What does it mean to be born again?

[stunnedbygrace]

Born again seems to mean (to some men I speak with) to just live eternally in a better state than some others, who will also live eternally, but in a bad state of eternal torture, despite not being born again with the Spirit.

So to whoever less is given, more will be expected and to whoever more is given, less will be expected. Which is getting it exactly opposite of what God has said.

 

[ScottA]

Which is still that first lie - you will not surely die.

Likewise, the lie is now also being told against those who live, saying the promise that "old things have passed, behold all things have become new" (past tense) is not true, not guaranteed.

 

[stunnedbygrace]

Likewise, the lie is now also being told against those who live, saying the promise that "old things have passed, behold all things have become new" (past tense) is not true, not guaranteed.

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

I see these two things as different - remain in Me and I in you.

 

[GTW27]

Wow. Your posts should be complete in themselves. You leave your audience with questions.

Perhaps, instead of the words that were brought to you for understandings sake, you can be shown what purifying one self means. Go and pray The Lord's Prayer. In it you will find forgiveness for self, and for others. If prayed with a sincere heart, you will feel the sin lift off. You will feel clean(purified) washed in The Blood of The Lamb.

 

[marks]

Dead to sin means satan, (whether through your own mind and emotions or through manipulation of someone else’s flesh by him), has nothing to hook you by in order to manipulate you.

The hook is in your flesh, and you have been separated from your flesh by death, and that hook is not in you, yourself, if you are born again. And if you think you feel that hook in you, you are deceived by your flesh as though that Adamic creature is still you. And people respond in that deception and sin.

But when you come to see that it's no longer I, but sin that lives in me, you see your liberty to not commit those sins. You see your liberty to walk in Christ's works, and to know the love and the joy and peace and self-control and all these, the fruit of Spirit life in you.

The reason why faith gives us access into the grace in which we stand is because that grace is real, our standing is a real possibility, and why? Because we are now the children of God, created patterned like Him in righteousness and true holiness.

But if we are not walking in that reality we are like rich men who think they are poor, and walk around in tattered clothes, and fish scraps of food from dumpsters.

Here's your "name it and claim it", believe that you have been crucified with Christ, and that you are in fact truly dead to sin, and alive to God. Believe that Christ has reconciled you to God, really and truly reconciled, in all He knows about you, all you were/are/will be, reconciled, not imputing their trespasses against them.

These are the saying of the Bible, claim them in faith, believing God's Word is true, and this is the faith that liberates you to live accordingly. Because He has already done it in us, through rebirth, making us different and new.

And we are now told to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, to put off the old, and put on the new, "if we live by the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit". "Forgiving others, as God in Christ has forgiven you".

We have been born into a spiritual family, having a spiritual relationship with our Creator, and we can be so complete diverted in our minds and hearts, understandings, perceptions, diverted to the fleshy manner of living, of understanding things, so that we even look at a passage and tell ourselves, That cannot be!

That you slapped her back (I know, not) means that you were not actually reckoning yourself dead indeed to sin and alive to God. You reckoned yourself to be the unregenerate man born from Adam, and acted accordingly.

If you were reckoning yourself dead to sin and alive to God, that slap would have been met with forgiveness, because that's how someone who is alive to God and dead to sin responds.

And it's not like your "reckoning" makes it happen, as if, we're not that person, but we can name it and claim it, and somehow we become that. We've been born again with a new nature. Reckoning that true, it's putting faith into gear. I believe that God's Word is true, and in that belief, I'm going to be free from sin. I don't have to sin, I don't want to sin, so, don't sin! Instead, choose love, choose joy, choose peace, choose to walk in the Spirit, doing the works pre-ordained, producing His fruit.

Much love!

 

[WalterandDebbie]

Hello Episkopos, Great video, Love, Walter

 

[ScottA]

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

I see these two things as different - remain in Me and I in you.

If denied, both are against God.

 

[Rockerduck]

I was touched by God and prayed for Salvation through Christ Jesus. I received the Holy Spirit that still indwells in me, which makes Christ in me. So I'm born from above, by the regeneration of my Spirit.

Galatians 2:20- I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Titus 3:5 - not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,

 

[stunnedbygrace]

The hook is in your flesh, and you have been separated from your flesh by death, and that hook is not in you, yourself, if you are born again. And if you think you feel that hook in you, you are deceived by your flesh as though that Adamic creature is still you. And people respond in that deception and sin.

So carrying your cross and following all happens before you are born again by receiving the down payment of the Spirit?
That’s absolutely not how anything happened with me.

But when you come to see that it's no longer I, but sin that lives in me, you see your liberty to not commit those sins.

You have a completely different view of this verse than I do. You have a completely different view of it than Paul did too. This view that if I come to see sin in me it means I then have the freedom not to sin is not the years long struggle I have known.
I see the verse as saying, if I agree that what I do/did is sin and is not good and is what I wish NOT to do, even though I do what I wish NOT to do, this shows that I am not willingly sinning through choice but am sinning because my flesh is ruling over me because I am yet carnal.

Im too weary right now to address the rest of your post.

 

[marks]

if I come to see sin in me

You have a way of changing my words, I'm figuring as you read them.

When you come to see that sin is in your flesh, and you've been reborn spirit, you see that sin, and flesh, no more have any actual power over you. Only when you are deceived, and not trusting. If you are walking in faith, you aren't sinning. Because you believe the reality of what God has done.

Much love!

 

[marks]

You have a completely different view of this verse than I do.

I'd be more interested at this point, over anything else, if you could articulate my view of rebirth in a few sentences or whatever you wanted to write.

I've a strong feeling that you don't really understand what I've said to you.

Much love!

 

[stunnedbygrace]

I'd be more interested at this point, over anything else, if you could articulate my view of rebirth in a few sentences or whatever you wanted to write.

What I perceive you to be saying is that at rebirth you no longer sin in your flesh (because your flesh has died) unless you are deceived that you have, but if you just believe you have died to the world, flesh and devil, then you don’t sin. It’s not been my experience that I just need to believe my flesh is dead and then I don’t sin. It strikes me as putting on a pair of red shoes, clicking my heels together and saying over and over: I believe I am dead and therefore I am dead and am only imagining that my flesh rules over me and makes me miserable.
No man who has struggled with sin will buy that. He KNOWS his flesh is not dead and that its impulses rule over him. He is in misery throughout every day that it is so. He wants to be free from it and begs God many times over to free him. He is begging to be crucified and begging God to please do it. He literally wants his flesh to die. He cries to God to put this enemy of his to death.

 

[1stCenturyLady]

Perhaps, instead of the words that were brought to you for understandings sake, you can be shown what purifying one self means. Go and pray The Lord's Prayer. In it you will find forgiveness for self, and for others. If prayed with a sincere heart, you will feel the sin lift off. You will feel clean(purified) washed in The Blood of The Lamb.

I agree, many hold onto unforgiveness for petty things and think they have just cause.

 

[marks]

What I perceive you to be saying is that at rebirth you no longer sin in your flesh (because your flesh has died) unless you are deceived that you have, but if you just believe you have died to the world, flesh and devil, then you don’t sin.

At rebirth, you are born from God, and you have a new nature, because you are God's child, so you share His nature. You still live in a fleshy body that is corrupted by sin, but that's not "you" any longer.

If you don't believe you have been actually crucified in Christ are are therefore dead to the flesh, you won't act according to your new nature, because you don't believe it's real. So you go on like you always have, in the fleshy ways you are used to.

If you do believe, you will live according to your believing, because the Spirit of Christ is in us, He is already empowering us in His life. The just shall walk by faith.

I think the common experience is that God trains us into this faith walk through the trials that box us into corners with no exit, that we have to rely on Him. And we come to the point where we more naturally rely on Him. And as we do we are putting off the old man, and his works.

Sometimes this training is long and arduous to say the least!

The fact is, you can choose to walk in love and joy and peace and all the rest by trusting in Jesus to empower you, that you don't improve your standing with God if you do, and He won't "love you more" if you do, but it's the right and best way to live, what we were reborn for.

Does this clarify?

Much love!

 

[1stCenturyLady]

What I perceive you to be saying is that at rebirth you no longer sin in your flesh (because your flesh has died) unless you are deceived that you have, but if you just believe you have died to the world, flesh and devil, then you don’t sin. It’s not been my experience that I just need to believe my flesh is dead and then I don’t sin. It strikes me as putting on a pair of red shoes, clicking my heels together and saying over and over: I believe I am dead and therefore I am dead and am only imagining that my flesh rules over me and makes me miserable.
No man who has struggled with sin will buy that. He KNOWS his flesh is not dead and that its impulses rule over him. He is in misery throughout every day that it is so. He wants to be free from it and begs God many times over to free him. He is begging to be crucified and begging God to please do it. He literally wants his flesh to die. He cries to God to put this enemy of his to death.

fact: dead to sin
belief: alive to sin from false doctrine
Proverbs 23:7 For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.

 

[Huperetes]

The "lie" (by the father of lies) followed God's promise and declaration that eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, saying "in the day you eat of it you shall surely die." He does not say you shall die after a lifetime of seemingly living--but that very day!

Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 1:15-17​

​

And here is the "lie":

Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die." Genesis 3:4​

Incidentally...this is the lie that is still being told by those who say that in the day that you eat "also of the Tree of Life" (Christ) you will not surely live...that is, not until you spend the rest of your life in process.

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— Genesis 3:22​

OHHHH The IRONY! You actually quote the lie of Satan and then turn right around and promote it! You discombobulate the Tree of Life with some mythical reference to it that is not in scripture. Let's look at what the bible actually says about the tree of life:

Rv 22:2-3
In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

Is there any reference as to what happens if one fails to eat of it? However, we are told that to eat from the tree of knowledge is certain death. Stop excusing sin. It is death. There is grace and forgiveness in Christ that should not be taken for granted.

Blessings

 

[Johann]

without our will? Are you saying it is automatic?

"purifies himself, just as He is pure" This is a PRESENT ACTIVE INDICATIVE. Purity is important (cf. Matt. 5:8,48). We must cooperate in the process of sanctification (cf. 2 Cor. 7:1; James 4:8, 1 Pet. 1:22; 2 Pet. 3:13,14;

2Co 7:2 Make room in your hearts for us. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one.

Jas 4:8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

1Pe 1:22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,


2Pe 3:13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

2Pe 3:14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.


just as John 1:12

Joh 1:12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,

speaks of our cooperation in the process of justification.

This same tension between God's part (sovereignty) in our salvation and our part (human free will) can be clearly seen by comparing Ezek. 18:31 with 36:26-27. God always takes the initiative (cf. John 6:44,65), but He has demanded that covenant people must respond by initial repentance and faith as well as continuing repentance, faith, obedience, service, worship, and perseverance.

This may be an allusion to Jesus' High Priestly prayer of John 17, especially 1 John 3:17,19. He sanctifies Himself, His followers sanctify themselves. It is somewhat surprising that different forms of the same basic root are used.

John 17:17,19 ‒ hagiazō (hagios, cf. John 10:36)
1 John 3:3 ‒ hagnizō (hagnos, cf. John 11:55)
CONTEXTUAL INSIGHTS TO 3:4-10 (interpretation problems caused by 3:6,9)

This passage has been the center of the controversy between Christian perfectionism (cf. Romans 6), sometimes called entire sanctification, and the continuing sinning of the Christian (cf. Romans 7).

We must not allow our theological bias to influence our exegesis of this text. Also, we must not allow other texts to influence this text until our independent study of this text is complete and we have ascertained what John was saying both in 1 John 3 and in the entire book of 1 John!

This text clearly presents the goal that all believers long for, a total deliverance from sin. This same ideal is presented in Romans 6. Through Christ's power we have the potential for sinless living.

This passage, however, must fit into the larger context of the entire book of 1 John.
To interpret this passage without regard for 1 John 1:8-2:2 (Christians still sin) would be folly.
To interpret this passage in such a manner as to defeat the overall purpose of 1 John, the assurance of salvation against the claims of the false teachers would be folly also.

This passage must be related to the false teachers' claims of sinlessness or sin's insignificance. Possibly 1 John 1:8-2:2 deals with one extreme of the false teachers, while 3:1-10 deals with another. Remember that interpreting the letters of the NT is like listening to one half of a phone conversation.

A paradoxical relationship exists between these two passages. Sin in the Christian's life is a recurrent problem in the NT (cf. Romans 7; Eph. 4:14; 6:10-18). This forms the same dialectical tension as predestination and free will or security and perseverance. The paradox provides a theological balance and attacks the extreme positions. The false teachers were presenting two errors in the area of sin.

This entire theological discussion is based on a misunderstanding of the difference between
our position in Christ
our striving to fulfill that position experientially in daily life
the promise that victory will be ours one day!

We are free from sin's penalty (justification) in Christ, yet we still struggle with its power (progressive sanctification) and one day we will be free of its presence (glorification). This book as a whole teaches the priority of admitting our sin and striving toward sinlessness.

Another option comes from John's literary dualism. He wrote in black and white categories (also found in Dead Sea Scrolls). For him one was in Christ and thereby righteous, or in Satan and thereby sinful. There was no third category. This serves as a "wake up call" to peripheral, cultural, part-time, funeral-only, Easter-only Christianity!

Some references on this difficult subject:
For the seven traditional interpretations of this passage see "The Epistles of John" in The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries by John R. W. Stott, published by Eerdman's (pp. 130-136).
For a good treatment on the position of Perfection see Christian Theology, Vol. II, p. 440ff by H. Orlon Willie, published by Beacon Hill Press.
For a good treatment on the doctrine of continuing sin in the life of the Christian see "Perfectionism" by B. B. Warfield published by The Presbyterian and Reformed Published Company.
Utley

These are some of the Imperatives............

31. Be no idolater (1.COR 10:7)
32. Be followers of Paul as he followed Christ
(1.COR 11:1; PHIL 3:17)
33. Be followers of God (EPH 5:1)
34. Be followers of the faithful and patient
(HEB 6:12)
35. Be not children in understanding
(1.COR 14:20)
36. Be men in understanding (1.COR 14:20)
37. Be steadfast (1.COR 15:58)
38. Be unmoveable (1.COR 15:58)
39. Be always abounding in God's work
(1.COR 15:58)
40. Be strong in the Lord (1.COR 16:13;
EPH 6:10; 2.TIM 2:1)
41. Be of good comfort (2.COR 13:11)
42. Be of one mind (ROM 12:16;
2.COR 13:11; PHIL 2:2; 1.PET 3:8)
43. Be separate from the unclean
(2.COR 6:17)
44. Be renewed in spirit (EPH 4:23)
45. Be angry and sin not (EPH 4:26)
46. Be tender-hearted one to another
(EPH 4:32)
47. Be filled with the Spirit (EPH 5:18)
48. Be likeminded (PHIL 2:2)
49. Be one of accord (PHIL 2:2)
50. Be anxious for nothing (PHIL 4:6)
51. Be an example to believers in word,
conversation, charity, spirit, faith, and purity
(1.TIM 4:12)
52. Be a partaker of Christian sufferings
(2.TIM 1:8; cp. 1.PET 4:1)
53. Be gentle to all people (2.TIM 2:24)
54. Be apt to teach (2.TIM 2:24)
55. Be instant in season, out of season
(2.TIM 4:2)
56. Be careful to maintain good works
(TIT 3:8,14; cp. MATT 5:16)
57. Be content with what you have (HEB 13:5)
58. Be doers of the Word (JAS 1:22)
59. Be afflicted and mourn (JAS 4:9)
60. Be patient till Christ comes (JAS 5:7-8)
61. Be holy in conversation (behaviour)
(1.PET 1:15-16)
62. Be pitiful (1.PET 3:8)
63. Be courteous (1.PET 3:8)
64. Be examples of the flock of God, not lord over
it (1.PET 5:3)
65. Be subject one to another (1.PET 5:5)
66. Be clothed with humility (1.PET 5:5)
67. Be sober (1.PET 5:8)
68. Be vigilant (1.PET 5:8)
69. Be mindful of prophecies and commandments (2.PET 3:2)
70. Be diligent to be found in peace (2.PET 3:14)
71. Be diligent to be without spot, and blameless
(2.PET 3:14)
72. Be faithful to death (REV 2:10)
73. Be watchful, strengthen self (REV 3:2)
74. Be zealous and repent (REV 3:19)

 

[Taken]

What does it mean to be born again?​

^ OP

Born Again means:
Your “Natural spirit born of a mans seed”, has become MADE “a Supernatural spirit, born of Gods Supernatural Seed” via the Power of God.

God IS Creator and Maker.
Gods Creation is Finished.
Gods Making of His man-KIND of Creation is Ongoing.

Several MAKINGS regarding an individual man-KIND of creation, Precede the (Order and Way) born again making of a mans natural spirit to be MADE a supernatural spirit.

Once a mans natural spirit is MADE born again, it is a permanent everlasting condition.

Glory to God,
Taken

 

[Behold]

Grrr…!
This makes no sense to me. At all.

You have a body, a mind, and a spirit.

When you trust in Christ, God gives a Spiritual Birth to your spirit and it becomes a part of Him.

This is to be "born again", as a "new Creation". "in Christ".

Your body and your mind, are not born again.
You have to learn how to think of yourself as having become God's born again.

See that?
If you are not born again, and you are just religious and water baptized, then you have to resolve this...


Jesus said........."you MUST BE BORN AGAIN".

 

[Behold]

"purifies himself, just as He is pure" This is a PRESENT ACTIVE INDICATIVE. Purity is important (cf. Matt. 5:8,48). We must cooperate in the process of sanctification

First of all, Jesus is our Sanctification and Justification, because the born again are "In Christ" and "Christ in you, the hope of Glory".

1.) """"who has been delivered for all our offences and has been raised for our justification""

2.) '"""But you are in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and SANCTIFICATION, and redemption""""


So, that is established eternally IF you are born again.

That is SALVATiON..


Following this, you are now a child of God, in progress.........having become sanctified and justified and redeemed already.. = BORN AGAIN.

So, heretics teach that you are to try to work on that, to try to become it, so that you are in the process of trying to save yourself and keep yourself saved.

NOTE who teaches this Cross Denying JUNK, and do not listen to their HERESY, as they are trying to ruin your faith in Christ.
This is their MINISTRY.