n2thelight says:
John 3:12 "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?"
Jesus is telling Nicodemus, now that I have told you where and how the soul has come into the flesh and departs to the Father; these things that are fleshly and you still can not understand. There is then no way that you can understand the revelation that Christ brought of the spiritual realm without the Spirit of God. It is impossible.[/Quote\]
No, that is not what being born again means. “Unless anyone is born from water and spirit,” Jesus explains, “he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” When Jesus was baptized and holy spirit descended upon him, he was born “from water and spirit.” By the accompanying declaration from heaven, ‘This is my Son whom I have approved,’ God announced that he had brought forth a spiritual son having the prospect of entering into the heavenly Kingdom. Later, at Pentecost 33 C.E., other baptized jews received holy spirit and we're also born again as spiritual sons of God.
What is said at John 3:12 has nothing to do with as you say Jesus explaining to Nicodemus where and how the soul has come into the flesh and departs to the father, that's a personal opinion, nowhere in this scripture is it saying that. There is no scriptural support for that.
The role of God’s Only Begotten Son becoming human is vital. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” Jesus tells Nicodemus, “so the Son of man must be lifted up, that everyone believing in him may have everlasting life.” Yes you see just as those Israelites bitten by poisonous snakes had to look at the copper serpent to be saved, so all humans need to exercise faith in God’s Son to be saved from their dying condition.
Stressing Jehovah’s loving role in this, Jesus next tells Nicodemus: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son, in order that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life.”
Jesus goes on to explain further to Nicodemus: “For God sent forth his Son into the world, not for him to judge the world,” that is, not to judge it adversely, or condemn it, sentencing the human race to destruction. Rather, as Jesus says, he was sent “for the world to be saved through him.”[/Quote\]
n2thelight said:
John 3:13-And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but He That came down from heaven, even the Son of man Which is in heaven."
Here now is the second witness to those things given, as to how you must be born from above. There is no way that you can make baptism out of this verse. It sums up the whole matter of being born from above.
No man, no one goes to heaven, but that he first was born from above. That soul must first be born of women, where the soul entered the womb at conception, and when the flesh body dies, it is returned to the father. There is not a living being on this earth, that did not come down from the Father first, and at death shall return to the Father. That is just plain common sense.[/Quote\]
Nowhere are the scriptures stating this, again this is personal opinion which has no scriptural support.
Jesus was telling Nicodemus that he had been in heaven with his Father from the beginning of creation, had descended from heaven and was in a position to instruct him about heavenly matters. This wasn't true of any other person because no other person other than the Only Begotten Son of God, from Adam onward had ever been in heaven to instruct anyone about heavenly matters.
Jesus was telling Nicodemus if he couldn't accept this instruction that there was no other way he could gain the knowledge he wanted because no man had ascended to heaven to get such knowledge and came back down to earth with it. You, well everyone, must accept this fact that Jesus is the only person who lived in heaven before becoming human to be able to teach us about heavenly matters.
Also as you said, the story of Lazarus and the rich man is a parable not an actual event that happened. In other words the parable meant something other than what was actually said.