MUST BE's

 There are two “must be’s” in the New Testament that applies to us that are often ignored. Never have I heard a sermon on this subject and the best guess is that neither have you, albeit it is the basis of Christianity. Now for the “must be’s:” 

·         Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. (John 3:7)

·     Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)

 There are several other “must be’s” that pertain to Jesus and God’s Plan for mankind and His workers, but these two “must be’s” are essential doctrine, so essential that your destiny depends on them!

In those two is an equivalency: must be born again equals must be saved. You have the power to do neither since only Jesus can save as purveyed in the second verse: “for there is none other Name… whereby.”

Therefore, just as to be saved requires Jesus, to be born again requires Jesus. It should be obvious that just as you cannot rebirth yourself, neither can you save yourself. That is the essential doctrine of Christianity.

Why is that? You are who you are! You are sin, and Jesus has become sin for you, to wit: “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21).

“He,” in that passage, is Almighty God and “Him” is Jesus Christ, the “perfect sacrifice” in that Jesus had no blemish in Him (Lev 22:21).

Everyone else except Jesus has a blemish in them, not so much totally blemished but still good enough that they are worth saving. The Hebrew word translated “blemish” is a moral stain. The nature of man has a stain within.

Scripture reveals that all things were created “very good” (Gen 1:31) but that is an understatement by the translators. The Hebrew therein is mᵊ'ōḏ ṭôḇ — wholly good or perfect. Since by now, only God is good, as Jesus said, and He is glorious, mankind as created was made glorious. The nature of man was as the nature of God and that was in perfect splendor.

The nature of man was the “original man’s natural condition” — “the inherent character or basic constitution” (Merriam-Webster, Inc. 1982). Adam was constituted in the Image of God… glorified. Glorification was how Jesus was re-constituted after taking on sin for us. Jesus said this about Himself: 

³⁸ He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” ³⁹ But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:38-39)

 So, sometime between then and the resurrection, Jesus was glorified and that was a process wherein the Spirit of God was transformed into the Holy Ghost of Jesus. Speaking of His death,  “Jesus answered them, saying, ‘The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified’” (John 12:23).

The Jews did not glorify Jesus, the Father did! Pilate, bragging of his power, told Jesus that he had authority over life and death; to which Jesus responded, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above” (John 19:11).

With that said, with death Jesus was glorified. After He took on sin; He was made perfect again in the same manner as Adam long ago. The Spirit of God glorified Jesus and at the death of our sins in His flesh, Jesus “gave up the Ghost” (John 19:30)

Without going into all the detail, but after Jesus suffered death, His Ghost was busy doing things such as delivering the repentant thief to Paradise that day, delivering Satan from the belly of Judas, and depositing all the previous sins of mankind into Hell. It was not the flesh of Jesus that was His Glory but His Holy Ghost.

The Holy Ghost is the “bodily shape” of the man, Jesus (Luke 3:22). At His death, Jesus was glorified, and His Divine Nature was revealed. That Nature has the shape of the man but the incorruptible “flesh” of a Spirit. Jesus revealed the Image of God when He gave up the Holy Ghost.

“Death,” as they say, “became Him!” and to die in Christ is gain (Phil 1:21) because death for those in Christ glorifies the person, as Paul expected for himself.

Thus, our own glorification is not when we first believe but when we die. That is the time that the flesh gives way to the Spirit.

The flesh is blemished, but the Spirit in the Image of Christ, is glorious. With that said, since death glorified Jesus with His Inner Self, Character, or basic Constitution revealed, the same applies to us!

The genetic material of Jesus was His Glorious Genome. His worldly genome contained our sin, but His Spiritual Genome — the Holy Ghost — was wholly good, or “holy.”

What happened upon the death and resurrection of Jesus? It was a process. The Holy Ghost had many deliverables and foremost among them was the Genome of God. After saving mankind from Satan and their own genomes from him, Jesus took on new flesh as His corrupted flesh became incorruptible The Father, last of all, regenned His Son and when Jesus was resurrected, He was not alone: 

⁵² And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, ⁵³ And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. (Mat 27:52-53)

 When Jesus was regenned, so were the saints that were already asleep in Abraham’s Bosom arose. Those were the “seed of Abraham” to include the genealogies of Matthew chapter one, of those who were saints.

“Saints” are the seed of Abraham who are planted by the Messiah just awaiting the harvest. At the death of Abraham’s dominant Genome, Jesus, many of the righteous genomes of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob arose alongside Jesus. They were no longer asleep in Abraham’s Bosom — the genes of Abraham — but awakened when they acquired the Genome of God from the Virtue (dynamics) of Jesus.

The Living Waters that flowed from the belly of Jesus awakened the souls of the righteous, and foremost perhaps Adam’s as well, who is said to be buried beneath Calvary.

Now back to the must be’s. Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the other saints, perhaps John the Baptist and even Lazarus had been asleep in the bosom of Abraham, meaning that even Adam and Lazarus would have been resurrected alongside Jesus! Where they are now is a mystery, but it seems that also, the day that He arose, Jesus took them to Paradise as well.

That Living Water from the belly of Jesus was His Holy Ghost. The Living Water would be His life-giving Genome that has the Dynamics (Virtue) of regenning (“Virtue” in the Greek is dynamis.)

Just as when His Virtue left Him to heal the woman with the blood issue (Mat 9:20), His Virtue dynamically healed the blood issue in all mankind if His Blood is received as the propitiation of all our “past sins” (genetic sins) (Rom 3:25).

The woman’s blood issue was “cogener” (rheo; Mark 5:25) meaning a flow of blood that was genetic, perhaps hemophilia. Jesus, with His Virtue flowing shut off her blood flowing. Since it was cogener, then the Virtue from Jesus engendered her differently than before.

That brings us back to “Ye must be born again.” That is literally “engendered from above.”

You cannot re-engender yourself, but only the Virtue flowing from Jesus — His Living Waters — can do that.

Just as Jesus engendered the woman with the Spirit of God from above, only Jesus can engender sinners and change their nature — their very genome that is encoded within every chromosome in every cell of their flesh. Jesus removes the stain acquired that covers the sin in the chromosomes, so to speak. Then His Light changes the nature that is encoded in the DNA when it is exposed to truth.

As Pilate asked, “What is truth?” (John 18L38). The truth is that Jesus is God’s Spirit in the flesh of the man, Jesus, and at the crucifixion, when the Holy Ghost left Him, many saw that and believed. God revealed that truth to Pilate and he found no fault in Him (Luke 23:14). Jesus is who He said He was!

Refer now to the explanation that Jesus gave to Nicodemus about rebirth: 

¹³ And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. ¹⁴ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up… (John 3:13-14)

 Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, did he not? Yes, he did! “And the Lord said unto Moses, ‘Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live’” (Num 21:8). That happened! Many were bitten but when they saw the Serpent on the Pole; they were healed.

Moses was lifting up the Serpent on a pole but what were those poisoned seeing? They saw the crucifixion! Often forgotten is that the day that Jesus died, Satan was vicariously crucified, and like Jesus, both on their respective “trees,” Jesus the Cross (Acts 5:30) and Judas the “Judas Tree” (Mat 27:5).

The Israelites in the wilderness saw the lifeless Serpent in his tree, but understood that it was because of Jesus in His Tree (the Cross) that did that bloody thing, as Moses wife would say.

What is in a viper’s poison? Snake venom contains a deadly compound of phosphorus, Phospholipase, an enzyme that hydrolyzes phospholipids into fatty acids and other lipophilic substances (Wikipedia 2001).

 

Figure 1:phospholipid

Phospholipids are compounds of phosphorus are “a class of lipids whose molecule has a hydrophilic "head" containing a phosphate group and two hydrophobic "tails" derived from fatty acids, joined by an alcohol residue” (ibid). They are essentially the “snake” within us, and the viper venom that attacks it.

Phosphorus in organisms is noted for the ability to regulate the vital organs for vital functioning. Snake venom disrupts that and kills the flesh, oftentimes by rendering the natural coagulants useless so the victim essentially bleeds to death like the woman with the blood issue.

Those bitten by the vipers developed a blood issue, and what delivered them from venom poison? More venom. When the Serpent was seen as if already dead, then that was Jesus delivering the anti-venom to those who were bitten on a doctor’s pole — the Caduceus (shown below):

That image was not of Jesus but of Judas hanging from his tree with Satan, the Serpent, in him. Jesus killed the Serpent, not Pilate, nor even the chief priests.

The Israelites who lived after being bitten, were healed by looking forward to the coming of the Savior.

To be safe is seeing Jesus as God in the flesh, and Him and only Him, with the Power to save.

That brings us to the second must be, “There is none other Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

The woman called on the doctors to save her from death from the blood issue — something in her own genes that was killing her. Their names were unknown and of no consequence for they may treat but only God heals!

Salvation, therefore, is not a change in mind, but a regeneration, and is the same as rebirth. Regeneration is not at the time anyone first believes; that is the seed planted for safety in Abraham’s Bosom, like dead Lazarus.

Regeneration is just that — a regenning from above. That is rebirth and that is salvation. Both happen at glorification when mankind is regenned to the same constitution and nature in which Adam was generated.

Adam was generated when God breathed life unto him. That “life” was the very Image or Genome of God. Adam was generated with the nature of God, and sin stained that nature with some type of darkness.

Adam’s kind shall be regenerated when God regens them with incorruptible flesh (1 Cor 15:52), so regenning occurs at the General Resurrection at the rapture when Jesus comes from above to engender those dead and alive in Christ with a glorious constitution, again in the image of God as with Adam.

Therefore “saved” in that passage is a future event when Jesus returns to gather the harvest from the seeds that He planted at His first coming. Until then, Christians are safe from the wicked one so long as they see Jesus as the only Way to glory.

Until that time, the Adversary hammers away that He is not, that even He can engender you from below. That is why I fear biogenetics; it is the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge as the object that will save us, and not the fruit of the Tree of Life, which I believe is the Genome of God in Jesus the Messiah.