The New Birth in Exile series examines the way the necessity of the new birth appears—or fails to appear—in sermons preached within Presbyterian churches in Victoria, my home State and where all my life has been lived. The particular focus of the present articles is Easter preaching: Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday sermons, where the central realities of the Christian faith should stand with unusual clarity before the people of God.
Good Friday and Easter Sunday are not marginal occasions in the church’s proclamation. They bring us to the cross and the empty tomb; to sin, wrath, judgement, substitution, resurrection, justification, and eternal life; to Adam and Christ; to death and new creation; to the Father who sends His Son, the Son who gives Himself for His people, and the Spirit who gives life to the dead. If the necessity of the new birth is obscured here at Easter, then something deeply serious has happened in our preaching.
The purpose of this series is not to produce ordinary sermon reviews. It is not concerned with whether a sermon was engaging, well-delivered, memorable, or rhetorically polished. Nor is it primarily concerned with stylistic preference. The question governing this series is more searching: did the sermon faithfully press upon the hearer the biblical necessity of being born again?
Or, to say the same thing another way: did the sermon bring the congregation low enough beneath the judgement of God that Christ’s death and resurrection appeared not merely comforting, but necessary? Did it show sinners that they are not merely wounded, confused, burdened, or spiritually interested, but dead in Adam, guilty before God, under wrath, and in need of sovereign life from above?
That is the question beneath these articles.
There are obvious difficulties in undertaking such a series. I either know personally, or have heard reports of, many of the ministers whose sermons are being examined. Some are men I esteem. Some are men whose ministries have been useful to the church. Some are men who have borne burdens I have not borne, served congregations I have no awareness of and preached under pressures hidden from public view. That reality must be acknowledged at the outset.
Personal prejudice can easily taint a project like this. Familiarity can make criticism too severe, or too gentle. Reports about a minister can colour the reading of a sermon before the sermon is heard on its own terms. Prior admiration can excuse weakness. Prior concern can magnify it. For that reason, the aim throughout this series is to evaluate the public sermon itself, not the private man; the doctrinal substance of the preaching, not the spiritual standing of the preacher; the theological effect upon the hearer, not the hidden intention of the minister.
That distinction matters.
Overwhelmingly, the sermons examined demonstrate well-meaning intent. These are not sermons preached by men seeking to undermine the gospel. In many cases, they are reverent, sincere, pastoral, and earnest. That must be said plainly. Yet sincerity does not settle the question of faithfulness. A sermon may be well-meant and still leave the congregation without the doctrinal categories necessary to understand sin, judgement, Christ’s atoning work, and the necessity of regeneration.
This series is therefore concerned with faithfulness to Scripture and to the Reformed standards. The Presbyterian Church of Victoria publicly identifies itself with the inspired and inerrant Word of God, Reformed doctrine and church practice, and the confessional position of the Westminster Confession of Faith. That means Presbyterian preaching should not merely be broadly evangelical, morally helpful, or emotionally comforting. It should be doctrinally formed, covenantally aware, experientially searching, Christ-centred, and governed by the whole counsel of God.
Every available Easter sermon appearing online was viewed. However, the decision was made to exclude first-year ministers and lay preachers from public examination. The reason was simple: the risk of discouraging men still at an early and vulnerable stage of ministry, or of giving occasion for pride if they were praised publicly, seemed too great. The purpose of this series is not to bruise tender reeds, nor to flatter emerging gifts. The concern is the state of preaching more broadly within the denomination.
It is also important to recognise the courage involved in making sermons publicly available. Preparing and preaching sermons involves a minister bearing, in public, something of his own vulnerabilities and weaknesses. Lesser men may seek to hide those weaknesses entirely from view. Yet those who publish their sermons expose more than their labour to scrutiny, correction, misunderstanding, and criticism, and personal opinion. That deserves special recognition.
On this point, the situation is striking. Of the 117 congregations listed on the Presbyterian Church of Victoria homepage, only 52 had publicly available sermons. It needs to be remembered that some ministers serve two congregations and there are also some vacant parishes. However, it may also mean the ministers and congregations whose sermons appear in this Series are not necessarily the weakest examples of preaching in the denomination. They are simply among the few whose preaching can be publicly examined. They have made their sermons available, and for that reason they bear a burden many others have avoided.
The concerns raised in this series therefore should not be read as though they apply only to those named. The limited number of publicly available sermons may be hiding far deeper problems.
That said, several recurring issues have surfaced.
First, there is often a lack of experiential application of the text. By experiential application, I do not mean emotional manipulation, sentimental appeal, or the preacher’s attempt to manufacture intensity. I mean that the Word of God should be brought to bear upon the conscience, affections, will, fears, hopes, sins, false refuges, and eternal condition of the hearer. A sermon may explain a passage accurately and still fail to press the passage home. It may describe the resurrection without confronting the hearer with the question of whether he has resurrection life. It may speak of Christ’s wounds without forcing the sinner to reckon with the sin that made those wounds necessary.
Second, a faulty or thin view of sin has repeatedly weakened the preaching of Easter. Too often sin is presented chiefly as brokenness, alienation, shame, failure, or sorrow. These categories are not necessarily false, but they are grossly insufficient. Scripture speaks of sin as guilt before God, transgression of His law, rebellion against His rule, corruption of nature, bondage, spiritual death, and covenantal condemnation in Adam. Where these realities do not inform preaching, the cross itself is inevitably diminished.
If the congregation is not shown the depth of sin, it will not grasp the glory of Christ’s redemptive work. If sinners are not brought beneath Adam’s guilt and death, they will not feel the urgency of being born into Christ by sovereign grace. If wrath, judgement, curse, and condemnation are absent, then the new birth becomes optional language rather than eternal necessity. Either way, many congregants are likely standing on the edge of eternity ill-prepared for it.
This directly undermines the urgency of John 3:5. “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” The Lord Jesus does not present the new birth as a devotional enhancement, a metaphor for religious renewal, or a helpful way of describing Christian experience. He declares it to be necessary for entrance into the kingdom. In these eschatological last days, Heb 1:1-2, that necessity must be preached with eternal seriousness. After death, there is no further opportunity for repentance.
On this issue, it is needed that I digress a little in this Introduction and exegetically look at this passage of Scripture:
The urgency of John 3:5 rests not only in the doctrine it teaches, but in the setting in which Christ teaches it. These words were not first spoken to an atheist, a libertine, a pagan, or a careless unbeliever. They were spoken to Nicodemus.
John introduces him with deliberate weight:
“There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews” — John 3:1.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee. He belonged to the religious party most visibly associated with doctrinal seriousness, moral discipline, reverence for Scripture, separation from uncleanness, and concern for the purity of Israel. He was also “a ruler of the Jews,” almost certainly a man of public religious authority and ecclesiastical standing. He was not outside the visible people of God. He was not ignorant of Scripture. He was not indifferent to religion. He was not openly hostile to Christ. He came respectfully and said:
“Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God” — John 3:2.
Yet Christ does not receive this respectful confession as sufficient. He does not flatter Nicodemus for his discernment. He does not treat his office, learning, sincerity, covenantal privilege, or moral seriousness as evidence of spiritual life. Instead, He brings him immediately beneath the necessity of the new birth.
This becomes even more searching when Jesus later says to him:
“Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?” — John 3:10.
The Greek is even stronger:
σὺ εἶ ὁ διδάσκαλος τοῦ Ἰσραήλ “Are you the teacher of Israel?”
Jesus does not merely call Nicodemus a teacher. He calls him the teacher of Israel. Whether this points to Nicodemus’s particular prominence or to his representative standing as an authorised instructor among the covenant people, the effect is the same. Nicodemus is not the secular outsider. He is an educated and recognised religious teacher. In functional terms, he stands closer to the Presbyterian minister than to the pagan.
That is what makes John 3 so devastating for all Presbyterians!
The man was told that he must be born again is not the man furthest from the visible church, but the man entrusted with teaching it. He is not the man who despises Scripture, but the man who handles Scripture. He is not the man with no religion, but the serious religious man. He is not the man who refuses to speak respectfully of Christ, but the man who comes to Christ and calls Him “Rabbi.”
Yet here, Christ tears away every false refuge. Office is not regeneration. Knowledge is not regeneration. Respect for Christ is not regeneration. Doctrinal seriousness is not regeneration. Covenant privilege is not regeneration. Religious usefulness is not regeneration. Nicodemus must be born from above.
This is why John 3:5 must first search the pulpit before it searches the pew.
“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
The Greek text reads:
ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ πνεύματος, οὐ δύναται εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ.
The opening words, ἐὰν μή, mean “unless” or “except.” They are words of holy exclusion. Christ is not describing a heightened form of Christian experience, an advanced stage of religious maturity, or one optional doctrine among many. He is establishing the necessary condition for entrance into his eternal kingdom. Unless this happens, nothing else suffices.
The next word, τις, means “anyone.” Its force is universal. No man is exempt. Not the immoral man, not the moral man; not the ignorant man, not the teacher of Israel; not the pagan, not the churchman; not the hearer, and not the preacher. That one word leaves no privileged class standing above the necessity of regeneration.
This is the first blow against ministerial presumption. Before a sermon is preached, the text must search the minister’s own heart in his private study. Christ’s “anyone” includes Nicodemus precisely in his learning, office, seriousness, and religious reputation. The verse does not allow the preacher to aim the doctrine of the new birth only at the irreligious world. It turns upon the religious teacher himself and says, “You too must be born of God.”
The verb γεννηθῇ in John 3:5 is an aorist passive subjunctive, and every part of that form presses the necessity of regeneration upon the hearer. The subjunctive, governed by “unless,” establishes the indispensable condition of entrance into the kingdom. The aorist presents the new birth as a decisive divine act, not the gradual refinement of the old nature. The passive voice is especially searching: the sinner does not birth himself, but must be born. Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel, is therefore placed in the position of helpless reception before God. His learning, office, reverence, and religious seriousness cannot produce the life he lacks. The verb strips him of agency at the very point where a religious teacher might be tempted to trust his own understanding, labour, or standing. He must be acted upon by God. Thus John 3:5 is fatal to all ministerial presumption: no man can preach, teach, study, confess, or labour himself into the kingdom. Unless he is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter.
Here the doctrine of the new birth strikes against every form of religious self-confidence we are all prone to. A man may preach about regeneration but he is unable to produce it in himself or in his hearers. He may explain the new birth as a doctrine and still stand personally beneath its necessity. He may handle the Word of God, occupy ecclesiastical office, and speak often of Christ, while still needing the sovereign work of the Spirit upon his own soul.
The phrase ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ πνεύματος — “of water and Spirit” — carries the mind back to the prophetic promise of Ezekiel 36:
“Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean… A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.”
This is not vague religious imagery. It is the promise of divine cleansing and inward renewal. God must wash away defilement. God must remove the heart of stone. God must give the heart of flesh. God must put His Spirit within His people. The new birth is therefore not natural religion refined, but covenant promise fulfilled. It is not man ascending toward God, but God mercifully giving life to the dead.
The single preposition ἐξ governs both “water” and “Spirit.” Christ is not describing two disconnected births or two unrelated religious acts. He is speaking of one necessary divine work under the joined realities of cleansing and renewal. The sinner must be washed, and the sinner must be made alive. He needs pardon for guilt and renewal from corruption. He needs more than encouragement. He needs more than instruction. He needs more than religious association. He needs the sovereign work of God upon the soul.
Then comes the dreadful impossibility for us:
οὐ δύναται εἰσελθεῖν “he cannot enter.”
Christ’s words are stronger than exclusion by permission. He does not say, “he may not enter,” but οὐ δύναται εἰσελθεῖν — “he is not able to enter.” The verb δύναται concerns ability, not mere permission. The unregenerate man therefore does not simply lack authorisation to enter the kingdom; he lacks capacity. John 3:3 has already said that without the birth from above he cannot even see the kingdom. John 3:5 presses the matter further: without birth of water and Spirit he cannot enter it. The grammar moves the issue from external access to inward inability. Only regeneration supplies the capacity for the kingdom.
This is why preaching that merely informs, comforts, or inspires is insufficient. If men are dead, they do not need religious improvement. If men are blind, they do not need mere moral advice. If men cannot enter the kingdom unless they are born of water and Spirit, then the preacher must not leave them with vague encouragements, sentimental hope, or general reflections on divine love. He must bring them to the place where Christ brings Nicodemus: beneath the absolute necessity of sovereign regeneration.
John 3:6 makes this even clearer:
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
Flesh gives birth to flesh. Nature never rises above itself. Religious flesh is still flesh. Educated flesh is still flesh. Presbyterian flesh is still flesh. Ministerial flesh is still flesh. Congregant flesh is still flesh. Only the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
Here is one of the great dangers in contemporary Easter preaching. The congregation is often addressed as though spiritual life may be assumed. The hearers are comforted before they are searched. They are reassured before they are exposed. They are told of resurrection hope without being brought under the sentence of death in Adam. They are pointed to Easter joy without being pressed with the question: have you been born of the Spirit?
But Christ does not allow such presumption. He does not say to Nicodemus, “You are near enough.” He does not say, “Your religious seriousness is sufficient.” He does not say, “Your respect for Me is evidence enough.” He says:
“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
None of this of course is to suggest the preacher is sovereign over life or the denomination. Only the Spirit gives and removes life. However, imagine the impact upon congregations where the minister himself has not been born again. Even a narrow reading of history warns us that unsaved ministers have been in pulpits before and the loss of doctrinal fidelity that follows has can have a devasting impact upon a denomination. Consider the Church of Scotland where this very scenario existed in the early 19th century and the subsequent emergence of the Free Church of Scotland in 1843. The reading of this history was required and assessed when I attended the Presbyterian Theological College. It stands as a warning.
This gives Easter preaching its proper urgency. The cross is not God’s sentimental display of empathy with human suffering. It is the atoning death of the Son of God for sinners guilty in Adam and corrupt in themselves. The resurrection is not merely a metaphor of hope after hardship. It is the vindication of Christ, the beginning of the new creation, the pledge of final judgement, and the guarantee of life for all who are united to Him. But no man participates savingly in these benefits unless he is born from above. It is at the events of Easter, that nothing less than the full vindication of the Father’s righteousness is revealed to a world this is soon to perish.
Therefore John 3:5 must stand as a judgement upon all preaching that assumes life where Christ declares the necessity of birth. It must stand over the pulpit before it is applied to the pew. The minister himself must first come beneath the text. He must ask not merely, “Have I explained regeneration?” but, “Have I been born of God?” Not merely, “Have I preached Christ?” but, “Have I entered the kingdom by the sovereign mercy of the Spirit?” Not merely, “Have I spoken to others of Easter?” but, “Do I know the life of the risen Christ in my own soul?”
This must not be used carelessly to accuse particular men. Scripture forbids us from pretending omniscience over another man’s soul. Yet the text itself requires the category be applied to our understanding. It compels us to acknowledge that religious office, doctrinal knowledge, covenantal privilege, and public ministry are not the same thing as regeneration.
That is one of the great terrors of John 3.
A man may be a teacher of Israel and yet need to be born again. A man may handle Scripture and yet need the life of which Scripture speaks. A man may know the language of the kingdom and yet be unable to enter it. A man may speak respectfully of Christ and yet remain outside the kingdom unless the Spirit gives him birth from above.
And if the teacher of Israel needed to be born again, then no minister should stand above the warning.
This is why the absence of the new birth from Easter preaching is not a minor omission. It is not the neglect of one doctrine among many. It is the neglect of the very necessity Christ Himself places before a religious teacher. Where preaching speaks of cross and resurrection but does not bring sinners beneath the necessity of regeneration, it risks leaving men comforted in religion but outside the kingdom.
The burden of this Series, then, is not to speculate about the souls of ministers, nor to pronounce upon hidden spiritual states. The burden is to ask whether their preaching bears the urgency of Christ’s own words:
“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
Moving on, thirdly, many sermons showed little awareness of the covenantal work of God in the federal headship of Adam and Christ. This is not a minor Reformed technicality. It is basic to the apostolic explanation of salvation. In Adam, mankind sinned and died. In Christ, His people receive righteousness and life. Easter preaching that does not reckon with Adam and Christ may still speak warmly about Jesus, but it will struggle to explain why His death and resurrection are necessary for us. The congregation may hear that Christ died and rose, but not understand the covenantal structure that makes His obedience not only necessary, but his death and resurrection the only hope when we go to our grave.
Fourth, a disturbing trend appeared in the misuse of the Old Testament. Some texts were handled in a way that detached them from their own covenantal, redemptive-historical, and prophetic context. At times, Old Testament passages were flattened into general images of hope, renewal, courage, or comfort. In such cases, the problem was not simply poor exegesis. The deeper concern is that the misuse of the Old Testament often weakened the doctrine of the atonement itself. When the Old Testament’s categories of sacrifice, priesthood, curse, exile, judgement, covenant, and restoration are not handled carefully, the preacher loses the very grammar by which Scripture teaches us to understand Christ’s death and resurrection.
Fifth, doctrinal terms uniquely associated with Easter were often thin on the ground. Words such as atonement, original sin, propitiation, wrath, justification, imputed sin, imputed righteousness, hell, eternal damnation, covenant curse, substitution, reconciliation, and resurrection vindication were either absent or underdeveloped. These are not ornamental theological words. They carry biblical weight. They help the congregation understand what God has done in Christ and why it matters eternally for us.
When such terms disappear, sermons become vaguer, softer, and less urgent. Christ may still be praised. Grace may still be mentioned. Hope may still be offered. But the doctrinal architecture that gives those words their force is missing.
Closely related to this was the near absence, in many sermons, of the Father and the Holy Spirit. Easter is often preached almost entirely in reference to Jesus, but without sufficient attention to the Father who sent Him, delivered Him up, judged sin in Him, raised Him, and vindicated His righteousness and mercy through Him. Likewise, the Holy Spirit is frequently absent from sermons that should be pressing the necessity of regeneration, union with Christ, resurrection life, and inward renewal. But the new birth is the work of the Spirit. If He is absent from the sermon, the necessity of the new birth will rarely be felt.
Finally, few sermons addressed the eschatological significance of Easter. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not merely a comforting sign that life continues after death. It is the beginning of the new creation, the public vindication of the Son as our only hope in judgment, the pledge of the resurrection of the body, and the declaration that this present age is passing away. Easter preaching should awaken men to eternity. It should make the congregation feel the nearness of the last day. It should set before them heaven and hell, life and death, Christ and Adam, the kingdom of God and the judgement to come.
The great concern beneath this series is the loss of such urgency in preaching. More particularly, it is the loss of eternal awareness.
Many of the sermons still sought to help. Many still comfort. Many still encourage. Many still spoke of Jesus. But the preaching of the Word must do more than help people manage life in this present age. It must summon them before the living God. It must uncover their sin and personal need of a saviour. It must announce judgement. It must proclaim Christ crucified and risen. It must command all men everywhere to repent. It must tell the religious, the respectable, the wounded, the weary, the moral, the indifferent, and the self-assured that unless they are born again, they cannot see the kingdom of God.
This series is written in the hope that the new birth’s exile may end.
Not through controversy for its own sake. Not through the humiliation of ministers. Not through a hunger for criticism. But through a renewed seriousness about preaching, a renewed submission to Scripture, a renewed confidence in Reformed doctrine, and a renewed burden for souls who must be born again.
For if Easter preaching does not bring sinners to the edge of eternity, beneath the judgement of God, before the crucified and risen Christ, and under the searching demand of the Lord Jesus—“Ye must be born again”—then we must ask what kind of Easter are we preaching at all.
