How Can I Know I Have Experienced the New Birth?
1) Direct Answer
You know you have the new birth when the Holy Ghost (the Token) indwells you and bears witness in your heart, changing your nature to believe, love, and obey every Word of God. It is Christ revealed in you. Not a church membership, not a feeling, but the life of the Word living through you.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- Jesus said, “You must be born again… of water and of the Spirit” (John 3:3-8). That’s a birth from above.
- God promised, “A new heart… a new spirit… I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
- “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Romans 8:9). “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:16). “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14).
- “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Old things pass away; a new life begins.
- The new birth comes by the Word: “Born again… by the Word of God” (1 Peter 1:23; James 1:18). The Spirit quickens the Seed of the Word in you.
- It produces obedience and victory: “Hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments” (1 John 2:3-5). “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world” (1 John 5:4).
- It bears fruit: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace…” (Galatians 5:22-25).
- It confesses Christ rightly: “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God” (1 John 4:2), and witnesses in the heart (1 John 5:10).
- The promise is for you: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost… the promise is unto you” (Acts 2:38-39). “By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13). “After ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13).
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- New birth is not turning over a new leaf, joining a church, or a momentary emotion. Life proves itself by what it produces. The Seed brings forth after its kind. If the incorruptible Seed of the Word is in you, it will live out Christ’s life in you.
- Signs that follow the new birth:
- A clear witness of the Spirit within: assurance toward God (Romans 8:16).
- A new nature with new desires: you hate sin you once loved, and love righteousness you once avoided (2 Corinthians 5:17; 1 John 3:9).
- Obedience to the Word, not picking and choosing. You don’t argue against Scripture; you yield to it (1 John 2:3-5; John 14:23).
- Love for God and the brethren (1 John 3:14; 4:7).
- Victory over the world’s pull and a separated walk (1 John 5:4; Galatians 5:24).
- Ongoing leading and correction from the Spirit; you can’t live in willful sin without chastening (Hebrews 12:6-8).
- A hunger for the Word and prayer, and a confession that Jesus Christ is Lord come in the flesh (1 Peter 2:2; 1 John 4:2; Romans 10:9-10).
- If these fruits are absent and sin still rules you, don’t settle for a profession. Come God’s provided way: repent, be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ, and ask in faith for the Holy Ghost. He promised to fill the hungry heart (Acts 2:38-39; Luke 11:13; John 7:37-39).
4) Reinforcing statement
Now notice, the Bible makes it simple: the new birth is Christ in you by the Holy Ghost, producing a life that matches the Word. If the Life is there, the signs follow. If you’re unsure, don’t argue—come to Him sincerely, believe His promise, and stay before God until the Token is applied and the witness of the Spirit settles it in your heart.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
From that time
62-0713 §44
...women get up, and men, their faces washed with tears; and screaming, and walking up and down the building; some of your friends on the outside laughing. You say, "If that's new birth, I don't want nothing to do with it. Our church believes in new birth and we just put our name on the book." You're afraid of it! Let me tell you this. I don't care what kind of a birth it is, it's a mess. If it's in a pigpen, or in a hospital room, pink decorated, it's a mess. And the new birth is nothing less, but it takes that to br...
Thirsting for Life
59-0613 §33
Speaking at a breakfast this morning. I said the reason men go and joins churches and put their names on them, is because they're trying to bypass the new birth. They don't want the new birth. Oh, some of the theologians today figure out what they call the new birth, shake hands, and put your name on a paper, and believe a declaration of creeds. But the new birth is to be ... die, and to borned again, anew, a new creature in Christ. Anybody knows that when a baby's born---I don't care if it's on a barn floor or on...
You must be born again
61-1231M §74
...me not long ago with a vision or a dream she had, and I got the interpretation. Still, it's kind of hard to go tell that little Pentecostal preacher's wife that she didn't have the Holy Ghost; but she didn't. But then she received it. Yes. It's different, see. Yeah. It ain't speaking in tongues, it ain't dancing in the Spirit. There's none of those things you can lay it onto. It's a death and a birth, a changed nature, a changed disposition. The old things are dead, new things are new. The world is dead, and God's...
You must be born again
61-1231M §32
And although the creed that they recite, I do not believe that we could criticize it. Some of them are pure and holy, some of them are real scriptural, but the scripture is not applied in the right place. And, even applying the scripture, I believe that the new birth is something beyond that. Even though how well you might mean it, I believe something ... that the new birth is far beyond your good intentions and your thoughts, minds. It's beyond that.
Why?
61-0128 §44
Then I noticed that them people... A stranger come in and look, they'd say, "Oh, my! What do you know about that?" If you was only in that place with them just for a few minutes, you'd never want none of this other no more. But they try to duplicate them. They can't take it out of the Word, so they try to duplicate the new birth. They say the new birth is when you come up, and say, "I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I take Him to be my Saviour." That's not a birth.