

Let us Pray:

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we come before Your throne of grace through the precious name and perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has opened the way into Your presence.

We thank You for Your beloved Son, and for the unspeakable gift, given to those who had nothing to bring. We praise You for Your preserved Word, which declares "Ye must be born again" (John 3:7), and which cannot be broken.

We confess before You that we cannot give ourselves life, and have often tried to improve what only You can raise. Forgive us, we pray, and cleanse us, for You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins.

We beseech You for every soul reading these words who is yet without Christ. Send forth Your Holy Ghost to convince them of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; open their understanding; and draw them to Your Son before this day is done.

Strengthen Your people who read it. Comfort the discouraged, establish the wavering, and let none go away empty. And use this message to give the new birth to every reader who has never received it, for Your glory and not for ours.

We pray all of this to You, O God, our Holy and Heavenly Father, in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The Most Important Prayer You Will Ever Pray

Before you close this page, one question matters more than everything you have just read: if you died tonight, do you know where you would be?

You cannot be saved by joining a church, by being baptized, by giving money, or by living a decent life. Salvation is not a wage that is earned; it is a gift that is received. Every one of us has sinned, the wages of sin is death, and there is a real hell prepared for sin, but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross in the sinner's place, was buried, and rose again the third day.

If you know yourself to be a sinner, and you are willing to turn from your sin and trust Him alone, then speak to God now. There are no magic words, but if these words are the cry of your heart, pray them and mean them:

After You Have Prayed

1. Tell somebody today. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).

2. Begin reading the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John, then Acts, then Romans. Read a little every day. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).

3. Talk to your Father every day. You may now come boldly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No appointment is needed and no man's permission.

4. Find a Bible-believing church and be baptized. Not to be saved: you already are, but in obedience, and as the public confession of what has happened to you.

5. Rest in this, and do not be shaken by your feelings. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). You will still sin; when you do, confess it and go on — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).