A New Birth--February 21, 2016 Bulletin Article

 

     Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked.  (John 3:1-4)

 

     Until Jesus came the Jews understood their relationship with God as a birthright, a right that was theirs by virtue of the fact that they had been born into the race descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So when Jesus suggested that the Jewish leader Nicodemus (and the rest of Israel for that matter) would need to be “born again,” well Nicodemus might be excused for being a little confused about how this type of rebirth might be accomplished. Of course Nicodemus’s suggestion that one would have to “enter again into his mother’s womb” was patently absurd, but this was and is the Jewish understanding; your physical birth is your introduction into this privileged status.

 

            Jesus had something else in mind and he expected Nicodemus to understand it. After all, Nicodemus was one of—if not the—preeminent teachers in Israel. His influence on the intellectual life of this nation could not be over-estimated, so Jesus’ assumption that he would follow his reasoning about “new birth” is well-founded. It’s obvious that Jesus was contradicting the idea that being born into a specific family, race or nation was an adequate foundation for establishing a relationship with God—more than that, he was denying the belief that being “well-born” in this world gave one an inside ability to apprehend the things of God.

 

            Unfortunately, this belief persists to this day—and not simply among the Jewish people. There are many who believe, by virtue of the fact that they have been born among Christians or into a family that has believers or a nation that claims a heritage in Christ that they are somehow inoculated for good and meeting the “base” requirements of God. Even more, many assume their family/race/nation's traditional religious ideas are enough to give one an understanding of God and his ways. But this was Jesus’ whole point: only a “new birth,” a complete renovation of our inner-self is adequate. We must be born of “water”—the act of submission called baptism, in which we request a new beginning, a “clear conscience” [1 Peter 3:21]—and born of God’s Spirit, whose work is to “transform” us into Christ’s likeness [2 Corinthians 3:18], creating the family resemblance.