16 Bible Verses About Being Born Again

Ezekiel 36:26

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

Reflection: God tells Ezekiel to speak to the Israelites (verse 22), and promises to gather them from the nations and bring them back to their own land (verse 24). Before the new heart comes clean water: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean” (verse 25). Verse 27 continues, “And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” Water and Spirit appear together in these verses, as they do in John 3:5.

John 3:3

“Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’”

Reflection: Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish ruling council, comes to Jesus at night and calls him a teacher from God. Jesus answers with this sentence. The Greek word translated “again”, anothen, can also mean “from above”, which is how John uses it in John 3:31: “The one who comes from above is above all.” Nicodemus hears only “a second time” and asks whether anyone can enter a second time into their mother’s womb (John 3:4).

John 3:5-6

“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.’”

Reflection: Jesus restates his first answer: “enter” replaces “see”, and “born of water and the Spirit” replaces “born again”. Verse 8 compares the Spirit to the wind, heard but not traced: “So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” When Nicodemus asks “How can this be?”, Jesus replies that as “Israel’s teacher” he should understand these things (John 3:9-10).

John 1:12-13

“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”

Reflection: The opening of John’s Gospel sets this against the verse before: “his own did not receive him.” Those who did receive him and believed in his name are given “the right to become children of God”. Verse 13 names three things this birth does not come from, natural descent, human decision and a husband’s will, and then the one it does: “born of God”.

1 Peter 1:3

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,”

Reflection: Peter writes to “exiles scattered throughout” five provinces (1 Peter 1:1) and opens his letter with praise. The new birth is “into a living hope” and rests on the resurrection of Jesus; verse 4 adds “an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade”, kept in heaven. The Greek verb for giving new birth, anagennao, appears in the New Testament only here and in 1 Peter 1:23.

1 Peter 1:23

“For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.”

Reflection: Peter calls the seed of the new birth imperishable, and says the birth comes “through the living and enduring word of God”. The next two verses set people who “are like grass” against “the word of the Lord endures forever”, and Peter adds, “this is the word that was preached to you.” The verse before draws the consequence, “love one another deeply, from the heart”, and the next chapter continues the picture: “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk” (1 Peter 2:2).

James 1:18

“He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.”

Reflection: James writes to “the twelve tribes scattered among the nations” (James 1:1). The verse before calls every good and perfect gift “from above”, the same Greek word Jesus uses with Nicodemus, coming from a Father “who does not change like shifting shadows”. Verse 18 goes on to what this Father has done: he chose to give birth “through the word of truth”, making those born this way “a kind of firstfruits of all he created”.

Titus 3:5

“he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,”

Reflection: Paul writes to Titus, whom he left in Crete to appoint elders (Titus 1:5). Verse 3 lists what “we too” once were, “foolish, disobedient, deceived”, and verse 5 says God saved them because of his mercy, not their righteous acts, and then poured out the Holy Spirit on them “generously” (verse 6). The Greek word for rebirth, palingenesia, is also used at Matthew 19:28, where the NIV translates it “the renewal of all things”.

Ephesians 2:4-5

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”

Reflection: The first three verses of the chapter describe the readers as “dead in your transgressions and sins” and “by nature deserving of wrath”. Against that, God “made us alive with Christ”, and verse 6 adds that he “raised us up” and seated us with him in the heavenly realms. Paul repeats “it is by grace you have been saved” in verse 8, and verse 10 calls believers “God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works”.

Romans 6:4

“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.”

Reflection: Paul is answering a question he raises in verse 1: “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” His answer points to baptism: those baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death and buried with him, so that as Christ was raised they might “live a new life”. Verse 5 looks further ahead: “we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

2 Corinthians 5:17

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

Reflection: Paul has just written that Christ “died for all”, so that “those who live should no longer live for themselves” (verse 15), and that he no longer regards anyone “from a worldly point of view” (verse 16). The NIV reads “the new creation has come”; the King James Version reads “he is a new creature”. Verse 18 names the source of the change: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ.”

Ephesians 4:22-24

“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Reflection: Paul reminds the Ephesians of what they were taught when they “heard about Christ” (verse 21): put off the old self, be made new in the attitude of their minds, and put on the new self, “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness”. The verses that follow turn the new self into instructions: speak truthfully, do not let the sun go down while still angry, and stop stealing (Ephesians 4:25-28).

1 John 5:1

“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.”

Reflection: John names belief as a mark of new birth: whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. In the same sentence he adds love for God’s other children, and verse 2 says that love shows in “loving God and carrying out his commands”.

1 John 4:7

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”

Reflection: The command to love one another rests on where love comes from: “love comes from God.” Anyone who loves has been born of God and knows God, and verse 8 states the reverse: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

1 John 3:9

“No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.”

Reflection: John’s test in this chapter is conduct: someone born of God will not continue to sin, because “God’s seed remains in them”. Verse 10 draws the line in the same terms: anyone who does not do what is right, or does not love a brother or sister, “is not God’s child”. Earlier in the letter John writes, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves” (1 John 1:8), and “if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father” (1 John 2:1).

1 John 5:4

“for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”

Reflection: Everyone born of God “overcomes the world”, and John names what does the overcoming: “our faith”. Verse 5 says who overcomes: “Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.” The verse just before says God’s commands “are not burdensome”.