The church is filled with what Jesus called “tares.” A tare is a weed that resembles wheat until harvest time. Then the difference is evident. Tares bear no fruit. The only way to become a real child of God is through the new birth. How can we know for sure we have been born again and are not among the tares?
The New Birth Is Self-Authenticating
This simply means that born again people know it. If you are not sure, perhaps you never have been. However, before going farther, let me acknowledge that many, who have grown up in Christian families and believed in Jesus from a very young age, cannot point to a defining conversion experience. I have heard many say that they have “always believed,” meaning that as far back as they can remember they have believed in God and Jesus. They cannot say here is when I was born again. Nevertheless, they can know for sure that they have been. I gave four keys for discerning this in my previous article.
My experience was much different. Even though I grew up with a certain familiarity with the Bible, being Roman Catholic, no one ever explained the real gospel message to me. I did not know that I could know for sure who Jesus is. I did not know I could know that I have been eternally forgiven. I was not aware that eternal life begins when we are born again. This is because I grew up in a religious system that keeps people in a continual state of suspense regarding their eternal destiny.
The Catholic Church has devised a clever system that keeps people in perpetual dependency on the priesthood and the church to stay in a right relationship with God. It offers a way to get back into God’s good graces as needed by going through the priest and the sacraments. Catholic priests serve as mediators between God and man, which is an outright contradiction of Scripture. There is only one mediator, and his name is Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5). This false religion distorts of the true gospel message and offers no sure promise of salvation. Paul wrote that those who proclaim such a false gospel will be cursed. (Galatians 1:8)
I remember sharing with my wife’s father, a lifelong Catholic, just before he died that he could know for sure that he is forgiven. I explained to him that Jesus took our sins upon himself so that we will never have to face judgment for them. I further pointed out that Jesus gives us eternal life right now. We don’t have to wait until we die to know we have it. John the beloved disciple who was close to Jesus’ heart wrote the following:
These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. 1 John 5:13 (NASB)
If we know we have eternal life now, then we need no longer be under the thrall of any church or priesthood’s power to enslave us to a perpetual not knowing.
If your church or religion keeps you in the dark regarding your eternal destiny, it is not the true gospel!
My wife’s father suddenly understood for the first time in his life just how great a gift is the real gospel. He believed and received everything Jesus had for him that morning sitting at our kitchen table. A week later he crossed the threshold into eternity, knowing where he stands with God. He could mark the day he was born again. I look forward to one day being greeted by him at heaven’s gates.
Likewise, my conversion was just as clear cut. I transitioned from being a doubting seeker to a confirmed believer in an instant of Holy Spirit revelation. God mercifully removed the blinders from my eyes so I could finally see Jesus for who he truly is – the risen Son of God. In that instant I was born again. Everything from then on in my life was different, and that was in 1971. This is 2019. You do the math. This was no flash in the pan emotional experience. It was and is real. I have no doubt that I have been born again because the new birth is self-authenticating. My father-in-law knew that his life was different. The same thing happened to my then wife to be when she was born again. We do not wonder. We know.
Before a person is born again, he or she cannot understand what it is. It is only afterward that we gain understanding. In other words, we cannot figure out what the new birth is without receiving it. We cannot reason our way into the experience because it is Holy Spirit generated. This should not surprise us.
Jesus did not come to scratch the itching intellect, but to fill the hungry heart.
When we believe and obey, God opens our understanding.
Nicodemus’ response revealed that he was operating out of his intellect only. All of his great learning and study as a Jewish religious leader was not sufficient for the things of God’s Spirit.
Nicodemus *said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” John 3:4 (NASB)
Here we have the perfect contrast of rational religion versus a supernatural revelation-based relationship with Christ.
Great learning and Bible knowledge only brought Nicodemus to the place of coming to Jesus. It did not open the gate into eternal life. Only revelation by the Spirit can do that.
God’s Spirit opens the “eyes of our heart” to see who Jesus truly is, bringing us into a faith relationship with him. This is why people say that Christianity is a relationship, not a religion. The relationship we have with the Lord Jesus is as his appreciative servant. This spiritual relationship automatically provides us with a new relationship with the Father in heaven. We become his children through the new birth.
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12-13 (NASB)
The Holy Spirit enters every born again child of God, becoming his or her source of life and power.
The secret of the New Covenant is that God lives his life through us. This all happens when we see Jesus by revelation and believe on him in our hearts, declaring him to be our Lord. It’s called the new birth.
Because Christianity is relational and revelational, one’s intellectual capacity is not the primary consideration. That is why children can easily come to Christ. They are not restricted by the acquired cynicism and skepticism found in many adults. Their hearts tend to be more open and receptive to revelational truth and God.
Getting back to Nicodemus, once again Jesus did not answer as one might expect. Instead he restated his earlier declaration with more detail. Because the new birth must be experienced in order to be understood, Jesus’ purpose in this conversation was to create a hunger in Nicodemus to experience this for himself.
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 “Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:5-8 (NASB)
Here Jesus explains that to enter the kingdom of God, one must have two births, a natural one and a spiritual one. Then he acknowledges that the new birth is mysterious and entirely dependent on the sovereign activity of God’s Spirit. This will be the topic of Part 3.
Conclusion
The self-authentication of the new birth comes from the Holy Spirit. Whether or not we can mark a particular new birth experience or not, we should be able to know for sure that we are born again. Using the four keys in my previous article will help, but ultimately we have an inner “witness” from the indwelling Holy Spirit.
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, Romans 8:15-16 (ESV)
If you do not have this inner knowledge that you are God’s child, I encourage you to seek God until you do.
Prayer
Jesus, I want to know you in the way I read about in the Bible. Please come into my life and be my lord and savior. I give myself to you. Please forgive my sins and the way I have lived independently from you all these years. From now on, I belong to you. Holy Spirit, open my spiritual eyes, unstop my ears, and heal my hardened heart so I can see, hear, and believe God’s words. Reveal Jesus to me, so that I can behold him and be born again. I depend on you to do this. I will not give up until you answer my prayer, which I know you will. Thank you. Amen.
