Sermon on John 3:1-17 — Being Born Again and Entering God's Kingdom
Lay minister Finn Chirnside delivers a Sunday sermon at SumRed Church on John 3:1-17.
Summary
Finn Chirnside, lay minister at SumRed Church, preaches on John 3:1-17, focusing on two interlocking themes: the kingdom of God and eternal life. He opens by drawing a parallel between the modern transhumanist movement — exemplified by tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson's quest to defeat death through technology — and the ancient human longing to escape mortality, arguing that this longing is itself evidence that humans were not made to die. He then works through Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus, explaining what it means to be "born again" as a holistic transformation from the realm of death into the realm of God's kingdom. He closes by contrasting the transhumanist hope of technological transcendence with the Christian claim that death has already been defeated through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction and Context
Finn Chirnside: Good morning. Half of the room instantly goes, "Oh gosh, he's back. Jeepers." I wasn't meant to be back this soon. I got a text yesterday from Harry saying he's not very well — it's not funny, but he literally can't talk. His throat's busted. So I last-minute got this text, which, for anyone who knows their Bible, they're instantly going, "Oh my gosh, the rabbit hole's there." So this is going to be fun. But I decided to stay with the text because it felt like it was still something good to talk about. So late last night I was just smashing something out, and the poor 9 a.m. service — oh man, that was unlucky for them. They got the dry run. Yes, they really got the dry run.
If we haven't met before, my name is Finn. Is it lay minister? I don't know. I'm not an Anglican yet. I came to faith as a Pentecostal and was a Wesleyan for a while, so I'm still getting my head around the terms. But I'm the lay minister, I think, here, and have been so for about a month now. It's been very, very fun being here — it's a very cool church. It is a bit scary having Rowena in the second row because I know she knows her Bible, so that's freaking me out a little bit. I've got two beautiful little boys who are out in the kids' room, and my wife as well, who is far smarter than me in every single way. So if we haven't met before, please come up and say hi. I'm in the process of remembering names — it's going okay. Anyway. Come Holy Spirit, eh?
Transhumanism and the Human Quest to Defeat Death
If you have spent any time on the internet and you're a male under 40, there is a high chance the algorithm has pointed you to a person called Bryan Johnson. Now I'm not talking about the lead singer of AC/DC. I'm not talking about — for the real Christians — the lead singer of Bethel Music. I'm talking about the millionaire tech entrepreneur who has spent millions and millions of dollars to do one thing: to not die. That's his whole thing. He started a company called Braintree, sold it for millions upon millions, and spent the rest of his life trying to work out whether humans can avoid death. He is basically convinced that with the right tech and the right research, we can make it so that we actually won't die.
He's done some pretty wacky stuff. One of the things he did was get his son's plasma — his 17-year-old son's plasma — and inject it into his own veins. The idea was: can young plasma make you younger? It didn't work, and a lot of the medical community are going, "That's not very smart, is it?" But the thing is, he's become one of the spokespeople for a movement convinced that through the right technology, humans can ascend into this new place where we won't die. This is not a fringe movement — there's literally a Netflix documentary about this guy called Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever.
He's one of the faces of what some of you will know more about than I do — the human enhancement or transhumanist movement. I might be mixing up the terms, but the general idea is this: in order to survive, humans must transcend the purely physical — the fleshy meatbags that we are, who get sick and die — into something fused with technology that enables them to either live longer in their own bodies, becoming increasingly cybernetic, or to completely fuse with technology itself. Elon Musk is an advocate for this — he was talking about transhumanism back in 2017, actually before that — and basically it is this whole idea that somehow through technology we will achieve a newfound level of consciousness that transcends the physical.
But it didn't start with Musk. It actually goes back to the Enlightenment in terms of the ideas behind it. Even H.G. Wells — in War of the Worlds and The Time Machine — explores similar ideas, not overtly, but they're there. Or if you've seen the movie Interstellar — I don't really understand it because I'm not very bright — but basically somehow these humans have transcended time and are reaching back into time to help the humans in the present beat the death that's coming towards them. So the goal for humanity in that vision is this weird transcendence of time itself and mastery over all dimensions.
This movement is genuinely gaining steam. It's not fringe anymore, particularly for young non-religious men under about 40. This is really big. And it will gain more steam as AI companies get more popular and as the AI arms race gets more serious. I'm not here to be a downer — I'm not going, "Oh, the world's coming, AI, blah blah blah." I'm not actually worried about it. But I think we should be aware of it, because it is a genuine eschatology that is coming our way as people who are not religious try to work out what the heck to do with the situation they find themselves in. The basic premise is this: humanity, through technology, can defeat death itself.
Nicodemus, the Kingdom of God, and Eternal Life
Back to John. In our reading, we see Jesus engaging at a pretty high theological level with the leading Bible nerd of the time. His name is Nicodemus. And it's around two key themes: the kingdom of God and eternal life.
In simple-ish terms, the kingdom of God was a term to describe a place or a people where God's will was completely done and lived in complete community with humanity — where God was completely united with humanity. What we see in the story of Scripture is that God designs humanity for community and flourishing, and it is humans who choose to ignore God and go their own way, assuming that we're somehow smarter than the guy who created the brain. So the fundamental problem at the root of all other sins is pride — the arrogance that somehow we're more astute and our judgment is more aware than the Creator's. This is the garden story summed up.
God does not give up on humanity, though. He chooses a people from among the nations who would go on to form a community who were meant to be kings and priests. This is the story of Abraham and the Torah and the earlier parts of the Old Testament. They were to represent God and his way, and to be a little kingdom — like a little Eden — in the middle of the ancient Near East, and then the whole world. Their nation, as we know, was Israel. But the story makes it clear that humans were incapable of trust, and that our hearts actually needed a genuine renewal or rebirth.
So throughout the rest of the Old Testament, the prophets speak of a coming kingdom and a coming king who would rule all people who would come to him, and they would obey him, and there would be trust and justice and mercy and kindness. And ultimately, this king would invite all people to participate in this kingdom forever. So many of the Jewish Bible nerds at the time assumed this kingdom would look like other earthly kingdoms — like David's or Solomon's or Caesar's or Alexander the Great's — with military power and dominance really leading the way. This is partly why the Pharisees would go on to reject Jesus despite all the miracles he performs, because they just had the wrong lens for things.
Ultimately, however, the kingdom of God represents the coming era where God would rule and reign completely on earth with his people — a fulfillment and completion of what we began to see in the Garden of Eden. So when Nicodemus is asking about the kingdom, he's got all of this in the back of his mind. It's just assumed that, like Nicodemus, you know the Old Testament by memory — because he would have. I don't. I'm not that good. But when they say things like that, they're making these assumptions that you've got all this in the back of your brain.
Eternal Life — Zoe Aionios
Before we get to the confusing bit about being born again, let's jump to eternal life as a concept. The way that John uses the phrase "life" is almost interchangeable with how other gospel writers use the phrase "the kingdom of God." The Greek phrase used for eternal life in John is zoe aionios, which actually — to be fair — zoe tended to mean in Greco-Roman culture time that was on this side of death. So it tended to be about this side of death, not post-death life. This led some German scholars in the 1900s — who weren't very smart but thought they were — to come along and say, "See, Jesus didn't say anything about post-death life."
That's not quite what's going on. What is going on is that the invitation of eternal life begins now. It's saying that this is not something you just wait for until you die and then, well, hey, I'm in eternal life. The offer of the gospel is that — and this is why Jesus says "the kingdom of heaven is in your midst" — it actually begins in the lives of believers now. So the life that you long for, the life that you are literally made for, is offered to you now. You can kind of be this walking Eden in the middle of a busted world.
Jesus is the full embodiment of that life. We see that most obviously through his healings and miracles, which are pulling the deathless nature of the kingdom of God into the world. So when he heals people of different ailments, it's actually an eschatological showing of what's coming — but also that somehow it's available now. Not in its fullness, but it is there. And then in his moral teaching — the Sermon on the Mount and different things like that — he's pulling from eternity into now. This is what it actually looks like to live in the kingdom of the heavens, and this is what it will look like.
Whenever he critiques people on greed, whenever he goes and hangs out with the Samaritan woman — which we're kind of like, "Yeah, dude, of course" — but in that context, that's transformation. That's a transformational moment. He's got Genesis, with all humans on the same playing field, in the back of his brain, and he's trying to pull that into the present because that's what's coming.
Christians should be people who live like little gardens of Eden, full of generosity and blessing and life to the world. So if you're new to the church, or if you've had a bad experience with Christians, I don't blame you for getting a little bit snarky right here and going, "I don't know, man, some of the Christians I've met are pretty horrific people." Fair enough. I'll grant you that. It happens. But in genuine love, let me just say to you: in the grand scheme of things, you're wrong.
The Church's Historical Contribution to Human Flourishing
Let me give some historical examples of the church using this eschatological idea and bringing it into the present. The hospital — Christians. Human rights as a concept — Christians. Women's rights — some people are not going to like this one — as a concept, 100% Christian. Homeless shelters — Christian. Orphanages — Christians. Food banks — Christians. Even how we do science and philosophy and education in general — it actually all comes from Christians if you track it back far enough.
The only reason literature like Plato, Socrates, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, and Virgil survives the Dark Ages — the only reason we have them — is because monks were going, "Oh man, the world's getting pretty crazy. Let's preserve what we have of history." So it was actually Christians who said, "We're going to keep this safe and ride out whatever the heck is going on." It wasn't Christians who caused the Dark Ages, by the way. I'm sorry, it's not true. There's a whole bunch of other stuff going on there. The reason history survived the Dark Ages is the Christians.
I think we're sometimes so used to swimming in a Christian fish tank that we don't realize how much the church has done for the world because we're just so in it. I said it last week and I'll say it again: the best people I've ever met were old Christians who were fully living with Jesus as their master and teacher, who actually believed that Jesus' life and his way meant that they must live their lives drastically differently. Everybody loves those people. And the best thing about them — this is how you know they're legit — they say something that would otherwise seem trite. Like, "Did you know that Jesus loves you?" And your instant reaction sometimes is, "Yeah, duh." But when they say it to you, you go, "Oh, yeah." And it feels so good. Jesus wants us all to be like that. That is eternal life pulled into now. And this doesn't end — it then goes past death into eternity.
Born Again — What Jesus Actually Means
So with all that in mind, Jesus tells Nicodemus that people must be born again to access it. Nicodemus — and I think fair enough — was a little bit bemused, and he asked Jesus what he means. I'm going to gloss over a lot of this for the sake of time and the fact that I didn't have many commentaries in front of me when I wrote this at 9 p.m. last night. I apologize. If you want to yell at me afterwards, proceed — it'll be fun.
But one thing that's interesting is that Jesus challenges Nicodemus' lack of understanding. He's a little bit bemused that Nicodemus doesn't get this idea. Jesus seems to think that Nicodemus should have worked this out already, which I find quite interesting.
I know the next bit has a massive rabbit hole and a lot of nuance in the terminology. It's all saying the same thing but in different ways, so please don't call me out if I say something wrong accidentally. I'm just trying to get to the general idea.
In the eyes of Scripture, humans are spiritually dead. By choosing to defy a God who is by definition life, we bring in death and become people who can die. This also makes sense of this human ambition that seems intrinsic — to defeat death — that transhumanism represents. The innate burden within us, this fear of death that seems so much stronger than evolutionary theory can justify — it's not just that we don't want to die for survival-of-the-fittest, Darwinian reasons. It's that we don't actually understand death. Something seems fundamentally wrong with it.
Have you ever sat down for ten minutes in silence and thought about death? Have you actually done that? Particularly if you haven't experienced severe grief in your life, you will just sit there and think: I just don't get it. It tears us up inside and leaves us wanting, with no answers — except sometimes a hopeless nihilism, which is where you kind of get into nature and stuff like that, and it's a life of numbing away the pain.
The point is this: we weren't actually made to die. The writer of Ecclesiastes says it like this: God has set eternity into the hearts of men. We are wired for eternity, but we die in the dust. We are spiritually dead, and we are physically dying. So to partake in a new world, in a new way, we must be born again.
When I say "born again," some of you instantly think of Jimmy Carter. You instantly think of 1900s revivals and people shouting and asking for money. You instantly think of politicians who use "born-again evangelical" as a buzzword to get votes. Please just try and remove your assumptions and hear what I'm actually getting at.
In its simplest form, what Jesus is trying to get at is this: to be born again is to be born into the family of God and to die to the family of death. It is a holistic, transformational experience that takes a person from the realm of death and its ultimate destination into the realm of the kingdom of God — eternal life. Other language in Scripture that captures this same idea would be: we have died with Christ and we have been raised with him, or in Christ the new creation has come. People who are born again are new creations, new beings in the eyes of God. All of our failures, all of our cruelty, our anger, and all that causes us to die is taken away and nailed to the cross. It dies with Jesus.
This is John the Baptist's thing when he announces Jesus to the world. He says, "The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." If the inevitable consequence of sin is death, then Jesus takes the consequences of our sins by dying. And by rising, he proves that he has overcome both sin and death.
The Scope of New Birth — Individual, Corporate, and Cosmic
This experience is individual, corporate, and actually happens to our world. It happens to us as individuals when we start following Jesus and we repent and turn from our sin. It is a corporate experience for humanity — the church represents a new, reborn humanity. And then the end-time vision of the earth is not that it gets burned up and destroyed and God goes, "Sick of it," and chucks it away like a marble. Actually, it's an earth that is completely renewed and restored — what it was always meant to be.
So when we feel this bond to the earth and we care for it and we love it, it's not like when we go to be with Jesus, we're done with it. The end goal is actually to be here on this earth. This is why we feel such a draw to the land — because it's wired into the very structure of who we are as humans.
In some beautiful way that is impossible to fully articulate, Jesus has beaten death by death. And because the grave could not hold him, he has shattered it from the inside out. So this gift of life is on offer to all who would respond to the call of the Spirit — to the call that resonates within our own hearts to come and be transformed, to come and be made new, to come and be born again.
Responding to the Offer
Jesus has come to save people, but he still lets them choose. The burden of sin and death has been lifted from your life if you choose it to be, if you want it to be so, if you receive that gift. But it is up to you how you will respond. It begins with belief and repentance — with acknowledging our failings, and that he actually might have a better understanding of how things work than you do. Then it moves into the work of the Spirit, who over time transforms people more and more into a little mini-Eden, more and more into who they were always meant to be.
I'm not at all a mini-Eden. Man, if you talk to my wife, you'd hear some stories. But there is something profound about when you actually start following Jesus. For me, it wasn't a switch, but at some point you look back and you go, "Oh my gosh, I am completely different." And you do genuinely feel like you don't recognize that person anymore. There's just something about Jesus washing away your sins and inviting you into his kingdom. I'm still honestly on the journey — I have problems — but I feel so much more in sync with who I was always made to be, and so much more free and at peace because of what Jesus has done.
We can become people who have hope that is grounded in the reality of the actual event that happened in human history — Jesus' death and resurrection. We don't place hope in moral teachings. The Sermon on the Mount is amazing — I love the Sermon on the Mount — but our faith isn't in the Sermon on the Mount. It's not in Socratic or Platonic philosophy about an unmoved mover. It's in the God-man who we believe actually came, actually did all the stuff, actually died, and then actually rose. And because he did that, that gift of life is a guarantee. It's not something we can just go, "Oh, maybe it'll happen." If you actually believe Jesus died and rose, then what he said is coming is coming. The offer's there. And if you don't believe he died and rose, come and have a chat.
We become people who are filled with love because we are loved by the one who is the author of love itself. We become people who are filled with faith — and it's not blind faith, but a faith that offers a better vision for the world than what anyone else, including the transhumanists, can offer. We don't have to try and beat death because death has already been defeated. And let's be honest, all of this transhumanist mumbo-jumbo would not benefit us at all — we'd just stay here, we'd keep dying. It'd be like a small crew at the top having a wonderful time. But it's not going to work, is it?
Closing — Lent, Easter, and the Indescribable Gift
So in closing, as we as a church journey closer to Easter Sunday in the season of Lent, may we be reminded of all that God the Father offers us through the work of Jesus the Son and the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians: thanks be to God for this indescribable gift.
As we respond in prayer and worship, may our hearts be filled with gratitude for what we have received, hope for the future and the future of our world despite what's happening in the Middle East right now, and fresh vision for how we can be a blessing to the people and places around us — so that we can see more of God's kingdom and more of his will done on earth, and in Sumner, as it is in heaven.