“Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

John 8:47

The key “Whoever belongs to God.”  Jesus makes a clear distinction between those who belong to God and those who do not.   The important word is to “belong.” That is strong.  The followers of Jesus have no individual right.  They are God’s by the door of the New Birth.

This reminds us of the importance of the “new birth” that Jesus spoke about often.  He insists that those who are not “born again” cannot understand what he is teaching.  Only those who are born of the Spirit can understand what Jesus is talking about.

We are not the children of God because we are born of believing parents.  Each of us must make the dramatic move of becoming God’s reborn children through the work of Jesus who makes this possible.  Jesus did not spend much time trying to explain this miracle of the new birth, but all of his teaching is based on the fact that those who are born again inhabit a world quite different from those who are not.  Here He reminds his hearers that those who belong to God are those who are born again of the Spirit of God.  Here He does not use the expression “born again” but “belongs” to God.

I pause for a moment.  The only way to “belong to God” is to become a child of God through conversion.  We can not earn sonship.  We can only receive it through grace.