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Spiritual Thoughts - Dec. 22, 2017

What is it to be born again?
rob sutherland

It is a common term in some religious circles, uncommon in others. 

The term first arises with John the Baptist and his application of proselyte baptism to Jew and Gentile. Proselyte baptism was a ceremony “carried out in the presence of three witnesses, if possible members of the Sanhedrin. The nails and the hair of the candidate were cut; he was stripped naked; he was completely immersed in water, so that his whole body was totally covered; the essence of the law was read to him, and he was warned of the difficulties and dangers and the possible persecution which lay ahead; he confessed his sins to the men who were known as the fathers of baptism, and who correspond to godparents; then after blessings and exhortations he emerged a Jew. This process was held to have to affected in him the most radical change. He was said to emerge as “a little child just born”, “a child of one day.” (William Barclay, The Mind of Jesus) Here is the first use of that term being “born again.” John and Jesus of Nazareth would redefine and develop it. 

Both envisioned being “born again” as a two-fold process: a water baptism, a symbolic death and burial of the self, and a spirit baptism, an actual indwelling of the spirit of Almighty God effected through a personal encounter with and surrender to God. John was in charge of the first; Jesus, the second. It described a special kind of relationship between human beings and God, required of Jew and Gentile. None could claim special privilege or merit before God. A relationship with God was always a free gift of love on God’s part. From the status of the penitent, water baptism was akin to a person making a marriage proposal. Such a person never pleads their good works: “you must love me because I am so good, I have done so many good works” or “you are so completely loving that you must love me even though I may be unfit for meaningful relationship.” None could presume or demand love, in terms of an ongoing relationship. Love is always a free gift or it’s not love. Each and every one person had to ask for that relationship, be indwelt by God and transformed by love from within to be become a child of God, born again, born from above. For some, the second part would be short; for others, long. But the fruit that followed from that transforming personal account was never understood to be good works that established the relationship and maintained it. That was the work of God. The name for this is salvation by grace, through faith, not works, lest any should boast in their own works. It is a personal encounter with God, the gratitude, surrender and love involved therein.

Six months after his encounter with John, Jesus would chide Nicodemus for his ignorance of spirit baptism. (John 3:5-7) Ezekiel had spoken of it centuries earlier. “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from your uncleannesses, and your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you to follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27)

After three years of showing the disciples his divinity and what surrender and service meant, Jesus, at the last Supper, spoke of that spirit baptism. All the divine persons of the triune God of love: Father, Son and Holy Spirit would come, indwell believers, make their home in them and transform them from within through love. (John 14:1-17:25; see also Matthew 28:18) 

Rob Sutherland is a graduate of University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall Law School He is a criminal defence lawyer with 30 years experience, a member of the bars of Ontario, Alberta, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Manitoba. He is a Senior Canadian Fellow at the Mortimer J. Adler Centre for the Studies of the Great Ideas, an American think-tank based in Chicago. He has published one book “Putting God on Trial: the biblical Book of Job,” a defence of God’s goodness in the face of his authorization of undeserved and unremitted evil in the life of Job and the world, which is taught at a number of Canadian, American and Indian universities and available through Amazon.  He is writing a second book “Putting Jesus on Trial: the biblical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,” a defence of Jesus’ divinity.

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