The Once-Born and the Twice-Born

Jesus replied, “You must be born again.” John 3:3 

Jesus made it very clear that there is a difference between being born physically and being born spiritually.

That clear distinction runs through the entire New Testament. There is a difference between the person who has been born only of the flesh and the person who has been born of the Spirit. Christianity is not ultimately a matter of association, affiliation, denomination, religious vocabulary, or proximity to Christian people. It is a matter of new birth.

And that is precisely why we must be careful when we begin deciding who belongs to God based upon who belongs to us.

The Pharisees were deeply religious. They knew the Scriptures. They were devoted to their religious system. They were convinced they understood who was acceptable to God and who was not. Yet when the Son of God stood before them, they rejected Him.

We can make the same mistake in another form. We can confuse belonging to our communion with belonging to Christ, and we can confuse not belonging to our communion with being an enemy of Christ.

Neither conclusion is ours to make.

The New Testament gives us a far more serious question:

Have we been born again?

That is the line Christ Himself drew.