BORN AGAIN – by Raphael ben Levi
Yeshua answered (Nicodemus), “Amen, amen I tell you, unless one is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus said to Him. “He cannot enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born, can he?” (John 3:3-4)
Nicodemus wrestled to understand God’s greatest miracle of being “born again” although this concept was entirely Jewish and employed in various instances:
1. When a Gentile converted to Judaism and was baptised, “the baptismal water (Mikva) was referred to as “the womb of the world”, and as a convert came out of the water it was considered a new birth separating him from the pagan world. As the convert came out of these waters his status was changed and he was referred to as “a little child just born” or “a child of one day.” (Yeb. 22a; 48b; 97b)
2. The coronation of a king.
3. When a Jewish boy embraced God’s covenant at his Bar Mitzvah.
4. When an individual married.
5. When an individual became a rabbi.
6. When a person became the head of a rabbinical school.
Since these things were already familiar to Nicodemus, he sought answers to something that was above and beyond. As an elderly, highly distinguished person who had strived to fulfil the requirements of the Torah with exemplary precision throughout his life, he knew he lacked something vital in his spiritual life. How could everything he had cultivated in his relationship with God, carefully crafted which had taken a lifetime to achieve, now appear to be lacking? Did Yeshua have the solution? He was an elderly man. Was there sufficient time left to start all over again, to be “born again” in a different realm from which he had understood throughout his entire life? Yeshua responded with words that have become the most familiar and best loved in the entire New Testament: “For God so [greatly] loved and dearly prized the world, that He [even] gave His [One and] only begotten Son, so that whoever believes and trusts in Him [as Saviour] shall not perish, but have eternal life. Whoever believes and has decided to trust in Him [as personal Saviour and Lord] is not judged [for this one, there is no judgment, no rejection, no condemnation];” (John 3:16;18)
Nicodemus became a follower of Yeshua: “born again,” with new beginnings. (John 19:39) He now understood Yeshua’s words that one can only be changed from the inside-out and He alone is the way, the truth and the life, the sole pathway to salvation. It had been an issue puzzling Nicodemus that disturbed him sufficiently to arrange a secret liaison with Yeshua at night – one that led to a radical change. He recognised that faith without works is dead but so too are works without faith. Now, he had acquired both, and life would never again be the same!
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