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FROM CHAPTER SIX: BORN AGAIN - A NEW HEART
The
New Life
Being
born again begins a new life. Indeed, newness is its defining
characteristic. It is most dramatically experienced and celebrated
by those who
thought their lives were irredeemably lost, whether
prisoners incarcerated for brutal crimes or a slave trader
like John Newton author of "Amazing Grace." The image
of being "born again," born of the grace and Spirit
of God, is full of hope, of new beginning in the midst of what
seems like ending.
Always grace and rebirth are possible.
And
it is entry into a different kind of life. Dying and rising
has consequences. It does not leave us unchanged. It is a transformation
that begins a process of continuing transformation sometimes
called "sanctification." The New Testament constantly
speaks of the new life. As it does so, it is both rhapsodic
and realistic. Its realistic treatment can be attested by the
fact that the gospels, letters, and book of Revelation all
offer explicit or implicit evidence of problems in early Christian
communities.
But
it is the rhapsodic aspect that I wish to highlight: what the
new life is like. It is enormously attractive. It is the life
of reconnection with God. It is the life of the returned prodigal,
welcomed home from exile; the life of the healed demoniac,
restored to his right mind and to community; the life of the
bent woman, standing up and restored to health; the life of
the woman of the city, redeemed by her love, the life of Lazarus,
raised from the dead.
Paul
speaks of the new life "in Christ" in the most extraordinary
terms. It is marked by freedom, joy, peace, and love, four
of his favorite words: freedom from the voices of all the would-be
lords of our lives; the joy of the exuberant life; the peace
of reconnection to what is, the peace that passes all understanding;
and love--the love of God for us and the love of God in us. 28
Paul
and the other authors of the New Testament consistently see
these qualities as the "fruits" of the Spirit, as "gifts" of
the Spirit. They are the fruit not of human striving, but of
a new identity and new way of being--the fruit, the product,
of centering one's life in God, in the Spirit.
Paul's
most famous description of the new life is found in 1 Corinthians
13, often called Paul's "hymn to love." Its context
between chapters 12 and 14 makes the connection to "the
gifts of the Spirit" explicit. These gifts include prophecy,
wisdom, healing, speaking in tongues, and the interpretation
of tongues. Then in chapter 13, unfortunately often read in
isolation from its context, Paul says about love in relation
to the other gifts of the Spirit:
If
I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do
not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries
and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove
mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give
away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so
that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 29
The
affirmation sounds again at the end of the chapter in Paul's
memorable triad of faith, hope, and love: "And now faith,
hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of
these is love." For Paul, love is the primary gift
of the Spirit, indeed the definitive gift.
The
same is true for Jesus. For
Jesus, the primary quality of a life centered in God is compassion. When Jesus sums up theology
and ethics in a few words, he says: "Be compassionate
as God is compassionate." 30 Where
Paul uses the word "love," Jesus uses the word "compassion." The associations
of the word in Aramaic and Hebrew are strikingly evocative:
to be compassionate is to be "womblike":
life-giving, nourishing, embracing. So God is; so we are to
be.
Thus
growth in love, growth in compassion, is the primary quality
of life in the Spirit. It is also the primary criterion for
distinguishing a genuine born-again experience from one that
only appears to be one.
It
is the pragmatic tests suggested by William James, quoting
Jesus: "By their fruits you shall know them." The
fruit is love. Indeed, such fruit is the purpose of Christian
life.
FOOTNOTES
28 For
an exceptionally clear exposition of Paul's vision of the
Christian life as marked by freedom, joy, peace, and love,
see Robin Scroggs, Paul for a New Day (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1977), pp. 21-38.
29 I
Cor. 13:1-3.
30 Luke
6:36. Though most English translations of Luke 6:36 use the
word "mercy," the context in Luke points to "compassion" as
a better translation. "Mercy" in English suggests
a situation of wrongdoing: we can show mercy toward those
who have wronged us. But the context in Luke suggests generosity:
love your enemies, do good, lend without expectation of return.
Excerpts
from The Heart of Christianity ©2003 by Marcus
J. Borg are used with permission from HarperSanFrancisco, a
division of HarperCollins Publishers.
To
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Heart of Christianity,visit
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