Posts Tagged ‘faith in Jesus’
If You Are Not Born Again?
In the Gospel of John, chapter 3, Jesus is talking with a Pharisee named Nicodemus. At some point Nicodemus says, ““Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Right away Jesus by-passes the statement and tells Nicodemus the following:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
So, right away Jesus tells Nicodemus that he needs to be born again if he even expects to see God’s Kingdom. This comes as a surprise to the Pharisee and he, right away, asks how can this be; thinking that being born again is a physical act. Jesus follows with this:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
The answer by Jesus is even more telling. Unless one is born again not only will he not see the kingdom of God but, he will also not even enter the kingdom of God. Think about that. If “you” are not born again you will never go to Heaven. It is that simple. This work of being “born again” is all of God. You cannot earn it, you cannot buy it, you cannot even demand it. Jesus makes this clear in His follow-up statement to Nicodemus:
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
The Holy Spirit is the one who washes you and cleans you up, makes you new and puts within you a desire for repentance towards God and for belief and submission to Jesus. Just like it is explained, first in Ezekiel 36: 25 – 27:
25 Then will I pour clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: yea, from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you.
26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your body, and I will give you a heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them.
Second, from Romans 10: 8 – 10:
“The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
God puts within you a new heart, after cleansing you with His Spirit and with the Word of God, and with this new heart, a willing heart, you will be able to confess that Jesus is Lord (that is submission) and you will believe that He has been raised from the dead (that is trusting Jesus as the Savior) and this action is the outward sign of an inner conversion as a sign of you being “born again” by the work of the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God.
How about you? Have you ever made this confession of Jesus as Lord with the belief of His being raised from the dead? If you have you have the evidence of assurance of the Holy Spirits’ working in your life and of being “born again”, having been washed cleaned and given a new heart to know, obey and love God.
If you have never done so, if you have never confessed Jesus as Lord then, not only will you never see the kingdom of God, but you will never enter into the kingdom of God. All you will have to which you can look forward is as follows in John 3: 18 & John 3: 36:
18. “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
36. “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
These two verses should scare anyone who has never bowed before Jesus in submission to His Lordship, and it should cause anyone to call out to God to come and work in him the miracle of salvation by the work of the Holy Spirit, and to wash him clean from all of his sins and to give him a new heart in the act of being “born again”.
The Kingdom of God or the pangs of hell. These are the only two results for any of us. If you are not born again, why would you want anything else? Will you not make that confession that Jesus is Lord? Remember the words of Jesus…
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see nor enter the kingdom of God.”
If You Are Not Born Again….. now you know…..
Your Faith Did Not Save You
You’ve heard it and you’ve seen it in print. If you just accept Jesus by faith you will be saved. The plain teaching today is that you can be saved from your sins if you will just have a little faith in Jesus. The problem with all of this is that in your sinful state you are dead in sins and are unable to respond to any calling to having any faith of any kind in Jesus for salvation.
In the following passages we read:
And you hath he quickened, that were dead in trespasses and sins… Ephesians 2: 1
even when we were dead in trespasses… Ephesians 2: 5
And you, being dead in your trespasses… Colossians 2: 13
As you can see, before you are “born again” you are dead, spiritually dead, and are unable to do respond to anything pertaining to Jesus. Just as Lazarus was physically dead in a physical grave, you are spiritually dead in a spiritual grave. When the call comes to “come forth” you must be given to ability to do so, just like Lazarus was given the ability to respond to Jesus’s command to come out of the grave. Before you can come out of the grave you, too, need to be given the ability to do so before you can answer the call to come forth.
Now we know this verse well:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast… Ephesians 2: 8, 9
Here we are told that it is by “grace” that we are saved through faith that is given to us with which we can believe on Jesus. That is very clear in this verse. Any faith that we have is given to us as a gift from God so that we cannot boast about how “our” faith saved us. So, if it isn’t by “our” faith that we are saved, then by whose faith are we saved?
Now here is where the problem arises with today’s modern language translation bibles. Look first at the following verses; you will recognize them all.
1. Romans 3:22
This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
2. Romans 3:26
he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
3. Galatians 2:16
know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.
4. Galatians 3:22
But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
These all came from the New International Version (NIV) translation of the bible, and many of today’s modern translations say the same thing, in one way or another. The question is this. If we are dead in trespasses, as we have read, how then can we generate any kind of faith in order to believe? The answer is… we can’t. However, the answer to this problem is easy. It is not by “our” faith with which we believe!
Now, read this verses. They are the same four as above, but they are from the 1599 Geneva Bible. All but forgotten in our day, the Geneva Bible was the most widely read and influential English Bible of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A superb translation, it was the product of the best Protestant scholars of the day and became the Bible of choice for many of the greatest writers and thinkers of that time. (from Bible Gateway.com)
1. Romans 3:22
To wit, the righteousness of God by the faith of Jesus Christ, unto all, and upon all that believe.
2. Romans 3:26
Through the patience of God, to show at this time his righteousness, that he might be just, and a justifier of him which is of the faith of Jesus.
Know that a man is not justified by the works of the Law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we, I say, have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the Law, because that by the works of the Law, no flesh shall be justified.
But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ should be given to them that believe.
Do you see the difference? Today’s translations state that we are saved by “faith in Jesus”. However, as we have seen we are spiritually dead in trespasses and are unable to respond with any faith at all, and what faith it is that we use is given to us by God that we may believe.
You see, the little word “in” is from the Greek word “apo'” which should be translated “of” and not “in”, basically meaning “taken from or off of”. As in “off of” or “from” Jesus, i.e. “faith of Jesus”.
This is where the 1599 Geneva translations comes into its own. The Geneva Bible states clearly that it is by the “FAITH OF JESUS” that we are saved. This is the faith that is given to us as a gift by God so that we can believe. This way we cannot boast about “our” faith, because we have none, and it is by the “FAITH OF JESUS” given to us that we believe.
This may help you to understand this:
For I say through the grace that is given unto me, to everyone that is among you, that no man presume to understand above that which is meet to understand, but that he understand according to sobriety, as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith… Romans 12:3
When we are called to come to Jesus we cannot do so unless God gives us the ability to do so (see John 6: 44 and John 6: 65), and He gives us a measure of faith with which to believe, and the faith that is given to us is the faith of Jesus that He had with the Father when He was here on earth. We have no faith of our own and, even if we did, it would be an imperfect faith that we would have to rely upon for our salvation, However, the faith of Jesus is a perfect faith. A faith which gives us the ability to come to Jesus and to believe on Him.
So you can see that, if you are saved, if you are born again by the Spirit of God that is was not by the result of any faith of your own, but by the “FAITH OF JESUS” that you are saved. This way you cannot boast of anything as it is a gift of God, given to you so that you could believe with a perfect faith. A faith that would be offered, accepted and held by God for eternity. For it is by the “FAITH OF JESUS” that you are justified and saved.
Think of this. By whose faith would you like to base your eternal salvation upon? Your faith or the “FAITH OF JESUS” given to you with which to believe? To me the answer is clear and I hope you will agree, for only by the “FAITH OF JESUS” are we justified and saved…..
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