I want to say loud and clear that when the Barna Group uses the term born again to describe American church-goers whose lives are indistinguishable from the world...the Barna Group is making a profound mistake. It is using the term born again in a way that would make it unrecognizable by Jesus and the biblical writers.
Introduction
[The New Testament] moves from the absolute certainty that the new birth radically changes people, to the observation that many professing Christians are indeed (as the Barna Group says) not radically changed, to the conclusion that they are not born again.
Introduction
No human makes the new birth happen. No preacher and no writer can make it happen. You can't make it happen to yourself. God makes it happen. It happens to us, not by us. But it always happens through the word of God.
Introduction
Some unbelievers look like better people than some believers. But that is because some pretty bad people have been born again, and the process of transformation is not always as fast as we would like.
Introduction
We will go to hell if we are not born again.
Chapter 1
The topic of the new birth is not marginal. It is central. Eternity hangs in the balance when we are talking about the new birth. Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Chapter 1
[John 1:13] refers to the children of God as those "who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God." God causes the new birth; we don't.
Chapter 1
The new life makes the faith possible, and since spiritual life always awakens faith and expresses itself in faith, there is no life without faith in Jesus. Therefore, we should never separate the new birth from faith in Jesus. From God's side, we are united to Christ in the new birth. That's what the Holy Spirit does. From our side, we experience this union by faith in Jesus.
Chapter 1
[Referring to 1 John 5:4] "Born of God" is the key to victory. "Faith" is the key to victory. Both are true because faith is the way we experience being born of God. Being born of God always brings faith with it. The life given in the new birth is the life of faith. The two are never separate.
