One question that is often asked is how does a person know if he or she—or possibly even a family member, neighbor, acquaintance, or stranger—is born again or not?
To pose the question is to assume that an answer is available, even though in some instances there are those who cry out in vehement anger that no one can truly know, especially when the answer does not meet their expectation.
“Judge not that ye be not judged” or “Only God truly knows what is in a person’s heart” are typical rebuttals, both of which deny God’s revelation on the subject.
As mentioned previously, Jesus described being born again as something akin to the wind blowing; you hear it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going (Jn. 3:8).
In other words, we hear and see the results of the wind blowing, but that is about it.
But, such a revelation does not necessarily answer our question, nor does it reveal what the Bible explains elsewhere about being born from above.
In 1 John 5:13 we read the following: “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life.”
Eternal life is synonymous with being born again.
Of course, the question then becomes, what things has John written about that would lead anyone to such an assurance?
Rather than repeating the whole of John’s letter, John gives the reader a snapshot of it in the succeeding verses, starting at verse 18, where he wrote, “We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him and the evil one does not touch him.”
One clear indication that a person is born again is the change of life the individual undergoes; no longer is lawless rebellion against God seen as an everyday, acceptable habit.
Lying, cheating, and stealing, amid a plethora of other lawless, immoral, or unethical acts or behaviors, are viewed with growing contempt or righteous indignation.
It is not that the Christian does not sin at all (Rom. 7:18-ff.), but that the Christian recognizes sin, as sin, and refrains—so far as possible, as the Christian matures—from actively embracing it as normal and acceptable behavior.
This does not mean that being born again is the byproduct of self-effort at sinless perfection.
Instead, it means that spiritual rebirth unto maturity is a long process.
Secondly, the person who is born again recognizes his spiritual identity as coming strictly from God and because of that God secures or preserves the Christian from being stolen away from God by “the evil one” or Satan himself.
In today’s world of religiosity, too many who claim to be Christians have no idea what salvation is about, where it comes from, or how it is maintained.
They falsely assume that it is about them, their decision to “accept Jesus,” and hopefully they do not do too many stupid things, or certain egregious things, to foil their hopeful trip to heaven one day when they die.
Unfortunately, such assumptions are rife with personal doubt, if not simply misguided, erroneous, or careless thoughts about their personal salvation.
John continued in verse 19, “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”
This is similar to what the Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:2, where he mentioned that group of born again believers as formerly living lives according to (1) the standard of the world, which is in abject rebellion against God, and (2) the standard of the prince of the power of the air, who compels human beings to habitually act as “sons [and daughters] of disobedience.”
In John’s statement, the world “lies in the evil one” or is literally at rest, or at ease, or is conditioned by what the devil compels it to do.
A person who is born again does not fit in with the worldly crowd or its “lifestyles,” but is at unrest, unease, or unconditioned by what comes natural to the degenerate world or what the Apostle Paul would label as “works of the flesh” (Gal. 5:19-ff.).
Again, it is not that Christians do not occasionally stumble and fall into sin; it is that the Christian recognizes such stumbling and falling as anomalies or what is uncharacteristic of what it means to be a child of God.
Active, regular, persistent—if not consistent—acceptance and participation in sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, drug abuse and/or involvement in the occult, hatred, strife, jealousy, anger and/or lust, selfish ambition, religious heresy, envying, drunkenness, carousing, “and things like these,” are all clear indications that a person is not born again.
Hence, for those who believe that it is not the Christian thing to do to “judge” such things, they are not only acting hypocritically by acts as judges themselves, but they clearly do not have a grasp of what God has revealed about being born again that forms the bases for arriving at the conclusion that some people are not born again.
Let us stop here with verse 19, since the following verses have much to say concerning how to know whether a person is born again; I’ll pick that up in the next blog article.
For now, though, let us summarize by stating that a person can know if he or she is born again by (1) recognizing that leading a life of habitual sin is not indicative of a person who is born again, and, (2) acknowledging the source and security of salvation as being only in the person of God Himself is indicative of a person who is born again.
