Born of the Spirit

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

BORN OF THE SPIRIT

John 3:1-8

3:1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him." 3 In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."  4 "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" 5 Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." 

NIV

There is more to this conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, but we need to stop here and unpack this idea of being born again, which Jesus insists is the only way a person is going to see the kingdom of God. The idea of being born brings to mind a distinct moment in time. It is our birthday and for the rest of our nature lives we celebrate this day of our birth. We are not sure if it is a legal matter or not but the hospital issues a birth certificate showing the exact time of the day, the names of our parents and other information, sometimes  even our footprints, so we are identified as who we are and establish that we are a living soul. This is the moment in time we became a child of our parents. This is what Jesus is speaking of when he says we have to be born again. This is a distinct moment in time when we became a child of God, when we are born of the Spirit. Just as we cannot gradually become a child of our parents, we cannot gradually become a child of God. It is not something we become over time, it is a moment when we are born again. This is a choice of our will to be born again. The Spirit first convicted us of our need to repent and accept Jesus. He made us aware of our condition and of the remedy. This is what Jesus is saying about the Spirit giving birth to the spirit. Nicodemus just could not wrap his mind around this idea. All he could think of was how someone could be born again as a human being, like crawling back into his mother’s womb. But no, Jesus makes it clear he is speaking about the birth or the rebirth of a person’s spirit. In the flesh we will always be the child of our parents. We carry their DNA within us, our genes are a combination of both our parents. For the most part we even resemble them in appearance. Many people can tell we are our parent’s child. Again, for the most part we resemble their tracts, we learn to think as they do, and act in the same manner as they do. There are exceptions, of course, but we usually are like are parents in many things. So it is when we are born of the Spirit, when our spirit is in such a condition it cannot see the kingdom of God, it has to be born again by the Spirit, that is being born as a child of God. Then God is now our parent and we have his DNA within us, we are now supposed to resemble him. We now have some of his traits and we now think as he thinks about things. It is a moment in time when we become his child. Every person must undergo this birth of the Spirit. No one issues us a birth certificate, but we have one just the same. It was a 3:45:13 PM on the 28^th of July, 1973 when we were born of the Spirit. That is how exact God keeps the record of our birth of the Spirit, when we became his child forever, when we were born again, when we were born of the Spirit.