What Does It Mean to Be "Born of the Spirit"? — John 3:7-8

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Why is it that no one can inherit eternal life without being regenerated by the Holy Spirit?

In John 3:1-8, Jesus tells Nicodemus, a Pharisee, what is required to enter the kingdom of God:

“Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:7-8)

Becoming a new creation is a result of the regenerating work of the Spirit.

We need spiritual life to inherit eternal life, and Jesus states emphatically that this spiritual life is born by the sovereign act of the Holy Spirit. All who are saved in Christ are part of the new creation:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Cor. 5:17)

Believers not only have Spirit-wrought life, but they also have the Spirit himself dwelling in them:

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17)

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. (Rom. 8:9)

Human works or resources have no part in our salvation.

In his highly regarded book Redemption Accomplished and Applied, theologian John Murray writes regarding the effect of the work of the Spirit in salvation:

God effects a change which is radical and all-pervasive, a change which cannot be explained in terms of any combination, permutation, or accumulation of human resources, a change which is nothing less than a new creation by him who calls the things that be not as though they were, who spake and it was done, who commanded and it stood fast. This, in a word, is regeneration. (p. 100)

Murray continues regarding the sovereign work of the Spirit that Jesus speaks of in John 3:8,

Jesus there compares the action of the Spirit to the action of the wind. The wind blows—this serves to illustrate the factuality, the certainty, the effect of the Spirit’s action. The wind blows where it wills—this enforces the sovereignty of the Spirit’s action. The wind is not at our beck and call; neither is the regenerative operation of the Spirit. (p. 103)

Thankfully, we cannot reverse the regenerating work of the Spirit in us.

Scripture is emphatic that salvation cannot be achieved by works. The apostle Paul writes,

I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. (1 Cor. 15:50)

Regeneration is God’s act alone. Just like our natural birth, there is nothing we can do to make regeneration happen, and praise God that there is nothing we can do to reverse it. Rejoice that your God-given faith in Christ (Eph. 2:8-9), however weak or strong at any given moment, is evidence that you have been born of the Spirit and are a citizen of God’s kingdom both now and for eternity.

Recommended:

Core Christianity: Finding Yourself in God's Story by Michael Horton