“Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Such were Jesus’ words to the Pharisee leader Nicodemus, who came to Jesus at night, presumably when he would not be seen by his peers, seeking wisdom external to his religious community. This particular exchange is captured in John 3:3 – as part of the same discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus as the far-more-famous John 3:16.
I’ve always read “see the kingdom of God” as Jesus saying that without this “born again” concept it is impossible to recognize the Kingdom of God. But the word translated here as “to see” (ἰδεῖν) also has a sense of experiencing, or becoming personally acquainted with something. It’s much deeper than just intellectual observation.
From this, I have a sense that Jesus wasn’t saying that to be born again enables one to recognize the Kingdom, as much as He was saying that being born again enables one to experience and be a part of the Kingdom. And it feels like that lines up with other statements by Jesus that the Kingdom was already in His listeners’ midst, that it had already arrived, and that they needed to and were able to partake of it by His ministry.
When I was a younger Christian, I thought about being “born again” as primarily a matter of conversion of my soul into something eternal, or perhaps something eternally acceptable to God and thus fated to abide in God’s presence eternally after my body’s death.
That the “born again” term was near and dear to me shouldn’t be surprising: it really exploded into American consciousness in the late 1970s with the Watergate conspirator Chuck Colson’s book “Born Again” and Jimmy Carter and then Ronald Reagan publicly claiming the term in a bid to appeal to evangelical Christian voters. Being born about a decade before, this term became popular right as I was coming into my own as a young Christian attending an evangelical church, and wanting to differentiate myself to my peers.
But it occurred to me that what I’ve been experiencing for the last few years, what I’ve frequently referred to as deconstruction or reconstruction, is instead very tangibly being “born again,” right now. In this season, many things about me are being changed and adjusted and rebooted: how I think about God, how I think about the Bible, how I think about others, how I think about my nation and the world, how I treat other people, how I serve the poor and needy and oppressed – so not just my thoughts, but my deeds as well.
As something of an aside, but directly touching on this thoughts/deeds topic, the passage of John 3:16-18 is often used by evangelicals to argue that salvation is a function of right belief:
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
Believe, believe, believe. Lots of thought words.
But it’s interesting that Jesus actually ends His dialoge with Nicodemus in verses John 3:19-21 by tying the concept of salvation to deeds, saying: “And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light lest his deeds be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been done by God.”
Fascinating: Deeds, does, deeds, practices, deeds, manifested, done. Lots of action words.
Perhaps this is why most evangelicals stop quoting Jesus at the end of verse 16, or at most verse 18.
But when you consider the balance between thought words and action words in Jesus’ words, maybe James was on to something important in James 2:14-26:
14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without [a]your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
This would certainly undercut my confidence as a young Christian in the supremacy of right thinking.
Now, it’s probably deeply ironic that most of my conservative evangelical family and friends think of what I’m going through as exactly the opposite – I’ve even had one family member worry out loud to me that they’re concerned about my soul, meaning whether I’ll even make it to heaven any more – as a result of the changes in my beliefs and my deeds. It saddens me how Ezekiel’s words about the sin of Sodom being inhospitality and lack of concern for the needy (Ezekiel 16:49-50) are cast aside by those who reinterpret it to oppose homosexuality. My newfound deep concern for the American mistreatment of the Black community, and a desire for social justice and antiracism, gets me accused of Marxism and socialism, which in the evangelical imagination are demonic and antichrist. My change in thinking about the doctrines of hell and eternal conscious torment and the Rapture get me tagged as a heretic, even as I have wrestled deeply with the Bible and two millennia of Christian study of those topics and concluded that the relatively recent evangelical dogma on these topics is the true heresy here. So all of these changes run counter to how I was raised, but I find myself deeply convicted nonetheless that these things are each part of the call on my soul, at least in this season. Who knows what God will require of me in the future – but it’s where I am today, and many of my acquaintances unfortunately see it as damning rather than drawing continually nearer to God.
Anyway, despite all this intellectual change in my understanding, the thing that most speaks to me about the validity and truth of this spiritual rebirth in my life, and which I feel speaks volumes about the difference between me and those who criticize me, is my emotional reaction to it all. For most of my life, by many of these people who decry these changes, I’ve been told that one of the best signs of salvation is a life suddenly full of deep peace and joy. Well, the emotional fruit of this season of my life is exactly that. After years of doubt and unease and discomfort with my faith, I’m deeply joyful to finally be regularly sensing a strong connection to God, hearing the voice of God, sensing God’s pleasure with me. And despite the chaos around me, and a great many things changing away from what I wish would happen, I’m peaceful about my situation and what will be coming. True, there has been plenty of emotional upheaval as I’ve struggled with repenting of decades of wrong thinking, and repentant sorrow over how I mistreated people and led others into harm or into harmful treatment of others. But the abiding undercurrent in my heart these days is joy and peace.
And perhaps even more than my own reaction, one thing that speaks to me of the truth of this change in my own emotions is considering what I see in those who resist such changes: so many of them just manifest a state of angst, of fear of the changes, of hatred of those who are “other,” of selfish preservation of their own situation and belongings, of a heart of violence against those of different beliefs and persuasions, of a desire to retreat into walled doctrinal and social forts that exclude others. I don’t know what’s truly going on in their hearts, but from the outside it doesn’t look much like the fruit of the Spirit.
To summarize… when I think back over the last couple years, and what has happened to and inside of me, it really does feel like what I always understood being “born again” should be. I always thought of myself as already born again, based on my younger experiences, and I have no doubt in the reality of my former relationship with God through Jesus. But what I’m discovering is that this idea of “be being born again” – or maybe better stated “be rebirthing” – the urgency of an ongoing continual renewal of our soul into increasingly accurate representation of the character and nature of God – it applies in this new season just as much as it did on that first day as a five or six year old when I knelt down by myself on my bed and innocently invited Jesus into my heart. It is just as powerful as the renewal of my faith in college as I recommitted myself to pursuing God. This new season of my life is infinitely more complex and more mature than either of those seasons, but I believe it’s just as real as those former “conversion” experiences were to me.
So there you have it. In the last couple of years, as I left evangelicalism, I have to conclude that I have truly been “born again” and I’m seeing the Kingdom of God in a new light, and nobody can take that away from me, no matter how much it offends their own sensibilities.
I hope this has been helpful. If you have questions or comments, or you just want to share your own story, I’d love to discuss it with you. Drop me a comment here or on my social media feeds. Be blessed – we’ll talk again soon.