Born Again or Conceived Again? The Meaning of Gennao in John 3

Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God, taught that the Greek word gennaō in John 3:3, 6 referred to conception: “You must be conceived again.” After Armstrong died (1986), this teaching was examined, and the church concluded in 1991 that, although the motive behind this teaching had merit, the technical details did not, and the meaning of the word is, as almost all translations agree, is “born.”
In some ways, the doctrinal change was inconsequential: it made no difference in the way we lived, and it did not directly affect any of our other teachings. It was a change in terminology, not in our understanding of the Christian life. The doctrinal change was important sociologically, though: it was a recognition that Armstrong’s teachings were not perfect, and all of his unconventional teachings would need to be examined. This eventually led to a thorough transformation in the church, as documented in Joseph Tkach’s book Transformed by Truth: The Worldwide Church of God Rejects the Teachings of Founder Herbert W. Armstrong and Embraces Historic Christianity (Multnomah, 1997).
This is no longer a live controversy among members of the denomination, now named Grace Communion International. We have not attempted to update the research or the way in which the matter was explained. This e-book is offered as an archive of the relevant articles we published in the early 1990s.