looking again at "born again"

The well-known text of John 3 came up in the lectionary last week, and I had the chance to preach on it on Sunday.

Aside from verse 16, John 3 is conspicuous for its introduction of the "born again" theme in Christian thought. Certainly in South Africa, the "born again" label is in coinage.  Christians of the Pentecostal and Charismatic stripes self-identity as "born agains", and their insistence on being "born again" sometimes makes Christians of the "mainline" churches--Presbyterian, Anglican, Methodist, Catholic--distance themselves from the term.  Because we are in the position of having regular fellowship with both mainline and Charismatic Christians, we can neither completely deny the claims of one nor ignore the complaints of the other.

The text itself, John 3:1-10, is a dialogue between two "teachers".  The first teacher is Jesus, whom Nicodemus, his visitor "by night", calls a "teacher who has come from God" (3:2).  At the end of the text, Jesus refers to Nicodemus as a "teacher", albeit in a prodding manner--"Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?" (3:10).

The "these things" that the two "teachers" are discussing and which Nicodemus has "not understood" is the meaning of "birth".  Jesus himself makes two statements about birth in response to Nicodemus.  "No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above" and "No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit" (3:3, 5).  A third statement is like the first, "Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above'" (3:7).

I do prefer the NRSV's rendering of the Greek word anothen, "from above" (3:3, 7), for, although the Greek may be rendered as either "from above" or "again", context suggests it is not Jesus who begins speaking about being "born again".  It is Nicodemus, in response to Jesus, who elaborates on the meaning of birth from his own understanding as "a person entering into his mother's womb a second time", that is, "again" (3:4).  And it is as a result of Nicodemus's misinterpretation of Jesus' words about being born anothen that Jesus must clarify that he is talking about being "born of water and Spirit" (3:5).  It is because Nicodemus wishes to talk about being born "a second time" or "again" that Jesus needs to talk about "water and Spirit" as a synonym for being born "from above."  And it is because of Nicodemus's preoccupation with the subject of being "born again" that he fails to grasp the meaning of being "born from above" and does not "understand these things" even though he is "a teacher of Israel."

For a "teacher of Israel", being born "from above" has everything to do with knowing the story of Israel, with "setting one's mind on things above" (Col 3:2).  The story of Israel which Nicodemus "the teacher of Israel" might have taught was a story of "water and Spirit" and of Israel's God thwarting human wisdom by the wisdom "from above."  If Nicodemus had known his story, he would have seen that the earth was created "through waters" by the "spirit of God" (Gen 1:3).  He would have remembered that Israel became Israel, a people saved from slavery to foreign powers, by God's mercy through the cloud and fire of his spirit through the waters of the Red Sea (Ex 14:19ff.; see also 1 Pet 2:10).  He would have seen that Israel's was a story of God's ways above human ways, of battles won by downsizing at the riverside (Jdg 7), of anointing through humility (1 Sam 16), of cleansing in waters beautiful not to human eyes but in which God's Spirit chose to dwell (2 Kgs 5).

A teacher of Israel knows that to be born "of water and spirit" is to be born "from above".  A teacher of Israel knows that being born of God means to abide in the wisdom of God's "higher ways" (Isa 55:8-9).  A teacher of Israel knows not to "be conformed to the pattern of this world" but to "be transformed by the renewing of the mind" (Rom 12:2).

What then can we say about the "born again" debate within contemporary Christianity?

If being born "from above" or "by water and Spirit" has priority over being "born again", and if being born "from above" is something like being born into the world-confounding wisdom of God, then Christians will neither,

1) demand of individuals certain prescribed experiences in the world of the spirit which in and of themselves, apart from the "fruit of the Spirit" (Gal 5:22), are evidences of God's presence within a person's life; nor

2) reject the category of spirit as antithetical to a reasonable faith.

Rather, those who are "born of God" (Jn 1:13) will look for an ethics of the Spirit as the sign of God's presence in the world.  Wherever lives conform to the story of Israel fulfilled in Jesus, the Christ, there on earth is the kingdom of God which has come "from above."

-Joe

"Feed my sheep (don't count them)"

Though I have no way of verifying it, my memory tells me that I have heard a number of Pentecostal and Charismatic leaders over the past several years quote from--of all books--1 and 2 Chronicles. Aside from that, another observation of said church leaders is their obsession with numerical growth. They want to preside over a "big church", have so and so many new congregations planted by such and such a date, and have a new "3,000 seater" building built by such and such a date. Something else I suspect--more through second-hand reports than firsthand experience--is that the conception of discipleship that accompanies such goals is training people who "get saved" to themselves do basic evangelistic work. This basic evangelistic work, focused on "getting people saved", means giving a short presentation of the gospel of a sinful humanity redeemed by Christ's death and offering others an invitation to repent of their sin and welcome Jesus through a formulaic prayer. In other words, in this conception, discipleship is not, first and foremost, training in the life and words of Jesus, but grounding in a particular method of salvation.

This whole schema has been rehearsed and critiqued time and time again, and probably sounds familiar to those reading it here. Consequently, I do not wish to again offer that same tired critique--if only it were truly tired. It seems, however, based on the endurance of this conventional Christian understanding of salvation, that some words of alternative wisdom still need to be said. Which brings me to--of all places--1 Chronicles 21.

Pastor Ntapo recently referred to the story there, another version of which also appears in 2 Samuel 24, as evidence that what seems to be the prevailing ethos of Charismatic Christianity in southern Africa is out-of-step with a biblical faith centered in Jesus Christ. In the story, David, in the waning days of his reign over Israel, is "incited by Satan to count the people of Israel" (as an aside, it is interesting that in the narrative of 2 Samuel, it is God, not Satan, who is the subject who "incites" David) (1 Chr. 21:1//2 Sam. 24:1). Both versions of the story, in spite of their differences, condemn the action of David in counting his people. Indeed, it is David--the shepherd whom God appointed to lead God's "sheep" (v. 17)--upon whom responsibility rests for the sin of counting the people. It is David, the leader, the "pastor" of the flock, whose obsession with numbers leads to disaster for the sheep: "seventy thousand persons fell in Israel", casualties of the "pestilence" God sent as punishment for David's sin (21:12, 14).

If David was not to count the people, what should he have done? And if an obsession with numbers leads ultimately to destruction, what kind of an orientation leads to life?

Perhaps David might have remembered Gideon, that judge who preceded him in the history of Israel, with whom the troops of his charge were "too many" to fight God's battles; rather, it was with "300", down from an original 32,000, that God delivered Israel from the Midianites (Jdg. 7). Perhaps David might have remembered his earlier life, he who found discomfort in the sophisticated armor and weaponry of Saul, choosing instead "five smooth stones and a sling"--by which he triumphed over a giant and put an entire army to flight (1 Sam. 17:38ff). Perhaps he might have "looked forward", as did his forefather Abraham (Jn. 8:56; Heb. 11:17-19), to the Christ who was crucified, rejected by the crowds for his refusal to fight with the weapons of flesh and blood--but exalted by his Father for "enduring to the end" (Mt. 24:13).

All this is not to say that numbers are a sign of unfaithfulness. It is to say that the seeking of numbers bears little resemblance to ministry in the mode of Christ. God will count the sheep; let us feed them with the words of eternal life (Jn 6:63, 68, 21:15-19).

-Joe