To be born again is to receive Jesus’ baptism of the Spirit. The greatest change in the gospel, after first-century believers rejected Paul’s gospel, was the redefinition of the new birth from being baptized with the Spirit to believing in Jesus. Believing in Jesus was always essential to receiving the new birth, of course, but believing is not the experience of new birth; it only qualifies one to be born again. This is what John had in mind when he wrote,
John 1
12. As many as received him [Jesus], to them he granted the right to become children of God [be born again], to those who believe in his name,
13. who are born [again], not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
John was saying the same thing when he penned these famous words:
John 3
16. This is the way God loved the world: He gave His only Son so that every one who believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
The Spirit is life, Paul said (Rom. 8:10), and understanding that simple truth helps us to see that John 3:16 was teaching that whoever believes in Jesus should afterward receive the life of the Spirit. According to John, Jesus taught the same to those who believed on him:
John 7
37. On the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink!
38. He who believes in me, as the scripture said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water!”
39. But he spoke this about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were going to receive, for the holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.
The author of Hebrews wrote, “He who comes to God must believe that He exists and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6b). Just so, he who comes to Christ Jesus must first believe that he is Lord and that he is a baptizer of those who diligently seek him. Demons believe (Jas. 2:19b), but it does them no good, for Jesus will not baptize them into his body. But for us, believing may lead to the new birth if we diligently seek the will of God in Christ Jesus.
We are complete in Christ, just as Paul said, but there are but three verses in the Bible which tell us how we get into Christ, and all three say it is by baptism: Romans 6:3, Galatians 3:27, and 1Corinthians 12:13. In 1Corinthians, Paul made it clear which baptism he was talking about: “By one Spirit were we all baptized into one body.” That baptism, the baptism of Christ, is the baptism Peter was talking about when he said, “Baptism saves us” (1Pet. 3:21a). Jesus described the new birth to the Jewish elder Nicodemus, a description of the new birth which he said applies to all times and all people:
John 3
7. “Do not marvel that I told you, ‘You must be born again.’
8. The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it’s coming from or where it’s going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
That is a perfect description of what the followers of Jesus experienced in Acts 2:
Acts 2
1. When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all in one accord, in one place.
2. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven like a violent, rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.
3. And there appeared to them divided tongues like fire, and it sat upon each one of them,
4. and they were all filled with holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit moved them to speak.
That is the new birth. Believing in Jesus always precedes receiving it.
The Christian redefinition of new birth as simply believing in Jesus is by far the gravest error believers made after rejecting Paul’s gospel, for when the new birth is redefined, everything is redefined. Repentance is redefined because what one must do to receive Jesus’ baptism of the Spirit (believe the gospel and repent) is different from what one must do to believe. In fact, I know of nothing the Bible says that one must do in order to believe.
Many a soul today has stopped at the point of believing that Jesus is Lord, for Christian ministers have taught them that they are at that point in Christ. But they need someone to ask them, as Paul asked some men he met at Ephesus who believed in Jesus, “Did you receive the holy Spirit after you believed?” (Acts 19:2). With that, Paul was asking them, “Have you been born again since you believed?” He knew that it was possible to believe in Jesus and not have the Spirit. Every person on earth who believes in Jesus should be asked that question. It is an essential point because, as Paul said, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him” (Rom. 8:9b). Everyone who believes in Jesus should be told that believing is not the experience of new birth; it is the path we must take to receive it!
Paul was not born again on the road to Damascus, as many Christians think; he was convicted on the road to Damascus. He became a believer when Jesus revealed himself to Paul, that he was the Messiah. Paul was converted three days later, after diligently seeking God and repenting (Acts 9:9). It was then that he was baptized with the Spirit and his sins were washed away (Acts 9:17; 22:16). Likewise, the disciples were converted on the day of Pentecost when they were baptized with the Spirit. They had many miraculous experiences with Jesus while he was here among them, just as Paul had a miraculous experience on the road to Damascus, but they never had the experience of new birth until after Jesus ascended to heaven and offered himself to God as a sacrifice for their sins (Heb. 9:23–26). This is why Jesus told Peter during the last supper, “When you are converted, strengthen your brothers” (Lk. 22:32). Yes, even at the Last Supper, the disciples were not yet converted!
All true knowledge begins with understanding the new birth. The foundations of the Faith are, in effect, destroyed when they are redefined, and in that case, there is little that the righteous can do. If the Reader embraces the truth that the baptism of the Spirit, not believing in Jesus, is the experience of being born again, then the message of this book will be much easier to understand.
