Grown-Again Christian (Part 1): What Does “Born Again” Really Mean?

Have you ever heard of a “Grown-again Christian”?  Me neither.  But that term came to me this morning.  It should be one.  I mean – too many Christians are “born-again”, but then never mature / grow / grow up.  It’s not like this is a new concept.  It’s just one that I don’t remember ever hearing.  And from Googling it – it seems to be more about body parts and beards growing again.  Weird.  But we cannot – should not – ignore the concept.  Because it’s not new.

Why the flower growing in snow?

I need to begin with the adjacent image of a flower, already blooming, growing through the snow.

Why? Better yet, how?

How can that happen? It’s just not possible.

But – as we know, all things are possible with God. Including us, Christians – people who chose to follow Jesus, often have trouble following, fall away, run away, and go through all sorts of difficulties.

And yet, even as this little flower bloomed in the snow, we can blossom as children of God when we are not only born again, but when we overcome the difficulties and troubles associated with following Jesus – and also become what I called, grown again Christians.

Before we get into the idea of a “grown again Christian”, Part 1 of Grown-Again Christian will examine what the Bible says about being “born again”. Even the Pharisee, Nicodemus, wasn’t aware of it. So, he went to Jesus under cover of darkness to learn. We don’t need to hide and visit in the middle of the night. We can learn any time we want to.

So, with that in mind, let’s begin.

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But for right now, friends, I’m completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and with God. You’re acting like infants in relation to Christ, capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast.  ¹Peterson, E. H. (2005). The Message: the Bible in contemporary language (1 Co 3:1–2). Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

That’s not me.  That’s Paul.  From 1 Corinthians 3:1 – in The Message Translation.

Don’t get me wrong.  Being born-again is essential, as Jesus tells us.  As you read the passage below, keep in mind that Nicodemus was a Pharisee, visiting Jesus at great peril to himself.  He went at night because the other Jewish leaders would have turned against him if they knew what he was doing.  More on the significance of that in a little while.

Born Again

Let’s break down a couple things from that passage.

no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again

Jn 3:3 In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.’”

Jn 3:4 “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”

Jesus says we have to be born again to see the kingdom of God.  Clearly, Nicodemus has no idea what Jesus is talking about.  His reply about entering the womb again shows that Nicodemus is very much a “worldly” thinker.  That in itself should be both shocking and scary.  As a Pharisee, Nicodemus should be neither of those.  The table below shows the most significant factions of Jewish leadership around the time of Jesus.

	Sadducees	Pharisees	Essenes
Who they were:
Social Class	Priests, aristocrats	Common people	[Unknown]
Authority	Priests	“Disciples of the Wise”	“Teacher of Righteousness”
Practices	Emphasis on priestly obligations	Application of priestly laws to non-priests	“Inspired Exegesis”
Attitude Toward:
Hellenism	For	Selective	Against
Hasmoneans	Opposed usurpation of priesthood by non-Zadokites	Opposed usurpation of monarchy	Personally opposed to Jonathan
Free will	Yes	Mostly	No
Afterlife	None	Resurrection	Spiritual Survival
Bible	Literalist	Sophisticated scholarly interpretations	“Inspired Exegesis”
Oral Torah	No such thing	Equal to Written Torah	“Inspired Exegesis”

The Pharisees

While the entire table is of interest, we focus on the Pharisees for today.  Some other time, I’d like to get further into the whole thing – but not now.  Anyway, although the Pharisees were “common people”, as opposed to priests or from the ranks of the elite or the privileged social classes, look at some of their characteristics.

They were the “Disciples of the Wise”.  Jewish scholars today have different views of what this means.  Regardless, it’s something specific to the Pharisees.  It’s not something to get into here, but if you’d like to see a bit more, please click here.  (There’s a corresponding link to bring you back when you’re done reading.)  The point of bringing it up here is to show that the Pharisees were not priests.  Nor were they merely teachers.  Their goal was to train other Jews to be like them – wise in the Jewish laws.

Note that part of their discipling process was to have non-priests apply the Jewish laws to their own lives.  In a way, this is somewhat similar to the Great Commission given by Jesus to His disciples – and also to every Christian.

There’s that one phrase in there that should really have struck at the hearts of the Pharisees, even more so than maybe the Sadducees and the teachers of the law.  Go and make disciples.  That was an important part of what the Pharisees saw as their mission.  In that light, they would be excited about what Jesus had to say.  Unfortunately, they were very much against Jesus instead of being very much for Him.

The resurrection

Also, from the table – notice that the Pharisees believed in resurrection – in a life after death.  Again, this should have been an exciting concept for them.  But again, they were against Jesus.

Remember this from the time when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.

Jn 11:25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

It seems that more than any of the other three groups of Jewish leaders, the Pharisees should have seen the connection between what we now call the Old Testament and the words of Jesus.  Furthermore, given that the Pharisees were given to sophisticated scholarly interpretations of Scripture, it’s all the more amazing that Nicodemus appeared to be so confused about being reborn.

Not understanding

Moving along with the passage where Jesus is speaking with Nicodemus.  The NIV has Jesus asking a question of him.

“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things?

That’s from the NIV – both the 1984 and the 2011 versions.  However, as often happens, the NIV waters down this exchange between the two of them.

Young’s Literal Translation has something much more blunt and to the point.

Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Thou art the teacher of Israel—and these things thou dost not know!’  ²Young, R. (1997). Young’s Literal Translation (Jn 3:10). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.

It’s not even a question.  In fact, not even a mere statement.  It is more like an accusation.

In the English Standard Version, we read something in between the first two translations.

Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?”  ³The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Jn 3:10). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

The Message translation, which is one of the easiest to understand, gets the point across of just how bad things were going for Nicodemus.

Jesus said, “You’re a respected teacher of Israel and you don’t know these basics?”  ⁴Peterson, E. H. (2005). The Message: the Bible in contemporary language (Jn 3:10). Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

Truly, this is not a good thing.  Nicodemus, one who is looked at as a Disciple of the Wise, is himself being discipled by Jesus.  Someone who should have seen all those prophecies fulfilled in the One he is speaking with, doesn’t understand even the basics.

I’m not picking on Nicodemus here.  In fact, it appears that he is the only one of the Jewish leaders who even recognized enough of something that he was willing to risk everything to speak with Jesus.  And Nicodemus did learn something.  We know this, because of what’s recorded about him later in John’s Gospel.

Some people’s focus on this passage is on the cost of the myrrh and aloes.  A quick check on Google showed up costs, in today’s prices, ranging from a few thousand dollars to a couple hundred thousand.  A few thousand dollars seems on the low side, considering prices of higher quality items on Amazon.  Hundreds of thousands seems way too high.

But that’s not the real point!  Both Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus would have been rich men.  Money wasn’t something they would have been short of.  But the risks involved in burying Jesus?  Those were high indeed.  We see that Joseph was afraid of the Jews, so he worked in secret to do this.  For Nicodemus, this was a career-ender.  If he wasn’t already banned by the rest of the Pharisees, he certainly would be after this.

But when it came to “ciosts”, Jesus spoke of things like this: Jesus spoke of things like this.

We can be sure that both Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus counted the cost.  And decided it was worth it.

But once again, Jesus has different thoughts on what’s important.

Jesus said this about the road that leads to life.

And Jesus wasn’t talking about just life here on earth.  In fact, His application to life on earth wasn’t even what most would think of.  Here’s what was meant by the Greek word that we translate as life.

📖†  2222 ζωή [zoe /dzo·ay/] n f. From 2198; TDNT 2:832; TDNTA 290; GK 2437; 134 occurrences; AV translates as “life” 133 times, and “lifetime” once. 1 life. 1A the state of one who is possessed of vitality or is animate. 1B every living soul. 2 life. 2A of the absolute fullness of life, both essential and ethical, which belongs to God, and through him both to the hypostatic “logos” and to Christ in whom the “logos” put on human nature. 2B life real and genuine, a life active and vigorous, devoted to God, blessed, in the portion even in this world of those who put their trust in Christ, but after the resurrection to be consummated by new accessions (among them a more perfect body), and to last for ever.  ⁵Strong, J. (1995). Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship.

Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon

That sure lost a lot in the translation, didn’t it?  It’s not just life after death, as even some (many?) Christians would think.  It’s both this life and the next.

Here’s the thing about this narrow road / narrow path and narrow gate.  In the New Testament, what appears to be the worst-case scenario for finding the narrow path is maybe 1 out of 10.  That comes from this passage about ten men who Jesus healed.

Yes, 1 out of 10.  But even the 10 isn’t the right number to use.  We need to look at all the people who saw / heard / heard about Jesus – and then compare that to the number of people Jesus healed.  But that’s still not right.  We then need to look at the number of people who were told something like the Samaritan was in this passage – your faith has made you well.  That phrase is important.  It’s the difference between being physically healed – and being saved / attaining “life” as Jesus used it.

For a look at some estimates from the time of the Exodus, and equivalent numbers today, please see this article.

But what does all this mean?

It appears to mean that even for those who should have known, the chances of even being interested in Jesus are extremely slim.  And if you checked out the article on Exodus, the chances of being interested in God for even His chosen people were incredibly slim.  We’re talking about 1 Pharisee who should have recognized the prophecies and showed enough interest / courage to speak with Jesus.  Out of all the Jewish leaders who actually saw or heard about Him – that’s not a lot.  And out of all the people who were being delivered from the Egyptians, two people is depressingly small.

So what chance do we have, who don’t have God literally with us as they did during the Exodus – or have Jesus preaching in their neighborhood as Nicodemus did?

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Coming up in Part 2 of “Grown-Again Christian: Moving from Spiritual Infancy to Maturity“

Now that we’ve looked at what it truly means to be born again, how do we move past spiritual infancy?

I’ll add a link here when part 2 is published – or you can subscribe to the site and get an email notification when new articles are available, using the subscribe block toward the bottom of the page below.

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Disciples of the Wise (referenced above)

KALLAH (Heb. כַּלָּה; “bride”), one of the minor tractates appended to the end of the fourth order, Nezikin, in the printed texts of the Babylonian Talmud. There are two separate versions of the tractate. The shorter one consists of a single chapter while the larger version contains ten chapters and is known as Kallah Rabbati. Originally only the shorter tractate was known and it was published in the printed edition of the Talmud and the Maḥzor Vitry. The manuscript of the longer version was first published by Naḥman Coronel (Vienna, 1864), and subsequently printed in the *Romm (Vilna) edition of the Talmud. In three places the Babylonian Talmud cites the same passage, which mentions a tractate Kallah (Shab. 114a; Ta’an. 10b; Kid. 49b). It is related that a person is considered a disciple of the wise when he can answer any question of halakhah connected with his studies “even though it is on a subject dealt with in the Kallah tractate.” Scholars are uncertain as to the exact meaning of this phrase. Some hold that the allusion is to this tractate, while others explain that the reference is to the semiannual assemblies of the Babylonian scholars which were termed kallah and at which a designated tractate was studied.

The smaller tractate of Kallah discusses the subject of betrothal, marriage, chastity, and moral purity both in thought and action. The subject matter of this treatise is culled from *beraitot contained in the Babylonian Talmud. Its authorship was generally attributed to Yehudai Gaon (eighth century), but M. Higger concludes that the original Kallah was compiled by a disciple of *Eliezer b. Hyrcanus and that a later compiler added to it (intro. to M. Higger’s edition of Kallah, 13).

The larger tractate of Kallah Rabbati resembles the format of the Talmud, consisting of beraitot and Gemara. According to N. Friedmann (SederEliyahu Zuta, introd. p. 15), it emanated from the school of *Rava in Mahoza (Babylonia, third century). A. Aptowitzer, however, held that the author was Rava, a disciple of Yehudai Gaon (REJ 57 (1909), 239–48). Of the ten chapters comprising Kallah Rabbati only the first two discuss betrothal and marriage and they form a commentary to the shorter version of Kallah. Except for chapter 8, the remaining chapters form an amplification of Derekh Ereẓ Rabbah and Derekh Ereẓ Zuta. Chapter 8 is closely related to “the chapter on the acquisition of the Torah” or “the baraita of R. Meir” appended to Pirkei Avot. Much aggadic material is contained in this tractate, including the interesting stories of Akiva and the spirit of a deceased man (ch. 2); the four sages and the philosopher (ch. 7); Simeon b. Antipatros and his guests (ch. 9); and Akiva and the Athenian (ch. 10). A critical edition of the texts of Kallah and Kallah Rabbati was published by M. Higger in 1936. An English translation of these tractates was issued by Soncino Press in 1965.

From the Jewish Virtual Library at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/kallah

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Footnotes:

• 1
  Peterson, E. H. (2005). The Message: the Bible in contemporary language (1 Co 3:1–2). Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress. ↩︎
• 2
  Young, R. (1997). Young’s Literal Translation (Jn 3:10). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software. ↩︎
• 3
  The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Jn 3:10). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society. ↩︎
• 4
  Peterson, E. H. (2005). The Message: the Bible in contemporary language (Jn 3:10). Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress. ↩︎
• 5
  Strong, J. (1995). Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship. ↩︎