QUESTION: What does it mean to be born again? I've heard someone say when they started a new career that they now were "born again."

ANSWER: Sometimes people have used the words "born again" to describe how they feel about entering a new career, or when their health improves, or when they have extreme enthusiasm about a sport or activity. However, if we want to know the meaning of "born again" as it was used by the Lord Jesus, then we have to ask, "What does the Scripture say?" I recommend that you read the entire third chapter of John's gospel prayerfully.

The Lord told Nicodemus, a religious man, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus could not understand this; so the Lord further describes how one is born again in verses 5 and 6: "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."

No one can see the kingdom of God, let alone enter it, unless he is born of water and of the Spirit. In order to understand this we need to know what it means to be born of water and of the Spirit. Although there are many today that believe that the water here means water baptism (infant or adult), this cannot be supported by Scripture, as follows:

1. Christian baptism was not instituted until the Lord Jesus was resurrected (Matthew 28:18-20). The baptism of John was unto repentance—not Christian baptism (Matt. 3:1-12).

2. Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that if she knew the gift of God she would have been given living water (John 4:10).

3. In John 15:3 the Lord Jesus tells his disciples, "Ye are clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you."

4. "Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word" (Eph. 5:25,26).

5. "Of His own will begat He us with the Word of truth" (James 1:18).

6. "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever" (1 Peter 1:23).

7. The words baptism and life are never connected in Scripture, but the words baptism and death are always associated (Romans 6:3,4; Col. 2:12).

If you compare these Scriptures carefully you will notice that all agree that it is through the Word of God that we are born again. Furthermore, the apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:17, "For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel." Baptism, then, is not even a part of the gospel. When the gospel in the Word of God is presented to a person and he believes in Christ he is born of water (the Word) and the power of the Spirit.

What then is the gospel? "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). Nicodemus eventually believed these words and was born again. Notice that God has done two things—God so loved and God gave. There is only one thing you have to do to be born again. It is simply to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ who died for your sins at Calvary. If you do not believe you will perish in your sin.

—John D. McNeil