Q. How would you respond to someone who asked whether Jesus was born again? If he wasn’t, what about his statement, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”?
(What does it mean to be born again? And what is “circumcision of the heart,” which Paul speaks of in Romans? How would you respond to someone who asked whether Jesus was circumcised of the heart?)
If we think of being “born again” as having a certain experience, then Jesus was not “born again” in that sense, but that is only because he did not need to have that experience. We should think instead of being “born again” as entering into a certain kind of relationship with God, and Jesus was always in that kind of relationship with God throughout his life.
Specifically, when people realize that they have sinned against God and that this has made them alienated from God, and when they are sorry for their sins and ask forgiveness, God not only forgives them but also gives them a new life. The Holy Spirit comes to live inside of them and gives them the power to resist sin and live in the way that God wants. They are no longer in a situation where they are powerless to keep from sinning. (See this post for a fuller discussion.) This is what it means to be “born again.”
But Jesus did not sin, and he was not alienated from God, so he did not have to go through that process in order to be in the kind of relationship with God that results from the process. So he was not “born again” in the sense of the process, but he was “born again” in the sense of the result. In addition, that Greek expression can also be translated “born from above” (perhaps it is even meant to have both meanings). And Jesus certainly was “born from above.” In a mysterious way that we do not understand, which the Bible itself describes in figurative language, Jesus’ mother Mary was enable to conceive as a virgin and the true father of Jesus was God. So Jesus was indeed “born from above,” and the Greek phrase that is also translated “born again” definitely applies to him.
When Paul speaks in Romans of “circumcision of the heart,” he is describing the same process and result that Jesus was describing when he spoke of being “born again” or “born from above.” Paul says that “circumcision of the heart” is “by the Spirit, not by the written code.” In other words, it is not physical circumcision as prescribed by the law of Moses. It is something that the Holy Spirit brings about inside of us. Just as physical circumcision indicated membership in the covenant community under the law of Moses, so this spiritual circumcision shows that a person belongs to the new covenant community that God inaugurated with the coming of Jesus.
In other words, a person who has been “born again” has also experienced “circumcision of the heart.” So the same things I said about Jesus in the first case would apply in the second case. He was always in the relationship with God that would result from the process that can be described with either phrase.
Good Question 