Anyone who has faith in God is born again
Aug 7, 2017 11:18:24 GMT
Post by Colossians on Aug 7, 2017 11:18:24 GMT
This material is for the teaching of the Body of Christ, however the author reserves copyright over it.
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ANYONE WHO HAS FAITH IN GOD IS BORN AGAIN
Owing to the prevalence of dispensationalism in Christendom, there is a strange idea running around that people who trusted in God before Pentecost, were not born again.
We judge on a theoretical basis whether one is born again, by whether or not he brings forth fruit unto God, for that is indeed why we are saved:
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” Eph 2:10.
That is, there is no use being born again if one can bring forth fruit unto God without being born again.
And so when Jesus spoke of a good tree's bringing forth good fruit, He was speaking of born-again people, with implication that such people had lived all through the ages.
So John the Baptist, Joseph and Mary, Simeon and Anna, Esther, Moses, Joshua, Seth, Job, Isaiah etc, were all born again and therefore all temples of the Holy Ghost. For all declared with their lives that Jesus Christ was Lord, and we know that “no man can say Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost” (1 Cor 12:3).
And thus the writer to the Hebrews says of Moses that he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt (Heb 11:26), and (commensurately) that the gospel preached to those under Moses was the same as that preached to us today (Heb 4:2).
And of course Paul tells us that Abraham is the father of the very same faith which we have (Rom 4:1,16, Gal 3:29): if our faith renders us born again, how much more him who is the father of our faith? Or what? Shall the children be considered greater than the parents?
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But we must needs deal with the dispensationalist’s mainstay before we finish ...
Hebrews 11 declares a long list of those who did great works of faith in the OT era, and then concludes with the following:
“these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect” Heb 11:39,40.
The dispensationalist seizes upon this “received not the promise” as ‘proof’ that such folk – despite their having performed acts so heroic they would put us to shame were it not for the fact that all works of faith are wrought by God and no-one else besides – were not born again, for he thinks this “promise” to be in reference to (the indwelling Holy Spirit unto) regeneration.
But it is not the 3rd Person of God to whom the scriptures give the pre-eminence, but the 2nd Person: this “the promise” of Heb 11:39 is rather and in fact that which was declared by Paul to the Jews at Antioch of Pisidia:
“Of [David’s seed] hath God according to His promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus ... And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that He hath raised up Jesus again” Acts 13:23,32,33
: the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
For the Holy Spirit speaks not of Himself, but only of Him who was crucified: His office is to glorify the Son, never to supplant Him.
And so all the writer to the Hebrews is saying is that, contrary to what one might expect in light of the apparent worthiness of those he has listed at the earlier portion of the chapter (11), such folk were (nevertheless) not made to live in that part of history where they might witness the coming of Him who was the very object of their faith.
That they would be made perfect by us is then simply by reason of the fact that their faith which was generally outworked in types such as Israel, its carnal warfare and its rest from its foes, would be completed with regard to the (actual) (spiritual) scheme of things by the (relative) anti-type that was to come: the church, its spiritual warfare and its rest in Christ.
And so we are also told that God has provided “some better thing for us”: contrary to our OT brothers in Christ, our warfare is no longer outworked in types and therefore no longer of carnal modality: the spirituality of the Kingdom has been consummated by the death and resurrection of our Lord, and the power thereof (therefore) none other than that to which the Baptism of Fire speaks.1
1 See our work: “The Baptism in the Holy Spirit”.
For it was not the warring David who would build the temple in Jerusalem unto God, but his son Solomon, who had rest from all his enemies: just as Solomon rested in the bosom of his father David, so too we rest in the bosom of our father Abraham.
"And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" Gal 3:29.
Epilogue
Because it is faith and not knowledge which justifies one before God, and because faith in its fuller sense means not merely belief, but trust, there will doubtless be many people around the world today who have not even heard about Jesus Christ, but who are nevertheless born again – born again, we might say, Old Testament style.
As indeed was Cornelius the Roman centurion before Peter came to minister the Baptism of Fire to him.2
2 See again our work: “The Baptism in the Holy Spirit”.
As indeed was John the Baptist in the womb of Elizabeth.
For it is written:
“Before they call, I will answer” Is 65:24.
This is of course not to preach universalism, but simply to say that there will be many around the world who have a living relationship with the God and Father of Jesus Christ, without really understanding much of anything spiritual.
God speed the perfecting of their understanding via their coming into contact with members of the Body of Christ who have indeed received the New Testament's consummate knowledge of the Cross.
“And a certain Jew named Apollos ... began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly” Acts 18:24-26.
Amen.
____________________________________________
ANYONE WHO HAS FAITH IN GOD IS BORN AGAIN
Owing to the prevalence of dispensationalism in Christendom, there is a strange idea running around that people who trusted in God before Pentecost, were not born again.
We judge on a theoretical basis whether one is born again, by whether or not he brings forth fruit unto God, for that is indeed why we are saved:
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” Eph 2:10.
That is, there is no use being born again if one can bring forth fruit unto God without being born again.
And so when Jesus spoke of a good tree's bringing forth good fruit, He was speaking of born-again people, with implication that such people had lived all through the ages.
So John the Baptist, Joseph and Mary, Simeon and Anna, Esther, Moses, Joshua, Seth, Job, Isaiah etc, were all born again and therefore all temples of the Holy Ghost. For all declared with their lives that Jesus Christ was Lord, and we know that “no man can say Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost” (1 Cor 12:3).
And thus the writer to the Hebrews says of Moses that he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt (Heb 11:26), and (commensurately) that the gospel preached to those under Moses was the same as that preached to us today (Heb 4:2).
And of course Paul tells us that Abraham is the father of the very same faith which we have (Rom 4:1,16, Gal 3:29): if our faith renders us born again, how much more him who is the father of our faith? Or what? Shall the children be considered greater than the parents?
___
But we must needs deal with the dispensationalist’s mainstay before we finish ...
Hebrews 11 declares a long list of those who did great works of faith in the OT era, and then concludes with the following:
“these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect” Heb 11:39,40.
The dispensationalist seizes upon this “received not the promise” as ‘proof’ that such folk – despite their having performed acts so heroic they would put us to shame were it not for the fact that all works of faith are wrought by God and no-one else besides – were not born again, for he thinks this “promise” to be in reference to (the indwelling Holy Spirit unto) regeneration.
But it is not the 3rd Person of God to whom the scriptures give the pre-eminence, but the 2nd Person: this “the promise” of Heb 11:39 is rather and in fact that which was declared by Paul to the Jews at Antioch of Pisidia:
“Of [David’s seed] hath God according to His promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus ... And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that He hath raised up Jesus again” Acts 13:23,32,33
: the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
For the Holy Spirit speaks not of Himself, but only of Him who was crucified: His office is to glorify the Son, never to supplant Him.
And so all the writer to the Hebrews is saying is that, contrary to what one might expect in light of the apparent worthiness of those he has listed at the earlier portion of the chapter (11), such folk were (nevertheless) not made to live in that part of history where they might witness the coming of Him who was the very object of their faith.
That they would be made perfect by us is then simply by reason of the fact that their faith which was generally outworked in types such as Israel, its carnal warfare and its rest from its foes, would be completed with regard to the (actual) (spiritual) scheme of things by the (relative) anti-type that was to come: the church, its spiritual warfare and its rest in Christ.
And so we are also told that God has provided “some better thing for us”: contrary to our OT brothers in Christ, our warfare is no longer outworked in types and therefore no longer of carnal modality: the spirituality of the Kingdom has been consummated by the death and resurrection of our Lord, and the power thereof (therefore) none other than that to which the Baptism of Fire speaks.1
1 See our work: “The Baptism in the Holy Spirit”.
For it was not the warring David who would build the temple in Jerusalem unto God, but his son Solomon, who had rest from all his enemies: just as Solomon rested in the bosom of his father David, so too we rest in the bosom of our father Abraham.
"And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" Gal 3:29.
Epilogue
Because it is faith and not knowledge which justifies one before God, and because faith in its fuller sense means not merely belief, but trust, there will doubtless be many people around the world today who have not even heard about Jesus Christ, but who are nevertheless born again – born again, we might say, Old Testament style.
As indeed was Cornelius the Roman centurion before Peter came to minister the Baptism of Fire to him.2
2 See again our work: “The Baptism in the Holy Spirit”.
As indeed was John the Baptist in the womb of Elizabeth.
For it is written:
“Before they call, I will answer” Is 65:24.
This is of course not to preach universalism, but simply to say that there will be many around the world who have a living relationship with the God and Father of Jesus Christ, without really understanding much of anything spiritual.
God speed the perfecting of their understanding via their coming into contact with members of the Body of Christ who have indeed received the New Testament's consummate knowledge of the Cross.
“And a certain Jew named Apollos ... began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly” Acts 18:24-26.
Amen.