What does “born again” mean, and what change does it describe?

Question 7089.

Born again has become one of the most misused phrases in religious English. In the press it functions as a label for a certain kind of enthusiastic Christian, usually American and usually presented with a raised eyebrow. In some churches it has become shorthand for having made a decision at a particular meeting. Jesus meant something far more radical than either.

He used it once, in a night time conversation with a religious expert, and He used it to say that everything Nicodemus had built his life on was insufficient. Let me work through what the phrase means, what actually changes, and how a person can tell.

The conversation in John 3

Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the ruling council, a man of genuine learning and moral seriousness. He came at night with a compliment, and Jesus cut straight past it. John 3:3 says unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Consider who is being told this. Not a criminal, not a pagan, not somebody at the bottom of the moral scale, but the most religiously accomplished man in the room. If anybody could have entered on the strength of his record, Nicodemus could. Jesus tells him he needs to start again from birth.

The Greek word is anothen, which can mean again or from above, and both senses are in play. Nicodemus hears again and finds it absurd, asking how a man can enter his mother’s womb a second time. Jesus is speaking of a birth from above, worked by the Spirit, and the ambiguity is the hinge of the whole exchange.

Why birth is the right image

Birth was chosen deliberately, and its features carry the meaning. Nobody arranges their own birth. Not one of us contributed to the decision, the timing or the process, and we arrived as recipients of something entirely done for us. To be born again is to receive life rather than to achieve it.

Birth is also a beginning rather than a completion. A newborn is fully alive and entirely undeveloped, which is exactly the state of a new believer. Peter tells his readers to desire spiritual milk like newborn infants, and nobody is embarrassed about a baby needing milk.

And birth is a change of nature, not an improvement of an existing one. This is where born again differs from every programme of self reform. Jesus does not tell Nicodemus to try harder, study more or add a discipline. He tells him he needs a different kind of life, because what is born of flesh is flesh, and only what is born of Spirit is spirit.

What born again is not

It is not a denominational label or a personality type. Every genuine Christian is born again, whether they are noisy or reserved, whether their conversion was dramatic or gradual, whether they can name the date or not.

It is not the same as having prayed a prayer or attended a meeting. Those may be occasions on which the new birth happens, and they are not the thing itself. I have known people who could name the evening and the evangelist and had no evidence of new life, and others who could not tell you when it happened and were plainly alive.

And it is not baptism. Water baptism is commanded, meaningful and important, and it is a picture of what has happened rather than the means of it. I have handled that question in the article on baptismal regeneration.

What actually changes

Paul says that if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old has passed away and the new has come. That is not hyperbole about improved behaviour. Something at the centre of the person has been made alive that was previously dead, and 2 Corinthians 5:17 is describing a change of order rather than of degree.

In practice several things shift. Scripture begins to make sense from the inside rather than reading like somebody else’s mail. Prayer becomes possible as conversation rather than performance. Sin begins to grieve you in a way it did not before, which can feel like getting worse and is actually the new nature reacting to what it now finds foreign.

There is also a change of affection towards God’s people. 1 Peter 1:23 speaks of being born again through the living and abiding word of God, and John treats love for the brethren as one of the plainest evidences that the birth has occurred.

Whose work it is

Jesus compares the Spirit to wind, which blows where it wishes. You hear the sound and cannot control the direction, and so it is with everyone born of the Spirit. Regeneration is God’s work, not a human achievement, and nobody talks themselves into being born again.

That said, my position is that faith precedes regeneration rather than following it. God draws, convicts and enables through the gospel; a person responds in faith; and God imparts new life. John 1:12 has the order plainly: to all who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God. Receiving comes first in the sentence and in the reality.

That distinguishes my view from the Reformed account, in which regeneration must precede faith because the unregenerate cannot believe. I hold that the Spirit’s work through the gospel genuinely enables response without compelling it. See what regeneration is and the Spirit’s role in regeneration.

How you can tell

John wrote his first letter for exactly this purpose, and he gives tests rather than feelings. Do you find yourself agreeing with God about your sin? Do you love other Christians, including the ones you would not have chosen? Is there any obedience in your life that costs you something? Do you look to Jesus rather than to your record when you think about standing before God?

None of these is a matter of degree in the sense of reaching a threshold. John is contrasting something with nothing. A weak new life is still life, and a newborn is not disqualified for being small.

If the honest answer is that you find none of it, the response is not to work up feelings but to come to Jesus and ask Him for the life you do not have. He turned nobody away who came like that, including a Pharisee who arrived at night with his reputation to protect. Nicodemus, incidentally, turns up again at the burial, carrying spices in daylight. Something had happened.

What the Old Testament promised about this

Jesus expressed surprise that Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel, did not understand these things, and the surprise was fair. The prophets had promised precisely this. Ezekiel spoke of God sprinkling clean water, removing the heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh, and putting His own Spirit within His people.

Jeremiah promised a new covenant written on the heart rather than on tablets. Both prophets were describing an inward work that the old arrangement had exposed the need for and could not supply. Nicodemus had the texts and had not put them together.

That should keep the rest of us humble. It is entirely possible to know the Bible well and to miss the thing it is pointing at, and the remedy is not more information but the very work the passage describes.

Growing after the new birth

Because the imagery is birth, growth is expected and its absence is a concern. A newborn who never gains weight worries a parent, and a professing believer who is in exactly the same spiritual condition after fifteen years ought to prompt a gentle question.

The means of growth are unglamorous and they work. Regular Scripture, honest prayer, the fellowship and teaching of a local church, the Lord’s Supper, obedience in the specific matter in front of you. Nobody has ever discovered a shortcut, and every generation tries.

Expect the growth to be uneven. Children grow in spurts and plateaus, and so do Christians. What matters is the direction across years rather than the reading on any given week, and the direction is set by the nature you were given rather than by the effort you can muster on a Tuesday.

Nicodemus at the end of the story

John does something quietly beautiful with this man. He appears at night in chapter three, speaks up cautiously for due process in chapter seven, and turns up in chapter nineteen carrying seventy five pounds of spices to bury a crucified criminal in public view. Nobody argues for a man’s corpse unless something has changed. The conversation about being born again was not wasted, and it took years to show. That is worth remembering about the people you have spoken to and given up on.

So, now what?

If you have never been born again, understand that nothing you can do produces it and everything hangs on coming to the One who gives it. Tell Him honestly that you are dead and need life, that you trust His death for your sins and His rising for your justification. The article on what faith is sets out what that trust involves.

If you have been born again, live like somebody who has been given a nature that actually wants God. Feed the new life with Scripture, exercise it with obedience, keep it in the company of other believers. What would change this week if you took your new birth as seriously as Jesus took it with Nicodemus?

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