John 3:3-6 “Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (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?" (5) Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. (6) That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
Now we can clearly understand why it is that Jesus said in the above quoted passage of scripture that we must be born-again. In this passage our Lord Jesus was speaking about being born-again in our spirits, for He contrasted physical birth with spiritual birth when he said “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. And so the reason we must be born-again, is because we were all once born spiritually alive to God when we were first born into the earth, and we all died spiritually at the age of thirteen when God held us accountable for our sins and we became separated from God. And so we all need to be born-again so that we can once again be made spiritually alive and thus be reconciled to God. In a later section we will discuss how God made it possible for us to be born-again, but in this section we just wanted to establish the truth that unless we are born-again in spirit that we cannot enter the kingdom of God.
1 Peter 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
As we have already established, when we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, our spirits are born-again. This is why the Holy Spirit teaches us in the above quoted passage of scripture that God once again makes our spirits alive when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, for He uses the term “has begotten us again”. The reason He uses that term is because we were once before begotten by God when we first came into the earth, and we then died spiritually when we sinned against God at the age of thirteen, and so God in His abundant mercy has begotten our spirits once again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 1:23 “having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.”
And so once we are born-again our spirits once again take on the nature of God as our Father, for the Holy Spirit in the above quoted passage of scripture teaches us that we are born-again of the incorruptible seed of the word of God. It is for this reason that Jesus is not ashamed to call us His brothers, because we have been born of God just as He has been born of God (Hebrews 2:11).
Michael E.B. Maher
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