A religious experience

The Question:

When Dave talked about a religious experience, I was just wondering what he meant by that?

Let's put it into context, I was talking about what being born again is not and so as part of my talk I said 'being born again is not having a religious experience'.

Many churches around the world and indeed in our own backyard can produce a gathering that only aims to produce a particular experience or feel that would make someone believe they are born again just by being part of that experience. There are some groups that operate whereby they take away your watch, keep you up late and have emotionally, intense and draining preaching just to produce in you a particular experience.

But my question is what is the substance of being born again? As I said on Sunday it is a radical transformation from the inside out (or you could say that it is change in attitude to Jesus as LORD). It is God working to produce in us a new identity, a whole new person. 2 Corinthians 5:17

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has gone, the new has
come!

How does this come about?

The experience that is worth seeking out is an experience of the Word of God. It is only through this 'experience' that someone can be transformed, not by music, not by raising hands, not by any other means but by the Word of God. Pushing further we see that this is the work of the Spirit, which is what Jesus goes onto say in John 3 anyway:

Spirit gives birth to Spirit

New birth (regeneration, being born again whatever you want to call it) is wholeheartedly connected to the work of the Spirit. But how does the Spirit work? Scripture seems to clearly tell us that the Spirit and the Word are intimately connected (in fact I would say that you cannot and should not cut them off from each other!). Take for example Ephesians 6:17

Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word
of God

To divorce these two has the potential to land us in danger of misunderstanding the Spirit and the Word. Hopefully this clarifies to a certain degree what I meant by 'being born again is not a religious experience'. It is an experience but not in the sense most people would say it is

Born Again: Water and Spirit

The Question:
What does the 'water' in John 3:5 refer to? Is it human birth?

Great question!
Firstly we can see that John has repeated this phrase from v3

I tell you the truth that no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is
born again

And v5

I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of
water and the Spirit.

There are a raft of interpretations put forward by various people but only two seem main contenders:
1. The water can refer to human birth (as in the question) then it becomes a reference to the amniotic fluid that happens at childbirth. So, consequently there are two births, one natural and the other supernatural. However, this connection is not supported by any other places in Scripture to make it a viable option. Due to the close connection between v3 & 5 the water and Spirit need to be taken as a reference to the 'born again' (or as the footnote in the NIV says 'from above')
2. Water may refer to Christian baptism. A lot of commentaries go down this line and understandably because of the various references to baptism that surround this passage. However if the water = baptism and therefore a necessary role in entering the kingdom of God it is surprising that it is never mentioned again. But that is not to completely right this off altogether, there may be some allusion to baptism.

Having seen that neither of these two options are completely satisfying the third option seems to be the go
3. We have to take seriously the parallel with v3 'from above'. There seems to be a unity in how the words are put together that show that water and spirit are talking about the origin of regeneration (that is being born again). And Nicodemus is in trouble as Israel's teacher for not getting it, so the answer must lie somewhere in the Old Testament.
The Spirit in the Old Testament is God's principle of life and there will be a time when it is poured out upon all. It is a source of righteousness. Water is used figuratively to refer to renewal or cleansing. The two ideas come together in Ezekiel 36:25-27

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse
you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new
heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone
and give you a heart of flesh. And I will pour my Spirit in you and move you to
follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws

This seems to depict individual and corporate regeneration (born again) was an idea presented strongly in the Old Testament. Regeneration that was of water and of the spirit. That is cleansed pure by the metaphoric washing of water and by the very real presence of the Holy Spirit (although not until Jesus returns to the Father read John 14-16 to see this).

The Word

Question: I still find the concept of 'the Word' confusing!

John 1:1-18 introduces the reader to 'The Word'. Why would John use such a concept to describe Jesus?

There are a number of reasons put out there as to why:
1. It could be capturing some thoughts of that current day. Some people, called the Stoics, understood the word to be the rational principle by which everything else exists. That is everything that was on this earth was the seed of the Word.
2. Another group of the day were those who believed in Gnosticism although this is less likely
3. Some think John was leaning on a guy called Philo who made a distinction between the world we can see and the ideal world. The world we can see is a copy of this ideal world. And the word was the ideal man from which all other human beings are derived from.
4. However none of these seem to be the forefront of John's mind, the place to begin is the Old Testament. It is there we see God's word connected with

• The powerful activity in creation
• Revelation of himself
• Deliverance
• Judgment
• Healing
• Rescuing from the grave
• The Word is personified in Proverbs (see 8:22ff)

To quote Don Carson from his commentary on John

In short, God's 'Word' in the Old Testament is his powerful self-expression
in creation, revelation and salvation, and the personification of that 'Word'
makes it suitable for John to apply it as a title to God's ultimate
self-disclosure, the person of his own Son.

And again,

The term had a semantic range so broad that they could shape the term by
their own usage to make it convey, in the context of their own work, what they
knew to be true of Jesus Christ.

So, it seems that John takes a term commonly used in his era and uses it convey something of the majesty and glory of the revelation of the Father in his Son, Jesus Christ.

Cumberland Unichurch

During my years at Moore College I helped begin a church for university students at Cumberland College in Lidcombe called Cumberland UniChurch. My old pal Izaac is blogging about some of the history so I thought I would give it a plug
http://izaacta.blogspot.com/

Enjoy the read.