(John - Part 14): Ye Must Be Born Again (The Once Born and the Twice Born) — A.W. Tozer

Jesus’ Revolutionary Teaching on the New Birth

We have read the opening verses of the third chapter of John at least three times, so I'm not going to read them again tonight. Only this one verse, 7, sort of gets started. Jesus said, Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

I gather from this, marvel not that I say to you, ye must be born again, that I gather that there must be good sound reasons back of it all, and that there isn't anything strange or astonishing about it, and that it's quite in order and reasonable and logical.

And I want to talk about that tonight, but let me begin by saying that this teaching of our Lord is more than teaching. It is of vital and far-reaching importance, so important that it would be difficult to overstate that importance.

Sometimes we can exaggerate when we make statements. By using a superlative, we can go too far and be guilty of exaggeration. But it would be difficult to exaggerate this, the vital importance of the teaching of our Lord in the opening verses of John 3.

It is wholly revolutionary, more revolutionary than any teaching of any religion of the world. It is sharply classifying, it distinguishes, it excludes, and it includes. It classifies men, and it distinguishes men from each other, and it excludes certain men and includes certain other ones.

And I say that it differs from all other religious teaching in that it is more than religious teaching. It did not originate with the teacher. It is not a pattern of truth woven out of many threads, as most religious teaching is.

And it is not, and does not represent simply, the highest and finest and noblest thoughts of a lofty soul woven together. Not anything like that. It is, rather, practical reporting. When a man goes to Asia, or Washington, or London, as a reporter, and he sends back what he has seen and heard, we do not say, this is the teaching of this man.

We say, this is factual reporting. And Jesus said in the eleventh verse of this chapter, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen. He there took upon himself the character of a reporter.

And he said, I am reporting to you what I know and have seen. So you see, it is not pieced-out teaching. It is reporting. It is a report to men on earth of what he, the Lord of heaven, had seen and heard and knew while he was in heaven.

For no man ascended up to heaven save the Son of Man, who has come down from heaven. And this teaching is what he saw. He is telling us on earth what he saw in heaven. And a lot of people don't accept it.

He said, if I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, then how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven.

That was his explanation when Nicodemus asked, how can these things be? He said, this is not teaching, merely. This is reporting. I am telling you what I know and what I have seen. And he says that this is to be believed or rejected by everyone.

And it will be believed or rejected depending upon our opinion of the one who does the reporting. He said, there are those who will not believe my testimony that I give coming down from heaven. They will not believe what I tell them that I saw and the way I know things to be.

They won't believe it and they will reject it. And there will be two reasons for it. One will be that they love the earth and sin too well. And the other, that they have no confidence in the one who is reporting.

That is unbelief in the Savior, the Son of God. We usually don't know that unbelief is not a failure of the mind to function. It is not simply a weakness in the department of our credulity. It is an opinion of a man.

When we do not believe in Jesus, we have an opinion of Jesus. And that opinion prevents us from believing. A man goes to Washington and sees and hears and comes back and reports in the newspaper or wires it in.

And we shrug it off. It is not because we are unable to understand it, nor would it be because we have some psychological weakness. It is because we have no confidence in the reporter. We say we don't believe that man.

He has a reputation for misunderstanding or misrepresenting and reproducing things that never were said. And we don't accept it. Now our Lord said in these chapters, these verses which I read to you before, that that is exactly what takes place when his message is proclaimed.

There are those who set it to their seal that God is true, and they believe this message. There are those who deny that God is true, or at least that Jesus Christ is God's Son, and they doubt the veracity of the reporter and refuse to accept the reporter's record.

Two Heads of the Human Race: Adam and Christ

Now we want to break down what our Lord said here. That that I have said before is introductory to this which I shall now say about the new birth our Lord talked about. We'll break it down in the light of Scripture, not holding entirely to these verses but going elsewhere in the Bible, and show what our Lord taught here and what is back of this all, so that it may be said, marvel not that I said unto you, you must be born again.

In the light of Scripture, there is nothing strange about it. It's quite normal. It's sound philosophically. I want you to take a notebook, if you don't have a good memory, and I want you to put down five, well, really four items here.

And these items are contrasts. As, for instance, where our Lord says, That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. There's what I mean by a contrast. And I give you four contrasts here, which are taught in the Bible, taught here by our Savior, and also taught by the apostles elsewhere in Scripture.

First, that there are two heads of the human race. There is that first Adam, the first head of the race, the head of the natural race. Now, it says in 1 Corinthians 15, 22,. For as in Adam all died, so in Christ shall all be made alive.

Showing that in Adam, who is the head of the race, all died. And in Romans 5, it tells us even more plainly this thing. If you'll excuse me, I'll read quite an extended passage here, for what I could read would be more beneficial than what I could say.

The man of God, the same Paul, wrote to Corinthians, is writing, and he says this,. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.

Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression, who was the figure of him that was to come. Adam was a figure of the Christ who was to come, being the head of the old race.

And not so as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift, for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses under justification. For if by one man's offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so, by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men the justification of life. That's familiar reading.

But what it teaches here is that there are two heads of the race. There is Adam, the head of the natural race, who is the forefather of us all. And we are his natural children, born by natural generation.

And then there is a second head of the human race, which is Christ the last Adam, head of the redeemed human race. And we read about that many places, but we read about it in 1 Corinthians 15, 44, I think it is, to 49, where it says that it is sown a natural body and raised a spiritual body.

For there is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. As it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul, and the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. There you have the contrast between the two heads of the human race.

Adam, the head of the natural human race, and Christ, the head of the spiritual human race, for he was and is a quickening spirit. The first man is of the earthy, and the second man is the Lord from heaven.

Now that's what the Holy Ghost teaches here regarding the two heads of the human race. And so for the present, we have two human races. You know, this sounds like Russellism or Eddism or something else, because it's so little heard in the churches.

The very bringing of it before an audience puts one on the defensive. You say to yourself, now wait a minute, I hadn't heard this before, hadn't heard this preached. People aren't preaching it, but it's here.

And it is the reason our Lord could say, don't marvel at the thought that I said that you must be born again, for there's a reason back of it all. There's a sound philosophy that rests the mind. The reason is, one of the reasons, that there are two human races.

That there is the race that is in Adam, and there's the race that is in Christ. There is that which is of earth, and that which is of heaven. There is that which stems from Adam the first, and there is that which stems from Adam the second.

Now these two human races are coexisting and co-mingling. The ones that belong to the first Adam are human beings of everywhere. And the ones that belong to the other, they are the new ones who are created in Christ Jesus under good works.

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. And thus he has a new head, which is Jesus Christ the Lord. Adam is no longer his head. He does not go back to Adam, he goes back to Christ. He does not take his life from Adam, he takes his life from Christ.

And he gets his likeness from Christ and not from Adam. For Christ is the new head of the new creation, and of those that are born of the Spirit. Now these two human races coexisting in the world, that's the trouble.

The reason for persecution and trouble, religious trouble, because in every city there are two human races. There are in the city of Chicago, there's that part of the human race or that block that belongs to Adam, that grew out of Adam, stemmed down from Adam, was born once of Adam's seed, and so it's Adam's race.

And co-mingling and coexisting along with that race, there is a smaller race in this same city, living in houses, eating regular food, doing work, driving automobiles, talking on telephones, and paying bills, and doing everything that the old Adam's race does.

But lo and behold, mystery of mysteries, something wonderful has happened to that group. They look like the others, but they're not. They can hardly be distinguished, but they're different from the others, in that the others are born of Adam's seed and no more.

And this other race is rescued from Adam's seed and born into the kingdom of God. So that leads us to two kingdoms coexisting also. The kingdom of the flesh and the kingdom of the spirit, which we also call the kingdom of God.

The Two Kingdoms and the Brotherhood of Humanity

Now this kingdom of the flesh is the realm inhabited by Adam's descendants. And these descendants of Adam are related by blood and by common origin. You know, I sat here a long time ago, and I just got it off a tape on the type here the other day, and I was rather shocked at what I had said.

But I edited it and left it in. It shocked me, it probably shocked you, and it might as well shock the readers too. What I said was that I believe in the brotherhood of man. And I know that some would faint immediately and want to be carried out, and would have to be brought to by strong smelling salts, to have any man say that he believes in the brotherhood of man.

But I do. I believe there is a universal brotherhood of the once-born. And then I believe in a universal brotherhood of the twice-born. Where our modernistic and liberal friends make their mistake is, they do not distinguish between the twice-born and the once-born.

They make a universal brotherhood and say, Everybody is in. And Jesus Christ makes a universal brotherhood and says, Everybody is out, except them that are born in. There is the difference. The liberal says, I believe in the brotherhood of man, and all that universal brotherhood are children of God.

Jesus Christ says, there is a universal brotherhood of the flesh. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. And no man will ever enter into the kingdom, except he gets in by a birth. So I do believe in the universal brotherhood of man, the universal brotherhood of fallen man.

And then I said, and I repeat now, that I believe in the fatherhood of God. You know, the modernists have labeled that, and have taken it to themselves so that we shrug our shoulders and refuse to accept the fatherhood of God.

But I believe in the fatherhood of God, not the fatherhood of God over the whole race of Adam, for that's not so, but the fatherhood of God over them that are born anew, that are saved. The Christians have God for a father.

The man in the old world who is born of Adam has Adam for his father, not God. God created Adam, and Adam had progeny. And the whole world is populated with the progeny of Adam, who are universal brothers, descended from one ancient father, but not children of God.

But when we enter the kingdom of God and are made children of the Most High, then we enter a new brotherhood, the brotherhood of the redeemed, of which God is father and Jesus Christ is the head. Now, these two kingdoms, I say, there's a kingdom of the flesh, inhabited by Aaron's descendants, and they're related by blood and by common origin.

They are separated also by color and language and minor racial marks. The human race is united by blood and common origin, but as we see it scattered over the earth, it is separated by color and language and minor racial marks.

Some sub-races of the human race have long heads. What do you call those in biology? Here I go again. The long heads and the narrow heads? Yeah. That's what I thought. But anyhow, we've been out of school so long, we forget their terminology.

But it has to do with the shape of their heads. Welsh people, for instance, have a certain shaped head, and in the sciences they talk about the shape of a Welshman's head. He has a certain racial head.

And Dutch people have a head. I tell them sometimes they come into the world with heads and wooden shoes. But anyway, they have a certain racial trait. You can put in there all we tell them. Tell the Anglo-Saxons by the shape of their heads and a few other traits.

And so the human race is united by blood, but it's divided by language and time and space and racial characteristics, the color of the skin, the shape and slant of the eyes, and the hair, whether it's blonde, curly, or what it is.

But they're all nevertheless sons of Adam. And they're all of one blood that inhabit the face of the earth, says the Holy Ghost in the Bible. So there is a unity of the whole human race, and there is also minor divisions in the whole human race, racial divisions and linguistic divisions and color divisions.

Now, there are also differences. These are minor. There are differences of cultural level. There are some of you that never had worn yet in your eye and never will have, thank God. And there are others in the city of Chicago that do.

There are some that say, I wouldn't go either. But there are others that wouldn't be caught dead saying either, either. They are more cultured. And so they use a word that doesn't exist, either. I go along with the Irishman.

They said, Pat, which is right, either or either? He said, neither. And I accept that definition myself. And neither. Well, there are differences in cultural level and differences in education and differences in advancement of scientific achievement and degree of civilization.

They have what they call the Stone Age. That was the age when the only weapons they had and the only machinery they had were made of stones. Then came the Iron Age, advanced a little. And then the age of steel.

And now we've come to the age of the atom. But it's all old Adam's race nevertheless. He can ride in a plane or ride on a wheelbarrow. It's the same old son of Adam. He's just the same and he isn't a bit improved over what he was before.

He can say either or neither or neither or neither. And it's all the same. He is still the son of Adam. He's just the same as he was before. There are differences among the sons of Adam but they're all one in that they are sons of Adam and they inhabit the kingdom of the flesh.

Unity and Separation Within the Kingdom of the Spirit

Then there's the kingdom of the spirit. Sometimes I say called the kingdom of God. And it's inhabited by the spirit born. And they are separated just as we have separations in Adam's kingdom, the kingdom of the flesh.

Linguistic and color and shape of head and so on. Separating groups from groups. So we have in the kingdom of God certain separations too. For instance, the brother talked this morning about language barriers.

There are Christians that are kept apart by language barriers. Only two words they know are there alike are amen and hallelujah. Like in all the languages. But they're kept apart. And then the space keeps God's people apart.

In the day of Pentecost they were all of one accord in one place. That would be totally impossible now to get all the church together in one place. There are too many of us. There isn't any stadium in the world big enough to hold all the redeemed people of God.

They're a company that no man can number. And you cannot get them spatially. It's impossible to get all God's people together. And then we don't live together in time either. Some are already dead. Some have been dead a long time.

And if Jesus tarries, some Christians are not yet born. So that there's a time division and there's a space separation. And then there are all the little incidental separations. For instance, you were a Lutheran and you were born again and brought up and really a Christian lived in the Lutheran church.

And by a certain narrow limited view of things maybe you don't know there are any other kind of Christians at all. One Baptist man said down the south, he said, I never have gone to any other church in my life except the Baptist church.

He didn't know what he was missing. There are other Christians here and there so that we may not mingle with certain other truly born again people inhabiting the same spiritual kingdom we do because we can't speak their language, they're dead before we were born, or we'll die before they're born, or they're across another part of the world, or they belong to some remote denomination that we don't mingle with.

And so we just don't get together. But there is nevertheless a people extant inhabiting a kingdom born of the spirit into the spiritual kingdom of which Jesus Christ is the head, on of which God in heaven is the father.

So just as the one human race, one kingdom of Adam, one kingdom of the flesh is scattered to every place. We have a hermit in the cave who never mingles with it, but he belongs to it. We have the Egyptians who have died and gone long ago.

They had never heard of us. We only hear of them in history, but it's all the same race, same people, born of the same flesh, all descended from the same man. And there's the kingdom of the spirit, I say.

And there are those who say that if Christians, all Christians are supposed to be together in one denomination or one religious front, and certainly divisions are terribly to be deplored between Christians, that they know they are divided.

But you can't help but be certain divisions between Christians. It's impossible. We're scattered all over the face of the earth. We never see each other's faces at all. But yet in spite of those temporary and certain separations, we're all one.

United by birth out of one spirit. Baptism into one spirit. Membership in one body. With one Father, and one Savior, and one Lord, and one Bridegroom, and one Heaven toward which we're moving. So instead of sneering at the song, we are not divided, all one body, we all of one in hope and doctrine, one in charity, instead of making a wry face, let's thank God that it's true.

Let's thank God that it's true that there is a kingdom composed of those who belong to the spiritual world, and they are all one and they are undivided. And Jesus said that they all may be one. And so we are one, just as the human race is one.

The human race is all one. I preached three days at Fort Wayne last week, at the Fort Wayne Bible College. And there I saw predominantly German people. Predominantly German. German names. A young lady sang a solo named Miss Neonswander.

No Irishmen there. And so Germans, Germans. But along with those Germans and sitting right down in the front seat there were young men and women from Hawaii. They didn't look like the Germans at all. But nevertheless the Germans and the Hawaiians are all of one flesh.

And of one blood. One language, not of one color, not of one height, but of one blood. And in the city of Chicago tonight there are probably people from every nationality all over the wide world. And they are separated by language barriers.

And outside of a little broken English they could not communicate at all with each other. But they are brothers in that they are all descended from one seed. And they are all of one blood on the face of the earth.

Separated maybe. Maybe warring against each other, but one blood. And in that glorious kingdom, the kingdom of the Father, there is also a redeemed and renewed race dwelling. And they are all one. One not by blood, one not by flesh at all, but one in spirit.

One in being born of one Father, of one spirit, and baptized into one body. Now I have repeated that three or four times. I want it to sink in. I'm not out to deliver an oration, but to give you truth which I want you to take home with you.

Two Births: Flesh and Spirit

So there are the two kingdoms. And again we have two births. I have already mentioned that and we will be as brief as we can. But there are two births. That which is born of the flesh. What does Jesus Christ say about that which is born of the flesh?

He settles it forever in two words and puts a period down and turns around, walks away from it and leaves it there forever. What does he say? That which is born of the flesh is flesh. I don't know any more terrible thing to say than that.

And if all the orators of the world were to get busy and call to their command the finest language that the races and nations know, they could not add anything to the finality, the fatal finality of that expression.

That which is born of the flesh. What, Lord? What is flesh? And he turned around and left it there. And that which is born of the flesh can never be anything but flesh. It can never cross over into the kingdom of the Spirit.

And not all the religious education you can give it won't cross it over into the kingdom of the Spirit. And not all of the discipline and teaching and instruction and education you can give the flesh won't make Spirit out of it.

Though we have all the reasoning of Plato, flesh still remains flesh. We have all the art of Michelangelo and flesh is still flesh. We may have all the music of Beethoven, flesh is still flesh. Though we have the genius of a medicine, though we have strange, sheer penetrating abilities of a scientist like Pasteur that could make it possible for a man bitten by a rabid dog to get well again, still flesh that gets well.

Or if it didn't, it'd be flesh that died. Though we have an Einstein whose amazing mind could penetrate down and down and back and into the dark, unseen and unseen recesses of the atom and could lay the foundation for the physicist who came and has brought us the H-bomb and the cobalt bomb and the A-bomb.

Though we have all that genius. Edison was flesh. And Pasteur was flesh. And Einstein is flesh. And Beethoven is flesh. And Plato is flesh. And the learned societies of the world, they're flesh. And the great operatic societies are flesh.

And the great literary societies, they're flesh. And the great libraries are flesh. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. And you can't by any means known to mortal man bring the flesh across into the spirit.

Then there is that which is born in the spirit. And that birth is a new creation. Just as the first birth is a new creation. Mr. and Mrs. Jones lived at 1721 North Boulevard. You go down and see them.

They're there. And you go back in a year and you sit talking with them and you, what's that I hear? She smiles and gets up and says, that's the junior. He's waking up for his ball. Junior? Well, I was here a year ago, no junior.

No, the junior's come around since that. New creation. Where'd he come from? I don't know. I have no remote idea. I only know God Almighty made him and he's lying in there now begging for his ball. A new creation has come.

A creation that is flesh. And that which is born of the flesh is flesh. But when we're born of the spirit there's another birth that's also a new creation. Just as real and just as literal and just as actual as the first birth.

And I'm sure, I'm sure that when Jesus Christ said to Ananias, Ananias, go down to the straight street and ask for a man named Simon of Tanner. There's something down his house. Lord, what is down his house?

I've been down there. There's nothing down there. Oh yes. There's somebody down there that prayed. Well, but Lord, a year ago there was nobody down there that prayed. I know, but there's been something happened since.

There's been a man named Paul. And Paul down there, and he was born since that time. And he's down there and he's praying to man. Go down there and pray for him. You might receive his sight. A new creation had taken place.

And Paul wrote, if any man be in Christ Jesus, he's a new creation. He knew what he was talking about. There was a new man down there. So that there are two births. There is the birth that makes us flesh and puts us in the body of Adam and makes us inhabitants of the kingdom of Adam.

There's a birth which is of the Spirit and puts us into the kingdom of God and makes God our Father and Christ our Head. I say, didn't I, didn't I say to begin with that Jesus Christ classifies and distinguishes and excludes and includes destiny and faith and heaven and hell right on every classification.

And we better listen to it. We better stop fooling with our religion. We better stop coming to church to hear the music and paying no attention to the truth preached. We better get down to business on this.

Two Destinies: Eternal Life and Everlasting Contempt

For that which is born of the flesh is flesh. Then there are two destinies. That which is born of the flesh remains flesh. And that which is of the Spirit has another destiny altogether. Now it says in Daniel 12, 2, They that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.

Some to eternal life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. There's your division again. There's your classification. There's your inclusion, your exclusion. There's the sharp distinguishing of the Spirit of God.

There are two destinies, eternal life. You know I don't preach very much about heaven. I don't know much about heaven. I read about it and I like to sing and read over all the long verses of the Celestial City, Bernard's conception of heaven founded upon the scriptures.

But I don't know too much about heaven. But there is that which God calls eternal life. It is the kingdom where those live who have life eternal. It is the kingdom of the Father. It is the kingdom of God.

It is the kingdom of life. And all that are born the second time who inhabit the spiritual kingdom and are members of the new body of which Christ is the head, their destiny is to enjoy eternally that eternal life.

I remember when I was a young preacher, I used to sing a rather morbid but pleasant little old number, There's No Disappointment in Heaven. You ever hear it? There's no disappointment in heaven, no poverty, sorrow, nor pain.

And I liked it because it was better than nothing. But it certainly couldn't compare with many of the great hymns on heaven. But at least it did lift our hearts to remember that there is a place called eternal life.

Now God sometimes uses that expression. Paul said, unto eternal life. Sort of making eternal life synonymous with all the immortality and the brightness and the deathlessness and the painlessness and the cheerlessness and the joy that is the saints throughout all the years and eons that lie ahead, world without end.

A city upon which the sun will never go down. For the sun is the lamb and the lamb is the light thereof. And the destiny of the twice-born is heaven. The destiny of the twice-born is eternal life in that heaven of life, presided over by the Lord of life and surrounded with the life of God.

This is the destiny of the twice-born. And then it says, those others, shame and everlasting contempt. Now I hope we get this straight. That those who are of the old Adam and are brothers in a fallen race, scripture says, shame and everlasting contempt is theirs in the day when they rise from the dust of the earth.

They that now inhabit the old kingdom, they have the money, they have a good bit of the education, they usually run things, these sons of Adam, these strong bulls of Bashan, they push in and the meek Christian quietly lets them push, sometimes I think too much so, and they take over and they buy us and sell us and they tell us how much taxes we pay and they tell us when we pay them.

And they run us more or less because there are more of them and they are more aggressive, they are extroverts, they are pushers. And they shove us out of the trough with their long horns and they take over.

And the humble Christian takes what is left and comforts himself that the meek shall inherit the earth after the bulls of Bashan get done with it. And the Lord renovates it and cleanses it. And they take over these great, strong, extroverted fellows.

And we wear the clothes they decide we are to wear. And the wicked old Frenchmen over in Paris tell you women, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, and you slavishly follow them and do exactly what you are told and then give a reason and say why I know.

They are short because you get more sun. And then later, down, down, because more graceful. You do what you are told to do and I am not scolding you. I didn't design this. This, they tell me, is the result of TV.

They make them like that because they show on TV. I don't know. I just go buy them or get them given to me. But anyhow, we are all the sons of, in one sense, of the old world and naturally we are pushed around and dictated to and ignored and tramped over and voted down and lied to and deceived and sold gold bricks.

And we don't dare fight back. We just have to wait until the day when God will judge the heart of every man by my gospel. But in the meantime, we are living in another world too. We are living on two levels at once.

The level of Adam. But we didn't stop there. We were born up onto another level. And that's the level of the Spirit. And there we meet and mingle with all the good saints down the years. I believe in the communion of saints, says the Apostles' Creed.

What does it mean? It means that I have a level in my life where I am one with all who have gone before me. All who have gone before. My days among the dead are spent. Around me I behold where my moving eyes are cast, the mighty minds of old, said Lamb in his library.

Reach up, pull down Plato. Reach over here, pull down Aristotle. Reach over here and pull down Johnson Swift. Reach over here and pull down Shakespeare. He was communing with the mighty minds of old. I've got something better than that.

I can pick up a hymn book and I can commune with the mighty minds of old. Here they are, these saints of God. Here's one by Gypsy Smith. Well, here's one by Mrs. Morrison, that good holiness woman. And here's one by good old state John Keble.

And here's one by Joseph Hart. And here's one by Ellerton and old John Fawcett. And Benjamin Schmoke. Translated into English, here they are. Where my moving eyes are cast, for around me I behold the mighty souls that have lived.