Embassy of the Kingdom
Embassy of the Kingdom
It sounds strange the first time you hear it — a grown man being told he needs to be born a second time. Here is exactly what Jesus meant, and why He put it that way.
In John chapter 3, a respected religious leader named Nicodemus came to Jesus at night with questions. Jesus told him: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Nicodemus took it literally and asked how a grown man could re-enter his mother's womb. Jesus clarified: He was not talking about a second physical birth, but a spiritual one — “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).
Being “born again” means God gives you a new spiritual life from the inside — something no amount of religious effort or good standing can produce on its own.
He was a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews, a teacher others looked up to. Jesus did not tell him to try harder at religion — He told him he needed something he did not yet have, no matter how respected he was.
Just as you had no part in your first birth, you cannot engineer your own spiritual rebirth by effort. It is something God does, received by trusting Jesus — a gift, not an achievement.
“Therefore 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 a new coat of paint — a new creation.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”John 3:16
The same chapter answers this directly: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). You are born again the moment you honestly turn to God and trust Jesus — not by trying harder, not by religious performance, and not gradually by accumulating good deeds.
If you have never made that decision, you can make it today. It is not complicated, and it is not out of reach right now.
Nicodemus was a respected Jewish religious leader — the kind of man everyone assumed was already right with God. Jesus told him plainly that religious knowledge and good standing were not enough; he needed an inward spiritual rebirth, the same as anyone else.
No. Baptism is an outward act that pictures and follows what already happened inside. Being born again is the inward spiritual change itself, which happens the moment someone genuinely trusts Jesus.
It starts with a decision — turning to God and trusting Jesus — and it shows over time: a new hunger for God, a changed direction, a sense that “old things are passed away… all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). If you have never made that decision, you can make it today.