Being Born Of The Spirit

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| PentecostalTheology.com

John Edmiston

The Spiritual Continuum

Stage One: Being Born Of The Spirit

Most of you who are reading this book are probably already born-again, and you might be tempted to skip this short chapter. Please not do that because you will learn a great deal about your new nature and what it means to be a totally new creation in Christ Jesus. This teaching will be a solid foundation for everything else that you learn in the rest of this book.

The following conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus (in the gospel of John) lays out some amazing truths about what it means to be born-again:

(John3:1) Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. (3:2) This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” (3:3) Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Jesus states, quite firmly, that you cannot even start on the spiritual life (“enter the Kingdom of God”) until you are born-again. The old life is not sufficient. You need a new start and a new life. This is not just for prisoners and drug-addicts, everyone needs to be born-again, even Nicodemus who was a respectable leader in Israel.

(3:4) Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (3:5) Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. (3:6) That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Nicodemus is puzzled and interprets Jesus’ statement as requiring another natural birth where he would have to crawl back into the womb of his mother and go through the birthing process all over again. Jesus then explains that it is not a new physical birth that is required but a new spiritual life, one that is not from the flesh, but rather is from the Spirit.

Verse 6 is all-important: That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Nicodemus was a “teacher of all Israel” (v. 10) and yet all his Torah (Jewish Bible) knowledge was just “flesh”, which is just another term for human effort centered around our own ego. There was absolutely no life in the religion of Nicodemus. Nicodemus could go to the Temple, read the Bible, teach the Bible, and even obey the Bible and yet be spiritually dead.

Nicodemus would say that he certainly believed in God. In fact, believing in God was probably at the very center of his existence! However, it was still “of the flesh” as there was no living connection to God through faith in Jesus Christ.

Being born-again is not just a feeling; it is the connection of an empty human being to the love of Almighty God. And Nicodemus was empty! He was striving hard, but he was an empty shell. Nicodemus needed to be completely filled with God!

Jesus introduces us to the two modes of being which He calls “flesh” and “spirit”. When we are in the flesh we are doing it all ourselves, we are acting out of our own sense of who we are, we are based in the human ego, and we lack true power from God. The flesh produces a temporary result that soon fades away. There is no eternal result, no deep spiritual transformation, we put in a lot of effort but soon end up right back where we started.

On the other hand, spirit gives birth to spirit, eternity gives birth to eternity, and God gives birth to His children! When we are “of the Spirit”, we naturally inherit the divine nature. The spiritual life is not forced. Love is not forced. Joy is not forced. All good things arise out of the new nature as part of the process of growing up in Christ.

(John 3:7,8) Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

The person “born of the Spirit” is as unpredictable as the wind, they are moved by Heaven and not by this world and they have a new life in them that is heavenly and from above. You cannot become born-again by scholarship or by doing good deeds. You become born-again by believing in Jesus Christ (John 3:16) and this makes you an entirely new creation:

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

This new creation still has to live (for now) in the midst of the old creation which creates a lot of conflict: Galatians 4:29 But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now.

The people of the flesh, the people of this world, do not understand born-again people and are sometimes hostile or arrogant toward them.

The apostle Peter also tells us a few things about what it means to be born-again:

1 Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

1 Peter 1:23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;

1 Peter 2:1-3 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

So, we are born-again to a living hope through the living and abiding word of God which we are to desire like milk so that we may grow up into salvation! (Peter is obviously writing to fairly new Christians here). Also notice that the seed is imperishable (the Word of God) which means that being born-again is not some transient thing, like a spiritual fad. It is a whole new change of our nature based on powerful, eternal and imperishable spiritual principles.

Therefore, once you are born-again you are an imperishable new creation with a whole lot of growing up to do (which is what the rest of this book is about). The apostle Peter says that new Christians are “newborn infants” in spiritual matters even if they are as successful and as powerful as Nicodemus.

So being born-again means that we start living by Heaven and by the Spirit instead of by the world, the flesh or the Devil.

It also means that we do not live like the people in the Old Testament who were under the Law. Certainly, we need to be holy and righteous, but the way we go about doing that is now entirely different! We are not doing it by our own strength, but via the Spirit and this small book will show you how to do that and how to live a joyful and holy life.

Instead of always trying and failing to live up to the rules in the Bible, we fulfill the Scriptures by living them out in our lives by the power of Jesus Christ who comes to dwell in us!

Galatians 2:19-21 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

These verses from Galatians tell us that:
a) Righteousness is not through obeying the Law of Moses in the Old Testament
b) We are crucified to the old spiritual life through Christ
c) We now live out our spiritual lives by faith through the power of Christ in us.

The new person does not live by the old law. We do not live “by the letter” rather we live “by the Spirit”. Not word for word or line by line, but out of a completely new life principle that God creates within us:

2 Corinthians 3:5,6 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Romans 7:6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

We serve in the new way of the Spirit! We are not rule-keepers, rather we are followers of the Spirit Who gives us life. Nicodemus obeyed the law, but Nicodemus did not have spiritual life because Nicodemus was not born-again!

Once we have spiritual life, once we are new creations, once we have Christ in us we then just follow the seven next steps of the spiritual life which are: set your mind on the Spirit, be filled with the Spirit, worship in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, be led by the Spirit, be taught by the Spirit and finally fervently love one another in the Spirit.

So, instead of following this rule then that rule and so on and so forth we just follow God. We follow God by practicing the seven steps of the spiritual life (after the basic essential step of being born-again).

It is a change from a static, hard-and-fast set of rules to a compelling, wise, spiritual lifestyle where Christ in us brings us into a whole new realm of living and being. The old way, the way of rules, produces a person who conforms. The new way, the way of the Spirit produces a person who is alive and who is full of love. The person who is full of love fulfills the inner spiritual intent of all the old rules along the way and has an extra dimension of eternal life.

Romans 13:8-10 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Thus, the born-again person matures into a Christ-like person who is full of love. This love fulfills the law and achieves all righteousness. The born-again person does not mature by following rules. The new creation matures through God being at work inside of them and by following the spiritual disciplines in the New Testament such as setting their mind on the Spirit and not upon the flesh – which leads us to the next chapter.

Discussion Questions