Ye Must be Born Again

John 3:3: “Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’” (ESV)

This verse opens up the famous discourse between Jesus and Nicodemus, the Pharisee. This statement by Christ in verse 3 is a truly startling revelation. We will talk about one of his other most startling statements (John 14:6) in the next blog, but I do want to highlight that in some regards, this verse is even more abrasive than 14:6. For not only are you to know who Jesus is and what he did to be saved, but one must be born again. Being born again is a requirement for true and genuine salvation. Without the new birth, there is no redemption from sins.

There is no way to fake the new birth, you are either born again or you’re not. You can’t mask your way into eternal security. You cannot pay your way into eternal life. You cannot join your way into eternal life. You cannot do enough good works to earn eternal life. You cannot deprive yourself of enough luxuries to attain eternal life. The only way you can inherit eternal life is through the new birth. As it is stated in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” In order to inherit eternal life, you must be born again.

This seems extremely basic to many of us. I mean, come on, what’s new here? I thought the same thing until election night on November 4^th, 2008. As I watched the election returns come in on CNN, something struck me. At various times throughout the evening, they would cut to Bill Schneider and Soledad O’Brien over on a “magic wall” highlighting the exit polling numbers and statistics that they were getting. At one point in the presentation, Bill Schneider was listing about 20 demographics that they were tracking in the voting. One of the demographics was “Evangelical / Born Again”. What was more startling is that they were treating this demographic (which I am proud to be a member of, by the way) as if the members of this demographic were somewhat less than erudite (i.e. polished, full of knowledge and wisdom and instruction). The effect of his words was that he and by implication the “mainstream media” and postmodern society was putting us, the evangelical / born-againers, into our little corner of the world and showing how we voted.

Friends, the world does NOT know what it means to be born again. There are literally millions of Americans walking the streets today that believe the word born again is synonymous with radical religious and Christian fundamentalism. But yet, it is the only way you can come into the Kingdom of God!

If you are reading this blog today, I want to ask you a question. Do you know that you have been born again? You MUST deal with that question. You have to take care of that before you do ANYTHING else. Are you born again? For if you are not, then you cannot enter the kingdom of God. And if you do not enter the kingdom of God, then Jesus will say to you at the last day, “Depart from me for I never knew you” (Matt. 7:23).

This is an extremely important passage in the road to conversion. We all must realize that there is but one way to eternal life, and that is through being born again, through being a new creation in Christ Jesus.