What Does It Mean to Be “Born Again”?

God Changes Hearts

One of the things that most people know about when they hear anything about Christians or Christianity, especially evangelical Christianity, is that we think you need to be born again. There’s a lot of misunderstanding about that, and that understanding isn’t new. That’s an old understanding. The language comes from Jesus himself.

Jesus is having a conversation with Nicodemus in John 3, and Nicodemus wants to know how he can enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus says he can’t enter the kingdom of heaven unless he is born again. Nicodemus’s response is to say, Jesus, you’re crazy. I can’t do that. How could God ask me to do something that I can’t do and make that the requirement for getting into the kingdom of God, for getting into heaven?

What Jesus goes on to explain is that to be born again is for God, through the Spirit, to take the initiative and to actually change you. Being born again is not a decision that I make. It’s not the result of something that I did. Being born again is the result of what God does when he causes a person’s heart to be changed from hard and opposed to God to soft and open to God.

The Scriptures use different images to talk about this. They talk about recreation—being made new. They’ll talk about being born again. They talk about transformation—being given a new nature. One word that the Scriptures never use to describe being born again is the idea of reformation. Being born again is not us fixing ourselves up. Being born again is the result of God changing a person’s heart.

Micheal Lawrence is the author of Conversion: How God Creates a People.

Related Articles

What Does John 3:16 Mean?

Douglas Sean O'Donnell

April 18, 2025

We find John 3:16 on billboards, shoes, hats, bumper stickers, t-shirts, and signs at sporting events. But what does the verse mean?

7 Questions about Conversion

Michael Lawrence

September 27, 2020

To be converted as a Christian is to have changed your thinking and your believing about Jesus Christ, and to be changed into a person who is no longer an enemy of God but a beloved child of God.

Saul Had an Extraordinary, Supernatural Conversion—and So Did You

Nancy Guthrie

October 10, 2024

Isn’t it interesting how God saves people? And whom God saves? And how he changes them? It’s often the people we least expect and in a way we would never expect.

Podcast: Does It Matter What I Believe? (Samuel James)

March 27, 2023

Samuel James walks through a number of common misconceptions and fears that we often have when it comes to thinking about our theology, ultimately making the case that what you believe matters today and for eternity.