The God Who Offers Transformation

The Bible’s storyline, from the opening chapters of Genesis, sets up a massive tension—cosmic in scope, but descending all the way down to the level of the individual. The tension is revolution against God who created all. There was and is an obsessive desire to challenge God, to become God ourselves, and to control our own lives. With every one of us wanting to be at the center of the universe, there can only be strife.

With the Incarnation we saw the God who is there has disclosed Himself and His plan to correct the state of fallen mankind. How, precisely, does His coming help us?

What are the needs that we have?
 To be reconciled to God.
 To be morally transformed. Otherwise, we will just keep repeatedly rebelling.
 We need all the effects of sin to somehow to be reversed and overcome. That includes not only our relationships with one another, but death itself.

We must be genuinely reconciled to the holy God who is there. We ourselves must be transformed, in measure right now, and for the rest of our lives. Ultimately the need is for the kind of thorough transformation that leaves no hint of self-centeredness. We become consumed in delight at the glory and centrality of God.

How does Jesus address these needs?

The New Birth, a Transformation

John 3:3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again.”

What does new birth mean?

Jesus Says One Must Be Born Again

Jesus responds to Nicodemus’ inquiry and says, “You must be born again.” Nicodemus replies with a bit of a sneer: “How can anyone be born when they are old?” You are going over the top Jesus, promising something you cannot give, a brand new start.

Jesus is saying in effect: What we need is new men and new women, not new institutions. What we need is new lives, not new laws. What we need is new creatures, not new creeds. What we need is new people, not mere displays of power. Nicodemus, you are missing it! You see the display of power, but you do not see the kingdom in any saving and transforming sense. Jesus would not back down. He said, “I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.”

Jesus said, ‘Nicodemus how is it that you are Israel’s teacher, and do not understand these things?’ Jesus is holding Nicodemus responsible for understanding what He is talking about.

Ezekiel 36:25-27 God promises a time when He will transform His people. “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean,” indicating a moral cleaning. And I will put My Spirit in you, indicating life and power from God Himself. This new birth Jesus speaks of is in line with the promise of a prophet six centuries earlier, a moral transformation by the power and life of God.

So how on earth do you take lost, self-centered, human beings, and actually connect them with the life of God?

As Ezekiel said, it takes an act of God that truly cleans you up and actually fills you with power from God Himself, from His Spirit, so that we are changed, transformed.

Where there is new birth that has genuinely come from God, there will be a transformation. That does not mean that people have suddenly reached perfection: but where new birth takes place, God changes our direction.

Jesus Has Authority to Speak About the New Birth

Jesus says, ‘Nicodemus, we know one or two things too. We do, because quite frankly no one has been to heaven to describe what goes on in the throne room of God. No one has come back to tell us, but Me, that is where I come from.’

To understand Christianity, sooner or later you must come to grips with Christianity’s revelation claims.
What do you do with Jesus, who claims to come from God?

Jesus Brings about This New Birth

Jesus makes it crystal clear how the new birth happens. He refers back to the brass serpent in Numbers 21:4–9

The nature of the murmuring and grumbling, the whining and complaining of God’s people was bound up with a profound dissatisfaction with God, then and now. This spells death all over again. A snake, a choice, and death. But those who had been infected, if they would only look at the bronze snake God had provided, they would live.

A millennium and a half later, Jesus said, in effect, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert and as a result people lived, so Jesus will be lifted up.” He is referring to His own crucifixion, another pole, a cross-shaped pole, that those who look to Him, those who believe in Him, will live. On His cross
Jesus provided the means by which we have new birth.

The new birth is grounded in Jesus’ death. That is what Jesus is saying. You and I receive the benefit of this not by trying harder or by being ultra-religious, but by believing in Jesus.