Before going on, there is a need to mention the other side of this spiritual situation. At the same time as we are children of God through the experience of the new birth, the Bible tells us we are God's children through what is often thought of as a legal process. Since Jesus Christ is the Son of God, we are God's children through a binding legal contract of union with Jesus. This is the part of our salvation that Paul talks about very often early in his letter to the Romans, and it is not to be confused with our personal experience with God's Holy Spirit in the new birth or with the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives after that.

For future reference, here are a few words about our legal association with Jesus Christ: Because of our faith in Jesus, and our acceptance of his atoning work on the Cross, God has made the decision in his own court room in heaven that we are now united to Christ. This is a distinct topic of discussion in the Bible that we will take up later.

For now it is important to know what part of our relationship to God is initiated in time by God through the direct action of his Spirit on the human heart. This is what Jesus referred to as the new birth. As seen before, it is a spiritual experience with God that gives a person the capacity to see and enter the kingdom of God. When we talk later about the qualifications for entering Christ's kingdom, we will talk not only about the new birth experience, but also about the legal aspect of God's salvation plan. At that time it will be important to separate out, to whatever extent possible, the experience that prepares us for fellowship with God and the binding contract that allows us to enter God's kingdom.

John included both aspects in the first chapter of his gospel. He talked about being born of God as an experience, but he also mentioned that God has given believers the right to be his Children. Those two aspects of our sonship are not entirely separable in Bible study, as though a person could have one without the other, but they are distinct. Seeing that distinction is necessary to understand the emphasis of many Bible verses. Probably Jesus concentrated most on the experience a person has with God, but Paul often concentrated on our legal right to sonship and the legal relationship we have with God through Christ. It will be important for the reader to learn to look at verses of scripture from each perspective, in order to keep from confusing the two issues in his mind. Those who have not learned to do that may misunderstand the writer's arguments that support his main point in a passage or even the main point itself.

For now we are taking up only one side of our relationship to God and his kingdom, what Jesus emphasized in John chapter three, when dealing with the first century Jew, Nicodemus. In the first half of the chapter, Jesus was talking almost entirely about an experience that every person who hopes to enter God's kingdom must have. It is an absolute requirement and without it one cannot even see God's kingdom, let alone enter it. That is true no matter how that kingdom manifests itself now or in the future.

Expressing the effects of the new birth in other ways can help us to grasp its results in our life. Once we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, we are brought into an intimate relationship of love with him. Because of that bond with Christ, the Son of God, we can now call God our own Father.

At this point it is helpful to present other verses from the New Testament that speak of the new kind of "birth", from God's Holy Spirit. The first verse listed contrasts people who have only a fleshly birth with those who also have a spiritual "birth":

Gal. 4:28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
Gal. 4:29 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him [that was born] after the Spirit, even so [it is] now.
Gal. 4:30 Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.
Gal. 4:31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.

1 Pet. 1:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

In accomplishing the new birth, the Holy Spirit uses what Jesus Christ taught, his Word. This harmonizes perfectly with what we have learned from Jesus in John 3.

1 John 2:29 If ye know that [Jesus Christ] is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness has been born of him.

No person can do what is righteous in God's sight before he is born of God.

1 John 3:9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
1 John 5:18 We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.

In the original language, present tense, indicative mood indicates something that goes on continually. Here it is negated, to show that for a person who is born of God, sin is not his habitual way of coping with life. He is not so self-centered and self-absorbed that he thinks of himself and his desires before he thinks of God's order of things, his natural order that is observable and what is not seen but was revealed for man through Jesus Christ.

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

A persistence in loving one another is the result of a spiritual birth. On the other hand are people who belong to a church but seem to hate other members of it. That may very well indicate they are not born of God.

1 John 5:1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.

Those who are born of God believe that Jesus is the Christ.

1 John 5:4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, [even] our faith.


The reader should now be able to see how Bible speakers and writers used analogies from this world to infer something about God's world. To understand that even better, the reader should keep on trying to understand the use of analogy in human thought. Without that ability, we would have no way to explore the unknown. We would remain stuck on what we can immediately sense with our eyes and ears.

Study the familiar analogies used in the secular world as well. Think about the operation of a computer, which is comparable to the operation of the human brain. A computer and a brain look nothing alike, but the functions of the one resemble the functions of the other. We constantly speak of computer "memory", yet that similarity extends only to the function of storing information.

One interesting example was the MONIAC, an analog computer that used the flow of water in its pipes as an analog to the flow of money in an economy.

In testing people for their ability to use analogies, problems like the following are often included: "The hand is to the palm as the foot is to _____?"

A common example in biology is the wings of a bird and the wings of an insect. The two have little in common except their use. Biologists emphasize the differences, rather than similarities.

The philosopher, Kant, argued that exactly the same relations can exist in two completely different objects. If so, each would be perfectly analogous to the other.

How necessary to and prevalent in all human reasoning is the use of analogy? Can humans even think without that skill? We use analogy constantly to understand the universe we live in, even when we are unaware of our method. I tend to agree with Douglas Hofstadter that analogy occurs not only after, but also before and at the same time as high-level perception. "In high-level perception, humans make representations by selecting relevant information from low-level stimuli. Perception is necessary for analogy, but analogy is also necessary for high-level perception."

That quotation and many of the examples on this page are found here.

A thorough study of the human use of analogy, both in secular writing and in the Bible, will help teachers understand what it means to be born of Spirit, born of God. The main thing to remember, however, is that this is not just an idea. It is an experience one must have with the Holy Spirit, an experience that will prepare him to enter and participate in God's kingdom.