“Ye must be born again”
A Sermon preached at St. Mary’s Castle Street, Reading, 18th June
2000.
by Maurice Roberts
Let us now hear the Word of God as we have it written in the Gospel
according to John and in chapter 3:
There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said
unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no
man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus
answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him,
How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into
his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto
thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter
into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that
which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee,
Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest
the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it
goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and
said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him,
Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily,
I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen;
and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and
ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven,
even the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved
the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his
Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him
might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth
not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the
only begotten Son of God.
May the Lord add His blessing to this reading from His
most holy Word.
I wish to draw your attention today to words which you will
find in verses 3, 5 and 7 of this chapter. John 3 verse 3: "Jesus answered
and said unto him, Verily, Verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born
again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." At verse 5, "Jesus answered,
Verily, Verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the
spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." And again at verse 7, "Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again."
If I may, I should like to bring the greetings of my brethren
in the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) and in a word express my deep
gratitude for the privilege of being invited to address you on this occasion.
We seek God’s richest blessing upon the ministry of Mr. Richard Mortimer,
now begun. May God anoint him and bless him in all time coming.
The subject before us, as you see, is that of the new birth.
Nicodemus was a man of great religious knowledge and experience. He was,
if you like, an expert and a scholar in the things concerning the Old Testament.
But there was clearly one thing he did not know. He did not know the way
into the spiritual experience which is known as the new birth. We are told
here and indeed elsewhere in the Gospel of John, that he came to Jesus
‘by night’. It is, as it were, a label which is attached to
him all through this Gospel. He was the man who came to Jesus, we are told,
‘by night’. Why should he come ‘by night’ and why
should the Scriptures repeatedly draw attention to the fact that it was
‘by night’ that he came? I suppose that he came to Christ by
night under cover of darkness as being ashamed to come by day. He was, after
all, a religious expert and a ruler in Israel, as this portion of the Word
of God informs us. But, in spite of that, there was something that he did
not know and at this point in his experience had not understood. So our
blessed Lord and Saviour brings to him this supremely important theme of
the new birth.
Every minister beginning his work engages upon it with the
overwhelming concern to be instrumental in the blessing of men, women and
children. That’s why God instituted the ministry at all. And of all
the ways in which a minister might be a blessing to the people to whom
he ministers in time to come, none is greater than that he should have
the joy of seeing them come to this experience of new birth, whereby they
become the sons and daughters of Almighty God. Allow me, therefore, on
this occasion, if I may, to bring this theme before you and to look at
it under three simple and brief headings.
I. Our Lord and Saviour first of all brings before us the necessity
for the new birth.
He does this in the words, 'ye must be born again'. Now there
are many things that you and I can live in this world without. We do not
need to have great riches, fame or popularity to live a happy and a fulfilled
existence here in this world. There are many things we can do without and
these things that I have listed come to few in this world. But our Saviour
tells us all here in this passage, that there is one thing that we dare
not live without. He calls it by this term, 'the new birth'. He emphasises
the necessity of it in these words, 'ye must be born again'. Other things
may be optional but the new birth is a matter of absolute necessity, he
says.
Now let us raise the question, Why is it a matter of necessity?
Why is this new birth so much insisted on by the glorious, eternal Son
of God in the days of his ministry upon earth? Why does he press so repeatedly
the necessity for this experience of new birth?
Allow me to give you one or two reasons at this point. First
of all because our first birth did not give us any spiritual life. He tells
us in his own words, "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that
which is born of the Spirit is Spirit". He clearly shows, therefore, that
there are two kinds of life. There is natural life and there is spiritual
life. By natural life, he means that as we are born from our mother's
womb into this world, we enjoy a certain quality of life. That is so common-place
that it hardly needs to be said. But what does need to be said is that
our first birth from our mother's womb does not make us partakers
of spiritual life. We are born spiritually dead according to the teaching
of the Word of God. We are dead by nature in trespasses and sins. And the
necessity of the new birth arises from this consideration, that if we are
to have spiritual life, then there must be in our own experience this wonderful
work of God whereby we are given a second birth, a new beginning in this
life.
I come to a second reason why we need new birth. It is because
we must all die and we must all face the judgement. The supreme question
therefore in life is, Am I prepared for death, and am I prepared to face
my Maker and my Judge in that awesome day in which every knee must bow
before him and every tongue confess him? The only way in which we can prepare
for death, judgement and eternity, according to the words of Christ here
himself, is by having this new birth take place in this life and in our
own experience here in this world.
Why then should our Lord make this point so strongly to
Nicodemus? Did he not know these things? Was not all his religious learning
sufficient to have taught him this already? And the answer is, No. My dearest
friends, it is possible for us to spend many years under faithful preaching
and many years under the influence of godly men and women and yet ourselves
to remain without this experience. It is possible for us to be as ignorant
of the new birth as Nicodemus was in his day.
Let me illustrate it briefly before I must move on. The
famous John Wesley, two hundred and so many years ago, believed it was
his calling to be a missionary to the Indians of America and he travelled
the long sea voyage to the eastern seaboard of America to embark upon his
life's work, as he supposed, of preaching the Gospel to the Indians.
But he came back to England a disappointed man. And this is what he commented
on himself. He said, "I went to America to convert the people to
Christ, not realising that I was still unconverted myself." The great
man he became was the result of his experience in Aldersgate Street, London.
This famous experience was the outcome of the new birth and of it he said,
"My heart is strangely warmed." May I ask you this question,
Have you seriously faced the claims of Christ upon your life? Do you know
that we must be born again?
II. The second thing we look at here briefly is this. What happens in
the new birth?
What exactly is this experience? Well, it is a ‘birth’.
That is what our Lord intends by this figure of speech. A birth brings
something into the world which was not there before. A young man and a
young woman fall in love and marry and a year or two pass by and God then
blesses them with a child. It is a very common-place experience and one
that many of us have seen and witnessed and perhaps experienced for ourselves.
If so, we all know that the coming of a child into this world changes everything.
The pattern of the family’s life immediately alters. Birth brings
something into the world which changes everything. So, my dearly beloved,
it is with the new birth. It brings spiritual life into the soul of a man,
woman or child which was not there before and the consequence of this spiritual
life is that a person who is the subject of it is changed in every way.
I use this illustration as it may help the young. Imagine an old book such
as, let us say, Pilgrim’s Progress. You go into a shop selling old
books and there you see a copy of Pilgrim’s Progress. The spine is
torn, the pages are mildewed, and some of the pages are dog-eared. The whole
book, though wonderful in itself, is old and unappealing. But, let us suppose
that a printer comes along and issues a new edition of the old book, which
now appears in new dress. The book has not changed but the appearance of
the book has changed dramatically. So it is when the new birth occurs in
the life of anyone.
You will know the name of the great C. H. Spurgeon who preached
in London in the last century, perhaps the greatest preacher of his age,
or of the world, indeed. You may know how he experienced new birth. It
was a snowy morning and he came not to his usual church but the only one
the family could conveniently reach in the snowy weather. The preacher
was not there and did not come, no doubt snowed in. It was one of the office-bearers
who stood in to preach the sermon at short notice. Spurgeon came in to
the church and sat under the gallery and it was clear from his very face
that he was miserable. He was miserable because he had a sense of sin.
He was miserable because his conscience told him he was not right with
God. The preacher was not eloquent but he did his best and God blessed
his message. The young Spurgeon was so transformed in that service that
when he went home, his family who saw him said, You have undergone a wonderful
change. It was, of course, the ‘new birth’. ‘Old things
had passed away.’ ‘All things had become new.’
Jesus tells us that this new birth is something which happens
from above. When the Word of God here tells us that we need to be born
‘again’, it is equivalent to saying, we need to be born ‘from
above’, from heaven. Our first birth, of course, is from earthly
parents. Our second birth must be from God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And Christ describes it with a rather remarkable expression. He says, "Except
a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter God's Kingdom."
What can he mean by these expressions, water and spirit? It is very tempting
to suppose that he means baptism. But I have to say to you that although
baptism has its place and is important, he cannot be referring to baptism
on this occasion for one very obvious reason. There was no such thing at
this time as Christian baptism. Our Lord had as yet not instituted Christian
baptism. And so what, then, is this 'water'? And what would
Nicodemus understand by reference here to 'water'? The answer,
my dear friends, is that it refers to the washing of Old Testament rituals,
and the inward cleansing which was symbolised by those ritual washings.
Ezekiel puts it like this: "God says, I will take away the stony heart out
of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh. From all your idols
and from all your filthiness will I cleanse you, a new heart also will
I give you."
We have all heard of the great Augustine of Hippo in North
Africa in the 4th Century AD., one of the greatest geniuses the world has
ever known, and one of the most outstanding theologians the church has
ever known. There was a time in his life before he had had the new birth
in which he was groping his way towards God. It is a very touching story.
He was in a garden, I suppose we would call it a park or a public place
today, and he was groaning in his spirit, saying, 'O why always tomorrow?
Why not today?' He meant, 'Lord, when shall I know the blessing
in my own soul?' Then he heard a child's voice or something
crying, 'Take up and read, take up and read'. And reaching
for his New Testament, he opened the book at random and found these words,
"Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to
fulfil the lusts thereof." Casting the book aside, he cried out to his dear
companion, Alepius, 'I have found it, Alepius, I have found it!'
And Alepius, running to his side with great affection, asked what he had
found? He had found the secret of life. He had found Christ for himself.
And Alepius, looking at the same passage and seeing the very next verse,
found the same experience. These two men were born again almost in an instant
of time. Augustine indeed was born to change the current of the world.
The new birth, says Christ, is that work of the Spirit of
God within our hearts whereby we become a new edition of our former self.
What changes, then, are to be seen in the life of those who become a new
edition of their former self? I give you one or two examples.
First, we come to see how sinful our own hearts are. We
come to see how great is our need of the grace and mercy of God. We come
to realise that this world, however attractive, is not our home. We are
but pilgrims and strangers here and we discover we have a soul that needs
to be fed with the word of God. It is for that reason that Jesus Christ
speaks of the born again in this way, 'Blessed are they that hunger and
thirst for righteousness'. Am I speaking to someone to whom these things
could be a strange story? Am I speaking to someone today who is fascinated
as Nicodemus was by the subject but is still at this time a stranger to
it?
III. Let me turn to my third and final point which is this: How would
I know if I had experienced this new birth?
What good fruits would I expect to see within myself or others?
The new birth makes a man a lover of God. The Ten Commandments require
of you and me that we should 'love' God with all our heart
and soul and mind and strength. These same commandments show us the way
in which we are to love our neighbour as ourself; honour thy father and
thy mother; thou shalt not kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness
or covet. O what a blessed country this would be if these things were taken
seriously again! O what a happy town this would be if even a fraction of
the people took these commandments of God seriously! Yet the Word of God
informs us that we cannot keep these commandments until we are born again.
Only when the grace of God brings a change into our innermost soul, so
that we are washed and purified and renewed in righteousness in the image
of God - only then have we a sincere wish to live to the glory of God and
in obedience to his Word.
The good fruits of the new birth are obedience to God's
Word. It is for this reason that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in
the course of his remarks to Nicodemus, brings before him, and before us,
these most famous and wonderful words with which I close today. At verse
16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
My very dear friends, if you would know what it means to be born again,
then seek God. Consider how great is His love in not sparing His dear Son,
Jesus Christ. Consider again that He gave Him for a sacrifice upon the
cross. Repent of sin, believe in Christ crucified and live the life which
he commands us to live, of holy obedience to his will in this world. If
you do all will be well. When we come to the end of our brief life, as soon
we shall all, we shall enter into that everlasting kingdom of which Our
Lord has here spoken. So I bid you on this occasion of the ordination of
our beloved friend, Mr. Mortimer, consider the words of Christ which are
so vital to every true ministry, "Ye must be born again."
The Rev. Maurice J. Roberts is minister of Greyfriars
Free Church, Inverness, a congregation of the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing),
and editor of the ‘Banner of Truth’ magazine.
This sermon was preached on the occasion
of the ordination of Mr. Richard Mortimer to the diaconate, Trinity Sunday
(18 June), 2000.