Evidence of the New Birth

“Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:7, 8).

We know when the wind blows because we can hear the sound of it and we can see the effect of it when dust and smoke and chaff are blown away and grass and trees move and bend with the wind. We have learned that these things are the effects of the wind, and we accept them as evidences that the wind is blowing. Even so, the Bible tells us that certain things are effects and evidences of the new birth, and if we recognize these evidences in our lives we may be sure we have been born again.

The person who is born again

HEARS GOD’S WORDS

1. “He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God” (John 8:47). The persons to whom Jesus spoke these words were mentally acquainted with the Scriptures and they did hear God’s words through Jesus with their outer ears, but they refused to hear them with the inner man. They turned a deaf ear and hardened their hearts against the truth. The child of God not only hears God’s words with the outer ear and receives them into his natural mind, but he hears in a real spiritual sense: that is, he consents and agrees to God’s words in his heart, so that he is willing to be governed by the truth conveyed in these words of God. He recognizes the authority of God to speak and his own duty to listen to what God says. He believes that God has spoken through the Apostles and other inspired writers of the Bible, and he listens to their message as unto God. “We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error” (I John 4:6).

BELIEVES IN GOD’S SON

2. “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (I John 5: 1). The Bible does not say that we are born again because we believed, but that we believe because we have been born again. John did not write, “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ will be born of God,” but, Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is (or, better translated has been) born of God”; that is, his faith is evidence of his regeneration. Many lost sinners say that they believe in Christ, but they don’t. They have no true inner conviction or faith that Christ died for their sins, that He is the Son of God, that He arose from the dead, that “He must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet,” or that God has ordained Him to “judge the world in righteousness.” Lost sinners may believe in some false or imperfect imaginary Christ of man’s teaching, but they do not believe in the Christ of the Bible. They do not believe that Jesus is the Christ described in the Bible. “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.

LOVES JESUS CHRIST

3. “Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me” (John 8: 42). The lost sinner does not love the Lord. The person who is born again loves Jesus, and will do anything he can for Him. “If a man love me, he will keep my words” (John 14:23). “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (I John 5:3).

LOVES THE BRETHREN

4. “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” “Every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.” “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (I John 4:7, 5:1, John 13:35).

MAKES PEACE FOR SINNERS

5. “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God” (Matt. 5:9). Lost sinners are enemies of God. “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked” (Isaiah 57:21). Even the saints in this life war against God in their fleshly natures. “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would” (Gal. 5:17). The children of God delight in making peace between God and sinful men by bringing them to Christ. “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God” (II Corinthians 5:20).

KEEPS HIMSELF

6. “He that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not” (I John 5:18). The person who is born again has within him a desire to persevere in the faith, and God gives him the power to keep himself as he is “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (I Peter 1:5).

DOES RIGHTEOUSNESS

7. “If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him” (I John 2:29). “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3, 4).

CANNOT SIN

8. “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” “Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” (I John 3:9; John 3:6; Rom. 7:20.)

IS CHASTISED

9. “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. ...

But if ye be without chastisement, where of all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.” (Hebrews 12:58).

OVERCOMES THE WORLD

10. “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (I John 5:4). The person who is overcome by the world and goes back into sin may have some kind of religion, but he doesn’t have Christ. The children of God overcome the world instead of being overcome by it.

Have you been born again? Examine yourself in the light of God’s Word. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

(For more information, please feel free to contact our church.)