God gives birth to us

born again

“This is the Word that conceived the new life in you.” 1 Peter 1:25 THE MESSAGE

“You must be born again.” The most commonly used metaphor for salvation for evangelicals. Focus is placed on “our” new birth — you must be born again — forgetting that the whole birthing process for the baby is actually very passive. The brunt of the work, and that is putting it very mildly, is the mother who has accepted the foreign person into her body, accommodated it through widening of hips and stretching of skins, nurtured the parasite for 9 months, and now must spill blood and water to give birth.

The real emphasis of the “born again” metaphor is the love-labor God goes through for us, His bodily transformation (incarnation) and loss of blood (death on the cross and the water and blood gushing out of his side). Salvation is all God’s work. What is up to us is whether we accept this undeserved gift of life. Faith, even when flexing strenuously, is passive.