Home » Programs » I Tell You The Truth » Getting into the Kingdom

Getting into the Kingdom

There are a few expressions you can count on to polarize a crowd.  One of them has just two words, but its effect is often powerful and instantaneous.  The expression is “born again.”  Like any social shorthand (read stereotype), it is used, misused and abused to such a degree that it has become almost meaningless.  Within the last 50 years, to describe someone as “born again” has gone from winning respect, if of a somewhat reluctant variety, to garnering ridicule, often of a malicious variety.  Times change.

Today, we’ll go to the origin of the expression.  It was introduced as Nicodemus a member of the religious elite interviewed Jesus, who at the time was seen as an upstart rabbi.  Nicodemus started with a bit of a preamble giving Jesus the benefit of the doubt concerning His spiritual authority.  But he’d barely finished his opening line when Jesus shot back with a seeming non-sequitur “I tell you the truth, no-one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

With these words, Jesus took control of the conversation.  I mean, what could Nicodemus do but ask what on earth that meant, so he did.  Jesus explained that He was talking about spiritual birth - birth from above - and told Nicodemus that he shouldn’t be surprised at the expression and pointed to the wind which blows powerfully but invisibly as a metaphor of the Holy Spirit.

Nicodemus was still confused and we are fortunate that he was honest about that confusion and asked a follow-up question “How can this be?”  In response to that, Jesus went on to give the simplest single summation of how the human can relate to the divine.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

There you have it: The whole reason for Jesus’ being on earth in the first place and the response that He was calling for as we come to understand that.  The variable in this is the work of the Spirit, that is necessary, but not directly observable.  That’s why there’s a bewildering array of responses to the idea of being “born again.”  Some claim it without having it, and some who have it have trouble identifying the where when and how of it all.  

In this truth declaration, Jesus puts everything on the line for us.  It’s either/or, yes/no, in/out.  There’s no wiggle room, compromise, or negotiation.  Just your honest, personal faith response to “I tell you the truth, no-one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”