A few years back I was performing one of my presbyter
duties conducting what’s called a Triennial Visit to Knox Presbyterian Church
in Ospringe, ON; if you know where that is.
After the meeting a woman who appeared to be well into her 80’s came up
to me and began to share how good that particular church was for her because
she was “born again” and they were quite accepting of her and had helped her to
grow. She went on like that for a bit
and finally, as a “born again-er” will, she brought it around to me and asked,
“Are you ‘born again’?”
Well, what do you do with a question like that? I believe she was trying to tell me that at
some point in her life she had been born into a living, life-giving
relationship with God through Jesus Christ that she didn’t have prior and that
she was sincere about being faithful and not just one of those nominal
Christians. But, I’ve grown suspicious
of that question over the years. Twenty
years prior to that conversation I would have quite emphatically told her “yes”
and been quite relieved that someone of the Presbyterian persuasion was talking
like that. But, I’ve since come to see
that the term, the label, “Born again”, means different things to different
people and can get used in ways that are quite contrary to the nature of
someone who has been “born of God.” To a
good many “Born again-ers” the question “Are you born again” isn’t a sincere
question about a person’s relationship to God in Jesus Christ but rather a
litmus test as to whether you share their moral, social, and political stances. It winds up being a vehicle for being
judgemental towards another’s faith.
Moreover, I personally know more than a few very faithful disciples of
Jesus Christ who have not had a “born again” experience nor made the walk down the
aisle at an evangelistic crusade which is what some people mean by the term,
but were simply raised in the church by faithful parents who passed it on and
some how faith got caught. So we have to
be careful with our terminology and more so what we’re doing when we start
trying to determine who’s a real Christian.
The best answer I’ve heard to “Are you born again was
a by a Scottish Presbyterian theologian, pastor, and professor Thomas F.
Torrance. He was once Moderator of the
Church of Scotland and during his tenure someone decided to see how “Christian”
their leader was and asked him when it was he was “born again”. Torrance, ever the teacher, answered and I
paraphrase, “I was born again two thousand years ago when Jesus Christ, the incarnate
Son of God, was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary and
was born and lived faithfully for me, suffered and died for my sins, and was
raised from the dead for my justification.”
That answer totally makes being “born again” not about me and any
decision I may or may not have made or any experience I may or may not have had. Torrance points us to what the Triune God of
grace has done not just for me or for you or for humanity, but for all of his
Creation in, through, and as Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.
So, “born again” what do we mean by that? Well, I should note a few points from the
Bible so that we have a sure footing while I take on one of the most popular
catch phrases in cultural Christianity of the 20th Century. First, we shouldn’t be saying “born
again”. We should be saying “born from
above”. The Greek term γεννεθη ανωθεν (gennethe
anothen) is best translated as “born from above”. It can also mean “born anew” and “born
again”. Translators use “born again”
because it fits with the context of what Nicodemus is saying about going back
into the mother’s womb. But, remember
Nicodemus is as dull as a butter knife on trying to understand what Jesus is
talking about here so why should we look to him to help us understand what
Jesus means. That makes us look dull as
a butter knife too. “Born anew” is
better because we are talking about new life.
But, “born from above” is best and here’s why.
Looking at John’s letter we must note the phrase “born
of God”. In the Greek language there are
two verbs for the child-making process.
The first one is τικτω (tikto), which means the physical act of giving
birth, the female role. The second one
is γενναω (gennao), (our word here) which stresses the male role or siring
aspect of things and conception. When in
his letter John says we are “born of God” what he means is that we are fathered
by God or sired by God. Chapter 3 verse
9 is very clear on this: “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for
God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been
born of God.” I am sorry to use words like
sire and seed, but most of you have lived around farms…and this is what it
says. I also realize that it’s Mother’s
Day and I’m not exercising good tact at this moment, but stay with me. So, when Jesus says to Nicodemus “You must be
born from above (anew, or again)” he is saying that you must be conceived of or
sired by the very life of God, the Holy Spirit.
To be “born of God” is to have the Holy Spirit living in you. Without the Holy Spirit living in us we
cannot enter or even see the Kingdom of God, the Trinity’s reign and work in
this world right now in and through us.
We wouldn’t have faith apart from the gracious work of the Holy Spirit.
Let me kick this up a notch for you since it is
Mother’s Day. Romans 8 (Paul’s great
chapter on the Holy Spirit) says at verses 18-25: “For I consider that the
sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is
to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager
longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation
was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it,
in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to
corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation
has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we
ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait
eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now
hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not
see, we wait for it with patience.”
What Paul is saying here is that all of Creation, all
the hundreds of billions of galaxies in this universe and everything in them,
is eagerly awaiting to give physical birth of a new child, the new humanity in
Christ Jesus. Indeed, it is groaning in
labour pains and is about to give birth to this new humanity through
resurrection. We who are “born from
above”, “born of God”, are the foetal form of this new humanity. We now live by faith towards that new day
coming of being born anew into a life that is outside this womb into a creation
that will be as Isaiah says “full of the knowing of God as the waters cover the
sea” (Is. 11:9). Living by faith doesn’t
mean just believing some things about God and Jesus and all that and being good
and hoping you’ll go to heaven when you die.
Having faith is the same as being faithful and being faithful is obeying
God’s command that we love one another as he has loved us; that just as Jesus
gave up everything of who he was to come and be born of human flesh and die, so
are we to give up everything in order to love one another. This looks like forgiveness and
reconciliation, listening to and praying for each other, not judging each
other, helping each other become more godly people. If there are things about us that keep us
from loving each other like pride, being opinionated and unwilling to talk,
grudgefulness, greed, and so on, we must prayerfully lay elements of who we are
aside aside and be here for each other. Through
being faithful, by loving each other in this way, we who know Jesus is the Son
of God and the Christ because we are born of God, born of the Holy Spirit, we
overcome this world in its evil and brokenness.
Through being faithful, we are the living testimony that what the
Trinity is doing in his Creation now that will culminate in Creation itself
actually physically being born again.
The day is coming when Creation is going to give birth to the children
of God and all things will be new. The
futility of death and decay will be no more.
So, to close it down, if I were to be asked today
“Are you born again” I would answer: “Not yet.
I am born from above. The day
will come when I will be born again in resurrection into a new creation. Until that day, you and I we are paternal
siblings in the womb and we had better learn to love each other if this is going
to go well because we will have to go through birth, you know.” Amen.
** There is
a term in New Testament Greek that we can translate quite literally as born
again – παλιγγενεσια pronounced palingenesia. It is the combination of palin which means “again”
and genesis which means “birth”. It appears
twice, Matthew 19:28 and Titus 3:5.
Matthew 19:28-30 reads: “And Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you
that in the palingenesia (renewal of the world NIV, regeneration KJV,
new world ESV), when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you
who have followed me—you also will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve
tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or
father or mother or wife or children or fields on account of my name will
receive a hundred times as much, and will inherit eternal life. But many who
are first will be last, and the last first.”
Titus 3:4-7 reads: “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our
Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness,
but according to his own mercy, by the washing of palingenesia (regeneration NIV,
KJV, ESV, rebirth NRSV) and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom
he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being
justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal
life.” In both of these passages
palingenesia points us to a future new birth in which we as the children of God
will receive and inheritance of life eternal, a new birth that was set in
motion as Jesus the incarnate Son of God who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary and lived, suffered, and died faithfully for us,
and who was raised from the dead by the Father in the power of the Holy
Spirit. By the work of the same Holy
Spirit in us who are in Christ we experience now, though not in its fullness, the
regeneration that is to come.
