How Are We Born Again?
1 Peter, Day 7
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for
“All flesh is like grass
and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord remains forever.”
And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
- 1 Peter 1:22-25, ESV
"How did you do that?" I find myself saying that a lot lately. I have a former student of mine who is an incredibly gifted and trained artist. He shares his latest artwork on Facebook, and I comment, "Wow! How did you do that?" Then, a young man in our church is learning how to do card tricks, and he's gotten really good at some of them. So, he hears from me regularly, "How did you do that?"
But, do you know what's much, much more impressive than photo-realistic paintings or mind-blowing card tricks? A dead sinner being brought to eternal spiritual life. This is THE great miracle, the greatest and most important thing that can ever be accomplished in anyone's life, and yet God does this miraculous work every day, thousands of times, all around the world. How?
1 Peter 1 gives us a key part of the answer, when Peter says, "you have been born again . . . through the living and abiding word of God." To clarify, so we know what word he means, he says it is "the word of the Lord" and then says, "this word is the good news that was preached to you." The preaching of the Gospel, the good news found in the Word of God, is the living and abiding word by which dead sinners are made alive.
This is in keeping with what Paul says about the Gospel in Romans 1:16, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." And then later, in Romans 10:17, Paul writes, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." So, we see that the preaching of the Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, and that faith comes from hearing the word of Christ.
How does God make people born again? By the preaching of the Gospel! And yet, not everyone who hears the Gospel is born again, so what else makes the difference? Well, in John 3, Jesus tells us that we must be born of the Spirit:
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” - John 3:6-8, ESV
It is not the word alone nor the Spirit alone which causes people to be born again, but the word and the Spirit, working together, the Spirit giving life through the word. In fact, the work of the Holy Spirit is what makes the word of God "living and abiding." Apart from the work of the Spirit, the Bible remains a closed book and the word of God a dead letter. Yet as the Spirit breathes life into the word, and breathes life into us through the word, we who hear the word are born again. Praise God for this work that He alone can do and chooses to do in us!
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