Birth/Rebirth
- Michael Haldas
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
“…for the Fathers, water is not merely water: It is chaos and destruction, the power of floods and tsunamis, and the abode of monsters; and it is also life and regeneration, rebirth in Christ, and even the Holy Spirit, who pours forth like a fountain from the Father…The noetic life that inherits the Kingdom (that which is birthed in us at Baptism) both hears the wind and sees where it comes from. It enters the gates of hell and walks in paradise. It mines the treasures buried in the field of the Scriptures. Inheriting the Kingdom is a patient work of noetic transformation received through the integral life of the Tradition. This is the true abundant life promised in Christ and given through the Spirit in the Church.” (Fr. Joseph Lucas, Father Stephen Freeman)
“How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (John 3:4)….Nicodemus realizes that Christ is referring to changing one’s life, and doing it so dramatically that it is tantamount to a second birth. He is staggered at the difficulty of such a thing…The unseen influence of the Holy Spirit is made evident by certain visible traits: by a person’s words, his wisdom, his love, his courage, and his conduct in the world. In short, such a person becomes somebody he could never before have been. This is the effect of the second birth.” (Matthew the Poor)
“It seems to me that a person’s knowledge of himself and of God is the key to freedom from condemning others. This freedom is given either by grace or as the result of struggle, internal work. And condemnation happens because we on the one hand do not tend towards deep self-knowledge, and on the other haven’t gotten to the level of repentance. Looking into oneself is the beginning of a spiritual process. The conscience gives a person knowledge about himself, and when he sees himself, he sometimes even gets to the point of hating, thinking: “I hate myself like this!”. Yes, you have approached self-knowledge. It’s bitter, but this knowledge may be the most important and significant thing in life, because it is the point of departure for repentance, for the possibility of the rebirth of your nous, for a qualitative change of your relationship to yourself and the whole world, and first of all, to your Creator.” (Archpriest Georgiy Bryeyev)
“The teaching of the faith regarding Personhood requires an acceptance of the connectedness of existence. Human sin tends towards fragmentation, disintegration and a radical individualism. The ultimate individual existence is the one that refuses love. The presence of the “other” is perceived as a burden and limitation. Rebirth in Christ is an entrance into a connected existence – into existence as communion. The “other” is not a burden – it is utterly required for true existence…The legal concept of persons generally considers a living individual to be a “person” by definition. But again, this is not the meaning of Person in the Church’s language. That Personhood is a gift from God, birthed in us but not yet realized. It is the movement of our lives yet to be fulfilled…Also worth noting is the infinite character of this true Personhood. The ego is always limited because it is turned towards itself. Its boundaries must be clearly defined, both to protect it from other egos and to protect other egos from it. But the Person whose content is love inherently reaches out and can ultimately know no limit. It includes all of creation in its embrace.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“The first coming of the Lord was for the re-fashioning and rebirth of our souls, so the second coming will be for the rebirth of our bodies.” (Blessed Theophylact)
“The opposite of death is not life; Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth…In Christ, our death becomes a birth into a new, eternal life. We die with Christ in our baptism in order to enter into the eternal life in Christ. There is no opposite to this life for it is eternal.” (Archimandrite Meletios Webber, Fr. Ted Bobosh)
“Adoption as a child of God is not a matter of ethnic descent (of blood) as it was in the OT; nor are we children of God simply by natural birth (the will of the flesh), nor by man's own decision (the will of man). Becoming a child of God is a spiritual birth by grace, through faith, and in the Holy Spirit…In the new birth, a true mystery takes place. For in the sacrament of baptism, we die, going down into the water to be mystically united to Christ in His death, and we live again, rising up out of the water in His resurrected humanity. In short, we are born again.” (Orthodox Study Bible, John 1:13)
“…if we have been united together in the likeness of His death” (Rom 6:5). We are to be united together in Christ, sharing in His death and His Resurrection....In the original Greek, the phrase united together in Romans 6:5 implies “to be generated with.” It is another way of speaking about the mystery of new birth in the Spirit, about the reality that the Lord Jesus explains to Nicodemus (Jn 3:3-8). Perhaps we might translate this phrase more freely at this point to read: “if we have been regenerated with Christ.” How does this regeneration happen in holy baptism? Christ regenerates us when we unite ourselves to Him. Our choosing and His regenerating are synergistic, a cooperative action we undertake with God.” (Dynamis 5/1/2021)
“Popular New Age thought postulates that everyone has a “god within.” It’s a pleasant way of saying that we’re all special while making “god” to be rather banal. But there is a clear teaching of classical Christianity regarding Christ-within-us…We should not understand our relationship with God to be an “external” matter, as if we were one individual and God another. Our union with God, birthed in us at Holy Baptism, is far more profound. “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him” (1Co 6:17). God does not “help” us in the manner of encouraging us or simply arranging for things to work out. Rather, He is in us, working in union with our work. The mystery of ascesis (the practice of prayer, fasting, self-denial, etc.) only makes true sense in this context.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“…we are to embrace the Lord Jesus’ words and actions completely – to literally fill our minds with His thoughts, words, and deeds. It is imperative for us to emulate the Lord: to desire what He desires and speak in a manner worthy of Him. The Apostle Paul, by using the imagery of rebirth (Galatians. 4:19), directs us to consider what it means when Christ is “born in us.” Our emphasis shifts inward toward our spiritual formation and the interior growth that ultimately produces godly thoughts, actions, choices, and words. How does this inner formation occur? To have Christ formed in us, we must enjoy day-to-day contact with Him and engage in regular personal interaction with the Lord. This Spirit-endowed relationship is very different from a mere rote obedience to a code of rules.” (Dynamis 10/1/2021)
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