Written by Michelle J. Goff, Founder and Executive Director of Iron Rose Sister Ministries
When Nicodemus, a teacher of the law, came to Jesus in the middle of the night, the concept of being born again was incomprehensible. Somewhat sarcastically, he asked how someone who was old could enter again into his mother’s womb. Jesus responded to a fleshly question with a spiritual answer.
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” (Jn 3:5-6)
Through His death, burial, and resurrection, we are invited into newness of life, reborn and redeemed. The old is gone. The new has come... by being born again.
Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Ro 6:3-5)
I love the parallel between Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection and our own through baptism! In Him, we “may live a new life.” Paul continues his letter to the Romans by clarifying what we die to in order to walk in newness of life.
I cannot keep walking forward when the past is weighing me down. I cannot continue to live entrenched in sin and claim to have a new life in Jesus. If I pretend that I can do both, 1 John 1:10 says that I am deceiving myself and the truth is not in me.
United with Christ, we can truly die to our past way of life and leave behind any and all things that separate us from God. I long to live as a new creation in Christ. I hate when my sinful attitudes, words, and actions return. My sins may not be as obvious as others’, but they are no less sins.
Only you truly know what God has redeemed you from—a dramatic betrayal, a hidden addiction, habitual lying, a toxic past, jealousy, crude language… When we accept God’s offer for a new life through His Son, He provides a way for us to reject any sin that defines us. Rather, for those who have joined with Christ in baptism, we take on a new name, a new identity, a fully redeemed life. He welcomes us to begin anew.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1Jn 1:9)
No matter what our physical or spiritual age, we mess up while living out that new life in Christ. We can rejoice greatly that God provided the perfect sacrifice of His Son’s blood to wash us clean anew, ushering us into a new day, whose mercies are new every morning (Lam 3:23).
Does that mean that we can dance back and forth between darkness and light, sin and righteousness, lies and truth? No (2Co 6:14-16)! At the beginning of Romans 6, Paul says, “By no means!” Once we have died to sin, once we have come to know the light, once we have walked in the truth, we cannot be tempted to relish in its falsely advertised, temporary, and empty “satisfaction.”
Now, before you beat yourself up about how many times today you have already acted like the “old self” instead of the one made new in Christ, I want to share these two promises:
Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. (Heb 10:22)
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Ac 2:38)
Ladies, God knew that we could not do this new life on our own! God gave us the Holy Spirit, a part of Himself through which we truly can live as a new creation in Christ.
What will it look like for you today to live as a new creation in Christ?