This word does not occur many times in the New Testament, only twice. The Greek word is palingenesia, which actually means "to recreate." It means "the new birth," and that is the word we associate with it. It is that which is essential because of the fact that we are all  dead in trespasses and sins.

In the first chapter of Genesis we have 

"Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth" (Genesis 1:26).

In other words, God said,

"I intend to make man, make him after Our image, and this is what I will do for him: I will give him dominion."

In the second chapter of Genesis we find 

"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being" (Genesis 2:7).

This means that the creature God created had been taken out of the dirt, if you please. 

On the physical side we are dirt. 

"For dust art thou, and to dust thou shalt return" (Genesis 3:19). 

That speaks of our physical being.

But God breathed into this man.

And He breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living being.

That is, man now is able to commune and have fellowship with his Creator. 

But man sinned. 

God had told him:

"Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. (Genesis 2:16–17).

Man did not die physically that day. It was almost a millennium after that before Adam and Eve died. But they did die spiritually that day. 

They were dead to God. 

Apostle Paul confirmed that when he was writing to the Gentiles

"And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1).

That is why we must be born-again. 

Because of Adam’s sin, we are dead to God, dead to the things of God. We have no relationship to Him at all.

The human family demonstrates this in a very emphatic manner.  

How many people are actually in a right relationship with God and are having fellowship with Him? 

Very few.

What is the explanation?

Men and women are dead in trespasses and sins.

The reason the new birth is so essential is because,  

we are dead.

We see something of the necessity and the nature of the new birth when we come to our Lord’s first recorded interview, which He had with a religious man. This was no accident. If this had been Zacchaeus, there would have been those who would have stepped up and said,

"Of course Zacchaeus needs to be born again. He’s a publican, a rotten sinner."

Or suppose that the man Jesus spoke to had been from over in Gadara, the country of the Gadarenes. 

People would have said, "Well, that fellow was demon-possessed. He needed to be born again."

But Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a leader of the Pharisees, a religious man 

he was following the Old Testament precisely.

And yet our Lord Jesus Christ said to him:

"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born-again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3).

That expression He used is very interesting. It is means "to be born from above." If we want it literally, "to be born from the top." We have been born down here physically, but we are dead to God. We need to be born in the spiritual sense. 

We need to have life, and that’s regeneration.

Our Lord Jesus Christ said to Nicodemus,  Unless one is born again, one  cannot see the Kingdom of God." In other words, 

"You do not have eyes to see the Kingdom of God. You can’t understand about the Kingdom of God because your brain is dead as far as the things of God are concerned."

It is becoming increasingly difficult to present the gospel to unsaved people  -  to intelligent people. They are the densest people spiritually. That rather frightens me today. Oh, the spiritual deadness that there is! Many people are dead in trespasses and sins. 

And our Lord said to this man Nicodemus,

"Unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God."

There are those who will interject here, 

"Our Lord also said,

‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God’" (John 3:5). 

There are those who interpret "born of water and the Spirit" to mean that one has to be baptized by water before one can be saved. 

This is hard to believe, but there are two denominations which are built on the assumption that one must be baptized by water before one can be saved. 

Consider what God’s Word means when it says here:

"Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:5–6).

Notice that He dropped the word water in verse 6, but He did mention it in verse 5. 

What did He mean?

Water speaks of the Word of God. 

Anywhere we turn in the Scriptures, we find that water, when used in a symbolic sense, refers to the Word of God.

For instance, Paul, writing to the Ephesians concerning the husband and wife relationship, said:

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word" (Ephesians 5:25–26).

The Word of God is the water that Paul is talking about.

Our Lord talking to His own in the Upper Room, said:

"Now are ye clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you" (John 15:3).

James, in his epistle, wrote:

"Of His own will begot He us with the Word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures" (James 1:18).

Apostle Peter wrote about this:

"Being born-again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, by the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever" (1 Peter 1:23).

And we find in the Book of Acts that

"... many of them who heard the Word believed; and the number of the men was about  five thousand" (Acts 4:4).

Our Lord sure emphasized the importance of the Word of God for the new birth. 

I believe that there is never a genuine conversion apart from the Word of God. 

We have to use the Word of God. 

There is no substitute.

One can never win people to Christ by arguing. 

It is the Word of God alone that can convict people. 

It is the Word of God alone that will produce godly sorrow in the heart and it s the Word of God alone that will cleanse us. 

It is the Word of God alone that can be used in regeneration, because

"Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Romans 10:17).

Unless they hear the Word of God they cannot receive it, they cannot believe, and they cannot be born-again. The Word must be used.

I do not believe that our clever books nor our clever tracts, and certainly not our clever arguments, can ever  win genuine believers to Christ. 

Nothing but the Word of God can regenerate people for it is God's All Powerful Word alone that is able to  

crack open hard, stubborn hearts of stiff necked people, even consciences that are seared with a hot iron.

Gods Word is more powerful than any two edged sword.

Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot be born-again! 

Born of water, yes, the Word of God. 

But don’t bring H₂O into this verse!

The Bible is the water that our Lord is talking about  -   the Word of God.

There are three outstanding conversions in Acts:

The conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch, the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, and the conversion of Cornelius. In the conversion of all three of these men the Word of God was used. 

Always the Word of God is used, or there can never be a conversion. 

And that is exactly what our Lord Jesus was talking about to Nicodemus.

In apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian believers. The Corinthians were babes in Christ, carnal believers, and they were arguing over who was their greatest instructor. Each was saying, "I am of Paul" or "I am of Apollos" or "I am of Cephas" or "I am of Christ."

If Paul thought baptism by water meant salvation, he sure slipped up here!

"For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel" (1 Corinthians 4:15).

Their contentions were causing divisions among them.

And apostle Paul says,

"Listen, you may have many instructors, but you have only one father—I am your father. The way I begot you was through the gospel. 

All of you believers there in Corinth are my children because of the Word of God I used. That was what brought you to a saving knowledge of Christ and made you children of God." 

But Paul had already told them back in chapter 1, verse 14,

 "I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius"—then he was reminded of another—"the household of Stephanas" (verse 16). But their new birth came when he preached the gospel. Water of baptism was not essential to salvation, because Paul said he was thankful that he had baptized only a very few.

"And if there were any others, I have even forgotten about it. But I do know this, I preached the gospel to all of you, and you were saved." 

Baptism was not essential for salvation.

Regeneration,  means "the new birth," "born from above," and it is all God’s work. 

Remember what was said in the Epistle of James?

"Of His own will He brought us forth by the Word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures" (James 1:18).

The work of conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit. 

The work of regeneration is the work of the Holy Spirit! 

Look carefully again at what James says here: 

"Of His own will He brought us forth." 

The Holy Spirit is sovereign in this matter. 

We cannot tell the Holy Spirit whom to convert; 

He will tell us.

He is sovereign in this matter.

We need to remember that He is the One who is leading the parade. 

We are to follow Him in this matter. He lays a burden on our heart for someone and we must be diligent in prayer for that soul and trust Him.

All the work is His. and His alone.

That is the reason I believe we need more prayer for doing evangelistic work than for anything else we do. We need to pray, really pray about it, and ask the Lord to open up the door for us. We must be led by the Holy Spirit. He is the One who will draw people unto Christ and He only uses the Word of God for it is the power of God unto salvation.

John 12:32-33   "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me. This He said, signifying what death He should die." 

At the cross, Satan's doom was sealed. The cross marks the victory of Christ and the defeat of Satan.

Our Lrd Jesus Christ put the emphasis on His redemptive death. 

His death will draw all men unto Him. 

Those who believe will be saved. 

Those who reject Him will be lost.

"Of His own will He brought us forth." 

That is very important. 

"Born of the Spirit" 

It is His sovereign work. 

He is God, you and I need to follow along in this matter and trust the Holy Spirit to do the converting.

Trust the Holy Spirit to lead whom He will, by producing godly sorrow for sin in their hearts, to true repentance. 

"Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds:" (Romans 2:1-6). 

Regeneration is God’s work, and when we are born-again, it opens up a brand-new world for us.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God…." (2 Corinthians 5:17–18).

A new world opens before us.

 And when it says that old things are passed away, it means relationships  -  not little habits, but relationships. We no longer are joined to Adam;

we are joined to the living Christ.

This world becomes a new world to us.

When you are born again you become a child of God. 

We are in Christ Jesus.

We have a new life.

"Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God" (1 John 3:9).

"We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him" (1 John 5:18).

When we are born-again we are given a new nature, and that new nature will not sin.

When we lapse back to living in the flesh and in sin, we are going to have trouble and that trouble could be the very proof that we are indeed the children of God.

The man in the world can get by with sin,

but God’s child, cannot get by with it for long. 

Our new nature will not let us, because our new nature is of God and knows our life is wrong.

That could be the reason we toss and turn in our beds and cannot sleep. And it is the reason we cry out to ourselves that we will never do such a thing again. It is the new nature that will not sin. It is when we drop back into the flesh and live in it, live a continual lie that we need to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith and the conscience ought not to be our main guide as it is possible for a person to reach the place where their conscience is cauterized so that it does not work at all for him.

"Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;"(1Timothy 4:2).

No guilt whatsoever for their sin.

Regeneration is a tremendous word!

We praise Thee, O God, for the Son of Thy love,
For Jesus who died and is now gone above.

Refrain:
Hallelujah! Thine the glory, Hallelujah! Amen;
Hallelujah! Thine the glory; Revive us again.

We praise Thee, O God, for Thy Spirit of light,
Who has shown us our Saviour and scattered our night.

All glory and praise to the Lamb that was slain,
Who has borne all our sins, and has cleansed ev'ry stain.

Revive us again, fill each heart with Thy love;
May each soul be rekindled with fire from above.

Thanks: SermonAudio.com

THIS PAGE UPDATED: 28-5-2010