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Have you noticed how Jesus’ teaching divides people?
Some hear Jesus’ teaching and understand it, love it and act on it, and their lives are transformed for the better by it. Others hear it only reluctantly, don’t understand it, don’t want to understand it, and remain diamond-hard against it.
What makes the difference? Is it whether we were raised in the church or how religious we are or how “moral” we are? No. These things only scratch the surface. It depends, says Jesus, on whether we are born again.
We cannot see the truth about God’s kingdom unless we are born again.
The third chapter of the gospel of John tells us that Nicodemus, a learned Jewish Pharisee, came to Jesus at night and asked:
“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.” (John 3:2)
Jesus answered Nicodemus,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)
Jesus is making the point, “Yes, I am a teacher from God. What you can’t see is that I’m much more than that. To see all that is true about God’s Kingdom, you must be born again.”
Nicodemus is bewildered. Repulsed, in fact. How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born (John 3:4)? Jesus explains:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’” (John 3:5)
The fact is, sin has slain our spirits. It has made us dead to all that Jesus Christ is and what he came to do.
Being born again means we have a heart that is alive to Jesus.
Sin has blinded us so that we cannot see him. It has blocked our ears so that we cannot hear him. It has made our hearts like stone so that we do not want to respond to him. In a word, sin has made us dead to him. (You can poke, prod, and shout at a dead man all day…)
If I am to see and hear Jesus, and respond to him with repentance and faith, I need new eyes and ears, a new heart and spirit. I need to be born again.
Everyone who is born again will become a Christian and be saved. No one who is not born again will become a Christian. They will always remain stone dead to Jesus.
That’s why he said, “You must be born again!”
And that’s why we should all ask, “Have I been?”
This article was originally published at Beautiful Christian Life on May 21, 2022.
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