The Miracle of the New Birth

As stated in a previous post, miracles serve (at the very least) two ends: they radically alter the circumstances of those involved, as well as demonstrating that there exists a reality that stands above, or outside, our everyday, natural existence.  Ultimately, it’s the super-reality that miracles point to that is more important for a human being to experience. Recovery of physical sight will not truly profit unless the one healed is able to see the kingdom of God. As we discussed, however, seeing the kingdom of God requires a miracle. Jesus describes it as being born again, or born from above.

Drawing on the apostle Paul’s teaching from Ephesians 2 let’s examine why the new birth is a miracle. First, our condition is helpless. Human beings are “dead in trespasses and sins” and “by nature children of wrath.” We are fatally deaf, dumb, and blind to heavenly realities. Our only hope is a miracle, a divine intervention that opens our understanding. And this is what God does. When we are “dead in [our] trespasses and sins,” he makes us “alive together with Christ.” This regeneration allows us to see and believe. To underscore the miraculous nature of this transformation, we learn that the ability to place faith in Jesus is a “gift of God” that comes to us by “grace.” And true to miracles, our circumstances are radically altered. No longer subjects of “the prince of the power of the air,” we learn that we have been “raised us up with [Christ]” to be “seated with him in the heavenly places.”

By all criteria, the new birth is a miracle. It is God, in love, intervening into our fallen, lost existence to awaken us to our need of his precious gift, the One he gave so that “whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”  May God give all who read this eyes to see.

Why Miracles?

Have you been present when a miracle occurred? By miracle I don’t mean witnessing the birth of a baby or marking the progress of a beautiful, flowering plant growing from a small, unremarkable seed. These are, in their own ways, “miraculous,” and I’ve had the privilege of experiencing both. No, I mean a miracle of biblical proportions: blind eyes given sight, deaf ears unstopped, withered limbs fully restored, phenomena that have no scientific explanation. I’ve been in large meetings where such things were claimed to have taken place, but the proceedings had such a feeling of charlatanry that it proved unconvincing. They were certainly nothing like what we read about in Scripture, the results of which were immediate and verifiable for all to see.

Biblically, miracles serve two ends: they radically alter the circumstances of those involved, as well as demonstrating that there exists a reality that stands above everyday existence. In the end, the latter realization proves to be more imperative than being able to see, hear, or walk. Even Lazarus being raised from the dead (see John 11) pales in comparison to his having been raised from spiritual death to eternal life through faith in Christ. His coming out from the tomb still clothed in the garments of the grave testifies to this truth.

When God intervenes in the normal processes of nature to do something supernatural, we must receive it as an act of kindness. He is redirecting our gaze from one reality to another, telling us to look up, above the horizon of our lives, and confess that HE IS. While not ruling out the possibility of the sorts of miracles outlined above, God’s miracle of regeneration is to be acknowledged as no less redirective. A person coming to believe in Christ is a divine intervention of the kindest kind and reassures us that he is at work securing for himself a people that above all else confess him as Lord though they be deaf, dumb, blind, or lame.