Being "Born Again"

Commentary:

This man Nicodemus was a religious man who knew the OT very well (atleast he thought he did). He comes to Jesus at night (perhaps because he’s afraid of others finding out he’s visiting Jesus?) and offers a very cordial greeting. He recognizes that there’s something special about this Jesus, that He has “come from God”. That’s quite a thing to say and admit for a religious leader of that day.

Nicodemus doesn’t get it. He’s thinking of things with a fleshly, human perspective, not God’s perspective.

Jesus is not referring to a second natural birth by any means, He is referring to a birth that cannot be performed by humanity but by divinity. Being “born again” has no origin in man, but all origin in God.

Perhaps one point that can be drawn from this verse is that just as we cannot see the wind or understand its full power or how it happens, so we cannot grasp fully our new birth in the Spirit. It is so grand that it would take our whole life (and even more time) to get a handle on what it truly means to be “born again”.

False religion and mere knowledge do not lead a person to a saving faith. Only God in His drawing work of salvation saves the sinner, NOT the sinner’s attributes or possessions.

Jesus spoke of and testified of what He knew to be true from His experience of who He was (the Son of God). Similarly, as people saved by grace, we are able to share the Gospel because we’ve experienced its power. God’s given each one of us a testimony that we are called to testify of to the unbelieving world around us, in order that God might use His work in our lives as a means of planting seeds and bringing in a harvest of repentance and saving faith in other’s lives. So, God can use you mightily to bring others into the Kingdom!

This verse can refer to the importance of believing the entire Word of God. If we start to doubt the Bible when it speaks on earthly kings (i.e. Creation), what basis do we have to believe the Bible’s claims about our spiritual lives? In other words, if the Bible cannot get the simple, worldly statistics right, then how can we trust it with any certainty to get the far more complicated spiritual facts right? So, we must believe as true the entirety of Scripture, or believe in its inerrancy.

Just as those who looked to Moses’ snake lived (Numbers 21:9), so those who fix their eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2) and believe in Him will live.

The most famously quoted verse in all the Bible has its context here in this passage. God’s reason for sending His perfect Son to die was so that He could reconcile sinful humanity to Himself; to set up a holy people for Himself (Colossians 1:21-23). God has established that He is both just and the justifier of those who believe (Romans 3:25-26).

It is because of Christ’s righteousness that a believer is no longer condemned, it has nothing to do with what they’ve done. Those who do not believe are already condemned - they are sinners at birth. It is not because a man doesn’t know the story of Jesus that they are condemned, but rather because they are sinful by nature. And their not believing “in the name of God’s one and only Son” is just proof of this already true fact.

This sums up the sad state of sinful humanity - they love darkness. There is no spiritual good in unsaved humanity; they prefer evil rather than good. Their evil deeds are the logical result of their inherited sinful nature at birth.
These dead sinners hate the light strongly because by it their deeds are exposed for what they truly are - evil in the sight of a holy God who demands payment for all sin committed.

This is the promise that we have - we will enter into the light by living according to the “truth”. How do we determine/find out truth? I believe first we must realize that Truth is a person - Jesus Christ! (John 14:6) It is only by Jesus that we discover truth and the only way to God, for Jesus Himself is the only way to the Father who bestows life on His people (Acts 4:12). It is only by placing one’s full trust in this One man’s death & resurrection, and being obedient to His will, that they will find life. Trusting in anyone/anything else for salvation, no matter how lofty or “cool” it seems, is equivalent to trusting in gasoline to extinguish a fire. It ain’t gonna put it out! In fact, the more gas you throw on the fire, the worse that fire’s gonna get. Likewise, the more you trust in anyone/anything other than Christ, the further you’ll get from the Truth (Jesus Christ). Abandon those “anyones” and “anythings” and come to the sole source of salvation; come to Jesus today!