What Does It Mean to Be Born Again?

Few phrases are pulled in more directions than "born again." One side shrinks it to a single emotional moment, a night, a raised hand, a prayer prayed once, as if the whole of new birth were finished in a sentence. Another side, reacting against that thinness, postpones it entirely, teaching that no one is born again now at all, only at the resurrection. Scripture, read with the early church, holds something fuller and truer than either: you have been born again, you are being made new, and you will be born into glory when the dead are raised. New birth has a past, a present, and a future, and you lose the gospel if you keep only one of them.

Already: a real new birth, now

The New Testament speaks of regeneration as something that has truly happened to a believer in this life, not merely a hope for the next. Peter blesses God "which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3), and says we are "born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God" (1 Peter 1:23). Paul calls anyone in Christ "a new creature: old things are passed away" (2 Corinthians 5:17), and says God "saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost" (Titus 3:5). James says "of his own will begat he us with the word of truth" (James 1:18). These are past-tense verbs about a present people. The new birth is not only ahead of you; it has begun.

Still being made new

And it is not static. The same Scriptures that say we have been made new also say we are being made new, daily. "Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Corinthians 4:16); "be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2). The life given at the new birth grows, is tested, is sanctified. A birth is a beginning, not the whole of a life, and the One who began a good work is still at work (this is the abiding of the Vine).

Born, then nourished

Peter says it in the plainest picture there is. Two verses after "born again, not of corruptible seed," he tells the newborn what to do next: "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2). A finished birth and an unfinished life, in the same breath. Augustine saw the same thing and said it better than anyone since:

Peter's word for "seed" means a sowing, the same family as the seed in the parable of the sower, "the seed is the word of God" (Luke 8:11). A sowing is the beginning of a plant, not the end of one. And Scripture names all three Persons for the one birth: born of the Spirit (John 3:6), through the Word (1 Peter 1:23), and kept by the Son, "he that is begotten of God keepeth him" as the oldest manuscripts read 1 John 5:18. Because it is a birth and not a verdict, what is given can be handled: the Spirit poured out (Acts 2:17) is to be stirred up like a fire gone low (2 Timothy 1:6) and not quenched (1 Thessalonians 5:19); the gift can be hidden in the earth (Matthew 25:25); the seed can be scorched, choked, or carried off (Luke 8:12-14). Every one of those verbs is addressed to people who have the Spirit. Wesley read John's "he cannot sin" the same way, as a condition and not a lock:

So the sprout is a fair picture of a Christian, and it is Jesus' own: born, up, green, and still to bear fruit "with patience" (Luke 8:15). Not because the birth was doubtful, but because a birth is what it is, a beginning that is meant to be fed. What the seed is, whether the Spirit can truly be quenched, and the Greek of the verse that says the Son keeps the begotten, the commentators argue in their own words on the deeper page: Born of Incorruptible Seed.

Not yet: completed at the resurrection

Here the over-spiritualized "I'm already finished" view needs correcting, and here the postpone-it-all view sees something real. The fullness of our sonship is genuinely future and bodily. We "groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" (Romans 8:23); "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Corinthians 15:50-54), so this mortal must put on immortality; and "it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him" (1 John 3:2). Christ is "the firstborn from the dead" (Colossians 1:18); the resurrection is where new birth is consummated, when what was sown perishable is raised imperishable.

John 3:5-6 · KJV

Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

The word for what you were given, and why it settles the argument

Some traditions speak as though the transaction closed at the new birth, and others as though nothing real has happened yet. The New Testament settles it with two words, and both of them are commercial.

The first is arrabōn. It appears three times, always of the Spirit: “the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Corinthians 1:22), again at 5:5, and “the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession” (Ephesians 1:14). An arrabōn is not a token or a symbol standing in for something unlike itself. It is a down payment: the first instalment, in the same currency as the rest, handed over to guarantee that the rest is coming. Which means the word says two things at once, and you cannot keep one and drop the other. Something real has genuinely been paid. And something real is still outstanding.

The second is aparchē, firstfruits: “ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit” (Romans 8:23). The first sheaf is cut and carried in, and it is the same grain as the field. The harvest is still standing.

So a Christian holding the Spirit is holding a deposit and a first sheaf. Anyone who says the work is finished is describing a deposit as a settlement, which shrinks the gift to whatever can be felt today. Anyone who says nothing has happened yet is refusing money already in his hand.

Paul uses one word in two tenses, eight verses apart

If that still sounds like a theological nicety, watch what Paul does inside a single chapter.

Romans 8:15 · KJV

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

Romans 8:23 · KJV

And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

The word is huiothesia both times, and Paul writes it twice on purpose: received at verse 15, still waited for at verse 23. Adoption is a thing you already have and a thing you are still groaning for, and the second is named as the redemption of your body, which has plainly not happened to anybody reading this.

Ephesians stacks all three tenses into two verses: you were sealed with the Spirit, which is the earnest of your inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession (Ephesians 1:13-14). Done, partial, and not yet, in one sentence.

What the early church held

The earliest Christians did not make us choose. They read Jesus's "born of water and of the Spirit" (John 3:5) as real regeneration begun now, in conversion and baptism, the washing of regeneration Paul names, and they also looked for the resurrection as the day that new life is perfected in a glorified body. New birth now; glory then. Justin Martyr and Irenaeus speak of believers already "regenerated," in their own words below, while the whole church confessed "the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come." Both ends were held at once.

So a teaching that says you are only born again at the resurrection, and not now, rightly honors the future, but it has to deny the plain past-tense verbs above, and it usually travels with other novelties the early church never held, such as a denial of the Trinity the church confessed at Nicaea. The older path keeps the whole shape: begun, growing, completed.

Not a fringe idea

And none of this is novel or fringe, it is the historic mainstream; the fringe is actually the view that denies the present new birth. The Catholic Church teaches the very same thing under its own vocabulary, baptismal regeneration: in baptism we are "reborn as sons of God," in what it calls "the sacrament of regeneration." The Orthodox hold regeneration as the beginning of theosis, the lifelong being-made-like-God that the resurrection completes. And C.S. Lewis described it plainly, distinguishing Bios, our natural biological life, from Zoe, the uncreated spiritual life of God Himself: to be born again is to begin receiving Zoe, a change he likened to a statue coming to life. The early church, the Catholic and Orthodox churches, and Lewis are all saying the one thing the New Testament already said, a real new life that begins now and is finished in glory.

Where this lands

To be born again is not a slogan you graduate from after one night, nor a prize withheld until the grave. It is a new life that has truly begun in you, is being formed in you now, and will be brought to glory when Christ raises the dead. Live, then, as one already born of God: not coasting on a past decision, not waiting idle for the future, but abiding, being made new, and longing for the redemption of your body. Already, and not yet. (See the Kingdom, the Security of Salvation, and the Sinner's Prayer.)

Study the passages

Read them in context. Links go to BibleHub.

• John 3:3-8: born of water and of the Spirit
• Titus 3:5: the washing of regeneration
• 1 Peter 1:3, 23: begotten again
• 2 Corinthians 5:17: a new creature
• 2 Corinthians 4:16; Romans 12:2: renewed day by day
• Romans 8:23: the redemption of the body
• 1 Corinthians 15:50-54: perishable raised imperishable
• 1 John 3:2: we shall be like Him

Related: Who Gets to Say, Born Fallen, Adoption, Baptism, and Sanctification.

Scripture from the King James Version, linked to BibleHub. The early church read John 3:5 as regeneration begun in conversion and baptism (Justin Martyr; Irenaeus), and confessed the resurrection of the body as its completion. Catholic baptismal regeneration language follows the Catechism ("reborn as sons of God," "the sacrament of regeneration"); Orthodox theosis; C.S. Lewis's Bios/Zoe distinction is from Mere Christianity. Written in response to the "born again only at the resurrection" teaching, keeping the whole biblical shape: has been, is being, will be.