“Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of heaven”, is Jesus’ categorical teaching. He insisted, “You must be born again” (John 3.3, 7). God operates this new spiritual birth, granting new life to people who turn in faith and repentance to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the indispensable doorway into the kingdom of God; and it happened to you if you believed.

Another verse in John’s Gospel (1.12-13) makes this clear: “To all who did receive [Jesus], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born … of God”. To be born of God (not by human descent) makes you a child of God.

How is a person born again, born of God? What does this verse say? By “receiving the Lord Jesus and believing in his name”. Have you trusted in Jesus for your salvation? By that faith you were born again.

The apostle Peter picks up this idea in his first letter as he writes to encourage believers: “Blessed be God! … According to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again” (1 Peter 1.3). He encourages his readers further on in verse 23: “you have been born again… through the living and abiding word of God”. This verse fleshes out the image of being spiritually like a new-born baby, born however not by a human process, but “born of the Spirit” (John 3.8) through the “seed” of the word of God.

The concept of being “born again” means that as the Gospel is received by faith, so the Holy Spirit of God communicates new life to the believer.

When this happens to you, what are the consequences? There are at least two: a new life has begun for you; you have become a child of God.

Let’s consider the first of these. When a baby is born he or she receives physical, human life. When you as a believer are born again, you receive life of a different kind: it is spiritual life, called “eternal life” and also “abundant life” (John 10.10). It adds an extra dimension to the life that you lived up till now. As physical life starts out very small, so new life in Christ has humble beginnings. Some babies are born screaming, while others are calm. Even so, some new believers are so overwhelmed by their experience of God’s saving power that they are instantly transformed by God’s saving love. Others, also born again by faith in Christ, experience God’s presence more quietly, almost imperceptibly.

But as the new-born baby slowly grows, so the new-born-again believer is called upon to grow. Peter continues this theme: “Like new-born infants, [you should] long for the pure spiritual milk [the milk of God’s word], that by it you may grow up into salvation” (1 Peter 2.2). We will look again at the whole aspect of spiritual growth, but here, the key element that Peter underlines is God’s Word, the Bible. It was the seed of God’s Gospel that fell into the prepared ground of your heart and began to bring forth fruit in a new life; that life is nourished by reading, studying, and meditating on further truths revealed in God’s Word.

So the Holy Spirit communicates a fresh upsurge of holy life in newly born-again Christians, promoting spiritual growth as they read the Bible and apply it in their particular circumstances. 

The Christian life is not therefore just acquiring new religious practices: it is the uprising of new life that needs to be nourished and encouraged.

Clive Every-Clayton