born again

DE

When Nicodemus, a member of the Israeli High Council, came to Jesus out of fear of the Jews in the middle of the night and wanted to know how to get into the kingdom of God, Jesus answered, „Verily, verily, I say you, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.“(John 3, 3)

But what does that mean: being born again or being born again? This was also a mystery to Nicodemus, so he asked Jesus, „How can a person be born when he is old? Can he then go back to his mother’s body and be born? „Jesus answered:

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (John 3, 5-8)

 

To understand what is meant here, we have to dig a little deeper. When God made man, he breathed to him the „breath of life,“ and so man became a living being (Genesis 2: 7). From then on man had fellowship with God. He lived and talked to him face to face. Because God had created him as a counterpart he wanted to have fellowship with him. With the Fall, this community was no longer possible, it was broken, because communion with God is only possible for someone who is free from sin and guilt. That’s why the first two people had to leave the Garden of Eden and death had come into the world; What is meant here is spiritual death, the eternal separation from God. Adam and Eve had lost the Spirit of God and passed into the possession of Satan and with them all who were born of them and their descendants until this day. At the same time, however, we find here the first clue to the one who will defeat this death: Jesus Christ, in the punishment against the serpent, he speaks of (Genesis 3:15): „it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. “ On the cross on Golgotha ​​this word has come true. When Jesus exclaimed, „It is finished“ (John 19:30), there was Satan and death was defeated but not yet taken out of the world.
The problem: All those who have no connection with Jesus are still missing the Spirit of God (Holy Spirit). They are still „spiritually dead“. Now each one of us is asked, „Do you want to have this connection with Jesus to get back into communion with God? We are back at the beginning where Jesus says, „If a man is not born of water and the Spirit, he can not come into the kingdom of God.“


How am I born of „water and spirit“?

Water is here a picture for the baptism. But this presupposes that I recognize that I am guilty before God and therefore forever lost without Jesus (see above). He who has known this for himself, gives his hand to Jesus and says to him, „For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but here you can have eternal life. „Here everyone, instead of the world or all, can use his own name and it makes clear what Jesus means here: nothing less than that, YOU, if you take this hand and Jesus ask you to give your previous life without forgiving him and to shape your life in the future by letting him be your Lord, then he will give you his Holy Spirit. Now you’re his child and he gives you his community. The apostle Paul says: (2 Corinthians 5, 17) Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.