Born Again?

In my last post (link) I made this statement:

“Every true Christian has been born again. And if you've been born again, you know it!”

I would like to explain what I mean by this so there isn’t any confusion. We’ve all heard people say, “So and so is a ‘born again’ Christian.” Is there a difference between a ‘born again’ Christian and normal, everyday Christian? To be as simple as possible with my explanation, I will say that there are people who claim to be Christians, but are not; and there are true Christians. True Christians are ‘born again’ according to scripture. So saying that you are a ‘born again’ believer is the same thing as saying that you are a true Christian believer. I’m not suggesting that Christians use the phrase all the time, but it is biblical as I intend to show. Here is the main passage of scripture that introduces this idea to us.

John 3:3-8

¹Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; ²this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." ³Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." ⁴Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?" ⁵Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. ⁶"That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷"Do not be amazed that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' ⁸"The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit."

Jesus is simply trying to explain that the only way God can receive anyone into His kingdom is if that person goes through a spiritual transformation-- A “rebirth”, where the still-born human spirit is given new life that is imputed with Christ’s righteousness.

This is salvation! When this occurs in a person’s life, the Holy Spirit takes up residence and the results of that are spiritual “fruit” and good “deeds.” This process is “caused” by God, as we see here in 1 Peter 1:3

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

The other, more controversial, thing I said was that if you’re born again, you know it! I want to qualify and defend that statement for you. I wasn’t trying to imply that every Christian knows the exact moment that they were saved. Some do, some don’t. What I was trying to say, was that all true believers should have a general assurance about their salvation. Romans 8:16 comes to mind:

¹⁶The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,

This verse is saying that we can sense the Holy Spirit working in our lives as Christians. This reinforces our faith, gives us confidence, and gives us strength to endure trials while here on earth. Not everyone knows exactly when this “re-birth” occurs. The fruit of the spirit, listed in Galatians 5:22 (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, etc.) gives us a description of the Holy Spirit, and we can look at our lives to see if the evidence of His presence is there or not.