Ye Must Be Born Again

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. JOHN 3:3

If you had heard George Whitefield preach only once, the chances are that you heard him preach on the new birth. It was the subject of his first printed sermon to cause a sensation, and it was still his subject thirty years later in the fields of New England. Other preachers had taught it; the Church of England’s own prayer book assumed it. What was new was that Whitefield preached it as though it were urgent — as though the man in the pew, baptised, confirmed and respectable, might not have it, and would be lost without it.

Not a name but a nature

His fullest statement of the doctrine is the sermon On Regeneration, preached on the words of Paul: If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. He begins by observing that a man may be said to be in Christ in two ways. The first is by outward profession: every baptised member of the church is, in that sense, in Christ. But this cannot be all the apostle meant, says Whitefield, for then every baptised person would be a new creature, and plainly they are not. Many, as he puts it, are born of water who were never born of the Spirit.

For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. ROMANS 2:28–29

The second and deeper sense is to be in Christ by a living faith, joined to Him as a branch to the vine, and so to receive His life. That, says Whitefield, is what regeneration is: not a physical change, not a second entry into the womb, as Nicodemus foolishly supposed, but a change of nature wrought by the Spirit of God, so that a person who was carnal becomes spiritual, and one who loved sin comes to love God.

It is worth noticing what he is not saying. He is not despising baptism, or the sacrament, or the church’s prayers. He loved them all, and he says in the same sermon that they are means of grace. But he insists that they are only means. They are part of religion, not the whole of it. The Pharisee fasted twice a week and was not justified.

Why it must be so

Whitefield gives several reasons why no one can be saved without the new birth, and they are still worth pondering.

The first is simply that God has said so. The psalmist prayed for a clean heart and a right spirit. The prophets called for a new heart. Christ told Nicodemus that a man must be born again. The apostles speak of putting off the old man and putting on the new.

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. EZEKIEL 36:26

The second is the holiness of God and the corruption of man. A holy God and an unholy creature cannot dwell together in peace. Something must change, and it will not be God.

The third, and to many the most striking, is the nature of heaven itself. Heaven is not a place of physical pleasures but the enjoyment of God. A person whose heart has not been changed would be miserable there, as a man who hates music would be miserable at a concert. Whitefield points out that Christ did not say that unless a man be born again he shall not enter the kingdom, as though by a decree, but that he cannot — it is in the nature of things.

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. HEBREWS 12:14

The fourth is that Christ’s work would be incomplete without it. Christ came not only to take away the guilt of sin but its power. A pardon alone, says Whitefield, would do as little for us as a pardon would do for a condemned criminal who is dying of a mortal disease. We need to be healed as well as forgiven.

Morality is not enough

The most searching part of the sermon is its application, where Whitefield turns to three kinds of people who think they are Christians and may not be.

There are those who rest in outward duties: church, prayers, the sacrament, fasting. There are those who rest in moral virtues: honest in business, temperate at table, harmful to no one. And there are those who rest in a partial amendment: once openly wicked, now respectable, but with some secret sin they will not give up.

To the moralists he says something that deserves to be remembered. “Christianity includes morality, as grace does reason.” He is not against morality; a Christian will be moral. But morality without a changed heart is not Christianity, just as reason without grace is not faith. The heathens were often virtuous. Paul, before his conversion, lived in all good conscience. It was not enough.

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. TITUS 3:5

In his sermon Marks of a True Conversion, preached on the words of Christ about becoming as little children, Whitefield presses the same point from another side. He speaks with dread of how many would go to hell “even by the very gates of heaven” — people who came near, who knocked, and were told at the last that the Lord never knew them. And then, with great tenderness, he describes the marks of the converted: they know themselves weak, they know themselves ignorant, they are teachable, guileless and dependent, and they run to their Father as a child runs to a parent when anything hurts.

Where care is needed

Whitefield preached for crisis and expected his hearers to be able, as a rule, to point to a time and a struggle through which they had passed. In his farewell sermon he said that he believed those who could not tell when they were converted were very few. Many sincere believers, brought up in Christian homes, cannot name such a day, and have been troubled by preaching like his. Scripture does not require it. The wind blows where it will; we hear its sound but cannot tell whence it comes. The test of the new birth is not the memory of a moment but the presence of a life — faith in Christ, love for God and His people, hatred of sin, a changed direction.

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. JOHN 3:8

It must be said too that Whitefield’s bluntness could frighten tender consciences. He wanted to wake the sleeping, and sometimes he woke the wrong people. The best of his preaching, though, always ended with an open door.

The hinge

For Whitefield, then, the new birth was not one doctrine among many. It was “the very hinge on which the salvation of each of us turns.” Every other truth he preached either led a sinner to it or described the life that flows from it. And the call it gives is not first to effort but to Christ. The new birth is God’s work, not ours. We cannot give ourselves a new heart. But we can go to the One who gives it, and ask.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. JOHN 1:12–13

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Write down honestly what you are resting on for your acceptance with God. Is any of it outward form, moral respectability or partial reform?

2. Consider whether there is a secret sin, a “beloved Delilah” as Whitefield calls it, that you have excused because you are better than you were.

3. Look for the marks of the new birth in your life — not a remembered moment but present faith, love, repentance and teachability — and thank God for what you find.

4. If you cannot find them, do not despair and do not try harder. Go to Christ and ask Him for a new heart.

5. Read On Regeneration in Whitefield’s Selected Sermons, in the Ochorus library, and mark the three kinds of false rest he describes.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You said that except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. I cannot make myself new; only Your Spirit can.

Search me. If I am resting on outward religion or on my own decency, show it to me, and do not let me be at peace until I rest on You.

Give me a new heart and a right spirit. Make me like a little child — teachable, dependent and glad to run to my Father.

And where You have begun this work, carry it on until the day of Your coming. Amen.