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Copyright 2000 which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."
A question often arises among both believers and non-believers alike, "What is Rebirth in the Spirit?" This question is asked in different forms, but whatever the form, it seems to come from a fear and a misunderstanding as to what is really meant by the term Rebirth. In John 3 verses 1-10, Jesus sets forth a clear case for Rebirth in the Spirit. He speaks to a Teacher of the Law, a rabbi himself by the name of Nicodemus, in terms that would have been unsettling if not disturbing in the context of their society. In His dialogue with Nicodemus, Jesus emphatically calls the re-vivifying effect accompanying the conversion experience, Rebirth. "Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night [at night, because of danger to himself] and said, 'Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.' In reply Jesus declared, 'I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.' To which Nicodemus replied, 'How can a man be born when he is old?....Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!' Listen to the consternation behind Nicodemus' response. Consider how Jesus' way of expressing Himself might have impacted on poor Nicodemus. In a world where giving birth was risky business in the best of circumstances there would have been an undertow of stress, even alarm, for Nicodemus. To use the language of birth in this way would have introduced a number of unsettling ideas to the older man. In his world, birth was a hit and miss affair, entailing great risk not only to mother or child but to the larger family of which they were a part. The family would suffer in its own way simply because part of the workforce--mother and child-- as well as part of the family's safety net--children--would be lost. The unspoken, or at least unrecorded, words of Jesus that form the sub-text of the discussion tell us that Jesus was once again taking a radical approach in this encounter, and as he did in so many of His recorded encounters throughout His brief mission. He did this, presumably, in order to thoroughly impress Nicodemus with the seriousness and danger of His message. Jesus continues, 'I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, "You must be born again." The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.' 'How can this be?' Nicodemus asked. 'You are Israel's teacher,' said Jesus, 'and do you not understand these things? 1 So we see that these words of Jesus to Nicodemus, found in the gospel of John, were designed to throw the man into a tailspin, to upset his comfortable life as a Teacher of the Mosaic Law, a pillar of his society. And certainly Jesus' words had this desired effect, for Nicodemus seems to have become exceedingly perplexed with Christ. This was a completely new concept to Nicodemus, it was fundamentally contrary to his world view and full of potential risk and danger. In explaining His notion of conversion, Jesus never mentions any particular religious requirements, nor does He imply that one must adopt certain external beliefs or a code of conduct. (Indeed, these things were of the Law, the incomplete religious system of Israel that God had put in place until the coming of His Annointed One, who came not to destroy the Law but to make it redundant through fulfilling it.) However, Rebirth in the Spirit--or Spirit Annointing--does bring its own qualities and rewards which continue to grow and deepen within the saint as part of his sanctification, and these have been listed by the apostle Paul as: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are the outcomes or the fruit of Rebirth in the Spirit. Certainly Christ is the best example we have of such a person, yet we still do not accept His testimony. "I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?" 2 He who has ears, let him hear. There are many people like Nicodemus, God-fearing people who are good, moral and upright, but who yet have never felt the indwelling freedom that Rebirth in the Spirit brings. They seem to believe that Rebirth means to somehow loose your present personality, ego or sense of self and to become some sort of robotic zealot who is only able to relate to others in very narrow, dogmatic and threatening ways. While Rebirth in the Spirit does mean a loss of ego it does not mean a loss of personality, at least not in the sense that one's personality is somehow taken over or submerged within something else. That would amount to possession or brainwashing, and the Spirit of God does not resort to such tactics. (The Father of Lies, however, has no such compunctions and will use whatever raw material he has at hand in order to sow discord and dissent.) No, Rebirth means you are the same person but that the centre of your values, attitudes and motives has shifted. Whereas before Rebirth you are self-centred, after Rebirth you are Christ-centred. Being self-centred means to be caught up in the World and it's House of Mirrors. It means thinking the unimportant and the temporary are really the important and the permanent. It means you believe (whether you can admit it or not) that you are the centre and all else revolves around you. It means that you relate to the world around you in exactly the same (spiritual) way as the infant who has to stick everything in its mouth to determine if it can be eaten or consumed. Those who are self-centred view the world as that which exists for their own gratification or that which is the source of their greatest fear. But they don't know what it is that needs the gratification. They confuse the existence of a being that is self-directing, wise, empathetic and strong with an ever-shifting bundle of emotional and physical wants that is simply looking at the World and the Flesh and taking those as its point of reference. But this self-reference is not true reflection. It is not an interior life. It is rather a fascination with that which exists in the World. A glamorous infatuation with delusions that takes one back from whence she started with nothing to show except a deeper craving. It is a bread that does not fill the belly, a water that does not slake the thirst. It has been called the Ego as well as many other things, but never has it been called Holy, because it is of the World and the Flesh. In our Hearts, don't we know that already? That's why these words of Jesus, "You must be born again" are so irksome to us, because we see the truth in them. The small self (which requires gratification from the World--outer fascination, and the Flesh--inner fascination) can never know a reality beyond its own cannibalistic cravings for greater and greater delusions that are ultimately self destructive. That is their intended purpose--destruction, and destruction is another word for Hell. Christ-centredness is another matter altogether. Being centred in Christ means that we don't need to be consumed by our own appetites and delusions. It recognizes a fundamental reality, other than our own and yet related somehow, that is altogether wholesome because it is complete and without want. In Christ-centredness we are not dependent on the World or the Flesh, "I have overcome the World." We are however dependent on God, "...in Whom we live and move and have our being." So the values of the small self are gradually replaced, pushed out of the way by the values of Christ, the very Saviour and Redeemer. Understand though, that I'm not saying that we become Christ. That would be heresy. Rather, Christ-centredness is a sharing or a partaking of the vision of Christ. If Christ is the Vine, then we are the branches. This is how Christ shares Himself with us. The agency of this is the Holy Spirit and the method he uses is called Rebirth. How then are we to be Reborn in the Spirit? How do we obtain this wonderful thing? First, you do not and cannot earn Rebirth in the Spirit, as it is not dependent on your own effort. Rebirth in the Spirit is a gift, bestowed on those whom Christ wishes, "For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to those to whom he is pleased to give it." 3 No amount of good deed-doing will get you Reborn. Your salvation is not dependent on what you do but on what you believe! When you are redeemed you become one of God's own and therefore eligible for the grace of God, "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand." 4 and again, "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God." 5 So there is only one prerequisite and that is belief in the divinity and salvific power of Jesus Christ. To believe that others can give you this gift, or to doubt that Christ can, is not to be a Christian. But how then does one come to this wondrous belief? There are many possible avenues or approaches (and let me stress yet again that these are approaches only. You cannot take the Kingdom of Heaven by storm). Most Christians come to their faith through physical birth. From the crib onwards their religious life is determined by a kind of spiritual osmosis, created by the atmosphere of the family of which they are a part, for good or for ill. But Rebirth is different than that in two important ways. Firstly, the rebirth experience is felt and consciously known, as such it is remembered and becomes built into and shapes the very essence of who we are or will become. Secondly, while the rebirth experience is not chosen, it must be acquiesced to. It is not forced upon one. This means that the old life--the old man, to use Paul's words--is being consciously given up, sacrificed if you will. From being lost and desparate we become found. Did the Lord not say "What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go and look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off." 6 He who has ears, let him hear. Many people seek the Spirit through austerities and the practice of spiritual disciplines. The exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits and the various austerities of the Desert Fathers are examples of this approach. There are countless others (not least of which is simple prayer). You can also, through reverses of fortune, serious illness or personal loss, be drawn to the very brink. The road of personal tragedy, drug or alcohol addiction, or the loss of a loved one has led many saints to Christ and the blessing of the Holy Spirit. This is obviously the most painful way but, in many cases, the most direct. These means are variously efficacious. But it must be stressed that they only do one thing; they bring you to the brink. That is all. In and of themselves, they cannot deliver the gift of the Holy Spirit. They are opportunities, however, for listening to the voice of God who is eternally calling out to the lost in the Wilderness. Taken to appropriate extremes, these means have the power to silence the constant nagging from the World and the Flesh. They silence, if only for a fleeting moment, the Voice that plagued our Lord while he was in the desert and that plagues us even now. And with that silence we, if He has foreknown us, may hear His voice. It is a voice that is infinitely tender and gentle, a voice like the sound of a gurgling stream one stumbles upon unlooked for. And should we be truly one of His elect, His flock, we will hear our own name spoken, spoken to us with such love and tenderness that we have never heard on earth before. And now, and now, there is nowhere to run to, no where to hide. We can do but one thing. We have come to the very precipice, to the very edge of the World. We stand alone, afraid and uncertain, helpless. We have come to Golgotha, to the very foot of the Cross. Yet we will survive if that is what we choose. We will eventually find the strength to pull back from the brink of the abyss and go back into the World, to shake ourselves loose and escape into the crowd and the voices, if that is what we choose. But if not, if not, there is only one alternative. It is the choice of surrender. For that is what the Spirit calls us to do; to have faith in surrender, to surrender in faith. And what is it we are to surrender and give up but the little self, the self of the sinful nature and the World, the self that consumes instead of being consumed. This is the self that we are called on to crucify through surrender, "If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him." 7 In surrender, what we lose is counted as nothing compared with what we gain, for we are no longer centred on that which changes and is fickle, we are no longer forced to endure an endless nothingness of inconsequentiality and meaninglessness. Rather, in surrender our centre shifts once and for all time and beyond, and we rest, Oh that sweet rest! And we wait for that moment, we wait confident that what we most earnestly seek we shall surely receive, "Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" 8 If you are still unsure what true Rebirth in the Spirit is about or what it may mean for you, please read the Exortation on our website.
May The Lord Bless You Richly.
Scriptural Quotations 1. John
3:1-10 We enjoy dialogue. Please feel free to send you views and comments. |