You may have noticed that I did not post a new article on my blog site last week. It’s the first week since I started my blog back in November that I missed a week. It certainly wasn’t planned but it was unavoidable.
In case you didn’t see my Facebook post, my father passed away last Wednesday. Needless to say, I spent quite a bit of time with my mother, brother, and sisters all week long. Every day was filled with a lot of preparations and arrangements that needed to be made, to say nothing about all the consoling and eating going on all the way up to the showing and funeral on Monday. As any of you who have gone through this know, my mind and time was occupied with a lot of things other than writing.
We are all going to miss our father, and it’s certainly not been an easy transition for our mother. Fortunately, my four siblings and I all live within a half hour drive of our mom and we all have spouses who also provide a lot of love and caring support too. And I haven’t even mentioned all the grandchildren and great grandchildren who have been a source of great joy for my parents over their golden years. It’s a fantastic blessing to belong to such a family. Perfect family? Of course not (whose family is?), but a great blessing nonetheless.
It’s not like I was looking for an irony in all this, but there was one that did not escape my notice. Just the Thursday evening before my father’s health took it’s turn for the worst, I had posted an article in which I revealed that one of the things that makes God’s grace so essential is life. And I don’t mean the being born into this world kind of life, though that’s obviously extremely important. What I mean is the spiritual, everlasting kind of life. As we learned from Ephesians 2, we were all dead in our sins and transgressions. But because of His grace, flowing from His love, God made us alive in Jesus Christ when we believed in him. That’s the hope we have for our dad, and that’s the promise of God that fills us with the anticipation of seeing him again someday.
That new life we have in Christ is what Jesus referred to as being born again when speaking to Nicodemus in John 3. “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. (v. 3)” This statement certainly confused Nicodemus, who thought Jesus was somehow referring to your mother giving birth to you again. “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born! (v. 4)”
I’ve got to tell you, it would be easy to laugh at poor old Nicodemus and wonder how he could be so slow if it weren’t for the fact that none of us would probably have understood either. How can a person be born again? That’s the million dollar question.
Thankfully, Jesus was gracious toward Nicodemus, just as he is with you and me. And that grace was essential for Nicodemus’ understanding and his lack of faith. Jesus patiently explained to him, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit (v. 5,6).”
And there we have it. Being born again – the new life – is explained. Flesh gives birth to flesh. That is an obvious reference to our natural birth that started our life here on earth. However, the second birth to which Jesus was referring when he said we must be born again is not a matter of the flesh. It has nothing to do with our earthly mother and father. That responsibility belongs to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit gives birth to spirit.
So the new life we have in Christ is made possible by the Holy Spirit. That is the fulfillment of God’s promise that he would give us a new heart and a new spirit. (Ezekiel 36:26) When we are born again, we receive the Spirit of Christ. He dwells in us and is our seal until the day of our redemption. (Ephesians 1:14)
But how does this new birth happen? Do we somehow merit it by good works or proving ourselves worthy of it to God? Not at all. There is nothing we can do to earn this new life. If we could, then grace wouldn’t be grace.
So does the Holy Spirit just choose at random to whom he will grant this second birth? Is there some kind of heavenly lottery system that determines who the lucky ones are? Again, not at all. Random chance or indiscriminate choice has nothing to do with it.
Just as human life is impossible without conception, so spiritual life is impossible without some form of conception as well. Only this conception is not a matter of the flesh; it is completely spiritual indeed.
It starts with the very thing that has the life-giving force in it – the gospel. As Paul explained it, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” (Romans 1:16) Notice that he refers to the gospel as the power that brings salvation to everyone who believes. But for that life-giving force to germinate into something that will live, it has to find a receptacle – our minds. As Paul elaborated later in Romans, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14)
Here is how it works. Someone shares the good news of Jesus Christ with others. You hear that good news. As you consider in your mind what you’ve heard, the possibility of germination is there. If you believe in your mind what you have heard about Jesus, new life has now been conceived in you. At that moment you’ve been born again.
That takes us back to Jesus and Nicodemus. After explaining that we need to be born again by the Spirit, he further explained how this would happen. “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” (John 3:14-15) In other words, Jesus was sharing the gospel with Nicodemus. His being lifted up was a reference to his death on the cross so that he would take away the sin of the world. Anyone who believes in this truth and believes in Jesus Christ would indeed be born again.
This is the hope that we all have. That hope can develop into faith. And faith is the door through which the Holy Spirit enters to bring about a new birth. To repeat, we can do nothing to bring about our new birth, just as we do nothing to be born into this world. All we do is believe the good news of life in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit gives birth to our spirit. This new birth is all the work of God and made possible by His essential grace. And that is what fills my family with the eternal hope to someday join our father in the presence of God.
Essential Grace 