When Were You Born Again?

What did “born again” mean?

Ask Christians today what “born again” means. Most will talk about something inside a person. It may be a decision, a prayer, or a night they remember.

For about the first 1,500 years of the church, this answer was not known. “Born again” meant baptism. Baptism was not only a picture of the new birth. Baptism was the new birth.

Ask a Christian from the year 350 when he was born again. He would give you a date. Somebody had written it down.

This page says four things. The fourth one surprises most people.

1. From the earliest times, Christians believed that God gives the new birth in baptism. Nobody argued about it.
2. “Born again” was the name for what happens in baptism.
3. Using “born again” for a private feeling is a new idea. But most people who use it this way think it is the old and clear meaning.
4. The Protestant Reformers did not make this change. Many people think that Luther or Calvin stopped teaching that baptism gives the new birth. Their own books show that this is not true.

What the old books show

The words of the Bible

Jesus said to a man named Nicodemus:

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: A person must be born of water and the Spirit. If not, he cannot come into God’s Kingdom.

Paul wrote that God “saved us through the washing of regeneration” (Titus 3:5). This means a washing that gives new birth.

The early Christian writers read these verses as verses about baptism. But the surprising thing is this. As far as we can see, nobody argued about it. They used these verses in lessons for new Christians. They used them in sermons at funerals. They used them in letters about sick babies. People do not use a verse so easily when its meaning is in doubt.

The first 500 years

A Christian named Justin wrote to the Roman emperor about the year 155. He called baptism “regeneration”. He did not explain the word. He also wrote: “this washing is called illumination”. “Illumination” means receiving light. So the words were already fixed, only one lifetime after the first followers of Jesus.

The early Christians had big, public fights. They fought about who Christ is. They fought about the date of Easter. But they did not fight about the new birth in baptism. No important person said that baptism does not give it.

No group in the early church put the new birth in a feeling or a decision. That idea had to be invented. We know the century when it was invented.

The creed

The Nicene Creed names only one sacrament. It says:

I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

The Nicene Creed, year 381

In simple words: I believe in one baptism. In it, God forgives sins.

This sentence says two things. Baptism forgives sins. And there is only one baptism. It cannot be done a second time.

The churches of the East

Some people think this teaching was made up by the church of Rome in the Middle Ages. If so, the Orthodox churches of the East should not have it. They separated from Rome long ago, and they do not follow Rome.

But the Orthodox churches teach the same thing, and they say it even more strongly. An Orthodox statement from 1672 says baptism is “of the highest necessity”. That means we need it very much. In Orthodox churches a baby is baptized and receives the Lord’s Supper in the same service. Everything is finished before the child can remember it.

The Reformers did not change this

Many people tell the story like this. The Reformers found again that we are saved by faith alone. So they stopped teaching that baptism gives the new birth. They taught that the new birth happens inside, and baptism only shows it afterwards.

Very little of this story is true. The Reformers did argue with Rome about the sacraments. They argued about how many sacraments there are, and about the Lord’s Supper. They did not argue about the new birth in baptism.

Luther wrote a small book for children to learn by heart. It asks what baptism gives. This is the answer:

It works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this.

Martin Luther, Small Catechism, 1529

In simple words: Baptism forgives sins. It saves us from death and from the devil. It gives life with God for ever to everyone who believes this.

There are more examples.

• The Lutherans. Their first great public statement was written in 1530. It says that baptism “is necessary to salvation”. This means people need baptism to be saved. It also says that it is wrong to refuse baptism to children.
• The Church of England. After a baby was baptized, the minister said the words “this Child is regenerate”. That means: this child is now born again.
• John Wesley. He started the Methodist movement. In 1756 he wrote: “By water then, as a means, the water of baptism, we are regenerated or born again.”
• John Calvin. He was more careful. He said that the water has no power by itself. He said God may give the gift before, during or after the baptism. But Calvin said clearly that a sacrament is not an empty picture.

Where did the new meaning come from?

The new meaning did not come from one person. Nobody won an argument. It came in two steps, and we can give a date to each step.

Step one: Zurich, 1525

If baptism gives nothing, the new birth must happen in another place. The only other place is inside the person.

Step two: America, 1800 to 1840

The big change was a new method, not a new teaching. There were large outdoor meetings that went on for days. Then a preacher named Charles Finney brought in “new measures”. He spoke directly to people. He put a special seat at the front for people who were worried about their souls. He expected a decision that same night.

Finney said openly that this was a method:

A revival is not a miracle… It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means.

Charles Finney, 1835

In simple words: A revival is not a miracle. It is what happens when you use the right methods in the right way.

When turning to God has a method, it also has a moment. The moment needed a name. The words “born again” from John 3 were ready to use. In about fifty years the words moved. They had been the name of something the church does for you. Now they were the name of something you have inside you.

Then everybody used it

• In 1850 a court in England made a decision. A minister could say that baptism does not give the new birth, and still keep his job in the Church of England.
• In 1864 the famous preacher Charles Spurgeon spoke against the old teaching. Hundreds of thousands of people read his sermon.
• Later, preachers at big meetings asked people to come to the front and decide for Christ.
• In 1976 a man who wanted to be President of the United States said that he was born again. A famous magazine called 1976 “the Year of the Evangelical”.

So the words made a long journey. First they were the name of a sacrament. Then they were the name of an experience. Then they were the name of a group of people.

A second baptism shows what a church believes

In many churches today, an adult can be baptized again. He may say, “My baptism as a child did not mean anything to me.” Some people are baptized again after a time away from God.

The Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed and Anglican churches all taught that a second baptism is not possible.

Here is the reason. Is baptism something God does? Then your later failure cannot undo it. Your later honest faith cannot make it better. A birth cannot happen twice.

Or is baptism something you do? Then it makes sense to do it again when your faith is stronger.

So you can look at what a church does about second baptism. It shows what that church really believes about baptism. It shows this more clearly than the church’s written statement.

How serious were the Reformers about this? In those days the law punished second baptism with death. Catholics and Lutherans both agreed with this law. A man named Felix Manz was killed for it in Zwingli’s own city in 1527. Most Christians today think this was terrible, and they are right. But it shows one thing clearly. The Reformers did not think that baptism was a personal act that you can repeat.

Why does it matter?

You may agree with all this history and still ask: so what? Here is the answer. People need to know where to find the new birth. The change moved it to a different place.

1. You cannot check it. A baptism is something that happened in the world. It has a date, a place and people who saw it. A feeling is only inside you. And in times of fear, you cannot trust what you see inside yourself. When Luther was afraid, he said: “I have been baptized.” These words help only if baptism is God’s act and not my feeling.
2. Now you must prove it. Each person must show that his experience was real, deep and honest. Nobody can prove this from inside. So people give their lives to Christ again and again, and are baptized again and again.
3. Power moves to people who say they can see your heart. Is your experience real? You cannot tell. So a person who says he can tell has great power over you.
4. Children have no clear place. They must wait for an experience. Adults may push them to have one before they can understand it.

Where this page is weak

Here are four fair arguments against this page.

1. “Everybody believed it” is too strong. We have only a small number of old Christian books. It is true that no old writer we have says baptism gives nothing. And the ones we have all agree. This is strong evidence. But we did not ask every early Christian.
2. The New Testament says more than one thing. One verse says we are “born again… through the word of God” (1 Peter 1:23). And in Acts 10, a man named Cornelius received the Holy Spirit before he was baptized.
3. “Very new” is too strong. Zwingli said in 1525 that baptism gives nothing. That was 500 years ago. It is better to say this: the popular use of “born again” for a feeling comes from the 1800s and 1900s. It stands on the idea of a small group from the 1500s.
4. Most people who say “born again” are not attacking baptism. A woman may say, “I was born again in 1994.” She usually means that her faith became alive that year. Her use of the words is new. That does not mean she is wrong about being saved.

Read it yourself

1. Read John 3:1-8 and Titus 3:4-7.
2. Read the Nicene Creed. Find the sentence about baptism.
3. Read the part about baptism in Luther’s Small Catechism. It is very short.
4. Ask at your church: “What do we believe happens in baptism?” Then ask: “Do we baptize people a second time?”