This brings me to this Trinity Sunday's address:
“Being Born Again of the Triune God”
Text: John 3:3-8 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter 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 marvel 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 cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
My Christian friends: To show what it is like for everyone to be born a sinful natural birth, hear the words of the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 16:1-5: “Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, and say, Thus says the Lord GOD to Jerusalem: Your birth and your nativity are from the land of Canaan; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite (both natural enemies of the Triune God). As for your nativity, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water to cleanse you; you were not rubbed with salt nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you; but you were thrown out into the open field, when you yourself were loathed on the day you were born.’”
But friends, you yourself can dread the day that you were born but you will still not have hope for the future. All help is therefore dead as it might well be, as long as you feel you can do anything to correct your miserable plight and cause yourself to live. You can do nothing of the sort as Paul tells the Ephesians: “…you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” For as long as your umbilical cord was never severed you are still being nourished by corruptible seed and, if perchance it is severed, you will nevertheless die from starvation if no one takes pity on you. It is amazing how much each and every one of the sons of Adam are like the corruptible Jerusalem that the Lord has Ezekiel prophesy against. How much more can our generation say that our fathers were Amorites and mothers Hittites, enemies of the Lord God, in natural births?
Ah, but look at the blessings of actually having Christian fathers and mothers who would look at you when you were born and say, “Live! Live!” It is as the prophet says to the abominable Jerusalem in Ezekiel 16:6ff “And when I passed by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ Yes, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I made you thrive like a plant in the field…“Then I washed you in water; yes, I thoroughly washed off your blood, and I anointed you with oil.” Here you find the explanation of the one true Baptism and the one Holy Spirit, which is the oil of gladness. Here is the remedy for your new birth; here is where Christian mothers and fathers bring their little ones so that they might be born-again.
It is as the Bible means when stating the significance of the flood that destroyed all mankind yet saved eight souls through means of water. Peter records in his first epistle (1 Peter 3:18-21): “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is also an antitype which now saves us — baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
If you take the very Word of God, as penned by the holy Apostle, you will also find in the first chapter, verse three, the word blessed. “Blesséd be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Why is God the Father blessed? Simply because of the works of His Son explained this way: “who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you…having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.”
Christian, the words of the Bible must stand without you adding or subtracting from them in order to fit your own agenda or to match up with what your church body teaches, lest you risk forfeiting your right to the tree of life.
So where is it mentioned in all of Scripture that you can do anything to affect your own salvation? Where is it mentioned that you can merit a new birth by what you say or do? Nowhere. Where, again, is it written that if a person repeats a sinner’s prayer that he is then born-again? As Paul told the Corinthians, “No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” That is why Paul, in Romans 10:9-17 told the Roman Church that no one can call on the name of the Lord unless they heard of Him by the graces distributed to them by a called preacher. Emphasis is given to verses 14 and 15: “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!’”
As far as I can see, Jesus did not lead Nicodemus in a sinner’s prayer so that he could exclaim that he was now born-again…and why not? Would not Jesus have given Nicodemus the concrete, psychological answer that human reason demands for peace of mind? The answer is relatively simple: Man can produce only that which is of the flesh but the Holy Spirit brings about the second birth which is rightly from above.
It is therefore through faith (that is also a gift of God) that man receives this new birth and therefore is born-again; in faith, by faith, through faith, faith alone in Christ that grants you access to these heavenly gifts, even salvation. As John 1:11-13 testifies, “[Jesus] came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
The late Lutheran theologian, R.C.H. Lenski, speaks truth when he says: “We are begotten again when the life from God is implanted into our souls.” And, again: “The greatness of God’s mercy appears when we see what we were at one time by virtue of our natural birth and what we are now by virtue of our spiritual rebirth. It was…great mercy for God to stoop down to such wretched creatures as we were. Great also is the evidence of mercy when we note what God begot us: ‘to living hope,’ the opposite of an empty, false, deceptive hope.”
So it is also the same message of instruction of being born-again, not how to be born-again (i.e. not “getting” born-again) that our Lord spoke to Nicodemus in John 3:3. It is also the same message stated in Ephesians 2:4-6 and also Colossians 2:13, “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.”
The suffering masses of people who don’t trust in the mercy of our God are arrogant Amorites and Hittites indeed. They depend upon their own natural abilities and sinful selves and are content with dragging down their friends and family into the pits of perdition with their self-pride, false securities, and their false dreams and visions as their idols. This is not what you have learned from Christian pulpits, but repentance by all means! But not without a living faith in the forgiveness of sins in the crucified Christ, which the Holy Spirit gives testimony to in Word and Sacrament.
It is this faith that comes through the mercies of God the Father in Christ Jesus which we receive for our healing. “And His name, through faith in His name, has made you strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all,” is what Peter spoke to the crowd about the healing of the lame man at the gate of the temple. This was a sign of God about the spiritual healing that is made available to all who trust in Jesus. For it should go without saying that if it is by the stripes of Jesus that you are healed and now have peace with God, why would you ever feel that it is up to you, dead in your trespasses and sins, to make some decision for Christ? Have you ever really done enough and done whatever you believe is necessary to truly obtain a new birth?
Look at what St. Paul says to the church in Philippi: Phil 2:12-13 “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation (speaking that which was already given you who believe) with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”
Born again from above! Live! Live!! Why die eternally? You are born again by God; kept by God; even sustained in your new birth by God to do the works of God, by God working through you. Man could never claim these works for himself without, at the same time, holding on to a false, deceptive hope. If there are any good feelings to be had from all this, it should be the feelings of wanting to bless God for having Christ so richly live in you through Word and Sacrament.
Being born again is a good feeling, subjectively speaking. But more importantly, being born again by the Holy Spirit, means that even when the natural flesh fails you, the Word of God remains true to its promises. And because God’s word is true, you will always have that living hope through the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. As Peter writes: [You] “who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time…having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.”
However, if your hope depends on your decision to accept Christ and not by faith simply believing in the promise God made to you that He has chosen to accept you through the mercies of Jesus Christ…if your hope depends upon you bringing Christ down into your sinful heart then your hope will surely be dashed to bits. Remember that you are naturally born of the flesh and without being born of the Spirit, you are already doomed; doomed to fail God in this life and doomed to be without God’s mercy in the life to come.
Therefore, remember God’s mercy and apply it by faith to yourself. For holy baptism is the mercy that Paul reminded Titus (3:4,5), when he said, “But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.”
Born-again! Yes, born from above! Blessed be our loving God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, through the mercies of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
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