What Does It Mean to Be Born Again?
To be born again means to receive new spiritual life from God. It is not a self-improvement plan or a new religious habit. It is a miracle the Holy Spirit does in us when we put our faith in Jesus. Our spirit, once cut off from God by sin, comes alive to Him. We are forgiven, made new, and brought into God's family and His Kingdom.
Jesus put it plainly to a religious leader named Nicodemus:
Jesus answered him, “Most certainly, I tell you, unless one is born anew, he can’t see God’s Kingdom.”
John 3:3, World English Bible
The World English Bible says "born anew." The Greek word can mean both "again" and "from above," and Jesus means both. It is a second birth, and it comes from heaven.
A Conversation at Night
Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the ruling council. He came to Jesus at night with questions he didn't want to ask in public. He had seen the miracles. He knew Jesus had come from God. What he didn't understand was what Jesus had come to do.
When Jesus said he needed to be born again, Nicodemus took it literally. How could a grown man go back into his mother's womb? Jesus answered:
Jesus answered, “Most certainly I tell you, unless one is born of water and spirit, he can’t enter into God’s Kingdom. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Don’t marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’ The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but don’t know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
John 3:5-8, World English Bible
Nicodemus had spent his life trying to earn righteousness through knowledge, discipline and careful obedience. Jesus told him that seeing the Kingdom was not about effort. It was about transformation. Flesh can only give birth to flesh. Only the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
God Promised a New Heart
Jesus wasn't introducing a strange new idea. He was announcing what the prophets had promised for centuries: a new covenant where God would change people from within.
I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes. You will keep my ordinances and do them.
Ezekiel 36:26-27, World English Bible
What had once been written on tablets of stone would now be written on human hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). The new birth is how that promise comes true in a person's life.
Why We Need to Be Born Again
God made us as whole people: spirit, soul and body.
May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 5:23, World English Bible
The body connects us to the physical world. The soul, our mind, emotions and will, is where we think, feel and choose. The spirit is the deepest part of us, made for communion with God. Before the fall, Adam and Eve's spirits were alive to God and the rest of their lives flowed from that union. Sin broke that order. The spirit was cut off from God, the soul was bent toward selfish desire, and the body became subject to weakness and death.
That is why trying harder can't fix us. We don't need a better version of the old life. We need new life. And that is exactly what God gives.
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
2 Corinthians 5:17, World English Bible
The Veil Was Torn
Israel's temple pictured this same design. The outer court was where people gathered and sacrifices were made. The Holy Place held the lampstand and the altar of incense. The Holy of Holies, the innermost room, held the presence of God, and a thick veil kept everyone out except the high priest once a year.
When Jesus died, that veil was torn from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). God opened the way. Through the cross, the separation between God and people was removed, and the human spirit, dead in sin, can now be made alive again. When we are born again, we become what the temple pointed to: a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19).
From a Well to a Spring
Right after the conversation with Nicodemus, John tells of a Samaritan woman who came to a well at noon. She had spent her life drawing from wells that never satisfied: relationships, approval, the opinions of others. Jesus offered her something different.
Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
John 4:13-14, World English Bible
A well takes effort. You have to keep lowering the bucket, and it can run dry. A spring rises on its own and keeps flowing. That is the difference between a life of striving and a life born of the Spirit. Later, at the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus stood up during the water ceremony and cried out that rivers of living water would flow from within everyone who believes in Him, "but he said this about the Spirit" (John 7:37-39).
The new birth is where that river starts. From a spirit made alive, God's life begins to flow into our thinking, our emotions and our choices, into our bodies, and then out to the people around us. The Samaritan woman left her water jar behind and ran to tell her town. That is what new life does.
How It Happened for Me
I grew up believing all religions led to the same place and that faith was mostly about finding meaning. Then one night in a small basement apartment during college, I saw Jesus in my mind's eye, His face in anguish and crowned with thorns, and His eyes burning with love. A question filled my heart: If there were another way to reach Me, why would I have let My Son suffer like this?
In that moment I understood that I didn't need self-improvement. I needed rebirth. And Jesus was the only way to it. I tell more of that story in Born Again to See the Kingdom.
How Can I Be Born Again?
You can't make yourself born again, any more than you made yourself born the first time. But God offers it freely to everyone who receives Jesus.
But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become God’s children, to those who believe in his name: who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 1:12-13, World English Bible
Turn to God and admit your need. Believe that Jesus died for your sins and rose again. Receive Him as your Lord and Savior, and ask the Holy Spirit to make you new. If you want help praying, read How to Be Saved. And if you take that step, we would love to hear from you.
Being born again is the beginning, not the finish line. God doesn't only want to bring your spirit to life. He wants to fill every part of you. Learn more in How to Be Filled with the Holy Spirit.
Go deeper. This post is drawn from chapter one of Transformed: How the Gospel Changes Everything by Hazen Stevens. You can also watch the full Transformed series free, and read What Is the Gospel? and What Is Sin?
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain).
