New Birth

 

Have you ever been able to witness the birth of a child?  Or, perhaps, given birth yourself?

A couple years back, my sister gave birth to a girl, Lilly.  It was a joyous and wonderful time for them and for all of us celebrating with them.  I have never been a father myself, so some of those feelings escape me, but I am a witness to my sister and brother-in-law's experience.  Really, with rare exception, every first-time mother and father testifies to a peculiar happiness when they hold their child for the first time.  The peculiar magnificence of childbearing is hard to miss.

Bringing a child into the world is a time of maximum joy.  Seldom do people find that same level of happiness again. This makes me curious.  What is it about birth that makes it so special?  Why do mothers and fathers across the world and across history universally agree that it is a powerful, meaningful, and euphoric experience?

There is something to this, something profound.

Bringing a new life into the world is a profound event because God designed it so.  Through the process of conception and delivery God allows us to join him in the creation of new life.  We are created in the image of God, and he has given us some of his creative power and ability.  The powerful feelings that go along with producing new life are there because God is telling us something about himself through our experience.  Our lives, while uniquely our own, are still part of God's story.  This is a story of creation, redemption, and eternal glory.  The tiny babe that springs from the seed of the man and grew in the womb of the woman, no matter the woman, no matter the man, no matter their place on earth and in time are telling an eternal, cosmic story.  We feel joy when we hold a newborn child, because God delights in bringing new life into the world.  In bringing new life into the world, we manifest the image of God in the most tangible way and are fulfilling one of most central purposes for which God created us.  God is the ultimate source of life, but through the process of giving birth, he allows us to be a channel of that life.

This is why there is such great joy when a child is born, because in that process we move more closely to God.  In a sense we are playing God, not like a child playing a game, but more like an actor playing a role on stage.  We are acting out the nature and character of God that he put in us.  We become like God for a period of time, reflecting his goodness and glory into the world.  Ushering new life into the world aligns us with the purposes and plans for which he designed us.  All the joy in the world finds its source in God and when we move this close to God our hearts are ignited with that joy.

In the Garden of Eden, God gave to Adam and Eve two tremendous gifts, the covenant of marriage, and the opportunity and responsibility to procreate.  "Be fruitful and multiply,” He told them (Genesis 1:28).  Though we live in a fallen world touched by the curse of sin, through marriage and reproduction we move toward that original state of innocence and glory that Adam and Eve enjoyed.  When a new life comes into this world for a few moments we step back into the Garden of Eden and our hearts fill with a semblance of the bliss they had there, and we not only take a step back to the Garden of Eden but also toward our future estate in Heaven.  The boundaries between this world and the next grow thin, translucent, and the glory of God shines through and for a time our joy is filled to overflowing.  For a while we can taste desperate joy.

Marriage and children are a good and glorious gift from God that he freely gives to all people, to the righteous as well as the wicked, the believer and unbeliever alike, because he wants everyone everywhere to know his goodness and grace.  Both events tell the story of redemption and glory to come.  They are what theologians call "natural revelation", ways that God reveals himself to all people through the natural world.  We know that God exists and that he is good because we have seen his goodness revealed in marriage and birth.

The Apostle Peter tells us this, "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which lived and abideth forever." (1 Peter 1:23)

Just as new life is created in the womb, God wants to create new life in our souls.

You have probably heard the term, "Born Again Christian."  This is usually used to describe an Evangelical Christian (I would put myself in this category) who believes that a person must have a personal encounter with Christ and be born again, be converted.  This is contrasted with a Catholic or Mainline Protestant Christian who typically does not believe in this sort of conversion process, at least not in the same way.

This language comes from Jesus himself when he had a conversation with a religious leader, a Pharisee named Nicodemus (See John 3).  Jesus told him that if he wanted to have a relationship with God, he needed to be born again.  Nicodemus got confused, he took Jesus too literally.  Nicodemus asked if he needed to return to his mother's womb and be born again.  No, Jesus said, it is a spiritual birth.

Jesus wanted Nicodemus to realize an important truth.  Without Him our spirits are dead.  Our bodies and minds, our souls, may be alive and well, but in the mind of God we are dead.

When a death row inmate is taking his final walk to the place where he is meet his end, there is a saying, "Dead man walking."  He is still alive, but soon enough he will perish.

This is our condition without Jesus.  We are dead men walking.  Our bodies and minds are functioning properly, but our destiny is eternal death.  We need to be born spiritually.  We need a second birth, a spiritual birth.  We need to be born again.

Peter picked up on Jesus' teaching and expanded it.  He is saying that to be born again, we must receive the Word of God.  The Word of God is like seed, and when it is planted in our hearts, it bears forth the fruit of eternal life.

We must accept this seed, we must receive it and welcome it, nurture it.  As we do so, we are given new life.  This process of receiving and living out the Word of God, is the essence of faith.  It is a tenet of Christian doctrine that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.  Faith is a positive response to the Word of God.

Jesus said that when a person makes this decision to trust Christ, she is born again, and there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels.  Nothing delights the heart of our Heavenly Father more than to see a new child born into His Kingdom.

Do you begin to see why physical, natural births are so significant?  We are playing out this story of redemption and eternal salvation every time a child is conceived and born.  Just as the unbeliever receives the seed of the word of God into his heart and new life is birthed in his spirit, so also the woman receives the seed from man and new life is conceived in her womb.  The joy a mother feels when she holds her newborn for the first time is a distant echo of the delight God takes every time someone decides to trust Christ as savior and is born again.  The delivery room is just as much a pulpit for the preaching of the Gospel as you can find any church.