why we must be {re}born

So in my last post, I discussed the relationship between Adam & Jesus Christ. I sought to explain part of the nature of our redemption, that can easily be overlooked. I would like to follow that up by explaining the necessity for rebirth, something Nicodemus (ref. John 3) found very puzzling.

Let me try to unpack some of the Hebrew culturally intuited understanding surrounding this question would have been. Coming from a culture centered on individualism, we will need to think outside our normal box of understanding. It is hard for us to think as a group and to understand history & heritage as a completely integrated & unified aspect of culture.

For the Israelite, being an Israelite is tied to the event of Jacob wrestling with the angel and being renamed Israel. This is radically profound, their total identity, by what they name themselves as, is tied up with their ancestral history.

{Just as a simple contrast, our USA heritage is tied up in being bad-aces, rebels, lone rangers on the frontier. Instead of Jacob we have James Dean or John Wayne as a culture icon of our history. Instead of radical obedience to God, it is radical rebellion against the man.}

Lineage is very important in both the Old and New Testaments. Matthew opens his gospel account with a description of Christ’s ancestry. This isn’t done just for completeness; Matthew includes this because it is important, to him and the culture.

So what does this have to do with our Adam-Christ connection.

Well first off, it would be understood by the Israelites, that Adam is the father of all. We are all his children. This is absolutely important to understand. They didn’t think that this was just some foggy myth, rather this was true history about their family history.

This is important to us because of birth rights. Birth rights are passed down through the family from father to first born son each generation. The father passes on to his child the estate, everything he has been able to build up over his lifetime. Unfortunately for Israel, and for us, Adam’s claim to fame isn’t a top 40 pop song or massive wealth but rather that he sinned and that that sin would be passed onto all further generations.

So when God looks down upon the Earth to judge the living and the dead, Adam is found to be our representative for all mankind, because he is the head of the entire human race. We can see that Adam isn’t going to be able to do a good job representing us before God.

Many might want to scoff at having Adam as their representative; that’s fine choose who you like instead.

This is where Christ comes along. He is offering us the option of being {re}born into a new family line. This isn’t like reincarnation, you aren’t being reborn in flesh and bones of the same (or even a different) type. Instead you are being born into spirit; something that is qualitatively different.

This thought is the origin of so much language in the Bible about family. Romans 8 speaks of being adopted in this family of God. Jesus speaks of having a new family of those who believe and follow God, in Luke 12. Also the bride/bridegroom language also fits into this. Marriage in described as two becoming one flesh. In marriage it is the bride who takes on the family name of the groom. We are to take on Christ’s name, become part of his family.

In Conclusion

What Christ is doing, at least in part, is to create a new human lineage—one that is Spirit filled. This is why Christ so strangely tells Nicodemus that he must die to his old ancestry so that he can, through faith, be born once more, this time into a spirit filled body—the death giving sinful body in given up so as to be cast into a new life filled body of the Spirit. Christ’s action on the cross most fully expresses this transformation.