The New Birth
(John 3:1-15)
By
Shelby G. Floyd
It is a great blessing when a new birth takes place in a family. The
congregation has been blessed by the birth of a new baby boy in recent weeks. We
have observed the joy and happiness this brings to the family. In the same way,
when one is “born again” or “born from above,” there is great joy in heaven and
on earth among the people of God. Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter
the
BORN INTO THREE KINGDOMS
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
THE
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, and 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: “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify
you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless
at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”
(1 Thessalonians
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 BRINGS ABOUT THE
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 1 John 5:1, a man must be born
of God: “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone
who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him.” 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 James wrote, “Of His own will He brought us forth by the
word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits
of His creatures”
(James 1:18).
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 NATURE OF
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, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born
of the Spirit is Spirit. Marvel not that I said unto you must be born again”
(John 3:6-7). 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.
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.
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 (2 Corinthians 7:8-11). 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 the
*Shelby G. Floyd
delivered this sermon