It’s been more than thirty years since I first heard what, at the time, struck me as a bewildering statement. Back then, I had no idea that the command, “You must be born again,” came straight out of Jesus’ mouth. Nor, like the man to whom it was spoken, did I know what the Lord meant.
In the span of years since, I’ve come to realize both the reality and significance of the fact that Jesus, after saying these words to his late night visitor, never went on to give Nicodemus a precise recipe for how it was to be accomplished. As much as human nature might wish otherwise, the omission was intentional.
In today’s Father of the Inklings podcast noted Christian author Michael Phillips takes a closer look at this oft misunderstood command. I find his conclusions to be refreshingly insightful and encourage us to allow it to challenge our thinking.
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John 3:16 simply says to believe on Jesus. At that time it was difficult to explain further except for Jesus giving other commands to “follow me, do the works that I do, Love God and then love one another.” all of which would not cause one to be born again, but would certainly be part of the born again walk. Paul wrote to believe in your heart that Jesus died and rose again and then to confess Jesus with your mouth and you would be saved (born again.) It is like James says, show me your faith by your works, except we know works alone do not make you a christian, only a good person. Works follow after we have received Jesus as Lord and savior. Thanks Michael for a lovely post.
I’m not so sure it was a case of it being “difficult to explain further” as much as it was intentional on Jesus’ part so as to convey the mystery and personal interaction between the Spirit and individual men and women that’s involved in the new birth. We so often look at the outward appearance of a thing while God looks at the heart. I suppose, too, that there would be much debate among Christians as to what even constitutes new birth!
As Michael Phillips shared, we so often feel more comfortable placing structure around what God intended as mystery: Do these five steps and you’ll be saved, and so on. My desire in this post is to challenge our thinking that we might ever more passionately learn of and from Jesus as he shows us his and our Father.
Thanks for writing Hazel. It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!