Spiritual Rebirth: Process or Event?

Elder Maxwell talked about the daunting “sense of enormous distance” that a discussion about the gospel can cause. We are so riddled with weakness and flaws, and the scriptures describe such lofty goals, the simple act of self-evaluation or comparison can drain motivation out of us. The ideal is so far off—how can we ever reach it? In my experience, most Latter-day Saints are operating under the mistaken notion that this state is to be achieved through our own efforts, planning, goals, and practice. Works are important, but not because they change our natures. That is the Savior’s job. Our job is to learn how to qualify to receive that change, and then meet those qualifications.

King Benjamin’s people declare in Mosiah 5:2, “...Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.” A whole congregation experienced a mighty change of heart. This is more than a change of attitude, or the enthusiasm or renewed determination we often feel when a great speaker motivates us. That intensified resolution never endowed anyone with “the manifestations of [God’s] Spirit,” or gave them “great views of that which is to come...” or the gift of prophecy: “...and were it expedient, we could prophesy of all things” (Mosiah 5:3). This is not coming from personal exertions; it is coming to these people from God.

Deny Not the Power of God

When we view the difference between what we are, and what we should be, we often salve our uncomfortable feelings by telling ourselves that “spiritual rebirth is a process, not an event.” While patience with our own flaws (and each others’) is commendable and mature, I fear we often tread too close to a line that Jesus warned Joseph Smith about in the First Vision.

Joseph Smith tells us that there were many things communicated to him in the First Vision, but that he was forbidden to share them. The few things we do get glimpses of are instructive for us as well as for him. Joseph was seeking the right church. Jesus informed the boy prophet: “...all their creeds were abominations in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: ‘they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof’” (JS—H 1:19, my emphasis).

In Moroni’s farewell, we hear a tone of dire warning, a plea not to make that mistake: “...I would exhort you that ye deny not the power of God...For if there be one among you that doeth good, he shall work by the power and gifts of God. And wo unto them who shall do these things away and die, for the die in their sins, and they cannot be saved....Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God. And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot” (Moroni 10:25-26, 32-33). He is desperate to convince—Jesus can clean the desire for sin out of our hearts.

“Holy, without spot”—“no more disposition to do evil”—these phrases are music to the sinner’s ears. Can we cause these transformations in ourselves? It seems to me that the best we can do is want to want the right things. But we of ourselves cannot change our fundamental natures. It requires a miracle called “spiritual rebirth,” and that is exactly what the scriptures describe. To place the responsibility for causing this change in ourselves is to pretend to abilities we lack, and to deny that Jesus has power to change us. And Moroni is anxious that we not make that mistake, in part because it disqualifies us from receiving that very blessing.

In seeking to excuse our unsanctified state, do we “deny the power of God?” “...I am able to make you holy...” (D&C 60:7). Do we diminish His miraculous ability in our minds by suggesting that we must have all these flaws still residing in us because He is delaying to change us, or even lacks power to do so? Is anything to hard for the Lord?

Process vs. Event

It is my testimony that spiritual rebirth comes instantly as we meet the qualifications to receive it. “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise” (D&C 82:10). If we are not reborn, it is not because Jesus lacks power to change us; it is because we either do not know, or do not apply, the rules governing the principle of rebirth.

The Lord lets us make spiritual progress at our own pace because He respects agency. We graduate from grace to grace, climb from one plateau to the next, gaining experience and becoming more saintly. Perfection is a state to which no man arrived in a day, the Prophet tells us. But what about those miraculous moments when a quantum leap is made in the scriptures? Alma the Younger was going about, seeking to destroy the Church of God. An angel stopped his behavior; he fell, paralyzed and unaware. After three days and nights, he emerged from his coma and declared, “...behold, I am born of the Spirit” (Mosiah 27:24). The Lord informed him that everyone who wants to get into heaven must experience a similar change: “...all mankind...must be born again...changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and his daughters;...and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God” (Mosiah 27:26).

Lamoni’s father, the king of the Lamanites, has a similar experience. He falls to the ground in a coma after he prays, and when he wakes up after a few minutes, he is reborn. How did these men experience a “mighty change of heart,” a change in their very natures, within such a short span of time? Why is there such an enormous lag for some people, and for others, an instantaneous change?

The scriptures describe the conditions necessary to enjoy rebirth, that change of our desires by God. I heard a speaker reinterpret the scriptures for convenience recently. He wanted to explain the escape from addiction through the atonement, yet he denied the power of God to make instantaneous changes. He quoted the following scripture: “...therefore, if ye will repent and harden not your hearts, immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto you” (Alma 34:31). He spoke of one of his clients relapsing into addiction, and instead of admitting some deficiency in his or his client’s understanding, said the contrast between this scripture and the behavior of his client must alter the meaning of the scripture to something other than “immediately.” This is known as “wresting” (twisting) the scriptures.

“Who am I that made man, saith the Lord, that will hold him guiltless who obeys not my commandments? Who am I, saith the Lord, that have promised and not fulfilled? I command and men obey not; I revoke and they receive not the blessing. Then they say in their hearts: This is not the work of the Lord, for his promises are not fulfilled. But wo unto such, for their reward lurketh beneath, and not from above” (D&C 58:30-33). If this man’s client relapses into addiction, it is not because the Lord misspoke in scripture or neglected something; rather, it is because neither the man, nor his client, understood how to harness and receive an adequate portion of the sanctifying, strengthening grace that comes through His Atonement (that, or they knew how but did not comply).

Instead of diminishing the power of the Atonement to excuse our shortcomings, we can go back to the scriptures and find the conditions we must live by in order to receive its sanctifying power, that power which changes our very natures.

The Lord takes responsibility for making us weak; He also offers to make our weakness into strength. Why should we look somewhere other than to the Manufacturer for repairs or upgrades? Ether 12:27 is among the most poorly-understood verses in the Book of Mormon, and among the most oft-quoted. If we actually understood it, more of us would cease to be confused about the rate at which spiritual rebirth occurs:

“And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness.” How unflattering. Who wants to go to Jesus if it will diminish our self-esteem or self-love? That is like asking, “who wants to go to a doctor if all he will do is point out what’s wrong?” That is his job—that, and fixing the problem. “I give unto men weakness that they may be humble.” Toes that can be stubbed, a mind that can forget, even a heart capable of being tempted—He did all that to me? This should be the most controversial statement in the entire Book of Mormon. We are so eager to pigeonhole this verse into our practice-makes-perfect paradigm that we gloss right over this sentence without critically examining it. Jesus gave me my weakness! What do I need to do in order to have the problem fixed? Read again: “...that they may be humble.” This is the missing ingredient in most people’s search for sanctification and rebirth. Why do we feel like we are the same old sinners trying to manage the same bad desires? Why does rebirth take so long? We fail to meet this one qualification: humility.

“...and my grace is sufficient for all men who humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.” Is this talking about practicing the piano until we get good at it? No. This is speaking of receiving the grace of Christ, power beyond our own natural capacities. To receive it, we must come to Him in faith and humility.

I give it as my opinion that faith is much more common than humility. Many people believe many outlandish things beyond the scope of proof. Even Satan and his angels have a perfect knowledge that God lives; what good do their testimonies do them? We must have faith AND humility before it will do us any good.

Defining and Adopting Humility

Now to the most important part: What is humility? Why is it crucial before we can be reborn?

Nephi’s statement to his father gives us a general idea of what actually constitutes genuine humility: “I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded...” He is 1. Willing to obey. (That word, “willing,” shows up each Sunday in the sacrament prayer on the bread.) “...for I know the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them” (1Ne. 3:7). Nephi is willing to obey—2. Not because of his great confidence in himself, but because of his confidence in, and reliance upon, the Lord. Willing obedience, combined with an acknowledgement of our own nothingness, our utter dependence on God, constitutes the majority of acceptable humility.

(We often conflate the smoke with the flame, the symptoms with the real thing; weepiness, self-degradation, moping, giving up, limp limbs—these are not humility. Even sorrow for sin is not quite there yet, though it is a beginning point. A deeper definition of humility might be something like, “Absolute deference to the truth, however embarrassing or inconvenient or painful it may be.” This applies to us all, saints and sinners alike.)

Paradoxically, the Savior exhibits the ultimate in humility, even though He was the only perfect person ever to walk the earth. What business do we have being less than humble?

The Book of Mormon is the perfect manual for learning how to access the sanctifying, enabling power of the Atonement. Anywhere you read about sanctification, a mighty change of heart, being born of God, changed, nearby in the text there is some reference to humility lurking—meekness, lowliness of heart, a soft heart, submissiveness—these words begin to form a litany, a clear message: All who would be reborn must become adequately humble.

That is another misunderstood property of humility. It is not all-or-nothing; scriptures speak of “depths” (plural), degrees of humility. We may be proud; then we may be sort of humble, very humble, or extremely humble. Imagine pushing a beach ball under water at a swimming pool. The deeper you try to push it the harder it becomes to keep the ball down there.

That is important too; the mighty change of heart we receive for being that humble only stays to the degree of, and for the duration of, our humility. The instant we are no longer humble, any change of heart we may have received begins to crumble, because we are no longer fulfilling the condition of receiving that mighty change. Must we be THAT humble, ALL the time? YES, if we want to be that reborn, all the time.

That is the difference between those who are spiritually reborn in an instant, versus the rest of us who struggle for years and notice bumps of progress instead of the leaps and bounds. We are not waiting for the Lord; He is waiting for us, waiting to see us make that offering.

“And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost...” (3Ne. 9:20). No exceptions, no qualifications, no timetable or waiting. IF we make that offering, THEN we are reborn. And when we choose to un-humble ourselves, then that blessing is withdrawn. Therefore it is critical to understand scriptural humility.

The next verse further explains what He is describing: “Behold, I have come unto the world to...save the world from sin” (3Ne. 9:21). The professors of religion in Joseph Smith’s day (and some unwitting Latter-day Saints today) denied His power to do this very thing, to take the desire to sin out of the hearts of people.

Measuring Humility

How do we know when we have fully offered our hearts to God? We can go through the list of things we love, and ask ourselves, one by one, if there is anything on that list we would have a hard time parting with if the Lord asked us to give it up. Could we give up our favorite foods for the Lord? Our possessions? Friends? Status? Loved ones? For spiritual rebirth, this is where the rubber hits the road, so to speak. The scriptures call it “real intent.” “...I know that if ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent...witnessing...that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ...then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost; yea, then cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost...” The role a sincerely humble heart plays in the process is indispensable. It is our side of the deal; if we cannot produce it, we do not receive that mighty change of heart. (Ordinances also play a vital role, and formalize these internal commitments to God in visible ways; we will assume that the reader is a Latter-day Saint, and that ordinances are already taken care of.)

This is not the art of hating; rather, it is the art of loving Him more than anything or anyone else we love. The things we might accidentally value more than God, or His will for us, need not be sinful; we can inadvertently convert innocuous things like cars, health, romantic relationships, food, or anything else into an idol by elevating it in our hearts above God’s status. It is the topography of our hearts that determines whether they belong to God, or to someone or something else.

Think about the medal podium at the Olympics. There are multiple winners up there, but only one gets to perch on the highest point. Is God in that position in our hearts, or is something else? As we elevate Him higher and higher in status, our hearts become more and more His. That is real humility before God. And that is the degree to which we are reborn.

Ownership is an uncomfortable paradigm in our day and age. Before we balk at the concept, let us examine it fully. Do we want the Lord to own us? Yes, as much as the passengers of the Titanic wanted to belong to a lifeboat. Having a god, a highest priority, a thing we devote our hearts to most, is inevitable. Everyone belongs to someone or something in that sense—we all have a favorite. If we do not belong to Jesus, ultimately we have chosen someone or something else as our God, and the consequences will be spiritual death. It may be insulting to be equated with chattel, a sheep, but without the Shepherd, the sheep are exposed to the wolf, easy pickings.

Here is a shorthand way to conceive the mechanics of spiritual rebirth: Our hearts are changed by the power of the Atonement; we have the Atonement to the degree we receive the Spirit; we receive the Spirit to the degree that we are humble; therefore, the more humble we are, the more sanctified our hearts become. So rebirth is proportional to humility. Humility is a function of several things—attitude, willing obedience, acknowledging and confessing our flaws and lowliness, receiving ordinances, submitting to trials. It gets a workout as we progress through the gospel and live, but that core virtue must be intact through it all before rebirth happens.

If we want to be completely spiritually reborn, we must become (and remain) completely humble.

(These principles are universal. To the degree they are applied accurately, they work, regardless of the setting or semantics. Examine a generic 12-Step Program sometime. You will find each step is saturated in humility. Those people who participate in such programs are unwittingly going through the process of offering a broken heart and a contrite spirit to God, and reaping the blessing—to be “baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost,” to experience a might change of heart, or rebirth. They are doing it in the dark, so to speak, without the terminology or knowledge about Atonement, Spirit, Holy Ghost, repentance, humility, sanctification, etc. But they go through the right moves, the exact same motions. And they still experience measurable success. Why should we do it blindfolded when the scriptures are laid before us plainly?)

The work of spiritual rebirth is not trying to mimic the attributes of charity; the work is to humble ourselves into the dust so that the Lord can “bestow” (Moroni 7:48) this gift upon us. Then we will exhibit the attributes of charity naturally, automatically, without thinking, because then it will be our nature to act that way; God has made us new creatures.

Limits on Rebirth

God respects agency; it is inviolable for Him. Thus, He will not change a heart that does not belong to Him. Our hearts belong to Him when nothing we love has a higher claim on our hearts. The “process” of spiritual rebirth we speak of is not the process of waiting for God to change us, but one of waiting for us to get our hearts completely into His ownership. That is what enables those miraculous 5-minute rebirths recorded in scripture. Those people actually met the qualification, and the Lord immediately poured out His promised blessing, a large enough portion of the Holy Ghost to cleanse them and change their natures.

The imagery of cleansing with fire describes rebirth. It is strange that people could experience such a cleansing and not be aware of it, like the Lamanites in 3Ne. 9:20. Such healing from the Lord is seamless, and those newly-reborn Lamanites would probably need to encounter things that once tempted them to realize their hearts had been changed at all. Here is another way to conceptualize the mechanics of rebirth, or just what rebirth entails:

We give our hearts to Christ, and He gives us His heart in return.

Imagine a teen riding a bicycle. It gets him around well, and he is glad. Then he qualifies for a driver’s license. His parents subsequently allow him to borrow their car. Qualifying for the license and owning the car are two separate things, but the teen is able to benefit from the borrowed car. It is superior to his bicycle in every way, speeds up his travel, and makes him more useful to his family. As long as he keeps the traffic laws and family rules, the parents are glad to let him benefit from borrowing the car. If he should ever abuse the privilege, or break family rules (even rules unrelated to driving) use of the car would be withdrawn.

We each have our own natures, our own “bicycle,” with its talents and flaws. Instead of asking “what would Jesus do,” we can, through the Atonement, learn the answer to a much more intimate question: “What would Jesus feel?” What would He want if He were me, in my place? How would He react to the things that tempt me? When we have those moments in our lives when sin just loses its appeal, we can take that as evidence that spiritual rebirth is occurring in us. We should humble ourselves even more to keep it from being withdrawn. It is only as permanent or impermanent as our humility:

“And we know also, that sanctification through the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is just and true, to all those who love and serve God with all their mights, minds, and strength (i.e. a broken heart and contrite spirit). But there is a possibility that a man may fall from grace and depart from the living God; Therefore let the church take heed and pray always, lest they fall into temptation; Yea, and even let those who are sanctified take heed also” (D&C 20:31-34). (Notice that being a member of the Church, receiving ordinances, is not the same thing as being sanctified, or spiritually reborn? It is possible to be baptized in water and confirmed without offering a broken heart or a contrite spirit.)

How can we lose rebirth, if our nature is replaced with the nature of Jesus Christ Himself? Oliver Cowdery was inspired to write D&C 20, and ironically lived out the scenario of falling from grace it describes. Instead of losing his sanctification, rebirth, through gross sin, he lost it through pride. Rebirth elevates us to a plateau where the enemies of carnal desires and lusts have reduced access to us. But the price of retaining that elevated ground is humility. The temptations of pride and rebellion are still there. If ever we are commanded by the Lord to do something, and we ignore the promptings of the Spirit or rebel, the Spirit withdraws. That means the Atonement that kept us safe from lower temptations also withdraws, and we lose the high ground. Lucifer was a Son of the Morning, dwelling in the presence of God, but pride was able to develop in him even then. How much easier is it for us, in our physical bodies on earth, to develop pride? Pride is a function of agency; agency never goes away; so pride is a constant danger for all, even those who are not being tempted by the flesh anymore. Retaining rebirth means maintaining humility. That includes meeting the Lord’s difficult assignments and enduring what He sees fit to inflict upon us.

Non-Selfish Purposes

When we are reborn, healed, it is not so that we can leave behind our more embarrassing sins while engaging in socially acceptable sins. This is radical brain surgery, not a haircut. The complete humility that precedes rebirth amounts to giving God the title to our souls, not just willingness to sacrifice a vice here or there. Rebirth empowers us; we are upgraded from lost sheep to shepherds. The ability to be free from sin precedes assignments to help others, not an invitation to go out and play. We are enabled, and assigned, to do our Father's work.

Some of us evince the attitude that hard work, struggling with temptation, is a greater virtue than being humble enough to have the burden completely removed. Read the scriptures; managing evil desires is not our ultimate assignment, or our greatest work. If all desire for sin were removed, do we really think that our work would be done? Think of the Three Nephites. Jesus freed them from temptation, but they have been busy for almost two millennia.

Latter-day Saints do not view rebirth in the smug, one-shot, self-congratulatory manner of pop-religion, but we still have a long way to go as a Church in understanding and applying it fully. Instead of explaining our shortcomings by denying that Jesus Christ is able to make us holy, let us look into our hearts and see what idols we may be placing above God in our ranking system. They put our hearts out of the reach of His healing, cleansing power.

Closing the Gap

Being humble is hard work. It requires a new mindset. Are we aware of our nothingness, or do we run and hide from that obvious truth (the way Satan convinced Adam and Eve to hide from God)? Are we willing to do whatever God asks, or sacrifice anything at His request? Even when we reach this state, we still have to admit, like Nephi (2Ne. 4:16) that we are still missing the necessary funds to say “thy will be done” and have it translate into solid obedience (not just the non-rebellious type, but the kind that doesn't stumble or spill anything). Do we recognize that not sinning, doing the right thing, is simply clearing the bar, meeting the minimum requirement, rather than a reason to spray champagne? And it takes grace, assistance from Jesus Christ, to lift us over that bar anyway. Our nothingness and limitations are huge.

Those who struggle with embarrassing addictions and grievous sins are driven to be humble by the sheer social pain of their situations. Those whose vices are socially acceptable are in a dangerous position—to paraphrase C. S. Lewis (in The Great Divorce), it is easier to mistake brass for gold than to mistake mud for gold. Just because we are not embroiled in serious violations of the commandments does not mean we can get into heaven without being reborn, and that requires full submission to God, humility. So being humble is not just for professional sinners; it is required of everyone. Managing our foibles through willpower and our cunning devices will suffice for the short term, but in the long run, the natural man must be euthanized, and only the Savior can perform that operation. Trying to keep the natural man as a well-fed pet with scraps of mild worldliness and innocent fun will not do.

Perhaps the humility we offer that is acceptable is not objectively perfect humility; maybe it is simply our personal best, our 100%, whatever that might be at the moment. There is, unfortunately, always room for improvement, deeper depths of humility to reach, with no discernible finish line in sight. (I was astonished at a photograph of the world-record holder for the Limbo; she was mere inches off the ground, and walked under a bar less than a foot high. I could not manage to go that low.) What I know for certain is that the grace we receive is proportional to our humility. How low we can go, and how low we actually go, are partway in our control, and in some ways out of our control. We all fall short and miss the mark. That is why we need Jesus to save us, to act as our Savior. We need not be frantic or self-abusive. But we need to begin somewhere. The real process is getting more humble, and that means actually understanding humility via the scriptures. We hold the metronome; the ball is in our court. Most of the attributes described in the scriptures, the ones we work on and practice so frantically, are what the Lord can make of us AFTER we offer that broken heart to Him.

********************
Follow this link to an earlier blog post about spiritual rebirth. It describes the same concepts, with a different emphasis or angle.