New Birth | John 3:1-21

INTRODUCTION

Today we are going to look at the concept of ‘New Birth’ or ‘Born Again.’ Every person knows his birthday – the day on they were born into the world. Our birth was the beginning of our life on this earth. Jesus and the New Testament writers speak about the ‘New Birth’ experience.

John 2:23-25

²³ Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name.  ²⁴ But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. ²⁵ He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.

John 1:1-2

¹ Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. ² He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

Nicodemus Represents:

• The sign-seekers in Jerusalem; 2:23-25.
• The religious leaders; 3:1, 10; 7:26, 50-52)
• Secret Believers; 3:2; 12:42; 19:38-42

Nicodemus wants to flatter Jesus, but see 2:24 Nicodemus wants to come at night, he wants to be out of the radar.

John 1:3-21

³ Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

⁴ “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

⁵ Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are 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.”

Nicodemus perplexed

⁹ “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.

¹⁰ “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? ¹¹ Very truly I tell you, 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 wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵ that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

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 they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

¹⁹ This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people 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 their deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

This passage is of foundational importance to Christians

We are all stamped by our character and people feel that our basic human character is unchangeable. We talk about people or communities and say, “So and so will never change. This community will not change. This is how they have been behaving since their ancestors.”

Man finds it very difficult to change his sinful nature. No amount of new resolutions gets us out of the fix because we got ourselves into the fix because of sin.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein

The answer to this perplexing situation is of course this promise of rebirth or the new birth that we have in our text. The Good News of Jesus is what he accomplished by the power of the Spirit, through his life and obedience which is available for us. In Jesus’ perfect obedience, he secures for us righteousness so that we can participate in the divine nature. God’s divine nature is imputed to us by the new birth which happens by the Spirit and the water. This is the gospel, the good news. It does not just stop there with things that happened 2000 years ago. The Good News includes the application of the work of Christ to our lives starting with the miracle of the new birth and we continue in the new birth lifestyle empowered by the Holy Spirit.

It was the evangelicals who stressed the need to be born again and live a new birth. The Roman Catholic church emphasizes that the new birth or regeneration happens during one’s baptism.

Martin Luther during the Reformation in 1517 came up with the 5 Solas:

• Scripture alone
• Grace alone
• Faith alone, not through works
• Christ alone, not in the minister
• The glory of God alone

17^th Century – John Calvin started the evangelical movement

It is not enough to have orthodoxy (right beliefs) we need to have orthopraxy (right living).

Right beliefs have to have a transformative effect on our lives.

Then the ‘Puritans’ emphasized how we are to be born again. We need to have our lives transformed by the Spirit of God. Out of that heritage the evangelical message was born – renewed need to be born again. The church made a return back to the word of God and emphasized the need to be born again or have the new birth to enter the kingdom of God.

Jesus emphasized the need to be born again. In one single conversation three times Jesus hammers the necessity of rebirth. Twice he introduces it with the saying “I tell you the truth.”

John 3:3

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

John 3:5

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.

John 3:7

You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’

In this verse 7 in Greek the ‘you’ here is plural you can tell that Jesus is no longer just talking to Nicodemus. He is talking to anyone who will overhear including you and me. You must be born again.

Someone said, “God is into recycling trash and that is what being born again is about.”

It must be noted that both sinners and religious people need the born-again experience. Jesus can transform the worst sinners and transform them to experience the work of the Spirit in their lives. It does not mean you have to be a rebel or murderer to be born again. The new birth is also for someone like Nicodemus who is a religious person.

Nicodemus:

• He is a Jew.
• God delivered them from their idolatry in Egypt.
• God brought them across the Red Sea as a kind of cleansing experience.
• God gave them their law by the spirit of God that descended on Mount Sinai.
• So the Jews were washed by this water and by the spirit transformed.
• He is a Pharisee, a teacher of the law. He was very religious.
• His name is Nicodemus. He was born to the upper classes. Nicodemus is a Greek name. Jews in Jesus’ day were given Hebrew names, but only those in the upper classes had a second Greek name.
• He was a member of the Jewish ruling council, Sanhedrin. Like a High Court judge.
• Nicodemus was wealthy. In John 19 Nicodemus with Joseph of Arimathea made arrangements for the burial of Jesus. They were a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 34 kg, and taking Jesus’ body two of them wrapped it with the spices in strips of linen. This is an extravagant embalmment, only the rich could afford it.

Nicodemus is the embodiment of success, someone who has it all together. From all outward appearances Nicodemus from a human perspective looks like someone who did not need a second chance at life. He is the last person that you would imagine would be regretting the life of his physical birth. He was born into the lap of luxury.

Jesus could have said, “Nicodemus, not you, the Gentiles are to be born again.” But Jesus told Nicodemus, “You have to be born again.”

If this applies to Nicodemus, it applies to every one of us; man, woman, child, religious, atheist, protestant, catholic whatever.

“My sin was all the more incurable because before being born again I did not think myself a sinner.” St. Augustine

There are plenty of people who go through life imagining that they are not sinners. They have done nothing particularly wrong. They are blinded.

John 3:5-10

⁵ Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are 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?

Water And The Spirit

Water is used in ritual purification in Biblical Judaism, water is also used for ritual purity (see John 2:6; John 1:26). Jesus was not referring to Christian water baptism, but perhaps Jesus refereeing to water cleansing and particularly the cleansing of John or the baptism of John as John the Baptist was baptizing people in water to prepare them to meet the Messiah.

Nicodemus should have known the water and Spirit concept as he was a teacher of the law:

Isaiah 44:3

For I will pour water on the thirsty land,

and streams on the dry ground;

I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring,

and my blessing on your descendants.

Pouring out water refers to God’s eschatological renewal of his people. The rest of the text describes the results of that from v4-5

Isaiah 44:4-5

⁴ They will spring up like grass in a meadow,

like poplar trees by flowing streams.

⁵ Some will say, ‘I belong to the Lord’;

others will call themselves by the name of Jacob;

still others will write on their hand, The Lord’s,’

and will take the name Israel.

Ezekiel 36:25-27

²⁵ I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. (That is what the OT says over and over again by promise.) ²⁶ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

So born of the water is born of the Spirit. The two are two ways of saying the same thing, the regeneration that God brings.

God gives the Spirit without limit to Jesus, John 3:34. Means God gives the Spirit to Jesus without any limitation.

Jesus said:

John 6:63

The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.

John 7:38-39

³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”  ³⁹ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

John 14-16 – Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit that his Father and he will send to his disciples.

John 20:21-22

²¹ Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” ²² And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

Trinity has accomplished the work of redemption. Jesus gives us birth through the water and the Spirit.

What Happens When We Are Born Again?

1. A Change In The Way God Looks At Us

He no longer looks at us as sinners. Our status has changed. We were separated from Christ. Now we are born of God and have a new birth.

2. We Are Called The Children Of God

1 John 3:1

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

3. We Who Were Far Away Are Brought Near By The Blood Of Christ

John 1:11-13

¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

Ephesians 2:1-10

¹As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ² in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³ All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. ⁴ But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷ in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Subjective: Experientially.

4. We Have Intimate Fellowship With Jesus

We call him, abba Father and now relate to him differently.

5. We Hear God’s Voice

John 10:27

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

6. We Receive A New Heart By God’s Spirit

7. We Become A New Creation

2 Cor. 5:17

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here.

We Are Set Free.

John 8:34-36

³⁴ Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. ³⁵ Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. ³⁶ So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Evidence Of The New Birth

I am now speaking to those who are already born again. If you are a child of God, there should be proof of the New Birth. There should be evidence of the New Birth.

No baby is born as an adult. There are imperfections and we grow. We are born again means we are born to grow. There is a development that happens. If the child does not grow, parents get concerned. A child grows in weight, height, and knowledge. It should be that way with us.

Good Progress

Paul said to Timothy –

1 Timothy 4:15 Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress.

Good Deeds

Jesus said:

Matthew 5:16 Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Good Fruits

Jesus talking about the false prophets:

Matthew 7:15-20 .by their fruit you will recognize them. By your fruits you will recognize the born-again person.

Good Practice

Translation of Belief into practice – Going to church, concerning giving, materialism, and generosity.

Martin Luther said there are three stages of conversion, “Your head, your heart and your wallet.” It was Martin Luther who first spoke of three conversions: conversion of the heart, conversion of the mind, and conversion of the purse. He focused on what needs to be converted into man. The wallet is the acid test.

The statistics of those who are born again and go to a bible-believing church:

17% divorce among those who go to church once a year.

7% divorce among couples who go to church once a month.

Alcohol abuse is 3 times more common for secular people than the church.

Domestic violence evangelical protestant wives say that if their husband attends church regularly they will be very low in husband abuse.

The new birth happens in the water and the spirit. This newborn baby needs the church community to grow.

“I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.” ― John Newton (Amazing Grace)

How Can One Be Born Again

Acts 16:31

Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.

Romans 10:9

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

The moment you believe and declare, the New Birth is caused by the Holy Spirit.

John 3:8

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.”

Jesus uses the metaphor of the wind because in Greek the word for wind is the very same word as the word for Spirit. It is also the only word in Greek for the word breath. The same word translated in Spirit could be according to the context translated as breath or wind. It is an apt metaphor to connect the Spirit with the wind because the wind is invisible, isn’t it? It seems self-determined. You cannot understand why the wind is blowing this way or that way. The wind seems to be self-determined. So it is with the Spirit. It is not by our doing, it is not by human will, it is by God’s will that we are born again or have a new birth. It is his doing from start to finish. That is why it is inexplicable (unable to be explained or accounted for) to us.

For some, it is so instantaneous and so dramatic that you cannot explain it in human factors.

For others, so gradual that no one could take credit for it. So many factors, so many people, and sermons were mobilized for some’s salvation so that it could not have happened except for God to get you to the point where you now have God living his life in you, a new life within.

1 John 5

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.

Jesus then gives a vivid illustration of the principle that it is not enough to be physically reborn but that you need to be spiritually reborn. This is another OT passage from Numbers 21.

John 3:14-15

¹⁴ Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,  ¹⁵ that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

It involves a time in Israel’s experience when they were physically reborn. How is that possible? Hear the background from Numbers.

BACKGROUND

The Hebrews were delivered from Egypt by the hand of God and they came to Sinai. God gave them the law to get them ready to possess the promised land. Then God instructs to send 12 spies. They went and came back 10 came back affirming the promises of God but they said they cannot take it. Only 2 spies came back with a faithful report that they could do it by the Lord’s grace and his presence with us. But the 10 overruled the 2 and Israel refused to go into the land, and God in response then condemned them to a period of 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.

For the next 40 years, they went through the wilderness back and forth, over and around learning the hard way how to walk by faith and not by sight. All those years God would provide miraculously the Manna from heaven and God led them through difficult experiences and then pulled through to show them that he could be trusted. They will be thirsty and suddenly there will be a provision of water. He was teaching them to walk by faith.

Now, at the end of the book of Numbers, there is this story that Jesus is referring to comes from.

It is at the end of the 40 years. All those 40 years were determined so that all the adults could die off, every last one of them has passed from one life to the next. Israel is physically reborn. A whole new population now stood poised to enter the Promised Land 40 years later. Moses was still alive but would die before entering the Promised Land. Joshua and Caleb, the two faithful spies would be privileged to enter the Promised Land. But otherwise, all are physically reborn.

God took them through a different and difficult route this time to the promised land, by the way of the Jordan through Jericho. People do not want to get their plans changed. They forget who is God. So their response to the Bible tells us is that:

Numbers 21:4-5

⁴ They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; ⁵ they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”

So physical rebirth did what? It did nothing. They went back where they started. They are making the very same complaint their fathers made 40 years ago. Israelites were thinking of Egypt. They did not get it. So God disciplines them.

Numbers 21:6

Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died.

Now it is a severe punishment so that they will recognize the dire consequences of rebellion.

Why snakes?

Snakes were an apt punishment in this case. The people in their rebellion were longing to go back to Egypt. Egypt had its emblem, the cobra. If you see Egyptian fine arts, the Pharoah as part of his headpiece has the cobra in a striking posture up there. It was a symbol goddess Wadjet who was the protector of Egypt and the Pharoah and according to their mythology, if you displeased the Pharoah in any way, the Wadjet goddess strikes you. That represents Egypt or the power of Pharoah.

What God was doing was punishing Israel as he often punishes us by giving them their wish come true. They want to go back to Egypt, you get a taste of Egypt this time with its true identity unmasked. They were wishing for the cobra type of life in Egypt rather than going to the promised land, the slavey in Egypt. That is what God wants us to deliver us out of, out of slavery, out of the things that rob us of what real life is about.

People repented with the punishment and they cried out to God for deliverance from the serpents. The Lord responded mercifully.

Numbers 21:7-9

⁷ The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

⁸ The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” (This is what Jesus is referring to). ⁹ So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.

So Jesus says

John 3:14-15

¹⁴ Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,  ¹⁵ that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

So how is Jesus like a snake?

Jesus is like this bronze serpent.

1. There is this lifting-up

In John, Jesus talks about being lifted. That is a reference to Him getting up on the cross. John 12.

John 12:32-33

³² And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” ³³ He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

Jesus is lifted, same vocabulary as the serpent was lifted on the pole so that everyone could see it.

2. The Bronze serpent is an emblem of the Judgement God’s people deserve

It is the emblem of the living snakes that are threatening them. Jesus when we look at the cross, we see the love of God but in particular we see what our sin deserves, we see the curse that we deserve just like the serpent. We have two choices before us: We either take the judgment that God visits on sin or we have Jesus undergo the punishment for us on the cross.

3. We recognize that the two are parallel and that it is through faith that healing and salvation come. Through faithful looking.

Imagine there are tons of snakes here in the sanctuary and they are all climbing over you. They are threatening your life. But taking your life off the snake and looking on to the bronze snake that is lifted brings healing. It takes faith to leave your eyes off your circumstances that have caused you to be terrified and frightened and see Jesus, to let your eyes look at him.

John 6:40

For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.

We look at Jesus. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith who for the Joy set before him endured the cross scorning its shame.

It is like Peter who onetime asked Jesus if he could walk on water to the Saviour. Remember as Peter could look at Jesus, he could walk on water, but the moment he got distracted and started thinking about the wind and the waves, that is when he began to sink.

So it is with us. What is the instrumental means of our experience of being born again? It is putting your faith in Christ, and looking to Jesus.

How can we know that we are born again?

Don’t think it has to be some dramatic spontaneous experience. It is for some of us have had that. It is like Paul on the road to Damascus. But it can be just as real without that. It does not have to experience for all that you have a different feeling.

 “I know very well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken.” C. S. Lewis

I don’t remember when was I physically born. We know we are born whether physically or spiritually if we are alive. If the signs of spiritual life are there, the test of faith

1 John 5

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.

CONCLUSION

Being in a church does not make you a Christian like being in a garage makes you a car. You have to be born again.

What you and I need is not reformation but transformation and God is in the business of transforming human lives. What you and I need is not an improvement in our old nature. We need an impartation of a new nature and God is in the business of imparting a new nature. What you and I need is not a fixer-upper on the outside but a new heart and spirit planted on the inside that is what the Holy Spirit does. That is what God is in the business of doing, that is what he promised in Ezekiel 36. What you and I need is not a correction in the old man but the creation of a new man. A new man in Christ.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old is gone the new has come. That is the New birth in Christ. You and I who are spiritually dead in trespasses and sins have now been made alive in Christ. It is his work from start to finish and it is our desperation that God intends not to use to cause us to run away from our past, but to run to Jesus and to cling to him who is our only Savior, our only Lord. The only one who can do it.

For more related sermons

Born Again| John 3: 1 – 36

Saviour of the World | John 4: 3 – 42

Our Eternal Inheritance| 1 Peter 1: 3 – 5