Let me settle something tonight that a lot of religious people have never settled: how does a sinner actually become a child of God? Not how you join a church: how you get born into the family of God. Listen to how John says it, and listen to what he rules out:
“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12–13, KJV)
“Power to become”: a right you are given, not a wage you earn
That word “power” is exousia: it means a granted right, a legal standing, an authority handed to you. God gives the believer the right to stand before Him as an accepted, beloved child. Now hear me, child of God: you cannot earn that right. Not by good behavior, not by religious works, not by the water of baptism, not by whose family you were born into. Christ gives it, and He gives it “to them that believe on his name.”
Born “of God”, and John tells you what it is not
And where does this birth come from? John is careful to slam three doors shut. “Not of blood”: it does not come down through your ancestry; you are not saved because your parents were saved. “Not of the will of the flesh”: it does not come from your own effort, your discipline, your best try. “Not of the will of man”: no pastor, no priest, no church, no ceremony has the power to birth you into God. It is “of God.” The new birth is a supernatural work, start to finish, done by Him.
Faith is the hand that receives, not the price that buys
So what is your part? The Lord Jesus answered that plainly when they asked Him: “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:29). Faith is not a work that purchases salvation, child of God: faith is the empty hand that receives the Saviour. And it is the Son, and only the Son, who brings you home: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). So stop trying to be born again by your bloodline, your effort, or a man’s ritual. Receive Christ, believe on His name, and let God do what only God can do. Glory to God.
Related Teaching
The Gospel, Stated Plainly
Everything I teach on this site rests on one message from Scripture. Read it in God’s own words from 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, Romans 1:16, and Ephesians 2:8-9.
“And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
2 Corinthians 5:18-21 (KJV)
Watch the teachingNew verse by verse studies go out every week on YouTube, King James Version, with the passage on the screen. Subscribe to The Prevailing Word of God, taught by John Kempf of Melbourne, Florida.