To be born again means to receive new life from God. Jesus used these words in John chapter 3.
The Gnostics were teachers in the second century (the years 100 to 200). They said they had a secret knowledge about God. They said only special people could understand it. The church leaders of that time said they were wrong.
A pew is a long seat in a church.
So the title asks: is an old wrong idea about secret knowledge sitting in our churches today?
What was said?
In a church service, the preacher said: “Only those who are born again will know what I am talking about.” He described being born again as a special moment inside a person. The person’s own heart decides if it was real. People who have not had this moment cannot understand.
This page does not name the preacher or the church. It does not say whether he is a Christian. It does not say that feelings are bad, or that God never gives joy.
His friends might give five reasons to defend him:
- Being born again is real, and you feel it. It is hard to explain, like falling in love.
- Paul says a person without the Spirit cannot understand the things of God (1 Corinthians 2:14).
- The Holy Spirit tells our spirit that we are God’s children (Romans 8:16).
- Jesus said the Spirit is like the wind. You cannot see where it comes from (John 3:8).
- Famous Christians had a special moment. John Wesley said his heart felt “strangely warmed.”
The kindest way to understand the preacher is this: maybe he only meant that a real experience is hard to put into words.
Seven points
- Jesus explained being born again openly. He did not keep it secret.
- Right after this, Jesus and his disciples baptised people. John tells us this in the next part of his Gospel.
- The Bible says God gives new birth through water, the Spirit and God’s word. It never says it comes through a feeling that you must check yourself.
- The Bible gives tests anyone can read. Believing in Jesus, obeying him, and loving other Christians.
- Our heart is not the judge. God is greater than our heart.
- The idea of a secret knowledge for special people is very old. The early church said no to it.
- The preacher believes many true things the Gnostics did not believe. But the idea that only some people can know is the same shape.
This is my own opinion. I think the preacher was trying to describe something real. But Jesus said, “I said nothing in secret.” I cannot find any verse that divides Christians into people who know and people who cannot know.
What Jesus said to Nicodemus
Nicodemus was an important Jewish teacher. He came to Jesus at night. Jesus told him:
Most certainly I tell you, unless one is born of water and spirit, he can’t enter into God’s Kingdom.
John 3:5 · World English Bible
In simple words: To come into God’s Kingdom, a person needs a new birth from God, with water and the Holy Spirit.
Nicodemus did not understand. Did Jesus say, “You cannot understand this”? No. Jesus said, “You are a teacher of Israel. You should know these things!” (John 3:10). God had already promised in the Old Testament to give clean water and a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:25–27).
Right after this talk, John writes: “After these things, Jesus came with his disciples into the land of Judea. He stayed there with them and baptized” (John 3:22).
Jesus’ disciples did the baptising for him (John 4:2). Many people came to them.
So the first readers heard Jesus speak about being born “of water and spirit.” Then they read about people being baptised in water, in public. Did they think “water” meant a secret feeling? Or did they think of the baptism that Jesus was doing?
About 1,850 years ago, a Christian named Justin wrote a letter to the Roman emperor. He explained that new Christians are brought to water and baptised, and so they are born again. He told this openly to a man who was not a Christian.
Jesus explained new birth openly. Then his disciples baptised people in public. It was not a secret.
How does God give new birth?
Other parts of the Bible also talk about new birth. Each one says what God uses:
- Titus 3:5: God saved us “through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.” (Regeneration means new birth.)
- 1 Peter 1:23–25: We are born again through the word of God, the good news that was preached to us.
- James 1:18: God gave us new life by the word of truth.
- John 1:13: We are born of God, not because a person chose it.
Washing. The Holy Spirit. God’s word, preached out loud. None of these verses says: “a feeling that you must check yourself.”
God gives new birth through things outside us: water, the Spirit and his word. Not through a feeling we must test ourselves.
How can I know I belong to God?
The apostle John wrote a letter to answer this question:
These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
1 John 5:13 · World English Bible
In simple words: I wrote this letter so that you can be sure you have life with God for ever.
Here are some of John’s tests:
- Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ? (1 John 5:1)
- Do you obey what he commands? (1 John 2:3)
- Do you love other Christians, with actions and not only words? (1 John 3:14, 18)
- Do you say that Jesus really became a human being? (1 John 4:2)
Anyone can read these tests. You do not need a secret to understand them. John wrote against people who said, “I know God,” but did not live like it (1 John 2:4).
The Bible’s tests are open. Anyone can read them and understand them.
Can my heart be the judge?
The heart is deceitful above all things and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it?
Jeremiah 17:9 · World English Bible
In simple words: Our heart can trick us. We cannot fully know our own heart. The next verse says: God knows it.
John also says: if our heart says we are guilty, “God is greater than our heart” (1 John 3:20).
Think about this. Some days we feel happy and close to God. Some days we feel tired and empty. Some days we feel guilty. If our feeling is the test, then on a bad day we do not know if we belong to God. But God’s promise does not change when our feelings change.
People in other religions also have strong feelings of peace and light. So a feeling alone cannot show what is from God.
Our feelings go up and down. God’s promise stays the same. The Bible tells us to trust God, not our heart.
Who were the Gnostics?
The Gnostics were teachers about 1,850 years ago. Many of them taught these things:
- You are saved by a secret knowledge.
- There are two kinds of Christians: the special “spiritual” people, and ordinary church members.
- They had secret teachings that the apostles did not teach in public.
- A lesser god made the world. Jesus did not have a real body. The body does not matter.
One Gnostic book begins: “These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke.” Some Gnostics even used Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 2 to say that ordinary church members could not understand.
A church leader named Irenaeus answered them about the year 180. He said: the truth is open to everyone, in every church. If the apostles had secret teachings, they would have given them to the leaders of the churches. They did not.
About 1,350 years later, Martin Luther said the same thing in a different way. God gives his Spirit through his word and the sacraments, not apart from them. When you feel guilty, he said, do not look into your heart. Say: “But I am baptised!”
The early church said: God’s truth is not a secret for special people. It is open to everyone.
Is the preacher a Gnostic?
No. He believes that God made the world. He believes Jesus had a real body, died and rose again. The Gnostics did not believe these things. This is a very big difference.
But in some ways his idea has the same shape:
| A knowledge that outsiders cannot have | The same |
| Two kinds of Christians: those who know, and those who do not | The same |
| Look inside yourself to be sure | The same |
| A lesser god made the world | Different: the preacher does not believe this |
| Jesus did not have a real body | Different: the preacher does not believe this |
The preacher believes the important truths about God. But his idea divides Christians in the same way the Gnostics did.
Where did the idea come from?
For about 1,500 years, most Christians said that “born again” was what God did in baptism. About 400 years ago, some churches began to ask people to tell the story of their inner change. Later, in big meetings called revivals, preachers asked people to come forward and decide for Christ. In 1976, “born-again Christian” became a famous name in America.
These preachers wanted people to have a real, living faith, not just a habit. That was a good goal. The question is whether the Bible teaches us to find faith in a feeling, or in God’s promise.
Questions to ask
Think about the people who heard the preacher. A person who was baptised as a baby and has always believed, but never had a big moment, may now think: “Maybe I am not really a Christian.” A visitor may think: “This is not for me.” But the Bible says God’s promise “is to you, and to your children, and to all who are far off” (Acts 2:39).
You can ask these questions about any teaching on being born again:
- Does it point me to Jesus and his promises, or into my own heart?
- Can anyone check it in the Bible, or only special people?
- Does it make some Christians first-class and others second-class?
- When I have doubts, does it send me to God’s word and baptism, or tell me to look for a feeling?
Nicodemus did not understand Jesus. But Jesus did not send him away. He explained, and he pointed him to the cross. Later Nicodemus helped to bury Jesus (John 19:39). Nobody in John chapter 3 is left outside.
Read it yourself
- Read John 3:1–22. What happens right after Jesus talks with Nicodemus?
- Read 1 John 5:1–13. How can you know you have life with God?
- Read Titus 3:4–7. How does God save us?
Want more?
The quick version has three short exercises. The full dossier has all the evidence and every source.
Quick version → Full dossier →Bible verses in boxes on this page come from the World English Bible, a modern translation that is free for everyone to use. Some other verses are given in simple words. The full dossier quotes all the verses from the Authorised (King James) Version.