Posts Tagged ‘reformed’
How Is One Born Again?
In the Gospel of John, chapter 3 we read the following:
There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “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.”
3Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
And in verse 5 Jesus said this:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
These phrases stump so many people. Can you blame them? Even Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, was stumped. Born Again? What does it mean to be “born again” and how does this happen? Well, these are very good questions and let us see if we can talk about this in basic every day language.
In Ephesians we read the following:
Ephesians 2:1
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins
Basically, because of our sin nature we are spiritually dead towards God. All of us were born this way. In fact everyone down through the ages was born with a sin nature and spiritually are dead towards God. It is for this reason that we can read the results of being dead in trespasses and sins in this passage from Romans:
Romans 3:10-12
10 As it is written:
“There is none righteous, no, not one;
11 There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
12 They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.”
Being spiritually dead in our sins separates us from God and unless we are “born again” in the spirit we will never see God, we will never want God and we will never enter Heaven. So, the need to “born again” is very important and that is the reason why Jesus started from this point with Nicodemus and to impress upon him the need for being so.
Knowing about the need for being “born again” is one thing and it can happen without knowing how it happens. In fact, it always happens without the knowledge of it actually happening until after it happens. A very good example of how this works actually comes from the Bible and it is something that Jesus did in front of many people, and this one time occurrence by Jesus is a specific and quite plain way of how being “born again” happens according to the Reformed view of salvation.
This one event by Jesus shows that He not only has power over life but life in a spiritual way as well. Both physical and spiritual life comes only by way of Jesus. Maybe that is why He said that “no one comes to the Father except by me”.
In John 11 we read the story about Lazarus, a close friend of Jesus, about he became sick and died. Then after he had been in the grave for four days Jesus finally came by to visit the sisters of Lazarus named Mary and Martha, and He had them lead Him to his tomb. Upon His arrival we read the following:
38 Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”
Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.”
40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” 41 Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. 42 And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.” 43 Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” 44 And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.”
Now where Lazarus lay dead there were also other dead people in their graves around him. So, the first thing that Jesus did was to call out the name of Lazarus and command him to “come forth”. Had He not done so, everyone would have come forth out of the graves. But Jesus specifically called forth Lazarus; He chose Lazarus and no one else.
Now stop and think about this for a moment. When Jesus called out the name of Lazarus and commanded him to come forth was there anything within the body of Lazarus to allow him to respond? Of course not! For he was dead and there was no life within that dead body. Before Lazarus could respond in any way, shape or form he “first” had to have been given life in order to hear the command of Jesus and to obey that command to come forth.
The same is for anyone who needs to be spiritually “born again”. In John 8 you can read where Jesus tells the Pharisees that they cannot understand what He says, nor can they listen to Him as He speaks spiritual things and because of that they cannot “hear” Him, and the reason they cannot do any of this is that they are spiritually dead. They first need to be made spiritually alive to be able to respond at all.
In John 10 where Jesus is talking to the people about His sheep and how they hear His voice and obey Him to follow Him we read we read this about “why” they believe:
25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me. 26 But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. 27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
Lazarus was a sheep of Jesus. Just like all of us who are truly “born again” by the Spirit of God. Unless Jesus first gives us life, that is, unless we are “first” Born Again we cannot hear His voice and follow the command to “come forth”, we cannot understand what He is saying, since we cannot hear Him, and we cannot, and will not, believe in Him as Lord and Savior of all who will be “born again” because we are “dead in trespasses and sins and, in that state, we do not want God nor desire Him.
Being spiritually dead in our spiritual grave the first thing that must be done to us is to be given life, and that is the act of being “born again”. Once Jesus calls us by name, gives us life, then, and only then, can we hear Him, believe in Him and become willing to obey the command to “come forth”, and we do obey and we come forth gladly.
In short, faith in Jesus is the action of the heart, having first been quickened (born again) by the sovereign grace of God. That is why Jesus was so adamant about being “born again”. Without it you will not hear, understand, and obey the command to “come forth” and be given the right to enter into Heaven. How about you? Has Jesus specifically called you by name to “come forth”? Have you truly been “born again” by the Spirit of God?
As Jesus impressed upon Nicodemus about the need to be “born again”, I do the same to you. You must be “born again” if you want to enter Heaven.
I pray that today, even right now, that this wonderful phenomenon will happen to you in a most personal, knowing and loving way, and that you will “come forth” to be with Jesus.
Must You Die In Your Sins?
In the Gospel of John Jesus makes a very simple, but life saving, comment. If you read it, think about it and just dwell upon what Jesus said it will make you face your eternal destiny, and will give you a quick insight as to whether you will go to Heaven or Hell.
In chapter 8 of John Jesus is talking to some Pharisees. They had been accusing Him of falsely bragging about Himself and they wanted to know who He was and Who His Father was. To answer them He said:
“You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins.”
Simply put, Jesus basically told them that the only thing that can be done to keep them from dying in their sins and being condemned to Hell was to just believe that He is God. Now, unless you know the Bible and unless you are a Christian you will not understand this nor see where it is that Jesus said that.
What He said was:
“if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins.”
So you are saying to yourself, “believe that Jesus is what?” That is the secret that only God can reveal to you, but I’ll give you a clue as to what Jesus is saying with this.
In this same chapter the Pharisees and Jesus were talking about Abraham and the following conversation ensued:
56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”
57 Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?”
58 Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”
Now when Jesus said this the Jews took up stones to throw at Him in hopes of killing Him. Now why would they do that? Well, here’s another hint.
In Exodus 3, at the Burning Bush Moses is talking with God. Then, when God tells Moses that he is to go to the Jews in Egypt and bring out the children of Israel we read the following:
13 Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”
14 And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’
Moses is to tell the children of Israel that the great “I AM” has sent him, meaning that it was God Himself that told Moses to do this. So now you should see why Jesus said:
“Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.”
The reason that the Pharisees took up stones to throw at Him is that Jesus was proclaiming that He was God. And that is why Jesus said, “for if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.”
And the same goes for you. Unless you believe that Jesus is God and bow before Him and submit to His Lordship over you, you will die in your sins. It’s that simple. There is no other way. If you deny Jesus, He will deny you.
This is why God tells us in Acts 4:12:
“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
So, why die in your sins? You cannot earn your way to Heaven, you cannot will your way into Heaven and you cannot work your way into Heaven. The only way you can get there is by believing that Jesus is God, and you will easily show your belief by submitting to Him as Lord of your life.
The simple Gospel message is this… Believe and be saved… Why die in your sins? Just believe in Jesus and you will spend eternity in Heaven. It’s that easy. It’s that simple.
Just believe!
Parable of the Sower & Hearing God’s Word
Think about this question…
Do you know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God or have you believed in a Parable? The answer you give will indicate whether or not you know the truth about the salvation given by God. You can believe man or you can believe the Word of God.
In the Parable of the Sower, as found in Luke 8: 4 – 8 we read, ” And when a great multitude had gathered, and they had come to Him from every city, He spoke by a parable: “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold.” When He had said these things He cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
From this parable, the most important phrase is in the last sentence… “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” This we will look at in a moment. Instead, we will first look at the next two verses ( 9 & 10).
In them we read, “Then His disciples asked Him, saying, “What does this parable mean?”
And He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that
‘ Seeing they may not see,
And hearing they may not understand.’ “
From these, the most important phrase is, again, in the last sentence where we read, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God… “.
Most people focus on the parable itself and not on what Jesus says about those who will hear the true explanation and why they will believe. The answer is in the two verses I’ve mentioned.
First, let’s look at the first of the two verses at which we are looking. At the end of the parable Jesus say, “he who has ears to hear, let him hear!”. After reading this we have to ask the question, who are they who will hear? Is it just those who want to hear? Or maybe it’s those who choose to hear? Well, we do have Jesus telling us exactly who they are who will hear the words of God, and they are found in the Gospel of John. We’ll look at those in a moment.
However, in the explanation that Jesus gives about this parable, He also indicates who they are who will believe. In verse 15 Jesus says, “But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.” Jesus tells us that they who hear have a noble and good heart. Interestingly we know that no one has a good heart. All of us are a sinful people and we all are born with a heart bent for evil. You can find this all through the Bible.
The Second clue we have is found in verse 18. Here Jesus says, “For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.”
So, we see that basically they who will hear the word of God are not just people at random but, there is a group of people specifically in mind that Jesus had in telling the parable of the Sower.
Who are these people who will have ears with which to hear? In the Gospel of John, chapter 8, Jesus is talking with some Pharisees about who He is. He keeps telling them certain things about Himself and finally in verses 45 & 46 Jesus says, “But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?
He pointedly asks the Pharisees, “why do you not believe Me?” Then before they have a time to respond Jesus tells them exactly who it is who will hear the words of God and believe. In the next verse, verse 47, Jesus says this, “He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”
Now here is the conundrum. Most people believe that no one belongs to God until they are first born again. But, if they are not born again they will not hear the word of God, and if they cannot hear the word of God they will not believe and become born again.
However, if there is specific people in mind, chosen by God to hear and believe, then they will hear and believe when God gives to them the ability to believe. This is what Jesus is saying when He says, “to you it has been given to know the mysteries of God.” It was given to a specific people the ability to hear and believe.
They who are not chosen will not hear and believe, and this is what Jesus is saying when He says, “but to the rest it is given in parables, that
‘ Seeing they may not see,
And hearing they may not understand.’ “
In addition, this is also indicated in verse 18 of Luke 8 when Jesus says, “For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.” In other words, they who have been chosen by God to hear and believe they already have Gods grace and because of that, they also are given the ability with which to hear and so believe. They who do not have God’s grace, are not given anything that will allow them to believe.
Now I can hear so many of you saying that I don’t know what I’m talking about. That’s understandable because I, too, at one time did not believe this, until I became a Christian. It was then in studying the Word of God that I began to realize that the only reason I was able to hear and belive the Gospel, when for so many years I scoffed at it, was because it was God’s purpose for me to believe. The reason it was given to me to hear and believe was because I had already belonged to God and, in his timing and for His pleasure, I was then born again by the Spirit of God.
They who will hear the word of God and believe are those who belong to God and are given the ability to do so. They who do not belong to God are those who will hear something that will not be effectual to them and “Seeing they may not see, And hearing they may not understand.”
This brings us back to the question I asked at the beginning. Do you know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God or have you believed in a Parable? Most likely your answer will be determined on whether you will believe the words of man or if you believe the Word of God.
As for me, I believe the Word of God. For it is God who has worked His effectual Word in me both to will and to do according to His good pleasure. I pray that you can say the same…
Riff's Christian Journal 