Introduction
Blogging can be so much more than mere fun. It can become a discipline. And it can even provide a measure of accountability.
That said, I plan to embark on a new venture with this blog. I intend to blog through the 50 demands that make up What Jesus Demands from the World, the new book by my pastor John Piper. I want to post devotional thoughts on each of these demands and intend to use the chapters in my personal Bible time. As such, I may post a demand a day. I can’t guarantee that this series will be finished in 50 days, however. I don’t want these posts to take away from my other blogging goals. But I think we will find them encouraging and challenging. But this series will be mostly for me—a discipline to post devotional thoughts regularly from my reading and meditating in God’s Word.
A word about the book, before I begin is in order. The chapters in the book are written in such a way as to be easy to read in one setting each. Thus they provide a perfect format for a devotional reading. With this book, Desiring God already has the entire book available to be read online for free! I would highly encourage you to read the introduction as it provides a great overview of the Gospel mission of Christ.
Today, there is a push to redefine the heart of the Gospel around the commands of Jesus to love God and your neighbors. Piper makes it clear, however, that the shadow of the cross is stamped all over the Gospels, and that Christ does not intend his commands to be able to impart life apart from a recognition of the centrality of the cross-work of Christ. So Piper tries to look behind each command and see the motivations given for it and the connection it has to the Gospel news of Christ’s substitutionary death and resurrection on our behalf. And as such, he hopes to show how the commands of Jesus are given to accomplish 2 purposes. These purposes are captured well in this quote: “The obedience he demands is [1] the fruit of his redeeming work and [2] the display of his personal glory.” So on now to…
Demand #1 — You Must Be Born Again
Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 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? Jesus answered, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:3-8)
First, notice that without the new birth, no one can even see the kingdom of God. My Reformation Study Bible says it this way: “Without the grace of God, sinners cannot find the door, let alone force their way in.” Then notice that Jesus is amazed that Nicodemus did not understand what Jesus was meaning with the phrase “new birth”. This points us to look back to the Old Testament, in which Nicodemus would have been an expert, to find a reference to the new birth. We find such a reference in the new covenant promised blessing of a “new heart”.
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. (Ezek. 36:25-28; see also Is. 44:3)
The phrase “born of water and of the Spirit” describes the one new birth. This is clear because it is parallel to “born again” in vs. 3. Unless you are “born again” and unless you are “born of water and the Spirit” you cannot “see” or “enter” the kingdom of God. In light of the parallel to Ezek. 36 and also a similar parallel to Titus 3:5, we should see the water as referring to cleansing from sin and the spirit as the infusing of a new heart and spirit which accompanies the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives now. Some try to make water refer to physical birth, but this is not how first century people would understand that. Others make it refer to baptism, and they are partly correct. Baptism is a rite which includes water. This hearkens back to the cleansing rituals in the OT ceremonial law. As Ezek. 36 shows (see also Is. 44:3), water is symbolic of cleansing. And Baptism is just that as well—symoblic of the spiritual cleansing we receive at the new birth.
To be born of the Spirit involves a dying to the past, and therefore it is only the Spirit that is spoken of in the subsequent verses; but it is essential that our past be recognised as needing cleansing and forgiveness. These two factors, water and spirit, are not strictly co-ordinate. Water is not an actual spiritual agency in the second birth; it is only a symbol. But in every true second birth there is a negative as well as a positive side, a renunciation of the past as well as a new life created. [quoted from Marcus Dods, “The Gospel of St. John”, The Expositor’s Greek Testament, vol. 1, ed. W. Robertson Nicoll (Hendrickson reprint, 2002) pg. 713]
Having looked a little closely at some of the parts, let us pause to take in the whole. Jesus says you need to be born. How many babies birth themselves? This is a passive action. Verse 8 indicates that the Spirit performs this new birth in a mysterious way, just as wind is mysterious. This new birth is referred to in John 1:12-13 where it is stressed that the birth happens: “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” In short, the new birth is an impartation of spiritual life which happens on the inside of our hearts and which only God can perform. Upon receiving this spiritual life we will believe in Jesus Christ as the rest of John 3 up to verse 21 shows. For a closer look at regeneration check out this earlier post.
To conclude, we are to be born again, yet we are unable to “just do it”, Nike style. This demand of Jesus indicates to us that we are sinful people in need of cleansing and rebirth which only God can provide. The good news is that Jesus came to enable us to see that kingdom and to purchase on the cross a grace to enable new birth to come to all who will believe. We can’t birth ourselves, but we can look to Jesus and be aware of our need for rebirth. We can follow on to know more of Jesus teaching, and this will culminate in spiritual rebirth.
To those of us who profess Christ, may this command remind us of our lowly estate apart from Christ. May it remind us that each day we depend on the Spirit to be continually blowing life on our dry dead bones, and that we need the Spirit’s work in us to be able to really see and appreciate the glorious realities of the Kingdom.
—See all posts on, the Demands of Jesus
∼striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God∼ Eph. 4:3,13 “¢ Rom. 15:5-7
Definitely desiring to digest your disciplined devotions!
So, considering that Jesus demands something of us that we cannot do, that would make this demand an indicative, rather than an imperative; something that must be true of us, but not something we can do; something we must obtain from the Sovereign Spirit who blows where he will, rather than something to which we can attain by our wise decision to choose to be born by the subsequent agency of the Spirit; a grace, not a just reward. But thanks be to the Lord that what God requires, Christ provides and the Spirit applies to all of his people in his time!