We believe and confess being born again is the regeneration of life, endowing us with a holy spiritual disposition and attitude; it encompasses the entire character: intellect, emotion, and will. Therefore, every sinner, in order to become a believer, must be born again.
John 3:7 “You must be born again.”
By his own power, man cannot be born again; he cannot change himself.
Jeremiah 13:23 “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are practiced in evil.”
John 15:5 “apart from me you can do nothing.”
Without being born again, all attempts to do good deeds that God might reward on the Day of Judgment, or to live according to God's will, are failures and can produce no good results. Through natural birth, we inherit a sinful nature that produces the fruits of sin. We are like a wild tree that cannot bear good fruit. Only grafting can change the nature.
Matthew 7:16-18 “…a bad tree cannot bear good fruit…”
Romans 8:7 “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.”
Matthew 12:34 “How can you speak good, when you are evil…?”
Being born again is the divine work that God performs in the life of the sinner to conform to His will. For a sinner to be born again, he must repent and believe, that is, receive salvation by grace. Then God performs the work of the new birth through His Word and the Holy Spirit.
1 Peter 1:23 “…you have been born again… through the living and abiding word of God.”
James 1:18 “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth…”
John 3:5 “…unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
Ephesians 2:10 “For we are his workmanship…”
Being born again is not an improvement of life, but a radical change of life. It is not the changing of the effect, but of the determining cause; it is not the cleansing of the outer life, but of the inner life.
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
Romans 6:4 “…we too might walk in newness of life.”
Colossians 3:9-10 “…seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self…”
Being born again gives us the status of children of God; it makes us partakers of the divine nature, capable of living according to the will of God. It is the second nature in our life, just as in grafting, the wild stock is not destroyed, it continues to exist but is not allowed to express itself, so it is with the new birth: the old nature is crucified (rendered powerless to act), and the new nature grows and bears good fruit. The quality of the graft is completely different from that of the wild stock: in the essence of the wood, in the leaves, and in the fruit. So it is with the one born again: everything must demonstrate his quality as a child of God.
John 3:6 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…”
Matthew 7:17 “So, every good tree bears good fruit…”
Through the new birth, we become heirs of God. The right to eternal inheritance is based on our kinship with God. Whoever is not born again is not a child of God and has no right to the eternal inheritance.
Romans 8:17 “and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ…”
John 3:3 “…unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”