How Do We Know?

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him...Yet to all who received 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 (Jn.1:10 & 12).

How do we know if we have been "born of God," or "born again," in the words of Jesus to Nicodemus?  If we have been baptized, either as infants or as adults, the church tells us that we have been born again of water and of the Holy Spirit.  But I wonder how many people feel, or experience, the truth that they have been born again, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, according to the letter of St. Peter to the Church (1 Pet. 1:23).

How do we know that we are indeed children of the Living God, the Eternal Father of heaven and earth?  He is holy -- but we seldom if ever experience that we ourselves are holy.  In fact, the opposite is most often true.  St. Paul tells us in Romans 7, I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do ---this I keep on doing....it is sin living in me that does it....in my mind I am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

I think most of us can identify with Paul's experience, so it is hard to see ourselves as "children of God."  But St. Peter, along with St. Paul and St. John, has the answer for us.  Peter tells us to "grow up in (our) salvation," because (we) are a "people belonging to God, that (we) might declare the praises of Him who called (us) out of darkness into his wonderful light."  St. Peter further adds in his second letter: His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

This is the entire Gospel message:  Through Jesus Christ, we have been redeemed from slavery to the sin nature (as the Israelites were redeemed from Egypt) and set free to full and intimately participate in the divine nature of God.  Indeed, Paul tells us in Romans that "the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit."  I used to wonder about that passage: did it mean that we now have love for God, where we did not formerly have it, or did it mean that God's own love for the world was given to us by the Spirit?  I no longer wonder; it is clear that both meanings are experienced by those who have been "born again" according to the nature and Spirit of God.

What then of the sin nature that seems to rule our lives and that makes us so unlike the Spirit of the Lord?  Reading the first letter of St. John and the 8th chapter of Romans sheds light on our experience.  John tells us that if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, God's Son, purifies us from every sin.  John acknowledges that sin dwells in us, but that is not the final answer.  Rather, Jesus purifies us from all unrighteousness: He appeared so that he might take away our sins...No one who lives in him keeps on sinning....The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work (2 Jn. 3:8).  John goes on to tell us that "in this world we are like him....for everyone born of God has overcome the world (1 Jn. 4:17 & 5:4).  

Returning to Romans 8, we find the same theme in Paul, who has just lamented his sin nature in Romans 7:  But now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death....The mind of the sinful man is death; but the mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace.

So this is how we KNOW that we have been born again -- we do not "continue" sinning, because even though we find sin in ourselves according to our old (sin) nature, it no longer controls us.  We do not continue to sin as do those who have not yet been born of God.  For if we confess our sin (1 JN), the Spirit of Jesus in us overcomes that sin and "remits," or sends it away.  We never come to the end of our sin nature, but the perfection of Jesus Christ continues to purify us from every sin as it appears in us.  He does not simply "tell" us to obey His commands; His Spirit in us continues to create in us that NEW Man, created in the Image and Likeness of the Father.  Alleluia! Amen! So be it now and forever!