BORN AGAIN? Why? Is Abraham your father?

All birth; no life.

John 3.1-15

There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.

“Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

Nicodemus assumed that his relationship with Abraham guaranteed him Abraham’s relationship with God. Jesus’ answer is that God has no grandchildren. No relationship you have with anyone else matters. Being a son of Abraham makes you a son of Abraham—not a son of God.

Thinking their birth made them right with God was a fundamental belief of the Jews—and a constant criticism of Jesus and John (Matt 3.9, John 8.31-59). However, when John criticized the Jews for depending upon Abraham for their salvation he didn’t say they needed to be born again; he said they needed to act like Abraham:

Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. The ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

This goes to the heart of the problem: the Israelites were depending upon birth rather than life. Paul says the same thing in Rom 9.6-8:

Not all who are of Israel are Israel, and not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants; but “It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.

Paul extends this concept beyond what any other Jew dreamed possible: not only that some Israelites are not true descendants of Abraham, but that some Gentiles are! Gal 3.6-14:

Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.” For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed.

For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law; for “The one who is righteous will live by faith.” But the law does not rest on faith; on the contrary, “Whoever does the works of the law will live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”—in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

The significant point for us is this: Jesus told Nicodemus that as a teacher of Israel he should have known this already. How should he have known this already? If Jesus is saying there is a new birth that he must undergo in order to come to God, how could Nicodemus know anything about this? The reason is that it wasn’t new. This was not a new teaching, this is not Christian doctrine, this is not teaching for the Church age. Jesus tells Nicodemus that as a teacher of Israel he should have already known these things, and the reason is that no one, ever, has come to God except by being born of the Spirit.

The modern-day church has taken the term “born again” as if it is something new. It’s not. It can’t be. To say it’s something new is to say that Israel came to God differently than the Church. That’s impossible. The Israelites didn’t know as much about how salvation is accomplished. The birth, death, and resurrection of Christ defined how God had always planned to bring it about. But they certainly weren’t made children of God differently than we are today. The fact that Paul says we are the true sons of Abraham should make it clear that Abraham (700 years before Moses) was the same as we are.

Paul says in 1 Cor 10 that the Church and Israel share the same baptism, the same Christ, the same spiritual food, the same spiritual drink—and significantly—the same expectations, responsibilities, and judgment.

No one has ever become a child of God by birth. No one. Ever. The Jews weren’t made children God by birth and Christians aren’t made children God by birth either. When Christ told Nicodemus he had to be born again he was not saying that being “born” isn’t enough but that being “born again” is. He was saying that any birth that doesn’t result in life is not a birth at all! The problem with Nicodemus was not that he wasn’t born again as a Christian; the problem was that he wasn’t born again as an Israelite. He was dead.

How do we know this? Because Jesus says so. John 3 continues:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.

Jesus says that the one thing that separates the false from the true children of God is how they act. Those who don’t believe love darkness. They avoid the light because they know if they do their deeds will be exposed.

“But,” Jesus continues, “those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

Jesus’ directly relates deeds with life and death. In our theologically mature faith-plus-nothing Christian church we recoil at the thought, but Jesus said it and he knew what he was saying. He knew he was going to die, there would be a Pentecost, and there would be a Church. Jesus’ words cannot be relegated to history, applying the hard parts to the Jews and salvaging the easy parts for the church.

We take Jesus’ words at face value when he says “you must be born again” and “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son”, but when he says in the same conversation that the bottom line is deeds—that the condemned hide in the darkness to conceal their deeds and that the redeemed come to the light so that their deeds may be clearly seen—we say this is incompatible with what we know to be true. And then, in an act of astonishing insult, we go to Paul to prove Christ didn’t say what he said.

But Paul says the same thing in Rom 9. When he says “not all who are of Israel are Israel” can we take this to mean that he’s really saying “not all who are of Israel are Christians”? Absolutely not. Paul goes on to say that the true Israelites are the children of the promise. There was a “true” Israel prior to Jesus’ death, and Paul says that the true Israelites were the ones who came to God as Abraham did. The true descendants of Abraham are those who believe as Abraham did (Gal 3).

But Abraham didn’t just “believe”, not in the way we believe anyway. He did the things God told him to do. He left Ur, he believed that God could bring life from Sarah’s lifeless womb, and he rose early in the morning to sacrifice his son.

Would you? Would you even take the first step: leaving home? “Well, if God told me to I would.” He has. Is the word of God the word of God to everyone but you?

To put it bluntly: If Abraham acted like the majority of Christians there would be no Rom 9 or Gal 3 because God would never have chosen someone like you to be the father of all who believe. You claim the faith of Abraham but won’t even leave home. Amazing.

Abraham knew nothing of a faith like ours. His faith was painful, fearful, devastating. If Abraham had the opportunity to step into a modern-day church he would be astonished: These are the people of faith?!

Jesus, in talking to Nicodemus, told him flatly: Your birth means nothing. Abraham does you no good because you act nothing like him. And now we have the same problem, and the statement is the same: Your birth means nothing. Christ does you no good because you act nothing like him.

Christ says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Jesus directly connects life and death with actions. His warning is unmistakable: If you are afraid of losing your life, you will!

Time after time Jesus tells us that fear is faithlessness. Time and again he tells us that the only true believers are those who follow him and act like him. And yet we, in our advanced understanding of theology, discount it with a sniff. We know we’re saved. We know we’re safe. We have it as concrete, solid fact that it’s faith plus nothing.

In Romans 5, after his long explanation how Abraham was justified by faith, Paul says:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Do you see that? Since we are justified by faith we boast in our sufferings! For Paul, a faith that produced no suffering was unthinkable. A faith that avoided the cross was not a faith at all. Christianity without the cross? Impossible!

The huge problem with our modern-day church is that it puts far too much emphasis on birth and far too little emphasis on life. Once we get them down the aisle, get them on their knees to repeat the sinner’s prayer, and get them into the baptismal our work is done. After that it’s just a matter of waiting for Jesus to return.

All birth; no life.