The Shocking Reality of Being in the Womb!

 Last time, we saw how God’s Word often compares His people to newborn babes and little children. When a person repents, gets baptized, and receives the Holy Spirit, then he or she also receives new life. That person becomes, as Peter described in 1 Pet. 2:2, a newborn babe consuming the milk — the most basic principles (Heb. 5:12-13) — of God’s Word, and spiritually growing thereby.

And if one is a newborn babe, then one must also have been born again. You cannot be a newborn babe without being born!

As we also saw, God’s Word nowhere compares His people to babes in the womb. No such analogy exists in Scripture. Furthermore, both the Greek gennao and the English “begotten” mostly refer to those already born. For example, Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of His Father, even though He has long since been born.

To this, it could be added that gennao doesn’t mean “conceive”; there are other Greek words for that. Likewise, in the Hebrew language of the Old Testament, yalad (“born” or “begotten”) doesn’t mean “conceive”; there are other Hebrew words for that.

So yes, we are born again. At our baptisms, we were symbolically buried and our old sinful way of life was put to death (Rom. 6:4; Col. 2:12). Then, we came forth out of the water and received the Holy Spirit. We received new life and became as newborn babes desiring the pure milk of the word. Now, we are growing and walking in God’s way of life.

As John 3:1-8 shows, Jesus taught three births: 1) flesh, 2) water and the Spirit, and 3) Spirit. The birth of water and the Spirit is baptism; the birth of Spirit is the transformation into spirit being. The second birth happens at baptism. The third, obviously, hasn’t happened yet.

But let’s explore this concept of “born again” vs. “still in the womb” a little further.

Life in the Womb

A baby in the womb lives in darkness, and is therefore also blind. This baby is naked. Surrounded by amniotic fluid, this baby cannot hear well. It is dull of hearing. This baby can only get so big before it runs out of room. Its growth within the womb is restricted. This baby, though it’s receiving oxygen and nutrients through the umbilical cord, has neither breathed the breath of life, nor has it drunk milk or eaten any solid food.

A baby in the womb, though perhaps comfortable — I don’t know about you, but I don’t remember being in the womb — in the amniotic fluid, is essentially poor, blind, and naked. But it doesn’t know any of these things! It doesn’t know any different. That amniotic fluid, by the way, is neither too hot nor too cold. It’s body temperature.

Does all this sound familiar? It should!

Here are the words with which Yeshua/Jesus rebuked the Laodiceans:

15 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot.

16 “So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.

17 “Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked—

18 “I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.

19 “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.

The Laodiceans never grew and matured. They were comfortable and content, not knowing that they were poor, blind, and naked.

Does this sound like what God wants of us? Was He pleased with them? No!

Does He want us to be spiritual babes in the womb? No. Here’s what He wants of us.

Birth

Just as a baby is born out of the darkness into the light, so God calls us “out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9).

When a baby is born, it comes forth through blood and water. When we’re born again, it’s through the blood of Jesus Christ and the water of baptism. In fact, at His death, we read, “But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out” (John 19:34).

The Book of Ezekiel gives us another glimpse of this birth process. In Ezek. 16:4-6, God said to Jerusalem,

4 “As for your nativity, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water to cleanse you; you were not rubbed with salt nor wrapped in swaddling cloths.

5 “No eye pitied you, to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you; but you were thrown out into the open field, when you yourself were loathed on the day you were born.

6 “And when I passed by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ Yes, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’

These are things that must be done for a newborn baby, and when we’re reborn at baptism, God does them for us. He opens our eyes and heals our ears so that we can see and hear. He covers our sins and clothes us with His righteousness (Psa. 132:9; Isa. 61:10).

When a baby is born, it can no longer depend on oxygen from the umbilical cord. It must take its first breaths or it will die. At Creation, “the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7).

After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to His disciples and “breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:22). And when they received the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, we read, “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:2, 4).

This was the breath of life that Yeshua breathed on His disciples! When we get baptized and receive the Holy Spirit, we receive that same breath of life. Like newborn babes, we take our first breaths.

And finally, when a baby is born, it can no longer rely on the umbilical cord for nutrition, either. It must begin to nurse and drink milk. And as it grows, this baby must also begin to eat solid food and even meat.

So it is with us as God’s people. We first drink the milk of the word, “the first principles of the oracles of God” (Heb. 5:12). But we can’t remain infants forever; we must grow and begin to eat solid food: “For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (Heb. 5:13-14).

A New Creation

As a spiritual newborn babe, one is also a new creation. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).

The old man has been put to death; one is now a new man. “Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him” (Col. 3:9-10).

Similarly, when Noah and his family left the ark after the Flood, they entered a whole new world. The old world, a world filled with evil, was gone. The apostle Peter revealed that this event was a type of baptism (1 Pet. 3:20-21).

Again, when the Israelites passed through the Red Sea, this event served as a type of baptism: “all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:2). They left the old world behind and entered a new one. They saw the old men of sin, the Egyptians, “dead on the seashore” (Ex. 14:30). They even passed through a narrow path in the sea, as if through a birth canal!

Throughout the Bible, we see the same types of death and rebirth. The old man must die; we must become a new creation. We must be reborn.

We are now God’s children and not the children of the devil that we once were. We are children of light, not of darkness. We are growing and maturing in God’s way of life, graduating from milk to solid food and to meat. We are awaiting our final change, the change into spirit being.

So the question of whether one is born again or still in the womb really boils down to this. Are we growing and maturing in God’s way of life? Are we graduating from milk to solid food and learning how to walk in God’s way? Or are we still poor, blind, and naked?