You Must Be Born Again
(John 3:1-11)
By
May, 2007
There was a man of
the Pharisees, a ruler of the Jews, named Nicodemus. He came to Jesus by night.
We don’t know why he came to Jesus by night instead of daytime. The Bible
doesn’t tell us; it’s useless to speculate. We just know as a fact that he came
to Jesus by night. He addressed the Master as Rabbi. “Rabbi, we know
you are a teacher come from God for no man can do the miracles that you do
unless God be with him.” The term rabbi was a literary
acknowledgment, just like bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, doctor’s degree
are literary degrees today among us. The Jews had three of those degrees, rab, rabbi, and rabboni. Jesus said in Matthew
23, “Don’t call any man upon the earth
rabbi or father.” In the church we do not distinguish one another, and that
includes the preacher, elders and deacons, by some kind of worldly title that
tries to exalt one person above another. We do not address one another in the
church as doctor or master or rabbi or reverend or any of those terms. In the
church we are a family and you don’t address members of your family like that,
do you? They are your brothers and sisters. We are all brothers and sisters in
the family of God and we do not seek to exalt one person above another by
worldly titles. Jesus, being the divine Son of God, accepted those titles when
they were addressed to Him. He didn’t rebuke Nicodemus when he called Him
Rabbi, even though He rebuked our using those terms to address each other. So
Nicodemus said, “Rabbi, we know you are teacher come from God, for no man
could do the miracles that you are doing, except God be with him.”
Nicodemus was
willing to accept Jesus as a teacher. A lot of people today accept Jesus as a
great teacher or moralist, but will not accept Him as the divine Son of God.
Nicodemus at this point only accepted Him as a teacher who came from God. “We
know that no man could do the miracles that you’re doing, except that God
be with him.” Jesus replied to this man who came to Him by night in these
words, “Verily, verily”—to put that in our language today, “truly, truly” or “I
tell you the truth”—“except a man be born again” (the foot note has born from
above) “he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said, “How can this be
when a man is old. Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb and be
born?” Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say unto you, except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the
kingdom God.” A little later in this reading Jesus said, “Do not marvel
that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:7). We have used that
as our title. Jesus said that you must be born again.
WHAT IS
Now we ask the
question, what departments of man’s nature participate in the new birth? What
part of man must be born again? Jesus didn’t say part of man must be born
again, he said, “Except a man be born again.”
Intellect
What is man? We’re
talking about a philosophical question now. We’re reasoning metaphysically.
What is a man? To the Thessalonians Paul talks about man’s whole spirit, soul
and body. (1 Thessalonians 5:23.) So I know from that verse that man at least
has a triune nature. We’re not just flesh and blood and bone and body. We’re
more. We’re mind, we’re emotions, we’re willpower, and we’re a flesh and bone
body. Well, then what must be born again? Jesus didn’t say just your flesh must
be born again. He didn’t say just your mind or your will or your emotions—he
said except a man is born again he couldn’t see or enter into the
Emotions
What is man? He’s
made up of emotions—love, hate, anger, and fear—all of the emotions that make
up man’s emotional nature. The sympathetic nature of man, the heart of man,
must participate in the new birth.
Willpower
What is man? We have
willpower—the will of man. We call that the volitional nature. We have the
power to choose between right and wrong. That’s part of man. Since we are not a
robot, God made us with the power of choice.
We are responsible for all of our choices and our actions. So,
therefore, the volitional nature of man must participate in the new birth.
Body
What is man? What we
usually see and what we identify as man is the outward man, what a person looks
like—the hair, the skin, the bone, the body, and the feet. We see the outward
man and we usually identify man with what we see outwardly. But that is not the
whole of man. All of man must participate in the new birth—the mind of man, the
emotions of man, the volitional nature of man and the body of man.
WHO
How is the new birth
brought about? How is it produced? What are the agents, the instruments that
are involved in the new birth?
God the Father Is the Author of the
New Birth
God the Father is
the first cause. He is the first cause that brought the universe into being.
Jesus Christ was the creating cause. The Holy Spirit was the organizing cause
that gave law to the universe. So we may expect that the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit will all have a part in bringing about the new birth and that
is the case. According to John 3:3, a man must be born of God. God is the first
cause, the originating cause, behind the new birth. In John 1:11-13, the Bible
says, “Jesus came to His own city and His own people received Him not, but
to as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the Sons of God,
even to them that believe on His name, which were born not of blood nor of the
will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but born of God.” So the first
cause, the originating cause of the new birth is God the Father. He is the
grand architect of the universe and He is the great architect of the spiritual
universe, the new creation, the church and the new birth.
The Holy Spirit Is the Agent of the New Birth
The Holy Spirit has
a part in the new birth. When Nicodemus didn’t understand how a man could be
born again, Jesus said He would explain it to him. “Truly, truly, except a
man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot
enter into the
The Word of God Is the
Instrument of the New Birth
Is anything else
involved in the new birth? Yes. When God the Father and Jesus Christ and the
Holy Spirit created the physical universe, it was brought about by a mighty
fiat, a spoken word. God simply said, “Let there be light” and there was light.
He spoke the world into existence by the mighty power of His word. There is
power in words. Language is one of the greatest instruments of power in our
world. That’s the reason that our forefathers were so adamant and so
belligerent in coming up with the idea that there shall be no abridgement of
freedom of the press and freedom of speech. We ought to thank God every day
that we live in a country where we are free to criticize even the highest
authorities in our government without being put in jail. We love freedom of
speech because there is power in words. And God spoke the world into existence
by His mighty, omnipotent creative power. So there is power in this Word that I
hold in my hand. If there were no power in the Word of God, why is it that
skeptics, infidels and critics hate the Bible so much? Why do modernists and
liberals fight the Word of God? They hate God’s word because there is dynamic
power in it. And there is power in the Word of God to bring about the new
birth. That is the reason that Peter said in 1 Peter 1:22-23, “Seeing you
have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, see that you
love one another with a pure heart fervently, being born again not of
corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the Word of God which lives and
abides forever” (1 Peter 1:22-23).
God is the author of
the new birth. The Holy Spirit is the agent in the new birth and the Word of
God is the instrument in the new birth. No one can be born again unless God the
Father starts the process, the Holy Spirit continues the process and the Word
of God carries out this process of the new birth.
Let’s see how the
Father, the Spirit and the Word of God bring about the new birth. No man can be
saved, except he is saved by faith. “But
without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe
that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6 NKJV). No person can become a child of God and be
saved unless they repent or turn from their sins to a new way of living (Acts
Now, let’s go back
and look at what Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Verily, verily, I say unto you
that except a man be born of water and of the spirit,
he cannot enter into the
THE INWARD
Now, let’s go back
to our original question—what departments of man’s nature are involved in the
new birth? Well, what departments of man’s nature are involved in a physical
birth? Jesus said in the conversation with Nicodemus, “Marvel not that I
said unto you must be born again. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and
that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.” When a little baby comes into
our world, it has a fleshly nature—the hands, the feet, the eyes, etc. Every
mother will take that swaddling garment off that baby after it is born and make
sure that it has all of its little parts. I have seen that before. That’s just
the nature of a mother to make sure what that baby looks like in the outward
sense. So that which is born of flesh is flesh. It has a fleshly nature. But
immediately a few days after that child is born you begin to notice that the
child also has personality. It has a mind. And as it grows a little bit more it
has a mind of its own. It’s not your mind necessarily. And it has emotions.
Since a little newborn infant has never mastered language, the only way that
baby can express itself and let the mother or father or others know what that
baby needs, is to cry. And sometimes they’ll scream and cry and holler their
little lungs out. That’s their way of expressing their feelings and their
needs. A little baby also has willpower and intellect. So that’s what Jesus
meant when he said that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is
born of the spirit is spirit. The mother and father beget the fleshly nature of
that child and that includes the mind and the emotions. One thing that has
always fascinated me is how the baby picks up characteristics from both sides
of the family. It is amazing to see how maybe a boy will take after the mother
and pick up some of her characteristics and her side of the family and he’ll
pick up something from his dad or maybe the grandfathers or grandmothers back
on one side of the family or the other. And the daughters will do the same
thing. It is wonderful how that two people can come together and share in some
of the creative powers that God has and produce something made up of
characteristics of both of those individuals. I always marvel at that beautiful
act that God has given us—to create one out of two. That which is flesh is
flesh. That which is of the spirit is spirit. But when that little child comes
into the world it has a spirit and God gives the spirit to the child. The
spirit comes from Him. The other part of its nature comes from the mother and
father and its forbearers, but the spirit comes from God. So when a child is
born into this world it has an outward nature that we can see, but it has
inward nature that we cannot see. The outward nature is visible, but the inward
nature is invisible. So it is in the new birth. Every department of man’s
nature is involved in the new birth. God starts the new birth by sending Jesus
Christ into the world to be the Savior of mankind, to be lifted up on the
cross, to be lifted up from the grave, to be lifted up into heaven where he is
our Lord and our Savior. The Son has a part in it in that he died and became a
sacrifice, a propitiation for all the sins of the whole world. The Holy Spirit
has a part in the new birth in that God sent the spirit back in a baptismal
measure upon the apostles and so overpowered and overruled their minds and
their hearts that they communicated to us the gospel, the good news, the Word
of God. The Holy Spirit gave us the Word of God. That’s the reason it’s called
the sword of the spirit. The Word of God is the seed of the kingdom. (Luke
8:11.) The Father originates it, the Son brings it about by His death, and the
Holy Spirit brings us the Word of God. The Word of God is the instrument in the
new birth. Every part of man’s nature participates in the new birth.
WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE
UNREGENERATE
Unbelieving In Intellect
Now let’s see how
it takes place. Before a person is a Christian, before a person decides to
serve the Lord, what’s the normal, ordinary state of our intellectual nature?
We don’t believe. You talk to many people today about Christ, heaven and hell,
and the Christian life, they’ll say that they just do not believe any of that,
that it’s a fairy tale, a fable that has been handed down. They are
unbelievers. They have never examined the evidence. They have never looked at
the facts. Therefore, they are
unbelievers.
Unloving In Emotion
What’s the normal
state of an unbeliever with his emotions? He hates things that God loves and he
loves things that God hates to put it in a nutshell. His emotional nature is
contrary to the things that God would have him to love and hate.
Insubordinate in Will
What is the state of
the unbeliever’s volitional nature? It is insubordination. God says you are to
do thus and so and the unbeliever, the disobedient, the person that is not a
Christian says he will do the opposite. As parents we learn sometimes to use
reverse psychology. We have willpower and we don’t like anybody telling us what
to do. We like to do what we want to do ourselves and then we just say it’s our
decision. That’s the way that man is in his unregenerate state. The unbeliever
says, “God, you take care of things up there if you are God, if you exist, and
I’ll take care of matters down here. I’m the master of my destiny and I will to
do things that sometimes run contrary to the things that you would have me do.”
So man, in his unregenerate state is insubordinate. He will not submit his
willpower to God’s will.
Disobedient In Body
What about man in
his physical nature in the unregenerate state? The normal thing is
disobedience. God says do this and man does just the opposite. Now I think you
can begin to see how that every department of man’s nature participates in the
new birth.
WHAT PRODUCES THE CHANGE IN
Faith Changes the Intellect
What about the mind
of man, the intellectual nature? When a man starts reading the Bible, studying the
facts, looking at the evidence, his intellectual nature is gradually changed
from unbelief to belief. “And faith comes by hearing and hearing by God’s
word” (Romans
Love Changes the Emotion
What will change the
unregenerate state in the emotional area? We said that man hates what God loves
and loves what God hates. How does the Lord bring about that change in the new
birth? God can change our emotions when
we consider Jesus Christ who took on our human nature. God made Him a body. He
clothed Jesus Christ in a human body with all the normal emotions that we have.
He was weary when He walked from
Repentance
Changes the Volition
What about the
volitional nature, the insubordination of man to his creator, to his God? There
is only one thing that will change that. It’s a command of God. Jesus said, “Repent
or perish” (Luke 13:3-5). What does it mean to repent? It means that we are
to be sorry that we have offended God and His word and His government and out
of that godly sorrow we have a change of mind that is changed to such an extent
that it leads to a change of our willpower. Whereas we are in the habit of
saying “I will do this,” we start saying “I will not.” Or if we have been in
the habit in reference to God’s will to saying “I will not,” we are now in the
habit of saying “I will.” That is what is wrong with a lot of people today,
because they have never really changed their willpower. Repentance is God’s
solution to change the volitional nature.
Obedience Changes the State
And finally how do
we change the body of man from disobedience to obedience? Water baptism for the
remission of sins is also symbolic of man’s complete submission to the will of
God. When a person goes under the water every function of his body is suspended
at least for a moment. Even his breathing process is suspended to the will of
God. Baptism not only puts us into Christ, baptism is not only the final act
that involves the forgiveness of our sins, but it is also symbolic of a new
life that is to be in complete harmony and obedience to the will of God. It can
be amazing and marvelous when we see a person change their thinking and believe
in Jesus Christ the Son of God. They will also change their emotion to love
God, to love Christ, to love His word, to love His church, and to love His
promises. They will change their
willpower to be in subordination to the gospel and they will change their body
and use the members of their body as instruments of righteousness instead of
instruments of sin and rebellion.
EXHORTATION
How will you respond to this lesson?
Have you been born into God’s kingdom? We enter every kingdom by birth. We are
all now citizens of the kingdom of nature. How did we enter that kingdom? We
entered the kingdom of nature by a physical birth. It made natural beings out
of us because we live in a natural kingdom. The church is the
*Shelby G. Floyd
delivered this sermon