What is the meaning of spiritual rebirth?

In God’s purpose there was an entirely new scene before Him, new heavens and new earth, in which righteousness would dwell; but He also purposed to have a new family of men among whom He could dwell for evermore, finding His rest in the new creation. The new birth that brings men into this new divine family is the work of the Holy Spirit, even as the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). In the new birth there is divine cleansing from the state inherited from Adam, and the formation of the new nature that gives the capacity for entering into things that are spiritual and divine.

The Lord accordingly stops him at once with the declaration that man, any one, needs to be born from the outset and origin. Not teaching is wanted but a new nature, a new source of being spiritually, in order to see the kingdom of God. No inference, however logical, is faith. It is not even a conviction of conscience. It may be a conclusion fairly drawn from sound premisses, from sensible facts of the weightiest kind before the mind; but neither God is known nor itself yet judged. The new character of life which suits the kingdom of God does not yet exist for the soul. In such a state teaching would but aggravate the danger or expose to fresh evil. The Word of God has never penetrated the heart of Nicodemus. He knew not himself utterly defiled, spiritually dead in sins. What he wanted was to be quickened, not to have fresh aliment for the exercise of his mind. And Jesus, instead of commenting on his words, answered his true need, which he too would have sought himself, had he but known it.

It is the sovereign act of God (John 1:13; James 1:18), by means of His Spirit and His word (John 3:5; 1. Pet.1:23), implanting a capacity within a man which renders him capable of seeing God’s rights and his obligations to them (John 3:3) and which causes him to crave a deliverance which can only be met by the knowledge of the redemptive work of Christ, and the power of the Spirit (1 Peter 1:2; Rom. 7:24; 8,2).

But how is this brought about? Nicodemus could not tell, nor can many in this day, but the Lord Jesus explains. "Verily, verily, I say to thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit," etc. Here we have it in a few words. It is the direct work of the Spirit of God, acting by means of the word of God upon the soul. Perhaps I need hardly say that "water" here is the figure of the word of God. Some have imported the idea of baptism into this chapter and the Lord's Supper into John 6. But Christian baptism was not instituted until after the Lord's resurrection, and the Lord's Supper not until the night of His betrayal. Consequently neither can possibly be found in the early chapters of John's Gospel.

The water is a symbol of the word of God, which the Jewish teacher should have understood from such Old Testament passages as Ezekiel 36:25, and Psalm 119:9. Christians have the thought confirmed in Ephesians 5:26 and John 15:3. The Spirit of God brings the word to bear upon the soul, convincing it of sin and revealing the Saviour dead and risen. To this the soul believingly bows, and thus a positive new life and nature is imparted. As we read in 1 Peter 1. "Being born again, not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by the word of God which lives and abides for ever." This is not an improvement of the old nature. By no means. That remains as evil as ever, to be kept under by the soul that has learnt deliverance through the death and resurrection of Christ. It is a life imparted that had no existence in the person before, enabling him now to sorrow for sin according to God, to believe the gospel, to love the Saviour, to pray and worship, and to love the ways of holiness and truth. It partakes of the nature of Him Who is its source — "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

The Lord speaks of being born of water and of the Spirit; then He adds, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit". "That which" — that is the nature which — is born of the Spirit is spirit; it partakes of the nature of the One by Whom it is born; it is therefore an entirely new nature. The water is a figure of the Word applied by the Spirit, effecting the practical purification of our thoughts and hearts from the old nature and its desires.

The Lord explains Himself. Two things were necessary — to be born of water, and of the Spirit. Water cleanses. And, spiritually, in his affections, heart, conscience, thoughts, actions, etc., man lives, and in practice is morally purified, through the application, by the power of the Spirit, of the word of God, which judges all things, and works in us livingly new thoughts and affections. This is the water; it is withal the death of the flesh. The true water which cleanses in a christian way came forth from the side of a dead Christ. He came by water and blood, in the power of cleansing and of expiation. He sanctifies the assembly by cleansing it through the washing of water by the word. "Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." It is therefore the mighty word of God which, since man must be born again in the principle and source of his moral being, judges, as being death, all that is of the flesh. But there is in fact the communication of a new life; that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, is not flesh, has its nature from the Spirit. It is not the Spirit — that would be an incarnation; but this new life is spirit. It partakes of the nature of its origin. Without this, man cannot enter into the kingdom. But this is not all. If it was a necessity for the Jew, who already was nominally a child of the kingdom, for here we deal with what is essential and true, it was also a sovereign act of God, and consequently it is accomplished wherever the Spirit acts in this power. "So is every one that is born of the Spirit." This in principle opens the door to the Gentiles.

Let us see what Scripture teaches. John 3:5, says, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” Here we find the Holy Spirit is the Divine Agent in the New Birth, and water (the word of God) the instrument used. It is clear that life whether natural or divine can only come from God. The Spirit uses the word. The Word of God in some ways lays hold of the soul, and in that lies the New Birth. It may be the sense that God is—not a mere surface acceptance of a fact, usually believed, but a belief that grips the soul with a sense of responsibility. Or it might be the thought of eternity, that would give a desire to be prepared for it. It might be the conviction of sin, and in many other ways.

1 Peter 1:23 casts light upon this, “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides for ever.” Here the process of the New Birth is likened to a seed falling into the ground. The seed has life in it. The power of life in the seed lays hold in the soil. The soil does not lay hold on the seed. The word of God in the power of the Spirit lays hold of the man.

New birth is clearly the work of the Spirit of God. A man must be "born of water and of the Spirit" (John 3:5). The water, figurative of the Word, is the instrument or vehicle: the Spirit, the Agent or Power. In 1 Peter 1:22-25 the same great truth is referred to, only the emphasis is rather laid upon the Word of God which is living and abiding, and which presents itself to us today in the Gospel which is preached to us, and the Spirit of God is referred to as Him by whom we have purified our souls in obeying the truth. In John 3 the chief emphasis is laid upon the Spirit's operation, and it is declared that He begets His like — "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

The Lord met him at once with that great and emphatic pronouncement concerning the absolute necessity of the new birth. Without it no one even sees the kingdom of God. He may see the miracles and signs, but he does not see the kingdom. Nicodemus needed the new birth and not teaching for at once he showed himself quite incapable of understanding the Lord's words, and thereby he illustrated their truth. He could not see anything in them but a mystifying reference to natural birth. This called forth a second emphatic pronouncement in which the matter is carried a step further. The kingdom is not only to be seen but entered, and the birth for this must be of water and of Spirit.

It is terribly humbling to be told, even by the Lord Himself, that the flesh is flesh, and that we must be born anew, especially to those who, like the rabbi of Israel, have shot forth their religious branches and borne their religious fruit; but these few short words, "Ye must be born again," cut us down for ever. Yes, many have they laid low spiritually, many an one have they slain as regards hope in self, in works, or in the vain belief that this old Adam-life can become fit for God, or that self, purged and sanctified, can be made to live anew. "Ye must be born anew"; yes, all must be new — a new life, a new nature. It is not the old conveniently white-washed, as the hypocrites advance; nor the old repaired and decorated, as moralists would have it; nor yet the fair garment of self-righteousness wrought out by a man on earth, that others would present to us; nor yet, again, the old changed and renovated by the Holy Ghost, as some say. No; it is what the word of God declares, "new creation." (Gal. 6:15.)