New Birth

Narrator: Chris Genthree

• 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.

Nicodemus was astonished at what he heard, yet as a teacher in Israel he should have known the “earthly” (not “worldly”) things concerning the kingdom of God. He should have learned from such passages as Ezekiel 36:25-28²⁵Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. ²⁶A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. ²⁷And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. ²⁸And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. (Ezekiel 36:25‑28) and Jeremiah 31:33,³³But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jeremiah 31:33) that new birth was necessary for Israel to have part in God’s kingdom. The heavenly things of Christianity are spoken of subsequently in John 3 as the fruit of the cross, and the love of God, but there must be new birth as the foundation in man, whatever be the nature of the blessing proposed.

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