What Is a Born Again Christian

When a person repents of their sin and begins to follow Jesus, something amazing happens—they become a born-again Christian. Did you know the Bible only mentions being “born again” in those exact terms three times? Two of those instances occur when Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, saying, “You must be born again.”

Nicodemus didn’t understand what it meant to be born again—and many people still don’t. To them, it’s just some kind of obscure riddle. After all, how can a man be born when he is old? Yet being born again is an essential part of what it means to be “saved.” So let’s try to solve this riddle.

To understand it, we need to go all the way back to when you were born. We’ll explore the age of accountability, where we stand after that point, and finally, what Nicodemus didn’t understand.

The Age of Accountability

The law was given long before Paul’s time, yet he says he was once “alive without the law.” How is that possible if the law already existed?

If you’ve been following this course, you’ve likely read about “original sin”—and discovered that humans are not born guilty of sin, contrary to what many claim. But then the question becomes: At what point do we become guilty?

Paul tells us that before he became aware of the law, sin was “dead” in him. In other words, sin had no power over him—he was considered innocent. Without a law to knowingly break, there’s no guilt of breaking it.

But once Paul understood the law, the sins he had previously committed—though done in ignorance—were now seen for what they were. He became aware of his sins. That awareness is what brought him under guilt. It’s at that moment Paul realized he was spiritually dead in sin.

Think about a child who lies when asked, “Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?” In their mind, they don’t see a real reason to tell the truth. They don’t yet fully grasp the guilt of lying.

All they know is that you said not to take a cookie, and they did it anyway. Now you’re upset, and they don’t like that. So they confess and try to act cute—not out of guilt, but out of concern for the consequences.

They don’t yet have a real understanding of sin. They’re simply reacting to rules and consequences, not the deeper truth of sin and guilt.

Sin is more than breaking a rule. And death is more than just the penalty for sin. Sin and death become part of who you are when you gain a deeper awareness—when it’s no longer just “rule broken = trouble comes”, but “I’ve done something truly wrong.”

Many call this the “age of accountability.” It varies from person to person. We don’t all become aware of our sin at the same age—and some may never reach that awareness at all.

If you’ve ever wondered how God judges children or mentally handicapped adults, this passage offers an answer. We are judged according to what we know, how well we know it, and when we know it. Only God knows each of us well enough to judge where we truly stand.

When the Bible speaks of someone we would consider physically alive as being a “dead man,” it’s referring to the decay of that person’s soul into deeper and deeper sin. At some point, we are all “dead in trespasses and sins.”

When we are born, we are considered innocent before God. But once we become aware of sin and willingly commit it, our soul becomes corrupted. This is why we must be born again. We must be made innocent again. We must be made new. We must have new life breathed into us.

Our sins stripped away our innocence and brought spiritual death. So then—who can raise the dead? And more importantly, who can make the guilty innocent again?

The New Soul

That word quickened means “made alive” or “brought to life.” That’s what being born again is all about. While our souls were dead in sin, Jesus came and quickened us—He breathed life into us. Death lost its power over our souls.

We are no longer spiritually dead in sin. Our souls no longer decay into deeper corruption. Our souls have become a new creation, full of life. We are born again. But how does that happen?

I love the word operation used in verse 12. It paints a picture of God performing surgery on our souls. He separates our soul from our sinful flesh—the Great Physician bringing us to life through a divine procedure.

Verse 11 calls this a circumcision “made without hands”—the “putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh.” God cuts away the sin that clings to our soul like a cancer. This is the spiritual surgery He performs to make us new.

These verses show that when someone is born again, it’s because God breathes life into their soul. This process is called regeneration—a complete renewal of the soul, as if they had never sinned.

The Old Flesh

When someone is born again, their soul is made new, but their physical body remains the same. This is a mystery many people struggle to understand. A Christian lives with a soul of one nature and flesh of another.

The flesh is no longer who we truly are. We are living souls, while our flesh clings to us like an old, rotting cloak. We are clean—it is filthy. We are pure—it is evil. We are alive—it is dead.

Paul says he does not frustrate the grace of God. This is because while he still deals with the old deeds of the flesh he does so with faith that God has separated him from his old flesh. He knows he is not his flesh. He is the new soul inside of that flesh which does not sin.

What I’m pointing out here is that God no longer considers a born-again Christian to be part of the flesh. He sees you as separate from it. You are no longer just dead in sin—you are now alive in Christ. And the part of you that sins is not the new you—it’s the old you, still hanging around.

It’s as if we’ve been made brand new, yet there’s a chain clamped to our ankle. On the other end of that chain is our old, dying body. Eventually, it will turn to dust, and we’ll be free of it completely. But for now, we must live with it—and its desires.

That, too, is a mystery to many. But it’s a vital truth: there is a difference between the flesh of a person and the soul of that person. We should understand and consider that whatever we do in the flesh (against God) is done BY the flesh, and not our soul. It is dead and will do things the dead do. But we are alive and do not.

Take special note of the words “the rest of his time” in 1 Peter 4:2. When we were dead in sins, both our flesh and soul were spiritually dead. At no point in that state were we right with God—we lived in the deadness of sin. But now, our soul has been made righteous, while our flesh still carries its old desire for sin.

We’re no longer bound to spend all of our time serving sin. We now have the power and opportunity to serve God. The struggle, however, is that our flesh still fights for its own moment in time—its own control.

When the Holy Ghost Moves In

When you were “dead in sins,” your soul was in a state of spiritual decay. The very core of who you were was ruled by sin, following a downward path toward destruction. It was a downhill road.

But when the Holy Ghost moved in, your soul was brought back to life. He removed the guilt of sin and gave you the power to walk uphill instead of down. You were made alive! You were born again. Now, your soul and the Spirit of God dwell in harmony together.

Because the Holy Spirit lives within you—breathing life into your soul—it is also under His protection from death. Your soul will never become corrupted again, as long as He remains in you!

He has us SEALED! He’s got us COVERED! As long as He lives within us—breathing life into our souls—we are alive, born again, and headed for glory!

But I’m sure a question or two has crossed your mind:

• Will He ever depart from me?
• Can I become unsealed or uncovered?
• What if I turn back to sin?
• And the biggest question of all: If all of this is happening in my soul, then what’s going on with my body—the flesh part?

Those questions and more will be answered in the next few units.

Hang on—we’ve got a LOT to cover!

Unit 3:11 – Why Do I Still Sin If I Am Saved OR

Return To Christianity 101 Unit 3 – Repentance and Salvation