There are certain Christian phrases such as “born again” that we use until they are devoid of all meaning.
Take for example the passage that crops up mid-discussion in John 3:3. Unless a man is:
- born from above
- born anew
- born again
And yet it is that last phrase that we latch onto and use with such enthusiasm that it stops having any real meaning beyond being the definition of a particular type of over-enthusiastic Christian with a tendency to over-share their faith, often at inappropriate times.
What does “born again” mean?
Never mind that the actual Greek phrase is gennaó anóthen which could very well be rendered regenerate from the first. The word anóthen is rendered above more often than not and gennaó is rendered born 41 times and father 37 times which leads me to paraphrase as unless a man is parented from above.
Jesus is teaching us here that to see the Kingdom of God (the meaning of which is a whole other discussion) our spirit self must be birthed and parented by The Father.
Yet instead of this being a way of life (being parented) we have somehow made it a status of having already become. This can lead to the kind of person not even slightly participating in the rulership of heaven going around and telling anyone who will listen, “you must join my club or God hates you. Just say this prayer and everything else need not be worried about”.
I ask you this, what fruit of change does “saying this little prayer” bring? Frequently nothing at all. But rather than admit that we have oversimplified and missed a deep spiritual truth, we trot out another doctrine to paper over the cracks. That’s where the hogwash idea of “carnal Christianity” comes from – a claim that one can “be born again” without any outward evidence that this is true.
Our birth was never our decision
John 3:3 is not talking about a momentary choice but a lifestyle. To be gennaó anóthen – fathered from above – is a lifelong process. A process, I might add, that has an evidence to go with it. As Young’s Literal Translation puts it, when you are born from above the result is you are able to see the reign of God.
John 3:6 exists to clarify the preceding passages.
What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.
John 3:6, NET
A passage that could be that which is conceived/begotten/fathered/born by the Spirit is spirit. We can tiptoe past the fact that this could also be rendered “air is born from the wind”.
Who exactly is in control?
When people are born, John 1:13 say that this is because of the desire of people (you were born because your parents made certain very specific choices regarding how to spend their time together). Yet that which is born from the Spirit is born because of the will of the Spirit. To put it another way, the birth from above is not our choice to make. To teach that we can choose to become “born again” is to misunderstand everything you have just read.
Which is a point repeated in John 15:16 – the birthing from above must be The Father’s choice, not ours. To think we can demand that from God with a short cookie-cutter prayer is the height of arrogance. The human gestation period is roughly nine months; I doubt very much that the spiritual equivalent is three and a half seconds.
If we desire to be born from above, we cannot will it to happen. The best we can do is make ourselves constantly available and wait. We can wait – trusting that God is for us. Trusting that – in His own time – He will choose to give birth to us. Until that time, we are at most embryos waiting to grow into something more.
Or to put it another way – He is the potter and we are only the clay. Clay cannot wake up one morning and say, “today I am a water jar”. The clay is deluding itself. It is still clay. It will remain so until the potter chooses to make something out of it.