We end week number 500 on the podcast today, and we end it with a sharp Bible question

from a listener named Derek, who lives in Seattle.

Pastor John, hello.

I have a Bible question for you about the new birth.

Peter wrote that believers are born again not of perishable seed, but of imperishable

through the living and abiding word of God.

That's first Peter 1, 23.

In the gospel of John, Jesus says, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot

enter the kingdom of God, John 3.5.

Can you help me understand the truth that these verses are totally compatible?

Romans 10, 17, and James 1, 21 also mentioned the saving power of the word, heard and implanted,

but surely not in a way that minimizes the work of the Holy Spirit.

The question then follows, how do the Holy Spirit and the Word of God collaborate in the

new birth?

Great question.

Yeah.

Well, let's start by reminding ourselves that the reason we must be born again, however

it happens, the reason we must be born again in order to see the kingdom of God, like

Jesus says, is because by nature, by birth, we are all spiritually dead.

This is the way Paul describes it in Ephesians 2, 4, where he says that even when we were

dead in trespasses, God made us alive in Christ Jesus.

Now, that making the live is the same as the new birth in different language.

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