by Dennis Gladden, By Green Pastures, ©2025
(May 19, 2025) — Jesus said, “You must be born again.”
Nicodemus, the first to hear these words, didn’t get it.
Nor did I, until I listened to another conversation later in the Gospel of John.
Now, Nicodemus was no fool. He had devoted himself to learning God’s ways through the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings of the Hebrew Scriptures. He was an esteemed Pharisee who embraced the law and traditions of Israel. His peers elevated him to the Sanhedrin, their ruling council of 70 elders.
Given all this, Jesus marveled that Nicodemus didn’t understand, “You must be born again.”
“Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?”1
Nicodemus couldn’t get beyond the mechanics, no doubt thinking of himself when he asked, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”2
Jesus elaborated, and Nicodemus frowned. “How can these things be?”
I understand his exasperation. These are radical words. Discomfiting. Why does Jesus insist on this? Is this a metaphor? A parable? Hyperbole?
Or truth?
Another conversation dispels the questions.
Jesus urged the same message, stripped of the words born again, in another dialogue months later. Where Nicodemus had stumbled over how to be born again, a crowd of religious folks milling in the Temple heard Jesus explain why it is necessary.
He alluded to their parentage, both His and theirs. “You know neither Me nor My Father. The Father who sent Me bears witness of Me.”3
He dropped more of what we would call bombshells, which goaded the crowd to ask, “Who are you?”4
Jesus persisted about their lineage.
“I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.”5
They objected.
“Abraham is our father.” They were Jews as much as Jesus.
He didn’t budge.
“If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham… You do the deeds of your father.”6
To prove His point, Jesus said, “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this.”7
Our family history matters and has to change.
Jesus seemed to imply He was a contemporary of Abraham and set the stage for His seemingly blasphemous assertion a few minutes later, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”8
But for the moment, the audience seethed because Jesus insinuated Abraham was not their father.
“We were not born of fornication; we have one Father—God.”9
Now, Jesus had them.
“If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.”10
Jesus had left Nicodemus to sort out the meaning of you must be born again. Now, He explained plainly its necessity.
“You are of your father the devil.”
Imagine if Jesus had been that blunt with Nicodemus.
What if He said this to us?
The point is, He does.
Whenever Jesus talks about entering heaven, He always requires a radical change in the individual.
“Unless you change and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”11
“Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”12
“You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”13
Statements like these make us shake our heads with Nicodemus and ask, “How can these things be?”
More importantly, why must this be?
Apart from this teaching, we cannot explain the evil that drives mass shootings, road rage, or refugees from their homes. If we disbelieve Jesus, we must seek other reasons for the corruption in our culture, for the failure of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to eradicate prejudice and racism, and for the domestic violence and hatred in our homes.
Jesus pinpoints the heart of our problems: the condition of our hearts.
I remember wanting to change my name while growing up because I inherited family traits I disliked.
I also remember asking my son once why he had done a particular thing and caught myself—I had done it, too. Like father, like son.
Our family history matters and has to change, says Jesus.
You must be born again.
Read the rest here.
Amen