My commentary is in simple English today so that even dummies can understand rebirth! Rational people should not want to die. Everyone will suffer death. There are two highways from that moment in time when the heart and mind are separated. There is a highway to Hell, and a narrow Way to Heaven. Hell is eternal death; that is to say, “forever dying, all the while suffering tribulations.” Heaven, or Paradise, is forever living in bliss. “Bliss” is what the smart guys who make up big words call, “glorification.”
“Good” is a spiritual condition. The “blessed” on Earth are treated good by God. Upon suffering death, the state of Christians will be wholly good, just as it was in the beginning at the Creation. Adam and Eve were created entirely good. In the Garden, the two were in “Glory,” which means that they were in the Presence of God whose radiance is Glory. God blesses, and the recipient is in a state of bliss. The Garden Paradise was blissful, and the heavenly Paradise is as well. Wise people seek to return to Paradise and live in bliss forever.
Not only is bliss living in the Presence of God, but with no fear, tribulation, sickness, or death. None of those will be feared because they will no longer exist.
Because God wanted companionship, mankind was given the ability to either love God or not. Love is nothing more than valuing God and others more than oneself. Love is what’s right, and is called “righteousness.” Not valuing God is hatred. Hatred is not necessarily an intense feeling; it may be just apathy toward God.
Adam and Eve, when they sinned, didn’t despise God, but were apathetic to God’s Will. Their own “will” superseded God’s Will. That is “sin” because they considered, albeit naively, themselves TO BE Gods. Sin, in simple terms, is mankind wanting TO BE something that he or she is not! What people want TO BE is their own master in apathy to God who IS!
“Will” is the ability to choose one of two or more choices. “Free will” is doing so without force of coercion. God never forces people to make decisions; they do so freely. Hence, sin is wrongly exercising the decision process, or free will.
God’s Will is that His Creatures love Him of their own accord without coercion from Him (Acts 2:1). Mankind’s will is to love themselves more than God or others. God did not create them with that idea, or “propensity,” but that came later. In the beginning Adam and Eve, as entirely good, only wanted to please God. That was pure love!
Because Adam (mankind) was entirely good, God provided them with everything, with no toil on their own. They lived safely inside God’s Garden with no fear, not even from the beasts! God had two trees in the middle of the Garden. They were to test the wills of the two people. One tree offered life, and the other beauty, pleasure, and wisdom. They could freely eat of the Tree of Life, but death was TO BE (sin) the outcome of eating of the forbidden tree. Because they didn’t understand death nor time, Eve ate first, but she was deceived. Deceived Eve confused Adam’s thinking and he ate as well. Because he knew right but did wrong, he was the one with the greater sin.
Since the two then knew sin, they preferred the beauty, pleasure, and wisdom to God. When they got near the forbidden tree, they entered unto temptation. When they ate, temptation caused them to sin. They wanted more than God offered. They wanted what the Serpent offered. They lusted after beauty and the pleasures of the flesh, and the pride of doing in doing what they wanted to do, seemingly with no consequences!
However, because they yielded to themselves, God convicted them (from out there somewhere) and they were ashamed. In shame, they tried to cover their sinful condition with the work of their own hands and made aprons of fig leaves. The work of their hands was insufficient so God made them coats from a living animal to cover all their flesh. They finally saw what death meant. God meant that as a preview what He would do for all the “Adams” sometime in the future.
In the meantime, the coat of flesh kept the two safe until they would be saved. What did they fear? Death itself! Salvation is the time when sinners will be saved from death. Sinners (TO BE’s) WILL BE saved. They also began to understand time. God’s time is not our time. Christians will be saved in God’s time. God’s time is sometime in the future. God blessed the two sinners because they were humbled. It is daunting, but consider what God promised: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15). God was saying that someday the serpent will be stepped on, and the “saver” from the Serpent will suffer for that. God was promising a Savior to put the Serpent is his place. With Judas hanging from the tree, and Jesus safe in his tomb, the deed was done thousands of years later!
Jesus was safe from further peril and humiliation in his tomb. However, at death his Ghost had left him. Perhaps, it was the Ghost of Jesus who delivered all of our sins into Hell. At any rate, Jesus’s Ghost returned to him, he arose into the Glory of his Father back in Paradise, and Jesus was resurrected and was saved from harm in the world.
We are like Jesus in many ways. The world is the place of sin because it is outside Paradise. The world tries to kill the souls of Christians by tainting the flesh. Those who believe in, depend on, and trust God for their spiritual condition are protected by an invisible barrier. Jesus’s Holy Ghost is that Protector. The Bible calls him the “Comforter.”
Those who quit trying to save themselves from harm, and particularly spiritual death, depend entirely on God for that, and they are “born again.” Like Adam, they must believe that it is the living flesh of Jesus that keeps them safe from the evil one! The Name, “Jesus,” is God’s Purpose. He fulfilled the promise to Adam when Jesus suffered on the Holy Cross, and when Judas Iscariot; who Satan had entered, was dead on his own tree. Judas, like Adam long before, tried to keep himself from guilt by alleviating his own pain. Jesus death would have done that for him.
The lesson learned from Adam and Judas is that no person has the power or capability to save themselves from death, and that death is not the flesh dying, but the soul perishing in continual punishment. Those who deny themselves and take up Jesus’s Purpose are “born again.”
“Born again” is not the condition from the womb; it is the beginning of regeneration; back to the entirely good state in which Adam and Eve were generated. Hence, “born again” is generated again. Full regeneration cannot be done because the world is not good like the Garden was. Hence, full regeneration is done in God’s time. It is consummated at rebirth, but like a baby in the womb, there is a gestation period, culminating in spiritual “crowning.” In between, all mankind must suffer death just as God did! Thereafter, for some, the suffering is just beginning, and for others the bliss begins. The first stage of bliss is that the soul is safe from harm. It returns to Paradise without the flesh. Stage two is the flesh returning to Paradise. At that time the soul continues its immortality. In new glorified (entirely good) flesh, the person shall never die and are saved from death and the wiles of the Devil. Thus, rebirth is a condition of safety and death the outcome of enduring safely throughout life, until finally saved!
In many places the scripture says, “shall be saved” in the English. “Shall” indicates a future time. It could be the next moment or the next millennium. Reborn people, much like newborn babies, feel safe because they are in loving, welcoming, outstretched arms. However, just like babies, their very lives are in danger. Reborn people live in a state of alarm all their remaining lives just as babies during growth are always in jeopardy of dying. As long as babies do all that is prescribed, they live in relative security. They may die but feel safe and secure because of their medicine and protection.
Reborn people are TO LIVE the same way. Their prognosis is that as long as they love God and others, they are safe from the cunning of the Devil. “TO LOVE” are the Words of God, and the Word IS Jesus. Jesus spoke the Ten Words, or the “Ten Prescriptions” of love to keep reborn people from dying spiritually. To fulfill the Ten Prescriptions is to live as Christ. With that done, safety is accomplished and to die is gain – or saved. Death is when the soul is saved from perishing. That’s what we are all waiting for, is it not?
God is gracious; sin does create a safe space, but it is not saving. Abiding by the “prescriptions” without fail keeps one safe from harm. Missing one “dose” of the prescription will not cause death, but ignoring the Doctor repetitively, draws the wrath of the Good Doctor. He doesn’t insist on you taking His Prescriptions. You, like Judas before you, can die if you wish. However, to please the Doctor, the good patient has a desire to please the Good Doctor so that His treatments are effective. Good patients appreciate Good Doctors, and love Him for caring for them! Thus, the Ten Prescriptions condense to loving the Good Doctor so much that the good patient loves all others who are undergoing the same sicknesses!
As long as the Ten Prescriptions are a fact of life, the “patient” is safe, but when the “patient” wantonly ignores the Good Doctor’s remedy, then death shall ensue. There’s that word “shall” again. As with Adam, it may not be right now, but soon, death shall come quickly – sometime in the future. Good patients who love as God Wills them to, are saved from death, if they endure to the end. When is the end? Until their will is no longer an issue. When the flesh dies, so does choices. There are no more contests of wills between the dead and Christ. Submission to God’s Will must be made before death. Hence, Christians are “Christians” at the time they are born again. God keeps them safe from Satan by the Holy Spirit upon them, much like the protective “hedge” around Job, and surely around Paradise. Christians are saved when their immortal souls are back in Paradise again. Even their flesh is saved when the living soul becomes one with the newly alive flesh in the Paradise of Heaven.
How about Adam? God kept him safe in the world, and now because of the Promise he is saved. He as saved before Jesus died because he understood God’s sacrifice of his only Son. However, only Adam’s soul is in Paradise again, just as in the beginning before he was incarnated. In God’s time, we know not when because even Jesus does not know, Adam’s flesh shall be saved. It will be “snatched up” from Mount Calvary, if that is indeed the place of the skull of Adam, and go wherever Paradise is!
Adam was the foundation of the Christian Church, and he and the other patriarchs will arise first, then those who have yet to die. On the day of that “rapture,” the flesh of the dead and those alive in Christ shall finally be saved! That is when hope is achieved. We don’t hope so, but know so, so much that the prize is as if it is in hand! That profound hope is the “assurance of salvation” … so sure that we shall be saved in God’s time that it is as if we are already saved! Hope is the feeling of safety in Christ until salvation is achieved at death; “to live is Christ; to die is gain!” That is from a condition of safety in Christ to salvation in Paradise.
A condition of safety means living in peril. Satan’s role is to make us so unsafe that when we die, there is no gain. We, as our own masters, forfeit our eternal lives by doing things according to our own choices. The Way to salvation is living rightly; according the “Ten Prescriptions.” They demonstrate to God the seriousness of our own desires. They are metrics for living the Way of the Good Doctor, and if we love Him and His other “patients,” then he is gracious enough to keep us safe until His time for salvation.
Rebirth is the time of belief. “Belief” in the sense that it is ultimate trust in God. Jesus said, “Marvel not; ye MUST BE born again” (John 3:7). That is the first time that Christians have been awakened from their sleep, or apathetic condition. It is the only “must be” in the New Testament.
Paul said, “…knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Rom 13:11). Regeneration begins at the time Christians first believe - when they come out of their apathy, and are born again with new insights (light). “Now” is this instant in life – the safety in which Christians live. Like Adam who put on flesh provided by God, he puts the Spirit of Jesus on those born again. Adam was born again when he was covered by God with flesh which had experienced death. Christians, when they are born again, have the Comforting Existence of Jesus’s Holy Ghost who experienced death imbued within us, keeping us safe from the harm of the Devil.
The time that those who are born again really live, is from rebirth to death. Before people are born again, they live in fear of death because they deserve it! That is not truly living. If you remember “salvation” is when all fear is gone!
“Now” is where the reborn person is at the moment. It is in safe space. Why so? Because salvation comes as time expires. Each day, Christians living in safety get nearer the time of salvation – the day that Satan can no longer do them harm! That day is the day of physical death when the living soul is saved from death. Just as Jesus’s Spirit lived through death, left him when it was finished, then still lived on; that is what happens to our souls when they are filled with Jesus’s Holy Ghost! Just as Jesus gave up the Ghost at his demise, Christians will give up their ghosts at the time of death because the soul (ghost of the Christian) is filled with God’s Spirit!
When will the time of salvation come? “…he that endureth to the end shall be saved” (Mat 10:22). He that is certain of his faith are as if saved right now! What is the assurance of salvation?
Blessed is the
man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown
of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. (Jas 1:2)
Birth starts at conception, goes through the safety of the womb in gestation, and the baby crowns when released from the flesh into the world. Rebirth is the same way! Rebirth – bringing into life – starts at the time one first believes, live in the safety of the womb for a lifetime, then at death they receive the crown of life… immortality. When the crown of life is obtained, that is the time of salvation, and not before then!
It is unfortunate that the translators chose “saved” for the Greek word, sozos, in “shall be saved.” Because “shall be” is in the future, and “saved” past; that is not the best translation. “Shall” is not in the Greek. I believe that the best context would be, should be safe, because “safe” is another meaning of sozos. In fact, different translations of John 3:16 use both “shall not” and “should not perish.” I propose that they shall be saved when this life is over, and are safe until then!
It is imperative to understand another thing: Just as Adam was kept safe, he still sinned, but because of grace, God overlooked those sins because Adam surely loved God for his coat of safety, and appreciated the life that was taken that he might live. Did Adam live a perfect life as he did in Paradise? He could not have because of the tribulations in the world, no matter how hard it was! However, because Adam trusted God for the hope of salvation thousands of years later, and endured to the end of 930 years, he was crowned with eternal life when he died, and his flesh will return from the dust to live again, as he is regenerated, as he was generated, entirely good in the beginning!
The point to this commentary is that most do not understand what they claim TO BE. Even small children are taught the Calvinistic doctrine - I am saved - when they are born again. They are on the Way to salvation if their faith endures to the end, but Satan’s role is to circumvent that endurance.
In Calvinistic doctrine by election and irresistible grace, Christians are saved before the foundation of the world, and non-Christians die before they are ever born. Compare that to John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “Whosoever” are not the eternal life lottery winners, but everyone is elected to live forever… If they believe in Jesus. The unborn know Jesus, but those reborn must believe in Jesus, and that he is God the Creator who generates life!
When anyone is “born again,” they are reborn, at which time regeneration commences; are converted because of their new way of thinking when they are finally persuaded; and live in safety. However, they have the hope of salvation and shall be saved when they die; and if they live in love, are assured of salvation.
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