UNMODIFIED!
- UnstoppableRevKev
- Oct 13
- 3 min read
📖Scripture:
“For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring Word of God.” 1 Peter 1:23
🔎Examination:
To call someone a “born-again Christian” is, biblically, a redundancy. There is no other kind of Christian. To be Christian is to be born again — no modifier, no subclass, no cultural version. The term Christianos (Acts 11:26) describes those who have been regenerated by the imperishable seed of the Word of God — not merely affiliated with Christianity, but recreated by the sovereign act of God’s Spirit.
Peter’s declaration, “You have been born again,” (Greek: anagegennēmenoi) is written in the perfect passive tense — a completed work by God, ongoing in its effect. Humanity contributes nothing to this miracle. Regeneration is not moral reform, religious effort, or intellectual assent. It is divine resurrection. “You must be born again,” Christ told Nicodemus (John 3:3–8). That statement is not an invitation; it is a divine ultimatum. “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
The unregenerate may attend church, teach classes, or even preach sermons, but apart from the new birth, they remain flesh. Peter contrasts the imperishable seed of the Word with all that is perishable: “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like a flower. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the Word of the LORD endures forever” (1 Pet. 1:24–25). All fleshly identity — ethnic, cultural, denominational, or ideological — ultimately and invariably withers. It is not the modifier that defines the Christian but the new birth that creates him.
This truth obliterates all man-made distinctions. There are no Mormon Christians, Roman Catholic Christians, progressive Christians, or “black” or “white” Christians. Those modifiers are marks of the flesh, not the Spirit. The “Messianic Jew” who names Jesus as Messiah rightly orders his identity: his ethnicity is real but secondary; his regeneration defines him. In Christ, “There is neither Jew nor Greek… for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).
Every competing modifier is a rival gospel (Gal 1:8). Cultural Christianity, moralistic deism, and denominational pride all reduce regeneration to a label — an optional experience for the spiritually serious. But the Word of God knows no such category. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). Anything else is not Christianity but imitation — flesh masquerading as faith.
The necessity of regeneration is absolute because human nature is absolutely corrupt. The heart is “deceitful above all things and desperately sick” (Jer. 17:9). The Hebrew raʿ (רַע) — evil, corrupt, putrid — from Genesis 6:5 captures the totality of that depravity: every thought, every intention, perpetually bent toward decay. Thus, salvation cannot be cooperative. It is not that man helps or cooperates with God; it is that God resurrects man. The Spirit and the Word — the two agents of regeneration (John 3:5; Eph. 5:26; Titus 3:5) — are inseparable instruments of divine creation (Gen 1:1-3).
When Scripture proclaims, “You must be born again,” it declares not a suggestion but a divine decree. To speak of “nominal Christians,” “cultural Christians,” or “believers who aren’t born again” is to speak utter nonsense. The Word of God allows no such hybrid. As the flesh withers and falls, so will every self-fashioned identity that tries to coexist with Christ. The regenerate are not a category among many — they are the only category that exists in the Kingdom (See 2 Cor 11:3–4, 13–15; Gen 3:1-5; Deut 4:2; 12:32; Pr 30:5-6; Jer 23:16–22, 30–32; Jude 3-4; Rev 22:18-19).
🤺Action:
Reject all modifiers. Examine how you identify yourself before others. Does your vocabulary betray an allegiance to something besides Christ — your ethnicity, denomination, or politics? Confess it as flesh.
Test your regeneration by obedience to the Word. Not by emotional fervor or inherited tradition, but by whether the living Word has fundamentally (salvation) and continues to (sanctification) redefine who you are according to the living and enduring WORD.
Refuse counterfeit Christianity. Where churches define faith by culture, activism, or heritage rather than new birth, recognize it for what it is — the perishable seed of man, not the imperishable Word of God.
🧠Reflection:
Approach prayer not as a sentimental exercise but as a spiritual audit. Ask the Holy Spirit to expose every identity you’ve preserved from the old life — every adjective that competes with “Christian.” Thank God that He made you new, not improved. Ask Him to burn away all modifiers that distract from Christ alone. Invite Him to deepen your awe of the imperishable Word by which you were born — that you would live, speak, and love as one whose life is entirely unmodified by the flesh, wholly defined by the Word.
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Blessings & love,
Kevin M. Kelley
Pastor
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