New Birth

 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 11
New birth is a term commonly used to convey concisely the truth brought out in the beginning of John 3, namely, that a man’s origin spiritually must be of God’s work in him if he is to come under the moral sway of God in grace. This is specially the point in the conversation of the Lord with Nicodemus: “Except a man be born again [ἄνωθεν, not only again, but “anew,” a new source and beginning], he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”: that is, born of the Holy Spirit as the power, and of water (the word) as the means of moral cleansing. “Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth” (James 1:1818Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (James 1:18); compare Eph. 5:2626That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, (Ephesians 5:26)). “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit”; it is of the nature of its source—spiritual and not natural.