Are Members of Christ’s Body Born Again?

Several years ago a preacher I am acquainted with was approached by a street evangelist who asked him, “are you saved? are you born again?” The preacher hesitated for a moment, then responded with, “yes, and no.” Dumbfounded, the evangelist said, “what do you mean?” The preacher then proceeded to explain to him that you are either one or the other, but not both.

It’s hard to say exactly when the two designations came to be held as one and the same. Luther’s famous exclamation, after seeing the truth of Romans 3,4 and 5, “I felt as though I had been ‘born again,’” could have been the beginning, but there is little debate that the idea that being saved or born again is the same thing, and has been thoroughly canonized in Christian Evangelical mindset through the preaching of Billy Graham, who has made the concept the centerpiece of every sermon he’s ever preached in a crusade.

Tracts have also been a popular means of spreading the idea. One of which I recently had the opportunity to read is entitled, “Are you Born Again?”¹ The tract begins with John 3, the only place in Scripture where the phrase, “born again”, appears.

“Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say into thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3

This is followed by the assertion that those who are “truly” born again will bear certain marks in their behavior. All of these “marks” are, understandably, derived from John’s later letters. The first of these, the tract asserts, is found in 1 John 3:9:

“Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin:…”

From this point the author of the tract begins to “water down” this very emphatic statement by saying that this doesn’t really mean what it says. In his explanation of the verse he offers this qualifying statement:

“A man born again, or regenerate, does not commit sin as a habit.”(my emphasis)

Why does he add these last three words? Why can’t he simply allow the verse to say what it says? Because he doesn’t know anyone—including himself—who “doth not commit sin!” Therefore, this addition must be made in order to make the verse work for him.

His second “mark” is based on 1 John 5:1:

“Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God;

In other words, if one is born again, he will proclaim that Jesus is the Christ.

His third mark is based on 1 John 2:29:

“Every one that doeth righteousness is born of Him.”

Here is his explanation of what he believes this entails:

“The man born again, or regenerate, then, is a holy man. He endeavors to live according to God’s will, to do the things that please God, to avoid the things that God hates. His aim and desire is to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength, and to love his neighbor as himself. His wish is to be continually looking to Christ as his example as well as his Savior, and to show himself Christ’s friend by doing whatsoever Christ commands. No doubt he is not perfect. None will tell you that sooner than himself. He groans under the burden of indwelling corruption cleaving to him. He finds an evil principle within him constantly warring against Grace, and trying to draw him away from God. But he does not consent to it, though he cannot prevent its presence. In spite of all shortcomings, the average bent and bias of his way is holy—his doings are holy, his tastes holy, and his habits holy. In spite of all his swerving and turning aside, like a ship beating up against a contrary wind, the general course of his life is in one direction – toward God and for God. And though he may sometimes feel so low that he questions whether he is a Christian at all, he will generally be able to say with old John Newton, ‘I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be in another world, but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the Grace of God I am what I am.’”

I agree that what he describes in this explanation could very well characterize many Christian’s life experiences, but none of this can be substantiated from the area of scripture, John’s gospel and his first epistle, from which he is deriving his conclusions. It says in 2 Corinthians 5 that believers are “made the righteousness of God in him”²(Christ), which Paul refers to in Romans 4 as “imputed righteousness”³ This simply means that Christ’s righteousness has been imputed to the believer’s heavenly account. In no way does it mean that the believer, upon trusting in Christ for his/her salvation, is made right or holy in the flesh.

The fourth mark is from 1 John 3:14:

“We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.”

The born again man will automatically love all fellow Christians. I suppose this depends on one’s definition of the word “love.“ I’ve been saved for twenty five years, and been in fellowship with a broad spectrum of Christians, but I have yet to experience this kind of “automaton” love amongst the brethren. Many brethren, myself included, can be quiet “unloving” at times, thus requiring great will and effort to evoke any “love” for them.

The fifth mark is from 1 John 5:4:

“Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world.”

He’ll hate the world and any kind of worldly activity (e.g., watching secular movies, sports events, television, consuming alcoholic beverages (God forbid that demon rum of any kind should pass over his lips!); tobacco of any kind; card and board games; computer games, any form of secular music, involvement in politics, or any other activity the “world” happens to find pleasure in.

Perhaps the Amish might qualify under this stricture, but I imagine, if you were to follow one of them around 24/7, you would discover that they don’t.

The last mark is from 1 John 5:18

“We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.”

Here is a reiteration of chapter three, verse 9, claiming that those born of God will not sin.  Within the context of 1 John 3, “sin” is identified as the transgression of the law

“Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.” 1Jo 3:4

This does not mean the recipients of John’s letter exist in sinless perfection. It simply means, within the context, that they will not transgress the law, because according to Hebrews 8:8-11, God’s law is supernaturally written on their hearts and in their minds:

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people

John refers to this in 1 John 2 as “the anointing:”

But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. 1 Jn 2:27

No doubt there are more than a few Christians who think they possess this “anointing,” and are thus in compliance with all this, but they are only kidding themselves, and they certainly aren’t fooling God.

John isn’t speaking of the Body of Christ, which is a designation exclusive to the Pauline revelation of the mystery, in his respective writings; he is speaking of and to Israel under the new covenant.

Let’s cut right to the heart of the problem here. The problem with this entire application of scripture is that there is nobody in the world today who could ever be obedient to this doctrine, because no believer, NOW, is “born again” or “born of God.”

No way! Just about every preacher in the history of Protestant Evangelicalism, from Luther to Calvin to Wesley to Finney to Spurgeon to Moody to Billy Graham, says we’re born again. How can these “pillars of the faith” be wrong about this? As brilliant as some of these men (and others like them) may have been, they have missed something in the New Testament section of scripture that gives the lie to their contention that being born again and being saved are the same. That something is called “the revelation of the mystery”, and it is laid out exclusively in the thirteen epistles of the Apostle Paul.

Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith…..Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints…..How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; Rom 16:25-26; Col. 1:26; Eph. 3:3-5

I can find no reference within Paul’s thirteen epistles to anything remotely resembling what John refers to as being born again or born of God (from above), not in the sense that John uses the designation.

Certainly, few Evangelicals, outside of Charismatics who claim a “second work of grace,” that believe they are born again, would have the Gaul to claim they never sinned. Usually, their standard MO is to spiritualize the passages by claiming it’s their “spirit man” or “new nature” that doesn’t sin, as if there is something in them apart from who they are.

Of course, this is a complete misuse of these scriptures in 1 John, which are about identification and nothing else. Members of the body of Christ are identified by their testimony of salvation, not by their ability to “overcome” their sinful nature. The miracle and power of God in the present dispensation is being displayed in the fact that he is using flawed, weak (translation: “sinful“) human beings to proclaim the good news of the gospel of Christ. We, like our apostle, Paul, are “carnal, sold under sin.”(Rom. 7:14) But like Paul, we can say,

“I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ who liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” Gal 2:20-21

When Christians go around claiming they are born again– which in effect is saying that they possess a new, sinless nature–they are indeed frustrating the grace of God, not to mention placing themselves under a burden they cannot possibly bear. No doubt, a day is coming when all those of us who have trusted Christ as our Savior will be born again and no longer have the presence of sin in our lives. That day is “the day of redemption,” that day when “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel”⁴ and take us out of here. In that day our “vile bodies” will be changed into “a body likened unto Christ’s glorious body.”⁵

Until then, what we are is “saved…and sealed with that holy Spirit of promise….unto the day of redemption.”⁶

Mike Schroeder

All Scripture references are taken from the King James Bible. Please feel free to distribute this article as you see fit.

Post Script

Are you saved? Jesus Christ—“who knew no sin”—and his sacrificial death on the Cross, has made the way for “everyone that believeth…to be reconciled to God. History has shown that whatever peace man has achieved in the world can only be temporary. The Bible says that individual men and women can know, beyond a doubt, that they are saved and bound for heaven, and therefore have absolute and permanent peace, regardless of what is going on in the world, by trusting Jesus Christ and his death on the cross for their eternal salvation. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved…Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Have you done this? If not, why not now?

Notes