“You Must Be Born Again”

I distinctly remember the birth of both of my children. Although they were born six years apart, I remember the preparation for each trip to the hospital. The drive there. Escorting my wife to the elevator. The rooms, the monitors, the nurses, doctors, and family members. The anticipation and waiting. Most of all I remember seeing my children for the first time and seeing the look on my wife’s face when the nurses handed her this tightly bundled little person. I look up now and see a photograph taken of me holding my newborn daughter twelve and a half years ago. The birth of a child is truly an amazing and unforgettable experience.

As amazing as the birth of a child is, it pales in comparison to the miracle of spiritual birth. You see, my children were born physically healthy, and for that I thank God. But they, like every descendant of Adam, were spiritually stillborn. They were born spiritually dead, and they are not alone. You and I and every other person were born dead — dead in sin (see Eph. 2:1). We were born dead because of the sin of our representative head, Adam. The apostle Paul teaches us that “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). And spiritual death is not the end of it. Even if we are born physically healthy, our spiritual death will be followed at some point by our physical death: “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen. 3:19). Read more