When You’re Born Again

“Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” (John 16:7) There is abundant verification in the scriptures that receiving the Spirit of God is the born again experience. One verse however would be enough: “Now if ANY man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (Rom. 8:9). To be certain, that scripture could not be clearer about the reality that a person must receive God’s Spirit in order to be born again and belong to Him. It is just as clear by the scriptures that receiving the holy Ghost is the same thing as being baptized with the holy Ghost with the witness of speaking with other tongues. Our text scripture here not only plainly shows us WHEN the disciples of Jesus received the Spirit of God, and were born again; but it also confirms once again that receiving the Spirit and being baptized therein is without question the same experience. Jesus clearly states in Jn. 16:7 that his followers could not receive the Spirit of God until after he went away. In Acts 1:4,5, just before He ascended into Heaven [went away], He commanded His followers to wait at Jerusalem for the promise of the Father; which He plainly stated was the baptism of the holy Ghost. This agrees with Jn. 7:37-39, where we are told that nobody could receive the Spirit until after Jesus was glorified; meaning after He went back to Heaven and was glorified by the Father with the glorious body that the Apostle John saw on the isle of Patmos, and described in detail in Revelation 1:13-16. So it becomes evident that the disciples of Jesus received the Spirit of God and thereby were born again, after His ascension [His going away], on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem; where Jesus had told them to wait for the Spirit just a few days earlier. As He said before He ascended and went away: “But ye shall be baptized with the holy Ghost not many days hence” (Acts 1:5). And they weren’t left to wonder about the experience, because every one of them were furnished by God with the heavenly sign, or witness of speaking with tongues as the Spirit of God gave them utterance (Acts 2:4).

In light of these few clear cut scriptural realities and truths, there can be no doubt that the day of Pentecost was when Jesus’ followers were born again, and where the body of Christ itself was born as well. This truth is also confirmed to us once again by the scriptures: “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body” (I Cor. 12:13). It is just as certain that God has only one body one earth, as we are told in Eph. 4:4. The approximately 120 who received the Spirit at Pentecost were the first people baptized into the body of Christ, having the divine evidence of speaking with other tongues. It is also certain that this way of receiving the new birth experience has never been changed by God (Jas. 1:17). So according to the Scriptures, it is clear that the only way for anyone to be born again, be a member of God’s one congregation [the body of Christ] and belong to Him, is to repent and believe on Jesus unto the receiving of the baptism of the holy Ghost. It is absolutely non-scriptural and ungodly to say that someone is born again BEFORE receiving this experience with it’s accompanying witness of speaking with tongues. It is also sad that the traditions of men which state such are so highly esteemed, and universally accepted and taught by God’s own people who HAVE been baptized with the Spirit. No words of Jesus could be more fitting than those that follow, for this very dilemma among his people today of calling people born again before or apart from the one experience that he purchased by his death and resurrection (I Pet. 3:21): “Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God” (Lk. 16:15). Friend, I truly hope that you see the glorious prospect of unity and peace among God’s true Spirit-baptized people, which can be had by our forsaking the religious confusions of man, and laying hold on the real word of God together. Amen.