I Need To Be Born Again

TO READ: John 3:1-21

Don’t be surprised when I say, “You must be born again.”

John 3:7

Have we received spiritual life? Let us consider whether God’s “wind” has changed us or if our life looks just the same today as it always has.

Jesus explained to Nicodemus that he needed to be born from above. “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Nicodemus had been born physically when God “breathed into [him] the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7), giving life to his body and soul. But there was something more. Now this teacher of Israel needed to be born spiritually. The life of the Spirit needed to bring life to Nicodemus’s spirit, which in a way was an even greater miracle than that of his physical birth.

Jesus told Nicodemus, “Don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:7). First Jesus said “you”; then he added “must.” The word you in Greek is plural —all who want to enter God’s kingdom must first be born again. Jesus showed that this was an eternal matter, that life in the kingdom of God could not even begin without the activity of the Holy Spirit. Jesus explained that Nicodemus must be related to him by being “born again.” That can be brought about only by the work of the Holy Spirit. If this was true for Nicodemus, a great teacher of Israel, it is certainly true for all of us. We must be born again.