You Must Be Born Again
(John 3:1—11)
By
Shelby G. Floyd
Last week
almost immediately after we were dismissed, we received a call from
JESUS TALKS TO NICODEMUS ABOUT THE
While I was thinking about the birth that took place in our family, I wanted to talk to you this morning about another kind of birth that Jesus taught in John 3:1-11. 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 the daytime. The Bible doesn’t tell us and 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.” 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 with high sounding titles, and that includes the preacher, elders and deacons. The uses of worldly titles are designed to exalt one person above another. In the church, I’m not “reverend” so and so! In fact, the Bible has only used the word reverend to refer to God—“holy and reverend is His name.” We do not address one another in the church as doctor or master or rabbi or father 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. Christ didn’t rebuke Nicodemus when he called Him Rabbi, even though He rebuked our calling each other by those terms. 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 a moralist, but many do not accept Him as the divine Son of God. Nicodemus at this point only accepted Him as a teacher come 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 he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (The foot note has born from above). 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, “Marvel not that I said unto you, you must be born again.” We have used that as our title. You must be born again! Jesus said that. Being born physically as a child is not enough. Jesus said, “You must be born again.”
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.”
What is man? We’re talking about a philosophical question now. We are
reasoning metaphysically. What is a man? In 1 Thessalonians 5:23, Paul talks
about man’s whole spirit, soul and body. So I know from that verse that man at
least is a triune being. 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 be born again he
cannot see or enter into the
What is man? He’s made up of emotions—love, hate, anger, fear—all of the emotions that man is subject to. We call that the sympathetic nature of man. The sympathetic nature of man, the heart of man, must participate in the new birth.
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. God made us that way. We’re not a robot. We are responsible for all of our choices and our actions. So, therefore, the volitional nature of man must participate in the new birth.
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 CAUSES THE
God the Father is the Originating Cause
All right, who or what brings about the new birth? How is it
produced? Who are the agents? What instrument is involved in 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 the law to the universe. So we may expect that the Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit may 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 a new birth. In John 1:11-13, the
Bible declares, “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 Son of God is the Sacrificial Cause
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 is the Intermediate Cause
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 Instrumental Cause
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 a word. 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, or 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. Freedom of speech—there’s 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 oppose God because there is power in the word of God. 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 [now
notice this, being born again or being begotten again], “not of corruptible seed,
but of incorruptible by the Word of God which lives and abides forever.”
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.
HOW IS THE
Let’s see how the Father, the Holy Spirit and the Word of God bring about the new birth. No man can be saved, except he is saved by faith. Hebrews 11:6 states, “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”(Hebrews 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. No person can be saved unless they confess the sweetest name that fell from mortal tongue and that’s the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And no person can be saved unless they are immersed, baptized in water, for the forgiveness of sin.
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
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, 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. 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 it 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 that child 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, it has 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. It has intellect, but it also has willpower. It can make choices and
not make choices. 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 way
they look outwardly. 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 given us and produce a human being made up of characteristics from 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 born of
the Spirit is spirit? But when that little child comes into the world it has a
spirit and God gives that child that spirit. The spirit comes from Him. The
other part of its nature comes from the mother and father and its ancestors,
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 is visible, 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 the communicated to us the gospel, the good news, the Word of
God, about how we could be a Christian and how we can serve God in His church and
worship Him and reach out and bring others into His family. 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 (Luke
Now let’s see how it takes place. Before a person is a
Christian, before a sinner decides to serve the Lord, what’s the normal,
ordinary state of our intellectual nature? We don’t believe. You talk to the
average person today about Christ, heaven and hell, and the Christian life, and
they 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. 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.
What about man’s volitional nature as an unbeliever who hates God and the things that God stands for? I will tell you what it is. It is insubordination. God says I will that you do this or that but the unbeliever and disobedient person says he will do just the opposite. You know as parents we learn sometimes to use reverse psychology and sometimes even our spouse will use it on us. My wife has learned that if we’re going to put a bush out in the yard and I say where do you think we should put it and if she says over here, where do you think I’m going to put it? Over there! That’s just the way men are. We have to be the captain of the ship. We have to be the controller, you know. So anymore, if she wants it over here, she just says, put it over there, and she knows I’ll put it over where she wants it. That’s just our nature. 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. He’s saying, “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 to do.” So man, in his unregenerate state is insubordinate. He will not submit his willpower to God’s willpower.
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 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
What about man’s normal state in the emotional area? We said that man
hates what God loves and he loves what God hates. How does the Lord bring about
that change in the new birth? He brings this about by sending Jesus Christ down
upon this earth and by taking upon Himself our human nature. God made Him a
body. He clothed Jesus Christ in a human body and Jesus had all the normal
emotions that we have. He was weary when He walked from
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 is the command of God to repent. Jesus said it over and over again, “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 and that mind is changed to such an extent that it leads to a change of our willpower. Whereas we were 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 in the church today who claim to be Christians. They claim to be Christians, but they have never really changed their willpower. God is saying “I will let you do this” and they are saying “I will not.” God says “I will not let you do this” and they say “I will.” Until we truly and genuinely repent of our sins we will never really live the Christian life in the fullest sense. Repentance is God’s solution to change the volitional nature.
And finally how do we change the body of man from disobedience to
obedience? Water baptism for the forgiveness of sins is 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 spent in complete
harmony and obedience to the will of God. Just as it was amazing and a marvel
when our new grand baby came into this world, so it can be just as amazing and
just as marvelous when we see a person change their thinking and now they
believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God. They change their emotion to where they
love God, they love Christ, they love His word, they love His church, they love
His promises and they change their willpower to where they now are in
subordination to the gospel and they change their body and they now use the
members of their body as instruments of righteousness instead of instruments of
sin and rebellion. What will it be for you today? 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 all 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
