02.03.10
I will continue to answer my own questions then and you can read along. All of us must experience a new birth, through dying to ourselves. Baptism is our water birth, or our burial. It is being buried with Christ, so that a new man or woman will arise out of that death with new life in Christ. Just as John preached and baptized, including Jesus, we too must experience a baptism or burial of our own lives. Not just being put under the water but a death that requires us to bury that “old man” and begin as a child again our spirit life with a purpose and work to be done for our new Father. Is that too much? May God help you to see what this issue of being born again means for us. Water burial and rising into a new life is only the beginning, not the culmination.
Administrator said,
February 3, 2010 at 9:11 am
You do not enter God’s kingdom in your flesh. All that is of the flesh must be dealt with severely in order for your life to be spiritual. You live your new life as a spiritual man or woman.
Okenna Osuji said,
February 6, 2010 at 10:31 am
Forgive us for sleeping on duty all this while. The issue we are discussing (being born again) is of critical importance and the starting point if we are to make the kingdom of God. And a thorough understanding of this is in order.
Philip Songwe in his comment of 1/10/10 made a justified attempt to compare the new birth to the old birth. However, in the old birth, it appears (as far as we can remember) that we did not choose to be born, or where, when or by whom to be born. It appears that God in his infinite wisdom made all of that decision for us. But in the new birth, there appears to be an element of choice and self will involved. There is a believe element and faith involved. In John 3:14, Jesus said: “As the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so the Son of man will be lifted up, so that WHOSOEVER BELIEVES in HIM will not perish but have eternal life”. So here, it looks as if it depends on man believing. Yet as you pointed out in John 3:5, the Lord says “No One can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is born of water and Spirit”. Here it looks as if this is independent of the man. To be born of water and Spirit looks like a pure work of grace. How do we reconcile this since the word of God is sure. We can choose to be immersed in water for water baptism, but how can a man choose to be born of the Spirit unless the Lord himself does it? This is a dilemna for the Christian race. A wrong understanding of this is why we have so many “born again” Christians who are not changed in any form or manner. I am interested in seeing how we can reconcile this.
Okenna Osuji said,
February 6, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Continuing on my trend of thought, at what point is a man “born again’?. Is it when he believes and walks up the aisle to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior? Is it after he chooses to be baptized in water? Is it after he is baptized in the Holy Spirit?
We know when a child is born into this world. A child is born when he is delivered through the mother’s birth canal out of her womb, and into the realm of this physical world. At that point, he can be seen, touched, heard by those around him. Before then, he existed only in the mother’s womb. In a pro-choice world such as we live in, the mother could have chosen to abort him. So it would seem the old birth does not depend in any way on the child that is born, but on others – the parents and the almighty God.
What parallel can we draw from this for the new spiritual birth?.
Ephesians 2:8-10 states:
8For BY GRACE are ye saved through faith; and that NOT of YOURSELVES: it is the gift of God:
9Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Could it be then that when we believe and walk up the aisle to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, when we offer ourselves for water baptism, and all we do as believers, that we are only telling God that we are obedient and willing to be adopted into his divine family? Could it be that we are still in a process of the new birth? That the actual timing and delivery of the new birth is only at the instance of God?
Romans 8:14 states: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God”
1 John 3:9 states: “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God”.
Since many of us believers including myself still struggle with Sin, are we truly “born again” of God?