Born Again

[Soyeong]

Greetings Soyeong
Which laws are you speaking of?

Greetings. The Law of God straightforwardly refers to the laws that God has given. In Deuteronomy 5:31-33, Moses wrote down everything that God spoke to him without departing from it, which is why the Law of Moses is called the Law of God in verses like Nehemiah 8:1-8, Ezra 7:6-12, and Luke 2:22-23.

Alternatively, I am speaking about walking in God's way, which is the way to know Him and Jesus by embodying His character traits. For example, in Genesis 18:19, God knew Abraham that he might teach his children and those of His household to walk in His way by being doers of righteousness and justice that the Lord might bring to him all that He has promised. In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way that he and Israel might know Him. In 1 Kings 2:1-3, God taught how to walk in His way through the Law of Moses. In Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so the goal of the Law of Moses is to graciously teach us how to know God and Jesus by walking in God's way, which is His gift of eternal life (John 17:3).

 

[Eternal Entity]

Greetings. The Law of God straightforwardly refers to the laws that God has given. In Deuteronomy 5:31-33, Moses wrote down everything that God spoke to him without departing from it, which is why the Law of Moses is called the Law of God in verses like Nehemiah 8:1-8, Ezra 7:6-12, and Luke 2:22-23.

Alternatively, I am speaking about walking in God's way, which is the way to know Him and Jesus by embodying His character traits. For example, in Genesis 18:19, God knew Abraham that he might teach his children and those of His household to walk in His way by being doers of righteousness and justice that the Lord might bring to him all that He has promised. In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way that he and Israel might know Him. In 1 Kings 2:1-3, God taught how to walk in His way through the Law of Moses. In Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so the goal of the Law of Moses is to graciously teach us how to know God and Jesus by walking in God's way, which is His gift of eternal life (John 17:3).

Thanks for you reply.
What do you think of Jesus' breaking down those laws into just 2 laws?

 

[Soyeong]

Thanks for you reply.
What do you think of Jesus' breaking down those laws into just 2 laws?

You're welcome. The commandments to love God and our neighbor are inclusive of all of the other commandments, which which is why Jesus said in Matthew 22:36-40 that those are greatest two commandments and that all of the other commandments hang on them, so the position that we should obey the greatest two commandments is also the position that we should obey the rest of the Law of Moses. For example, if we love God and our neighbor, then we won't commit idolatry, adultery, murder, theft, rape, favoritism, kidnapping, and so forth for the rest on the Law of Moses. The way to love God is by embodying His character traits, such as the way to love justice is by being a doer of justice, the way to love holiness is by being a doer of God's instructions for how to be holy as He is holy, and so forth. In other words, the goal of everything that God has commanded in the Law of Moses is to teach us how to love different aspects of His character traits, which is why the Bible repeatedly states in both the OT and the NT that the way to love God is by obeying His commandments.

The greatest two commandments are much easier said than done, so thankfully God gave us the rest of the Law of Moses in order to flesh out what it looks like to correctly obey them. Someone who was correctly living in obedience the greatest two commandments would be indistinguishable from someone who was correctly living in obedience to the rest of the Law of Moses because they would both be following the same example that Jesus set for us to follow. Moreover, in Deuteronomy 6:4-7, the way to obey the greatest commandment in the Bible is essentially by being zealous for teaching obedience to the Law of Moses.

 

[Eternal Entity]

The greatest two commandments are much easier said than done, so thankfully God gave us the rest of the Law of Moses in order to flesh out what it looks like to correctly obey them. Someone who was correctly living in obedience the greatest two commandments would be indistinguishable from someone who was correctly living in obedience to the rest of the Law of Moses because they would both be following the same example that Jesus set for us to follow. Moreover, in Deuteronomy 6:4-7, the way to obey the greatest commandment in the Bible is essentially by being zealous for teaching obedience to the Law of Moses.

Love is the foundation. The Law is a description of what love can look like, not the source of love.
It is not "obey the rules, and you'll become loving"
Rather it is be transformed by the Spirit, and you'll naturally love
What are the laws? The two, the ten or the three hundred and thirteen?
The two laws are not "easier said than done".
One simply has to say "I will Love GOD" and get about developing that relationship. "The Law" cannot achieve this.
One must simply say "I will love others with the same genuine love I have for myself - the Love that my relationship with The Father revealed to me. The Father Loves me. Therefore I have no excuse not to love myself therefore I have no excuse not to love others.

Sure. If one chooses to follow Moses, then one will have to be zealous in that regard - even to keep the sabbath.
The love of the law ≠ having a loving relationship with The Father.
Jesus followed The Father and in that, showed that love for The Father was not at all diminished by not keeping the sabbath.
Jesus showed forgiveness for the adulteress by adding to the law her accusers were using, that anyone without sin could throw the first stone.

Being Born Again does indeed require effort and commitment but not to laws used to bind people in traditions which don't get them any nearer to either Loving GOD or Loving their neighbour - no matter how zealous one is. Jesus decomplicated by making it simpler.

Zeal without love is empty.

 

[Soyeong]

Love is the foundation. The Law is a description of what love can look like, not the source of love.
It is not "obey the rules, and you'll become loving"

I agree. The issue of the way to attain a character trait is different from the issue of what describe the behavior of someone who has a character trait. The only way to attain a character trait is through faith apart from being required to have first done enough works in order to earn it as the result, but what it means to have a character trait is to be a doer of works that embody that trait. The Law of Moses was not given as a way of attaining the character traits of God even as the result of having perfect obedience to it, but rather it was given to describe the behavior of someone who has the character traits of God as it describe the behavior of the Son, who is the radiance of God's glory and the exact likeness of His character, and who embodied those traits through his works by setting a sinless example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to the Law of Moses.

Rather it is be transformed by the Spirit, and you'll naturally love
What are the laws? The two, the ten or the three hundred and thirteen?
The two laws are not "easier said than done".
One simply has to say "I will Love GOD" and get about developing that relationship. "The Law" cannot achieve this.
One must simply say "I will love others with the same genuine love I have for myself - the Love that my relationship with The Father revealed to me. The Father Loves me. Therefore I have no excuse not to love myself therefore I have no excuse not to love others.

There are 613 laws. If someone thought that they just need to obey the commands to love God and their neighbor, so they didn't need to obey the command against committing murder, then they would have an incomplete understanding of what it means to love God and our neighbor and the same is true for all of God's other laws. A sum is inclusive of all of its parts, so summarizing the Law of Moses as being about how to love God and our neighbor implies our understanding of what it is essentially about how to do, but it does not change what we are required to do.

Sure. If one chooses to follow Moses, then one will have to be zealous in that regard - even to keep the sabbath.
The love of the law ≠ having a loving relationship with The Father.

The Hebrew word “yada” refers to intimate relationships/knowledge gained by experience, such as with Genesis 4:1 where Adam knew (yada) Eve, she conceived, and gave birth to Cain. God’s way is the way to know (yada) Him and Jesus by having the experience of embodying His character traits, which is the narrow way to eternal life (John 17:3). For example, in Genesis 18:19, God knew (yada) Abraham that he would teach his children and those of His household to walk in His way by being doers of righteousness and justice that the Lord might bring to him all that He has promised. In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way that he and Israel might know (yada) Him, and in Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so the goal of the Law of Moses is to graciously teach us how to experience an intimate relationship with God and Jesus by walking in His way, which is His gift of eternal life.

Jesus followed The Father and in that, showed that love for The Father was not at all diminished by not keeping the sabbath.
Jesus showed forgiveness for the adulteress by adding to the law her accusers were using, that anyone without sin could throw the first stone.

In Deuteronomy 4:2, it is a sin to add to or subtract from the law, so Jesus did not do that. Jesus was sinless, so he never therefore broke the Sabbath, but rather keeping the Sabbath holy is part of the way to show our love for God's holiness. If someone refuses to follow God's instructions for how to be holy as He is holy, then holiness is an aspect of God's character traits that they do not love. Witness should be free from sin in the matter that they testify about so that they are not required to condemn themselves through their own testimony.

Being Born Again does indeed require effort and commitment but not to laws used to bind people in traditions which don't get them any nearer to either Loving GOD or Loving their neighbour - no matter how zealous one is. Jesus decomplicated by making it simpler.

A child of someone is a person who is in their likeness through being a doer of their character traits, such as with John 8:39 where Jesus said that if they were children of Abraham, then they would be doers of the same works as him. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact likeness of His character, which he embodied through his works by setting a sinless example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to the Law of God, so that is what it means for him to be the Son of God and what it means for us to be children of God when we are partaking in the divine nature through following his example. This is why those who are not doers of righteous works in obedience to the Law of God are not children of God (1 John 3:4-10) and why Paul contrasted those who are born of the Spirit with those who have minds set on the flesh who are enemies of God who refuse to submit to the Law of God (Romans 8:4-14).

Zeal without love is empty.

Indeed, zeal should be in accordance with love.

 

[Eternal Entity]

There are 613 laws. If someone thought that they just need to obey the commands to love God and their neighbor, so they didn't need to obey the command against committing murder, then they would have an incomplete understanding of what it means to love God and our neighbor and the same is true for all of God's other laws.

Perhaps we are talking past one another. When you say "The Law of Moses" are you referring all of the 613?

You mention here committing murder. Some might keep that law simply because the do not want to go to prison. So they do not murder but they are no closer to a relationship with The Father.

And those who love The Father, wouldn't even contemplate murder.
So, the argument that one gets closer to God through the law seems a relic of religion rather than something of the heart.

 

[Soyeong]

Perhaps we are talking past one another. When you say "The Law of Moses" are you referring all of the 613?\\

Indeed.

You mention here committing murder. Some might keep that law simply because the do not want to go to prison. So they do not murder but they are no closer to a relationship with The Father.

And those who love The Father, wouldn't even contemplate murder.
So, the argument that one gets closer to God through the law seems a relic of religion rather than something of the heart.

The way to know God is through embodying His character traits and the goal of the Law of Moses is to teach us how to do that, but someone can still go through the motions of obeying the Law of Moses while neglecting to be a doer of the character traits of God that it was given in order to teach us how to embody and thus neglect to know God. For example, in Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that tithing was something that they ought to be doing while not neglecting weightier matters of the law of justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Philippians 3:8, Paul was in the same situation where he had been obeying the Law of Moses while neglecting to know Christ, so he had been missing the whole goal of the law and counted that as rubbish.

People can obey the Law of Moses for reasons other than love, but the Law of Moses describes the behavior of someone who is loving as it describes the behavior of Christ. It is not loving our neighbor to commit murder regardless of whether or not someone would contemplate that.

 

[Eternal Entity]

Nicodemus was a teacher of the law. If the law could achieve what you say it is designed to achieve, then there would be no reason for Jesus to have incarnated into the human experience and tell Nicodemus what he did.
Indeed, there would be no reason for Israel to have strayed.
So, while your theory sounds reasonable, the practicality of it appears faulty. The learned teaches of Israel even uplifting the law did not come any closer to relationship with The Father because the law was never meant for that purpose and shouldn;t be conflated with relationship with The Father.
The law - as an entity - is a dead thing and dead things do not and cannot be that which allow living entities to have relationship on the genuine level necessary in regard to what Jesus - in the bible - spoke of and nor can the law give us access to the far greater things Jesus taught which the bible (itself a kind of law) makes no mention of.

Man was not made for the law or the bible. Man was made for the purpose of connecting with the living GOD and entering in genuine relationship with The Father - and that genuine relationship fulfils what the law consistently shows it could not achieve.

Make the law (or the bible) the master, and miss the point entirely.

Relationship with the law is not relationship with The Father.

That is what I think.

I am open to be shown by you what your relationship with The Father consists of - how you relate with The Father. Verbatim.

In Love

 

[MostlyConfused]

"Since your belief is that being born again is an instantaneous event rather than a process, it explains adequately why it "does not make sense."

This can be viewed differently too. Just as a baby is born but has to grow, receiving the down payment of the Spirit means you are born again but with a lot of growing ahead. There is also a "failure to thrive" to consider because we are mostly taught to say we have need of nothing and are rich, but that's not true of babies at all

 

[Eternal Entity]

"Since your belief is that being born again is an instantaneous event rather than a process, it explains adequately why it "does not make sense."

This can be viewed differently too. Just as a baby is born but has to grow, receiving the down payment of the Spirit means you are born again but with a lot of growing ahead. There is also a "failure to thrive" to consider because we are mostly taught to say we have need of nothing and are rich, but that's not true of babies at all

Conception = The Spirit plants the seed of new life.
Gestation = The Spirit works in us, often unseen, preparing us for birth.
Birth = The new life is fully realized and enters the Kingdom.
Growth = The lifelong process of maturing in that new life.

It is an observation that many people who call themselves Christians have never actually been conceived by the Spirit at all. They have religious knowledge, they have church attendance, they have morality - but they lack the seed of new life. Nicodemus was the poster child for this: a teacher of Israel, deeply religious, but completely outside the Kingdom until Jesus told him he needed to start over.

 

[MostlyConfused]

Conception = The Spirit plants the seed of new life.
Gestation = The Spirit works in us, often unseen, preparing us for birth.
Birth = The new life is fully realized and enters the Kingdom.
Growth = The lifelong process of maturing in that new life.

It is an observation that many people who call themselves Christians have never actually been conceived by the Spirit at all. They have religious knowledge, they have church attendance, they have morality - but they lack the seed of new life. Nicodemus was the poster child for this: a teacher of Israel, deeply religious, but completely outside the Kingdom until Jesus told him he needed to start over.

I’ll give that some thought. It’s true that a seed cannot grow to life unless it falls into the ground and dies (I see that as death to my will and desires and coming to want what He desires, which is painful because it’s death of my hard outer self which is all I’ve known, but I’m okay with that pain and have come to desire it since I can’t stand myself a lot of the time) and that it can be choked out by all the anxieties and worries of this temporal life.

The only thing I would find objectionable would be if you claimed no place will be made for the righteous and claimed that only those who are holy have a place. It’s my biggest objection to Christianity is that they have that jumbled up and confused.

 

[Eternal Entity]

I’ll give that some thought. It’s true that a seed cannot grow to life unless it falls into the ground and dies (I see that as death to my will and desires and coming to want what He desires, which is painful because it’s death of my hard outer self which is all I’ve known, but I’m okay with that pain and have come to desire it since I can’t stand myself a lot of the time) and that it can be choked out by all the anxieties and worries of this temporal life.

You are aware of both what is and what must be if you want to lose that self-loathing. It has been a long time since I felt such negative emotions to do with "Who I Am" as I have learned not to identify as a human being.
Also to note, many of the symptom's of self loathing come from external sources which we then internalize.

The only thing I would find objectionable would be if you claimed no place will be made for the righteous and claimed that only those who are holy have a place. It’s my biggest objection to Christianity is that they have that jumbled up and confused.

You will find no such inferences in any of my posts. I understand what you are saying - Christians on this baord have been external voices pitching personal opinions about and to me.

I wonder if Nicodemus felt judged by the words Jesus said to him. Was Jesus inferring Nicodemus had "no place" when he said "you MUST" or was he referring to something else when answering Nicodemus' probing? Was that judgment? Or was it an invitation to something greater?

 

[MostlyConfused]

You are aware of both what is and what must be if you want to lose that self-loathing. It has been a long time since I felt such negative emotions to do with "Who I Am" as I have learned not to identify as a human being.
Also to note, many of the symptom's of self loathing come from external sources which we then internalize.

You will find no such inferences in any of my posts. I understand what you are saying - Christians on this baord have been external voices pitching personal opinions about and to me.

I wonder if Nicodemus felt judged by the words Jesus said to him. Was Jesus inferring Nicodemus had "no place" when he said "you MUST" or was he referring to something else when answering Nicodemus' probing? Was that judgment? Or was it an invitation to something greater?

Im not sure i ever want to lose that self loathing and mistrust of myself. I did write in my journal though about5 months ago about how i strangely didn't seem to view myself as myself anymore but rather as a hated enemy that i wanted God to crush under my feet. I never spoke a word of it to anyone though because they would have just thought i was losing touch with reality when the exact opposite of that was happening. I don't think you will see it as crazy though. I cant say i don't view myself as a human being anymore.I see myself as a weak and insufficient human but I think God likes that as He says His power is made perfect in my awareness of my weakness and poverty and I’ve caught some glimpses of that.

As for being aware of what is and what must be, i might say at least partially. I have accepted what is and that its very off and that people are emotionally unwell because of growing up in such a dysfunctional and hostile world. That no longer angers me since I’m no different. I’ve been damaged and bruised too.
As to what must be, my mind is mostly filled with staying surrendered to whatever He wills for me in the moment, whether its painful or pleasant.
Gosh, I’ve said more words to you than to any other person for months now. Aren’t you lucky?? Haha

 

[Eternal Entity]

Im not sure i ever want to lose that self loathing and mistrust of myself. I did write in my journal though about5 months ago about how i strangely didn't seem to view myself as myself anymore but rather as a hated enemy that i wanted God to crush under my feet. I never spoke a word of it to anyone though because they would have just thought i was losing touch with reality when the exact opposite of that was happening. I don't think you will see it as crazy though. I cant say i don't view myself as a human being anymore.I see myself as a weak and insufficient human but I think God likes that as He says His power is made perfect in my awareness of my weakness and poverty and I’ve caught some glimpses of that.

As for being aware of what is and what must be, i might say at least partially. I have accepted what is and that its very off and that people are emotionally unwell because of growing up in such a dysfunctional and hostile world. That no longer angers me since I’m no different. I’ve been damaged and bruised too.
As to what must be, my mind is mostly filled with staying surrendered to whatever He wills for me in the moment, whether its painful or pleasant.
Gosh, I’ve said more words to you than to any other person for months now. Aren’t you lucky?? Haha

I wrote a poem about this, some years back

DREAMS OF A FALLEN ANGEL


With and iron fist around the heart of the earth
With a bitter twist on the minds of men
With a frightening list of every human birth
With a flick of the wrist it could be over by then
From the poison words off a bitter tongue
To the voice unheard upon a crowded street
Strong and absurd - 'Thy Will Be Done' -
What has occurred to the throne at your feet?

From the softly said to the soulful sigh
Of the voice in the head of the sovereign lord
From the broken bread to the question why
As the answer bleed from the wound of the sword
From the satisfied looks to the expression of panic
All the time that it took was a blink of an eye
In consulting the book on how to capture a planet
You just find a good hook and take up the cry


And if I held my breath for eternity
If I chose to rest - would it matter to you
And if I took that test would I cease to be
I can only guess but what would that prove
With my feet in the mud and my thoughts on the earth
for the sake of a hug would you break my heart
For this flesh and this blood and this pain and this birth
Could you show me your love or would it tear me apart.

By the angel knights and the waiting ladies
The dragons sight was thus restored
In the crimson light no more hidden dangers
As the wrong and the right were both ignored
And one that coming day that ended this world
How the fearful prayed while the peaceful slept
Know the price was paid for that most valuable pearl
Shared by all - who forgive ...
...No regrets.

 

[MostlyConfused]

I wrote a poem about this, some years back

DREAMS OF A FALLEN ANGEL


With and iron fist around the heart of the earth
With a bitter twist on the minds of men
With a frightening list of every human birth
With a flick of the wrist it could be over by then
From the poison words off a bitter tongue
To the voice unheard upon a crowded street
Strong and absurd - 'Thy Will Be Done' -
What has occurred to the throne at your feet?

From the softly said to the soulful sigh
Of the voice in the head of the sovereign lord
From the broken bread to the question why
As the answer bleed from the wound of the sword
From the satisfied looks to the expression of panic
All the time that it took was a blink of an eye
In consulting the book on how to capture a planet
You just find a good hook and take up the cry


And if I held my breath for eternity
If I chose to rest - would it matter to you
And if I took that test would I cease to be
I can only guess but what would that prove
With my feet in the mud and my thoughts on the earth
for the sake of a hug would you break my heart
For this flesh and this blood and this pain and this birth
Could you show me your love or would it tear me apart.

By the angel knights and the waiting ladies
The dragons sight was thus restored
In the crimson light no more hidden dangers
As the wrong and the right were both ignored
And one that coming day that ended this world
How the fearful prayed while the peaceful slept
Know the price was paid for that most valuable pearl
Shared by all - who forgive ...
...No regrets.

I am so bad with understanding poems but I can say this -that3rd paragraph grabbed me

Also, “How the fearful prayed while the peaceful slept” seems to be something I’ve been seeing a lot recently (if I’ve even understood you!) regarding how ignorance is bliss but seeing things more clearly is painful and full of sorrow.

 

[Armour of God]

Born again of water and spirit
The early church called it baptism
Most Christians today call it baptism
I call it baptism

 

[Soyeong]

Nicodemus was a teacher of the law. If the law could achieve what you say it is designed to achieve, then there would be no reason for Jesus to have incarnated into the human experience and tell Nicodemus what he did.
Indeed, there would be no reason for Israel to have strayed.
So, while your theory sounds reasonable, the practicality of it appears faulty. The learned teaches of Israel even uplifting the law did not come any closer to relationship with The Father because the law was never meant for that purpose and shouldn;t be conflated with relationship with The Father.
The law - as an entity - is a dead thing and dead things do not and cannot be that which allow living entities to have relationship on the genuine level necessary in regard to what Jesus - in the bible - spoke of and nor can the law give us access to the far greater things Jesus taught which the bible (itself a kind of law) makes no mention of.

Man was not made for the law or the bible. Man was made for the purpose of connecting with the living GOD and entering in genuine relationship with The Father - and that genuine relationship fulfils what the law consistently shows it could not achieve.

Make the law (or the bible) the master, and miss the point entirely.

Relationship with the law is not relationship with The Father.

That is what I think.

I am open to be shown by you what your relationship with The Father consists of - how you relate with The Father. Verbatim.

In Love

The Law of God is God's Word (Deuteronomy 5:31-33) and Jesus is God's Word made flesh, so there is a direct connection between them insofar as Jesus is the embodiment of it and was sent for the purpose of leading us to embody it (Luke 5:32, Acts 3:25-26).

The Hebrew word “yada” refers to intimate relationships/knowledge gained by experience, such as with Genesis 4:1 where Adam knew (yada) Eve, she conceived, and gave birth to Cain. God’s way is the way to know (yada) Him and Jesus by having the experience of embodying His character traits, which is the narrow way to eternal life (John 17:3). For example, in Genesis 18:19, God knew (yada) Abraham that he would teach his children and those of His household to walk in His way by being doers of righteousness and justice that the Lord might bring to him all that He has promised. In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way that he and Israel might know (yada) Him, and in Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so the goal of the law is to graciously teach us how to experience an intimate relationship with God and Jesus by walking in His way, which is His gift of eternal life.

To know God is to know truth. An arrow flies true when it hits its mark, our mark is to walk in God’s way, and God’s law is truth (Psalms 119:142) because it was given to teach us how to walk in God’s way (1 Kings 2:1-3) while sin is missing the mark, sin is what is contrary to God’s character traits, and sin is the transgression of God’s law (1 John 3:4). The Spirit has the role of leading us in truth (John 16:13) and of leading us to obey God’s law (Ezekiel 36:26-27) because God’s character traits are the fruits of the Spirit. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact likeness of His character (Hebrews 1:3), which he embodied through his works by setting a sinless example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to God’s law, so he is the way, the truth, and the life, and the way to know the Father (John 14:6-11).