10/40 Window Reach Out Series
What Does It Mean to Be Born Again?
— Jesus and the Conversation That Changed Everything
By Missionary John | missionaryjohn.online | 10/40 Window Reach Out Series
A Midnight Question That Has Never Gone Away
He came at night. Not because he was a coward — though the darkness gave him cover — but perhaps because the question he was carrying was too important to risk being drowned out by the crowd. His name was Nicodemus, and he was a Pharisee: a religious expert, a member of the ruling council of Israel, a man who had studied the scriptures his entire life and built a reputation for holiness that very few in his generation could match.
And yet he came to Jesus with a statement that was a question in disguise: “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.” He was saying: I have seen enough. I know something is different about you. But I do not know what to do with that.
Jesus answered not with an explanation but with a declaration: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)
Nicodemus was baffled. “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?”
The confusion is understandable. The answer Jesus gave is one that has been misunderstood, misused, and reduced to a religious cliche for two thousand years. But what He actually meant — unpacked carefully, from His own words — is one of the most profound and life-altering truths in human history.
Two Kinds of Life
Jesus was drawing a distinction between two fundamentally different kinds of existence. There is the physical life — the life you received at birth, the one that breathes and thinks and works and loves and will one day stop. And there is spiritual life — the life that connects a human being to God, that makes real relationship with the Creator possible, that continues beyond physical death.
Physical birth gives you the first kind. But according to Jesus, every human being is born spiritually dead — not spiritually weak, not spiritually confused, but dead. Without the capacity for real relationship with God. Not because God made them that way, but because sin, entering human nature at the fall, severed the connection between humanity and the source of spiritual life.
Think of it this way. A radio is built to receive a signal. But if the internal receiver is broken, the radio can still have a beautiful cabinet, working buttons, a working power supply — and produce nothing but static. It is not receiving what it was made to receive. That is the state of every human being apart from spiritual rebirth: functioning on the surface, but cut off from the signal they were built for.
Being “born again” — the phrase Jesus used — is the moment the receiver is repaired. The moment spiritual life begins. Not improved religious behavior. Not a fresh moral start. A genuine new beginning at the level of the spirit — the inner person who will outlast the body.
You were born once into physical life. Jesus offers a second birth — into spiritual life that death cannot end.
What Actually Happens When Someone Is Born Again
Jesus went on to explain: “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.” (John 3:5–6)
The Holy Spirit — the living presence of God — is the agent of new birth. When a person genuinely turns from their own way and places their trust in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside them. This is not a metaphor. This is not a feeling of religious warmth. It is the literal indwelling of God — the Creator of the universe taking up residence in the inner life of a human being.
The apostle Paul describes the result: “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) Not reformed. Not improved. New. A different kind of person than existed before — with new desires, new capacity for love, new orientation toward God, new ability to understand spiritual truth that was opaque before.
What It Is Not
Because the phrase born again has been used so widely — and sometimes so carelessly — it is worth being clear about what it does not mean.
It does not mean joining a particular church or denomination. Jesus was speaking to a Jewish religious leader, not inviting him into a new institution.
It does not mean having an emotional experience. The new birth is a spiritual reality — it may or may not be accompanied by strong emotion. It is not validated by tears or excitement. It is validated by the ongoing presence and work of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life.
It does not mean abandoning your culture or your people. The gospel crosses cultures because it is for all cultures. A person born again in Indonesia does not become Western. A person born again in Morocco does not become European. They become more fully themselves — because they are now connected to the God who made them exactly as they are.
The Wind You Cannot See
Jesus used one more image with Nicodemus to explain the new birth: “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.” (John 3:8)
The wind is invisible. You cannot see where it comes from or where it goes. But you can see its effects — the bending grass, the moving leaves, the cooling of the air. The new birth is like that. You cannot observe it happening from the outside. But its effects are visible — in changed priorities, in growing love for people who were previously easy to ignore, in a hunger for truth, in a deepening awareness of God’s presence that was not there before.
Nicodemus came to Jesus with questions. He left with something better: an encounter with the one who could answer them. Later in the Gospel of John, we find Nicodemus defending Jesus before the Pharisees. And at the very end — after the crucifixion, when most disciples had fled — it is Nicodemus who comes to help prepare the body of Jesus for burial. The midnight questioner had become a quiet but unmistakable follower.
“Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” — John 3:7 (KJV)
How to Be Born Again
The new birth is not something you achieve or perform. You did not cause your physical birth — you received it. The new birth is the same: you receive it. You cannot manufacture spiritual life any more than you could manufacture your own physical existence.
What you can do is respond to the God who offers it. Turn from going your own way. Believe that Jesus Christ is who He said He was and that His death paid the price for your sin. Receive Him — not as a historical figure, not as a religious concept, but as a living Lord who wants to take up residence in your life and begin the transformation that no amount of self-improvement could ever produce.
Lord Jesus, I come to You the way Nicodemus came — with questions, with inadequate understanding, but with a willing heart. I want the life You are offering. I turn from my sin. I turn toward You. Be born in me. Send Your Spirit into my spirit. Make me new — truly new, from the inside out. I receive You now. Amen.
That is the beginning. And it is a beginning that does not end.
— Missionary John