Doctrine · The Life of Grace
Born Again
The Bible says a person does not get fixed, improved, or educated into the family of God — he gets born into it. And the whole Bible, from Ezekiel to James, says the same thing in six different pictures.
Six Witnesses, One Event
— the doctrine is not built out of one verseTHE ARTWORKMatthias Stom lights the painting at the top of this page with a single candle, and puts it between the two men so that neither face is fully out of the dark. It is the right picture for John 3: a teacher of Israel who came at night, asking about a birth he could not picture, in a room where the light is real but small.
When Jesus told Nicodemus he had to be born again, Nicodemus was baffled — and Jesus answered with a question that is easy to miss: “You are Israel’s teacher, and you do not understand these things?” He should have. Ezekiel had promised this exact thing centuries earlier: a heart of stone taken out, a heart of flesh put in, God’s own Spirit placed inside a person. The new birth is not a New Testament innovation. It is an Old Testament promise that finally arrived.
Stone → flesh
The heart of stone is taken out. A heart of flesh is put in, and God's own Spirit with it.
Birth
Born again — and the same word means born from above. Jesus says it twice before Nicodemus can ask how.
Jesus' own words
Seed
Born again — not of seed that perishes, but of seed that cannot, through the living word of God.
Fathered
He chose to give us birth through the word of truth. The choosing is His.
Jesus' own words
Six writers. Six pictures. One event — and not one of them describes a person improving himself.
I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances.Washing, a new heart, a new spirit, and God's Spirit inside — every element of the doctrine, centuries early.
“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and you do not understand these things?Jesus' gentle rebuke: the teacher of Israel had the promise in his own Scriptures.
A new heart - A new frame of soul, a mind changed, from sinful to holy, from carnal to spiritual. A heart in which the law of God is written, Jer. xxxi, 33. A sanctified heart, in which the almighty grace of God is victorious, and turns it from all sin to God.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765Wesleyan
Ezekiel 36:26
And indeed from the Spirit comes our new birth, and from the new birth our new creation, and from the new creation our deeper knowledge of the dignity of him from whom it is derived.
Gregory of Nazianzus· On the Holy Spirit, Theological Oration 5(31).28, 390Church Father
John 3:3
And it is to be considered that a new heart and a new spirit are given through the effusion and sprinkling of water. When, however, a new heart and a new spirit are given, then all hardness, which is compared to stone, will be removed from the Jewish heart, so that the heart may be a fleshy, soft, and tender one, which can receive the spirit of God within itself and be inscribed with saving words.
Jerome· Commentary on Ezekiel, 420Church Father
Ezekiel 36:26
Jerome is reading verse 25 and verse 26 as one act, and it matters for what comes later on this page: the sprinkling of clean water and the giving of a new heart are not two separate gifts in Ezekiel’s sentence. Paul reaches for the same pair in Titus 3:5 — a washing and a renewing, in one breath.
Ezekiel was not the first to promise itDeuteronomy 30:6 · Jeremiah 31:33
Moses had already said it, at the far end of Deuteronomy, and used the sharpest image available to an Israelite: God Himself would circumcise their hearts. Jeremiah, Ezekiel’s contemporary, said it as a law written on the inside rather than handed over on stone. Three witnesses, before a page of the New Testament exists, all describing a change God performs on the inner man.
The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.The LORD your God will circumcise your heart — the surgery is His, and the purpose is love.
“But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.The law put within them and written on their hearts — the new covenant promise Wesley points to on Ezekiel.
Why John 3 has its own page, and this one has six chaptersone page, one place
Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus — the whole of it, line by line, including the wind, the serpent lifted up, and John 3:16 — is a page of its own. So is the man who came at night. This page does the other job: it gathers what the whole Bible says about the new birth, from Ezekiel through James, and shows that the six writers are describing one thing.
What John 3 contributes to the systematic picture is the sharpest statement of the problem. Flesh produces flesh; it cannot produce spirit. That is not an insult aimed at the body — it is a statement about what a category can and cannot generate, and it is the reason the new birth has to come from outside.
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh is born of flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit. Do not be amazed that I said, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”Water and Spirit, flesh and spirit, and the wind that blows where it wills.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh - Mere flesh, void of the Spirit, yea, at enmity with it; And that which is born of the Spirit is spirit - Is spiritual, heavenly, divine, like its Author.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
John 3:6
Three Rare Words, One Verse
— Titus 3:5 — and no speculation is needed to see itTitus 3:5 is one short sentence, and three of the rarest words in the New Testament are standing inside it. Each of them appears exactly twice in the entire Bible. That is a countable fact, not a flourish — and the second appearance of the first word is the interesting one. Paul uses it of a person here; Jesus uses it of the whole world in Matthew 19:28. The same word does the individual and the cosmos.
2 in the whole Bible
palingenesia
regeneration
Titus 3:5, of a person re-made. Matthew 19:28, of the world re-made. One word does both.
2 in the whole Bible
anagennao
to beget again
1 Peter 1:3 and 1 Peter 1:23. One chapter owns the New Testament's whole use of the verb.
2 in the whole Bible
anakainosis
renewing
Titus 3:5 pairs it with the word above — a birth AND a renewing, in one breath.
He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.Not by works of righteousness we had done — a washing of new birth and a renewing by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, in the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.The only other use of that word in Scripture: the renewal of all things.
The second word behaves the same way, and even more tightly. It occurs twice in the Bible, and bothare in 1 Peter chapter 1 — verse 3 and verse 23. One chapter owns the New Testament’s entire use of the verb, and it uses it once of God’s mercy and once of the seed that does the begetting.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,According to His great mercy He has begotten us again — the first of the verb's two appearances.
For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.Born again of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.
A New Creation
— 2 Corinthians 5:17 — and what the early church heard in itTherefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!Not a new leaf, not a new resolve — a new creation.
Therefore if any one be in Christ - A true believer in him. There is a new creation - Only the power that makes a world can make a Christian. And when he is so created, the old things are passed away - Of their own accord, even as snow in spring.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
2 Corinthians 5:17
Basil of Caesarea, writing in the fourth century, counted the creations Scripture describes and found three: something made out of nothing, something bad made good, and the dead raised. He put the new birth in the second — and insisted the same Spirit is at work in all three. It is a large claim, and it is exactly what Paul is claiming when he calls a Christian a new creation.
But, if we must go on with our discussion and make a deeper study, let us from this point contemplate especially the divine power of the Holy Spirit. We find three creations mentioned in the Scripture; the first, the education from nonexistence into existence; the second, the change from worse to better; and the third, the resurrection of the dead. In these you will find the Holy Spirit co-operating with the Father and the Son.… Now, humanity is created a second time through baptism, "for if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature."
Basil of Caesarea· Letter 8, 379Church Father
2 Corinthians 5:17
The artwork
Michelangelo painted the first creation, and the picture is famous for one detail: Adam's hand is limp. The life is entirely on the other side of the gap. That is why this painting sits beside 2 Corinthians 5:17 rather than beside a verse about effort — Basil's point is that the second creation is of the same order as the first, and in the first, the man contributes a hand that has not moved yet.
Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam (1508-1512) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
James adds the piece the other five witnesses leave implicit: the initiative. Of His own willHe brought us forth. And John, writing his first letter, presses the consequence — what is born of God carries God’s seed in it, and that seed is the reason the new life has a direction it did not have before.
Among modern writers, C.S. Lewis gave this doctrine its most quotable modern shape in Mere Christianity(Book 4, “Making and Begetting”), distinguishing the merely biological life we are born with from the uncreated life of God that has to be begottenin a person rather than developed out of him — which is this chapter’s argument in his own idiom. John Bevereworks the same ground pastorally, arguing that holiness grows out of a believer’s new identity rather than out of effort applied to the old one; and Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it at its most severe in The Cost of Discipleship (1937), where the old self is not improved but put to death and the disciple lives from a new centre.
He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of His creation.Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth — the choosing is His.
Anyone born of God refuses to practice sin, because God’s seed abides in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.His seed remains in him — the new birth leaves something behind that stays.
The Order — Where Christians Differ
— every voice here says a person must be born again; the question is what comes firstThere is no argument about whether. Everyone quoted on this page — Wesley, Calvin, Augustine, and every modern teacher named below — says a person must be born again. The question they answer differently is the order: does God give the new life first, so that a dead man can believe? Or does a person believe, and the new life follow? Theologians call this the order of salvation. It is a real difference between brothers, and Scripture states both halves of it without embarrassment.
The hinge — one sentence that holds both
In Eze 18:31 they are commanded, "Make you a new heart, and a new spirit." Here God says, "A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." Thus the responsibility of man, and the sovereign grace of God, are shown to be coexistent.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Ezekiel 36:26
The new birth comes first
A dead man cannot believe until he is made alive. On this reading the new birth is the cause of faith, not its result — which is why Ephesians 2 describes the reader as a corpse before it describes him as a believer. Held today by R.C. Sproul (Chosen by God), John Piper, J.I. Packer (Knowing God), Charles Spurgeon before them, and in the Reformed Baptist stream today by Wesley Huff. Augustine and Calvin carry the premise in their own words.
God by his grace takes away the stony heart from unbelievers and forestalls merit in people of good will in such a way that their will is prepared by what goes before grace, but that grace is not given through some merit of human will.
Augustine of Hippo· Letter 217, 430Church Father
Ezekiel 36:26
But what has this to do with the kingdom of God? What has it to do with a happy life, so long as every sentiment of the mind, and every act of the will, is death? Let this, then, be held as a fixed principle, that the union of our soul with God is the true and only life; and that out of Christ we are altogether dead, because sin, the cause of death, reigns in us.
John Calvin· Commentaries, 1554Reformed
Ephesians 2:1
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,The starting condition Calvin is reading: dead in trespasses and sins.
But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved!Made alive WITH Christ while we were still dead — the verb arrives before anything is asked of us.
Augustine on the will itselfOn Grace and Free Will, 15:31
The sharper form of this lane’s argument is not about whether a person has a will — Augustine says plainly that he always does — but about what that will is free from, and what makes it good.
Free will is always present in us, but it is not always good. For it is either free of justice, while serving sin, and then it is evil; or it is free of sin, while serving justice, and then it is good. But the grace of God is always good and brings about a good will in a person who before was possessed of an evil will. It is by this grace, too, that this same good will, once it begins to exist, is expanded and made so strong that it is able to fulfill whatever of God's commandments it wishes, whenever it does so with a strong and perfect will.
Augustine of Hippo· On Grace and Free Will 15:31, 430Church Father
Ezekiel 36:26
Faith comes first
God’s grace goes ahead of a person and frees the will to answer; the new birth follows believing. This is John Wesley’s reading, and it is the historic default of the Wesleyan-Pentecostal tradition MannaFest itself grew out of — stated here as heritage, not as a verdict on the question. His notes below are on the new birth itself rather than on the order, and they carry the shape of his teaching: the thing is real, it is required, and how it works is past explaining.
Jesus answered - That knowledge will not avail thee unless thou be born again - Otherwise thou canst not see, that is, experience and enjoy, either the inward or the glorious kingdom of God.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
John 3:3
The wind bloweth - According to its own nature, not thy will, and thou hearest the sound thereof - Thou art sure it doth blow, but canst not explain the particular manner of its acting. So is every one that is born of the Spirit - The fact is plain, the manner of his operations inexplicable.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
John 3:8
But to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God— children born not of blood, nor of the desire or will of man, but born of God.Received Him, believed on His name — and were born of God. Both halves in one sentence.
Notice what the hinge quote above is doing. Ezekiel 18:31 commands Israel to make yourselves a new heart. Ezekiel 36:26 promises that God will give them one. Same prophet, same book, eighteen chapters apart — and neither verse apologises for the other. Scripture holds the command and the gift together without resolving the puzzle for us, and a reader is not required to pick a side before he is allowed to be born again.
What the New Birth Is For
— the life that starts here does not stop hereEphesians runs the whole sequence in three verses and then adds the purpose: saved by grace through faith, not by works — and then created for good works, which God prepared in advance. The works are the evidence and the destination, never the entry fee. That is where this page hands off to the next one: a birth is the beginning of a life, and the New Testament spends far more words on the life than on the birth.
Made HolySanctification — the life that follows the birth, with the Wesleyan question handled honestly.For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.Grace, faith, the gift of God — and then the workmanship, created for good works.
Read the Great Books
— the writers quoted above, in their own hands — go further than this pageExplanatory Notes upon the New Testament
John Wesley · 1755
The single most useful public-domain companion to this page. Wesley is short, warm and verse-by-verse, and the notes quoted above are typical rather than exceptional.
READ IT FREE AT CCEL →Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · 1871
The source of this page's hinge sentence on Ezekiel 36:26. Terse, and unusually good at naming a tension without pretending to dissolve it.
READ IT FREE AT CCEL →Commentaries
John Calvin · 1554
For the reading that puts the new birth before faith, read the man himself on Ephesians 2 rather than a summary of him.
READ IT FREE AT CCEL →Chosen by God
R.C. Sproul · 1986
The clearest modern statement of the Reformed order of salvation, written for readers who are not theologians and do not intend to become any.
In print — find it wherever books are sold.
Mere Christianity
C.S. Lewis · 1952
Book 4 opens with the distinction between being made and being begotten — this doctrine, in the plainest English anyone has managed.
In print — find it wherever books are sold.