How a Person Is Born Again

Being born again can also be translated as “receiving new life from God.” The Bible teaches that human life, passed down from our ancestor Adam, is sinful and mortal. To inherit eternal, immortal life, a person must receive God’s new life—they must be born again. Anyone who receives the truth and is united with Jesus Christ is born again. This new life is born of God and of the Holy Spirit, not of human will or flesh. Only a person who has been born again has God’s life and therefore has eternal life.

“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). A person being born of the Spirit is a real event, but it is invisible, like the blowing wind. We don’t see how the Holy Spirit comes upon a person, how He works within them, or how they are born again. We also don’t see what the inner person born of the Spirit looks like. These are hidden, invisible matters. However, once a person is born again, certain special signs immediately become apparent. Their thoughts, will, desires, life, speech, and actions are all very different from before. Their life undergoes an unprecedented change. This change is evident to them and even more so to those who know them. This change is a necessary outcome of being born again. When we see these special signs in a person, we know that something real has happened within them—they have been born again.

A true Christian must have the experience of being born again, not just the knowledge or doctrine of it. A person who has not been born again, even if they have been baptized and joined Christianity, is not a true Christian and will not receive eternal life. Being born again is God’s calling, the moving of the Holy Spirit, and a person’s faith and obedience. It is not a theory but a reality. Only a person who has been born again has God’s life and is a child of God, no longer separated from God but in a continuous, life-giving relationship with Him.

The Bible records:

[John 3:3-8] Jesus replied to Nicodemus, who came to see him at night, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

[John 3:14, 16] Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up… For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

 Edited and compiled based on the Chinese Union Version Bible and Comprehensive Biblical Interpretation.