The question on a website hit me as I read it. “Why be born again, when you can just grow up?” No doubt someone from a non-Christian perspective, being from their perspective perhaps wittily perceptive.

But the question deserves more than just a dismissive response. For, it has to be admitted, the usual state of affairs in this world is indeed to grow up after you are born.

So why be born again instead of just growing up? What’s wrong with just growing up?

That’s the heart of the matter. Growing up is associated with development from where we are, taking the present and building on it, making choices within our expanding environment. In other words, moving from where we are to where we want to be, becoming who we want to be.

Problem with all of that is—that’s not where I really want to be, nor is it who I want to be!

If all you want to do it to grow up, you have to accept the developmental model—that the person you will become is based on who you are now. Growing up is an extension of what already exists, what is learned, what skills are developed and so on. That means an acceptance of the existing world, even an admission that this is all there is.

Yet to simply identify with the idea that the external world we observe and that the kind of persons we are is already determined—is not enough for many of us. Development from an admittedly “bad” situation is only to continue the tragedy. If “the child is the father of the man,” then to grow up is to take into adulthood the experiences and attitudes begun in childhood. To be “grown up” hardly means that we become qualitatively different. The problems and difficulties just grow up with us.

Which is the whole point of being “born again.” This is a completely different model—it means a total change, an absolute break with what was before. This is the great longing—to be completely changed, to be made totally new, the “miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.” (Dag Hammarskjold).

Nothing less than such an entire change is needed. That’s why “growing up” can never be enough—for we’re still the fallen, feeble, failing people we were before, however much we may think we have grown up. Add to that the sense that we were not made for this world, and craving for a total change is inescapable. As C. S. Lewis so clearly observed, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

This yearning to be changed, made over, re-born recognizes that to grow up in this sinful, defective place will never satisfy. There is so much more beyond the immediate world. The perspective of religion is to identify that perspective, to point to the world beyond. Or the world “above,” for the text may also be translated “born from above.” Such a perspective is a completely different view, based on completely different principles.

“Nicodemus, a Pharisee and Jewish leader, came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher from God, because nobody would be able do the miracles you do unless God’s with him.”
“I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “Unless you are re-born, you can’t see God’s kingdom.”
“How can an old man be re-born?” Nicodemus responded. “He can’t go back into his mother’s womb and be born a second time, can he?”¹

Jesus repeatedly stated in his “kingdom charter” during the sermon on the mount, “you have heard that it was said… but I say to you.”² Those who are “blessed” are those whose value systems are the inverse of the world. He also pointed out the first will be last, and the last first in his kingdom that “is not of this world.” He also made clear the total difference in his words, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.”³

Nor can this change be self-effective. It is not a question of tapping the “power that is within you” as new-age proponents would imply, neither is it a question of observing rituals or obeying rules, as has so often been taught in many religious systems. Even those who do try to come to God through what may even be following His commandments need to recognize their need for total change. It’s not a question of mindless obedience or following requirements. That’s a “no through road.”

I remember visiting in a remote part of Ireland and missed my way. I stopped to ask directions. The gentleman thought for some time before telling me with great certainty, “You can’t get there from here.”

That’s the problem with the growing up image. You can get where you want to go if you simply try to get there from here, with what you have and what you try to do. That’s why Jesus used the image of such a totality of change being needed—the concept of being so completely different to what you are currently it is like starting over.

All too often the usual view is that human beings are basically fine, just in need to some cleaning up, some fixing of some problem issues. That’s the growing up model. Such religious ideas tries to achieve what is desired through progress and development and growing up through the existing situation.

But Jesus says no! You can’t get there from here. You have to be re-born.⁴


Endnotes

1. John 3:1-4 FBV.

2. Matthew 5:21, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43;

3. Matthew 5:3-11; John 18:36; John 8:23 NIV.

4. John 3:7.

© Jonathan Gallagher