THE SECOND NEW BIRTH -- Devotional for January 22, from "Good Seeds"

Behold, I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. At the last trumpet the dead will be raised, for this perishable must put on imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. (I Corinthians 15:50-53)

In John 3 we read where Jesus told Nicodemus about being born again. He was talking about the miracle change God performs in the heart of anyone who turns to Christ for soul salvation. We are promised a glorious new life, now, in exchange for our ugly old one! Baptism illustrates this exchange: to go under the water is not a picture of a bath (turning over a new leaf) but a death (making room for a new life). Coming up out of the water pictures being born anew. Paul said, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away, behold, all things become new” (II Corinthians 5:17). And Jesus talked about seeds that fall into the ground and die – look what comes up: fresh new life! This is the first new birth, which refers to deep-rooted, fundamental, internal change. Any change we try to make on ourselves is skin deep at best, but Jesus makes us clean and new from the inside out. But regarding that outside body, the poet said it best…
The outward man - do what I can to lengthen out his life’s short span –
Shall perish and return to dust, as everything in nature must.
The first new birth must be our priority, our main business in this life, even while we are imprisoned in bodies which may first impress, but then disappoint, and finally disappear. But the Bible also speaks of a second new birth, which has to do with that perishable “outward man.” Today’s Scripture says that God has another miracle in store for every believer: a new body! For those still alive at Christ’s coming, it will be an instantly transformed body; for those who have died it will be a resurrected body. In either case we will never again get sick or tired – and we will never grow old or die…the fulfillment of the dream men have dreamed since the beginning of time: finding the fountain of eternal youth. Not that we should cast off all care regarding taking care of our bodies, for remember, we “do what we can to lengthen out life’s short span,” but in the end we lose and death wins, unless we are among those of that last generation who will be alive when Jesus comes. Nothing wrong with hoping for that, I’d say! Still, it’s better that we should concentrate more on how we live than on how long we live. It is said that the good die young, but crusty old fools live on and on! Others remind us of Bible promises of long life to those who live righteously. Whichever of these categories you may fit into, just remember that, for the Christian, the best is always yet to come.