Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Born again

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us,

that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”

1 John 3:1

A New Creation

In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul is so emphatic about the freedom Christ has won for us on the cross and which we explored in the previous chapter, that he referred to those who experience it as being a new creation. He wrote,

“If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”[1]

Paul speaks of this new creation and about God reconciling us to himself. When we repent, turning back to God, having faith in Jesus Christ, recognising our sinfulness but accepting Christ’s forgiveness won for us on the cross, we are reconciled to God and our newly created life in Christ begins. We become united with Christ and committed to him by faith.

We noted in chapter 3 that God is a God of new beginnings. Although Adam and Eve were thrown out of Eden they were given a fresh start, a new beginning, out in the big wide world. God then destroyed the evil world through a huge flood, but through Noah and his family gave the opportunity for a new beginning. God instigated the sacrificial system to enable people to confess and atone for sin and begin anew. God then established the New Covenant offering forgiveness of sin to believers and new life in Christ Jesus.

The Apostle Paul wrote about this new life we have through faith in Jesus Christ. He understood it as making us new people, a new creation. Jesus, himself, spoke about our being born again[2] and that all who believe in him will not perish but have eternal life.[3] That new, eternal, life is not about a life that starts after earthly death, nor about immortality, it’s a life that starts from the moment of belief in Jesus Christ; “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.”[4] It’s a life that continues beyond our early death.

Through faith in Christ and his work upon the cross we are given, by God’s grace, this new, eternal, life. It is as if our old self has died, and we now have a new self – in Christ. It is like being reborn.

God spoke to the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel about this new birth evoking ideas of water cleansing people from sin associating it with waters of rebirth, bringing forth a new life and a new beginning.

“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.[5]

In this way Christ enables our renewal, our re-birth, as new people reconciled with God so that we may call him ‘Father’ and stand in his presence. It is a new life that continues beyond our earthly death.

We speak about reconciling accounts when there are internal inconsistencies within a set of accounts. (For example, when two columns of figures do not add up and appear to conflict with one another.) The bookkeeper then must reconcile the accounts, meaning that what was out of kilter needs to be put right. When people are reconciled it means their friendship is put right or restored. Paul recognised that Christ’s death for the forgiveness of sin puts us right with God. Indeed, he emphasises that our reconciliation with God is so strong that God wants us to go into the world to be his ambassadors. It is amazing that God wants us, people who had disobeyed him and walked out of the family home, to represent him in the world. His love for us is so strong, his forgiveness so comprehensive, and our reconciliation so complete, that he wants us to go into the world and be ‘ambassadors for Christ,’ as Paul puts it. God commissions us to take the message of reconciliation to others.

In the parable of the Lost Son, the father gave new life to his wayward younger son. Twice the father expresses his joy that, his son was dead but is alive again.[6] It is as if the son had been reborn. Certainly, he was given a new life and a new start back in the family home.

Inheritance

The Apostle Peter wrote succinctly about our rebirth as God’s children.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you.”[7]

Similarly, Paul understood the connection between being reborn as children of God and receiving an inheritance. He wrote, “if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.”[8] Both Peter and Paul are clear that whilst our physical bodies die, the souls, or spirit, of the faithful, continue to live.

Paul helped his readers to grasp what it meant to be a new creation, to be reborn as a child of God, by using an analogy that everyone he wrote to would have understood. In the first century Greco-Roman world adopting meant that a child was chosen freely by the parents and became a permanent part of the family. Parents were not able to disown an adopted child. All prior commitments, responsibilities and debts were expunged. The child received a new identity and received all the rights and privileges of natural sons, including inheritance rights. Importantly for our understanding of what Paul is saying, the Roman concept of inheritance was part of life, not something received on death. Adoption made someone an heir to their father, sharing in all his possessions, and completely and fully united with him.

Paul refers to our being heirs and co-heirs with Christ. Christ is God’s son, and it is an amazing thought that we receive the inheritance that he received. Through faith in Jesus, our sin has been dealt with. When we turn back to God, recognising our sinfulness but receiving his forgiveness, we begin anew as a member of God’s family in his New Covenant community, and we receive his inheritance of eternal life.

Peter speaks of our receiving an inheritance that never spoils or fades; it is everlasting. Paul wrote to Titus tying together several themes saying that being justified by God’s grace we become heirs according to the certainty of eternal life.[9]

Food for thought

When we began looking at the parable of the Lost Son in chapter 1, we noted that the Pharisees and scribes had been critical of Jesus for eating with tax collectors and sinners. The parable concluded with a celebratory meal. The whole neighbourhood were invited to join the father in celebrating the return of his disobedient and sinful son. The fattened calf was slaughtered, there was music, dancing, and great rejoicing. In the preceding parables about a lost coin and sheep we are told there was much rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that repents.[10]

Meals and eating with others are significant events. We use them to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, Christmas, and weddings. There is something special about sharing food with others. Food is a basic need of our life. We share food everywhere, in school, offices, buses, parks, restaurants. Sharing a basic necessity of life creates a relationship of trust, a bond of friendship. There is much throughout the scriptures about sharing hospitality. Jesus demonstrated this when he fed the multitude on the hillside with bread and fish, rather than sending them away as the disciples had suggested.[11] The writer to the Hebrews encourages hospitality, writing “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”[12] Simply associating with tax collectors and sinners was worthy of condemnation in the eyes of the Pharisees, but because of the strong ties eating with others creates the Pharisees were particularly critical of Jesus.

Throughout the scriptures the banquet motif signifies contentment and fulfilment in a personal relationship with God. It implies his bounty, generosity and nourishment and sustaining nature. It has connotations of good times.

According to Matthew Jesus told a parable of a wedding banquet saying, “the Kingdom of Heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding feast for his son.”[13] The idea of the Kingdom being like a wedding feast is made in the book of Revelation to express the intimate relationship between God and his people.[14] Luke recounts a similar parable.[15] Those invited all made excuses and so it was the poor, the blind, the lame, people from the streets, who were welcomed in to sit and feast. The feast of rejoicing in the parable is echoed in the imagery of what the repentant, forgiven, believer experiences in the Kingdom of God.

A year or two later

The lost son enjoyed the party and the fattened calf. In his commentary on Romans, Bishop Tom Wright asks us to imagine the family home a year or two later, after a new normality has descended upon the farm and a new routine has become the younger son’s daily pattern.[16] Wright imagines that the younger son might think to himself, “what if I did it again? Why not help myself to enough things to survive, run away for a few weeks, and then play the penitent and come back again? Maybe I’ll get another party!”[17]

Many think in these terms; that regardless of what we do God will forgive. Given what Paul wrote in Romans 6, we can deduce that he probably met this line of thinking, or people railing against the idea of God’s free grace. However, to continue to sin deliberately is a sign that a person has not repented. It demonstrates that there has been no inner change, no real turning back to God. Of course, that’s not to suggest those who are a new creation and freed from the bondage of sin are perfect. However, the old way of thinking is gone, but our new way of life in Christ shows us our weaknesses and failures. As children of God we will want to maintain a good relationship with our Father God and so that it why Christians continue to confess their sin.

John wrote about this to believers, in his first letter saying; “If we claim to have fellowship with him [God] and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.”[18] He went on to say, “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.”[19] Persistent unrepented sin is not the mark of a repentant, believing, faithful Christian. However, as John also makes clear if we confess our sin God will forgive us.[20] So, the reason we need to confess our sins even though they are already forgiven is because of our renewed relationship with God.

Hebrews 12:4-12 tells us that God disciplines us because we are His children and so share his holiness. This is the process that theologians call ‘sanctification;’ that is, that we grow into God’s likeness. This is what God desires for us. It is his gift to us[21] and is the work of the Holy Spirit.[22]

Revisiting the parable

We have seen how the parable we read in chapter 1 was offensive to the Pharisees. In the light of the full Gospel, we can see how they missed so much in Jesus’ teaching. Even today parts of the story make us sit up as we contemplate God’s love for us in Jesus Christ.

We accept that Christianity makes provision for the wayward sinner. We accept that God is a God of mercy and forgiveness. So, we are content that the younger son is welcomed home, but do we flinch at a ring, robe, shoes, and a party? Is our Father that forgiving, that merciful, that gracious? We might be happier if the son was given some bread and a drink and taken up on his offer to work as a hired hand. “Has the party cancelled the seriousness of sin and repentance?” “Had we lived next door would we have attended that party?” asks Fred Craddock in his commentary on Luke.[23]

One of the amazing things about love, and forgiveness, is that they are not finite. Loving one person does not reduce the amount of love available for others. Yet so often we construct a binary world where there are winners and losers, Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor, younger son and older son, good and bad, yet it is clear that God does not see things in this way. The father’s love for his younger son did not diminish his love for his older son.

God rejoices when sinners repent and come back home. The table, and the delights upon it, were available not only to both sons but to the whole community. Similarly, the heavenly banquet is available to all. However, as Jesus made clear in the parable of the Great Banquet, many are invited, but that some chose not to come.

We may be surprised who we may see at the wedding feast of the lamb. However, one thing is for sure, Christ himself will be there to break bread with us and to pass around the cup of new wine.

Points for reflection

1. Jesus speaks of those who have faith in him being born again; born of the Holy Spirit. (John 3:3, 5&6). What does being born again mean for you, the way you live, and your relationship with God?

2. Are you surprised that God wants you to represent him in the world? In what ways do you live up to your commission as an Ambassador for Christ?

3. We have seen how the Bible portrays life in the Kingdom is as a banquet or wedding feast. When speaking of Israel God said, “For your Maker is your husband, the Lord Almighty is his name.” (Isaiah 54:4) How does understanding God’s desire for a relationship with his people to be one like that between husband and wife inform your understanding of God’s forgiveness.

4. To what extent are we willing to accept God’s forgiveness and renewal for ourselves, yet want to impose conditions upon others receiving God’s graciousness?

Prayer

Almighty and loving Father, we give you thanks and praise that you love us so much. You seek constantly to forgive our wrongdoing and give us a new start. We thank you that when we repent and turn back to you in faith, you are willing to count us worthy to be called your children and grant us your inheritance of eternal life. We thank you that your desire for us is that we should grow forever in your likeness. Forgive that we so often fail and are unworthy to be call your children. Help us to recognise our weaknesses and grant us your strength, that by the power of the Holy Spirit within us, we may represent you in the world as ambassadors for Christ. We pray in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Saviour. Amen.

[1] 2 Corinthians 5: 17-20

[2] John 3: 1-21

[3] John 3:16

[4] John 3: 36

[5] Ezekiel 36:25-28

[6] Luke 15:24 & 32

[7] 1 Peter 1:3-4

[8] Romans 8:17

[9] Titus 3: 7

[10] Luke 15:7 & 10

[11] Luke 9:12

[12] Hebrews 13:2

[13] Matthew 22:2

[14] Revelation 19:7 & 21:2, 9 & 22:17. This theme is continued from the Old Testament, see Isaiah 54:5 and Jeremiah 31:32 for examples.

[15] Luke 14:16-24

[16] Wright, N T. Paul for Everyone – Romans. SPCK. London and Louisville. (2004) p98

[17] Wright N T. ibid

[18] 1 John 1:6

[19] 1 John 3:6

[20] 1 John 1:9

[21] 1 Thessalonians 4:3

[22] Romans 15:16, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, 1 Peter 1:2

[23] Craddock, Fred B. Interpretation A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: Luke. John Knox Press. Louisville (1990) p188