Eleven Evidences of the New Birth

I am writing because you are true believers, but there are deceivers in your midst, and I want you to be rock-solid confident in your present possession of eternal life as regenerate children of God, so that you are not drawn away after sin. And if this letter has that effect my joy will be complete. So at the heart of his reason for writing is the desire to help them know they are born again—that they now have new spiritual life. Eternal life.

1. Those who are born of God keep his commandments.

1   John   2:3–4:   “By   this   we   know   that   we   have   come   to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar,and the truth is not in him.”

1 John 3:24: “Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him.”

2. Those who are born of God walk as Christ walked.

1 John 2:5–6: “By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the sameway in which he walked.”

3. Those who are born of God don’t hate others but love them.

1 John 2:9: “Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.”

1 John 3:14: “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.”

1 John 4:7–8: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and
knows   God.   Anyone   who   does   not   love   does   not   know God, because God is love.”

1 John 4:20: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar.”

4. Those who are born of God don’t love the world.

1   John   2:15:   “If   anyone   loves   the   world,   the   love   of   the Father is not in him.”

5. Those who are born of God confess the Son and receive (have) him.

1 John 2:23: “No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.”

1 John 4:15: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.”

1 John 5:12: “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

6. Those who are born of God practice righteousness.

1 John 2:29: “If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.”

7. Those who are born of God don’t make a practice of sinning.

1 John 3:6: “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no   one   who   keeps   on   sinning   has   either   seen   him   or known him.”

1 John 3:9–10: “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”

1 John 5:18: “We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.”

8. Those who are born of God possess the Spirit of God.

1 John 3:24: “By this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.”

1 John 4:13: “By this we know that we abide in him and he  in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.”

9. Those who are born of God listen submissively to the apostolic Word.

1   John   4:6:   “We   are   from   God.   Whoever   knows   God  listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to  us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of  error.”

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

1 John 5:1: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.”

11. Those who are born of God overcome the world.

1 John 5:4: “Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.”

A Warning

Notice three things John says to protect us from misunderstanding:

1) Those who seemed to be born again and forsook the faith never were born again—they never were of us. “They went out from us, but they were not of us.” In other words, the explanation is not that they lost their new birth. They never had it.

2)  Those who are truly born again (who are “of  us”)  will persevere to the end in faith. Verse 19: “If they had been of us, they would have continued with us.” Endurance is not the cause of the new birth. The new birth is the cause of endurance, and endurance   is   the   evidence   of   new   birth.

3)  God often makes plain who the false Christians are in the church by their eventual rejection of the truth and the people of God. Verse 19: “They went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” It became plain. So today it often becomes plain who are “of us.” You recall that one of the tests of life in 1 John 4:6 was that those who truly know God listen to the apostolic teaching. They love it, and they cling to it. “Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us.” These people listened for a while. The seed of the word sprang up, perhaps even with joy (Luke 8:13), and it looked as though they were truly born again. But then hard times came and the cares and riches and pleasures of life swept them away, and they showed that they had never been born again.

John Piper, Finally Alive