John 3:3 says we must be born again. A better translation of the Greek would be “born from above” We must then, be born from above, given spiritual birth.

John 3:5-6 says we must be born of water and of spirit to enter the kingdom. Verse six makes it clear that Jesus is talking here about physical and spiritual birth. We are born the first time by water, which is our physical birth. After that, we must have spiritual birth, which is being born again or being born from above.. Some will say the water there refers to Baptism, but from the context, I cannot find that meaning. As he says in verse six, flesh gives birth to flesh and the spirit gives birth to spirit.

When we are born of the spirit we are given a new life, it is not something we have done, but it is something God has done.

This is why the New Testament repeatedly refers to the Gift of Salvation.

You know the familiar verse, John 3:16 and following

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

The reason Jesus came was to save us. God wants to save us, he gave his son so that we could be saved. It is not something God is waiting to see if we can earn, it is something that God has provided for us through Jesus. Salvation has already been bought and paid for by Jesus Christ on the cross, for every human being that will ever live. The reason we go to Hell or are condemned is not based on our sins, but on whether or not we believe God. Verse 18 says if you believe you are not condemned, but if you don’t believe, you are condemned already.

Jesus says it is the one who believes that is saved. I think here, the English does not do the word justice. A more literal translation from the Greek would be “trusting into” him. It is a giving up of one’s own efforts and giving Him complete control.

It is not just a mental assent, like saying “I believe it will rain today because it is cloudy.” It is not even agreeing with the facts. It is more than that. It is trusting that he is who he said he was, that he did what he said he did, and that he can save you, and giving up all your own efforts to do so.

(An aside. The story is told of a hi-wire bicycle rider who was going to ride on a wire over 100 feet up in the air. He asked the audience if they believed he could do it, and everyone said they believed he could. He then asked who would ride across with him, and no one took the offer. That is the difference in “believing” and “believing into”)

As it is written in James 2:19, that the demons believe and tremble. There is a key difference there in the Greek. In James, it simply translates into that they “trust that God is one” and that is a mental agreement that He is. He is saying that they recognize the fact. In John, there is a definite article which changes what the word means. In John the article changes it to “trusting into.” It is much more than agreeing with the facts, it is relying on the facts.

John 1:12 uses the same “trusting into” construction in the Greek.

So believing then, is more than just agreeing. It is more than going down front at church and saying a few words and even letting them dunk you out in the creek or in the baptismal pool. You can do those things, but if you do not “trust into” Him, you are not saved.

If you have not surrendered your life to Him, and have not cast all your hope on Jesus, you are not saved.

Nowhere in scripture does it say to invite Jesus into your heart and make him your Lord and Savior. It might be a good word picture of what happens, but that is not what salvation is. He already is the Lord whether we like it or not. What we do when we get saved is, we surrender to His Lordship. When we surrender to His Lordship, he comes into us and of course brings the Holy Spirit into us too. When this happens from our hearts, then we are saved.

This is what being born from above is.

We are “the lord of our life, the ruler of our life” when we are born into the world physically. To be born from above means to surrender our own lordship and submit to his lordship.

Romans 10:9-10 says

9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

People have over-spiritualized these verses, and made them into something that they are not. This does not mean that we have some magical power in our tongues.

To confess with your mouth simply means that you make the statement as a reflection of your heart. If you hear me talk a certain way day after day you will make certain assumptions, because what I speak is what I am confessing with my mouth.

Robertson McQuilken wrote

“To confess the Lord Jesus means therefore to be in agreement with all that Scripture says about Him, which includes all that these two names imply.

Thus, to confess Jesus as Lord includes a heart belief in His deity, incarnation, vicarious atonement and bodily resurrection. No Jew would do this who had not really trusted Christ, for Kurios (Kurio") (LORD) in the LXX (The Greek Old Testament) is used of God. No Gentile would do it who had not ceased worshipping the emperor as Kurios (Kurio"). The word Kurios (Kurio") was and is the touchstone of faith.”

The Lordship of Christ then is the real issue.

When we make him Lord of our lives (though he is already Lord, we don’t “make” him anything), he (Jesus) becomes our authority. When we do this, we are saying that we believe what the scriptures say about him and we are giving ourselves to him. From that point on we belong to Him.

This is true salvation, it is a surrender of ourselves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

When we “trust into” Him by surrendering and putting ourselves under his authority, we are then born from above. Adam and Eve rebelled in the Garden of Eden. Since that time we as humans have been in rebellion against God. Being saved the, or trusting into Christ, is a surrender, a stopping of the rebellion.

We must give up. It is a total , unconditional surrender. Meaning that you give up all rights to your live to Him. In war, when a defeated enemy gives an unconditional surrender, the defeated foe and all his possessions become property of the victor. The victor may do as he wishes with the vanquished foe. This is what surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ means.

This is the supernatural thing that happens to us. At that moment, when we turn our allegiance to him, when we surrender, things happen. God puts this new nature inside of us, he fills us with his Holy Spirit, and we are new creatures.

II Cornintians 5:17 says if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone and the new has come.

How do we get IN Christ. We get IN Christ by trusting into him. We surrender our own efforts and trust Him to do what we cannot do. (See Matthew 19:23-26. Basically Jesus was saying it was hard to get into heaven, and the disciples asked, since this is the case, who can be saved? Jesus said, “with man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”)

When we do this, we become a new creature. This new creature is the creation of God, it is God’s own possession, it is HIS workmanship. (See Phillipians 1:6, Ephesians 2:10:

We sometimes do not act like we are new creatures, when we go back to the old ways and get into sin and all that. See Romans Chapter 7 where Paul struggles with this very thing. Still, we are new creatures. We have been given a new nature by God, and this is something that I do not believe can be changed.

Consider how this happened. Ephesians 2 starts out saying we were dead in our transgressions and sins. 2:5 says that even in this condition God MADE US ALIVE together with Christ. 2:6 says we have been seated with Christ in heavenly realms. 2:8 says it is by grace we have been saved through faith. And this is not from yourselves.

It plainly says salvation is the gift and work of God, it is not something from ourselves.

How do we enter into this relationship?

We enter it by faith. Throughout scripture we are told we are saved by grace through faith. Faith then is the vehicle by which Grace operates.

Faith is acting on a promise as though you already had the reality.

Our faith should be in God. Our faith should be in Jesus Christ to save us. My faith is not in myself. I know I cannot save myself, therefore only Christ can save me. That is my faith. Since he has promised me this gift, I also believe he will not take it away.

After salvation, then what?

In Galatians 3 Paul contrasts faith or observing the law. The Jews had gotten saved by faith, and were then wanting to go back to being under the law as a way to righteousness. Paul argues with them about the futility of such a thing.

Galatians 3:2 Paul asks them if they received the spirit by the law or by believing? He was obviously expecting them to answer that they received it by believing --- “trusting into” He pretty much repeats his question in 3:5, but this time adds the working of miracles among you,.

Verse 11 I think is very significant, it says, no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith.

We are saved then by faith in Jesus Christ.

Shall we then stay saved by works? This defies logic.

Colossians 2:6 says…just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him.

We received Christ by “trusting into” him, and by faith… Paul says we should continue to live in Him by faith … not by works

Salvation then is a gift. It is not a gift with strings attached. If it were something that God might decide to take away if we were not good enough, what kind of God would he be?

We know that God is just.

It is a bit scary though to live by faith and not by sight.

If we trust totally in God and not in ourselves, we have nothing to point to, to prove that we are worthy.

As it is written “the just will live by faith.”