A person is born again after hearing the Gospel, believing in Christ, repenting and being baptized.
Dear Salvadore,
There is a
pathway laid down by God for salvation. All mankind will travel it, step by step. Once a person can understand the pathway, they will also understand why Christians in this world are the way they are AND why there are nearly 2000 different denominations/sects, each with their own version of God's truth.
Let me explain further by presenting the "big picture".
Man's spiritual condition we have from birth is flawed. It was NOT a mistake by God. We were made that way on purpose so that our "flesh" controls us. That is why we are carnally minded and why Christ, while in a physical body, was not. Christ was spiritually perfect and this empowered Him to overcome this carnal world and never sin. But with mankind, we cannot overcome this world and we frequently sin as a result of our spiritual flaw.
It is not man's fault that we were created imperfect. God is responsible for our marred spiritual condition that causes us to sin.
Rom 8:20-22 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, ...
So why did God make us spiritually flawed?
Since this Creation is for God's purpose of producing His offspring, He wants us to be "like" Him. And to be like Him, we must have a knowledge of "good and evil". God even created Satan to be our tempter and deceiver so that we would have a fuller experience of evil.
Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Isa 45:5-7 I am the LORD, ... I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
Ecc 1:13 An experience of evil God has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it.
Lam 3:38 Out of the mouth of the Most High doth not there proceed evil and good?
Isa 54:16 Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy.
Because of our spiritually flawed, carnally minded condition, we ALL become sinful evil creatures.
Rom 3:10-11 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
Rom 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Mankind's carnal nature is "hatred" towards God. And because of such, we can't understand Him or want to seek His ways.
On the other hand, Satan was created to fed upon the dust of the ground (Gen 3:14). The "dust of the ground" represents our carnal nature and that is why Satan works to destroy and deceive mankind.
When Adam and Eve were created spiritually flawed, they quickly become carnally minded. God put Satan in the Garden to do his work of tempting Eve so that she would sin. Eve could not have possibly done anything else but fall to his temptations. Eve even displayed the three causes of sin
BEFORE she sinned.
Gen 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food (lust of the flesh), and that it was pleasant to the eyes (lust of the eyes), and a tree to be desired to make one wise (pride of life), she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
God of course, knew Adam and Eve were carnally minded and would sin because He made them that way. And for this same reason, all of Adam & Eve's offspring sin as well. Mankind's sin was
planned and caused by God so that we would experience evil. With God, "evil" is a tool that He uses for His good and righteous purposes. In this case, His purpose is to create His offspring who know good and evil.
But since mankind's sin spiritually separates us from God and because He wants children, He needed to create a pathway back to Himself for mankind. To accomplish that purpose,
God the Father sent Christ to be our Savior:
1John 4:14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.
In our spiritually flawed, carnally minded condition,
NO PERSON can be saved. We have all sinned and the penalty of sin is death (not eternal hell). For this reason, all mankind must die. This is an absolute truth that cannot be broken. The only solution is for mankind to be "born again" from the death we all must pay.
Christ's work on the cross, gave Him the legal authority to raise us from the grave and to give us this new life. He did not die on the cross to keep us from paying the penalty of sin. He died on the cross so that our spiritually flawed vessel (which must be destroyed) can be made into a new spiritually perfect vessel.
Jer 18:4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
In our created spiritually flawed condition, we all reject God and cannot "choose" Him. There is nothing good within mankind. We do not have the ability to make a "free will" choice to accept Christ. No man has that ability in our spiritually marred created condition. The only way we can "choose" Christ is for Christ to individually come to us
FIRST and change us from within. He does this work by giving us the
Early Rain of the Spirit.
Jam 5:7-8 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. 8 Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
When Christ does this work within us, we ALL fall to the ground and call Him "Lord" - just as Paul "typed" for us on the Damascus Road, Acts 9:3-9. There are NO EXCEPTIONS.
1 Cor 12:3 Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit.
Herein lays the
GREAT mystery of the church (Eph 5:32). The Early Rain of the Spirit is only an "earnest amount" of the Holy Spirit and will not save us. Because of this partial measure of the Spirit, we remain spiritually blind (
Mark 8:21-25) and controlled by our carnal nature. As a result, Satan can and does easily deceive us.
When Satan comes to a new believer, he masquerades as an "angel of light" (Christ).
2Cor 11:14-15 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
We accept this deception because we are spiritually blind and don't yet have the ability to truly know Christ. Satan then feeds us his lies (leavened bread via his "ministers"), which we readily accept as the truth of Christ because his lies are pleasing to our carnal nature.
Matt 13:33 Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
Satan's ministers hide "leaven" in the meal until the whole loaf is secretly leavened with Satan's lies. Since we all eat from this leavened loaf shortly after receiving the Early Rain, we all come under Satan's deceptions. And since the leaven is "hidden" in the loaf, we don't even know that Satan is deceiving us.
Christ explained this process again this way:
Mat 12:43-45 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. 44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. 45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation
Evil spirits represent Satan bringing his false truth to us. Since we remain
spiritually blind after receiving the Early Rain, we cannot replace our false beliefs of the world with God's truth. One "evil spirit" leaves but comes back with seven more (the spirit of anti-Christ) since our house remains void of God's truth. Now, instead of "one evil spirit" within us, we now have EIGHT. The number eight spiritually represents a new spiritual condition. Our new spiritual condition is "
worse than the first". Paul calls this worsened spiritual condition the
Man of Sin:
2Thes 2:1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, 2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. 3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that MAN OF SIN be revealed, the son of perdition; 4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
After the Early Rain, our deadly head wound to our Old Man (carnal nature) that came from the sword of Christ is healed because of Satan's deceptions.
Rev 13:3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
Instead of solely approaching Christ by Faith (New Covenant), we begin approaching Christ by "works" (the Old Covenant). As a result, we remain a part of the Seven-Headed Beast (mankind) and the death that we needed to pay to satisfy our sin debt, remains unpaid.
This happens because our carnal nature which still lives because of Satan's deceptions, PREFERS the Old Covenant of Works over the New Covenant of Faith:
Luke 5:39 No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.
After coming under Satan's deceptions and eating the "little book", we become "worse than before" (Man of Sin). We have truly "fallen away" and have returned "works" for our salvation.
This is the one and only sin that leads to our spiritual death (1John 5:16). And from this death, we cannot be renewed by repentance:
Heb 6:4-6 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
The Doctrine of Free Will is the most common belief that causes us to "fall away". We use this false belief system to differentiate us from why unbelievers are worthy of "hell" and why believers are not. We falsely believe that we made the right "choice" from our supposed "free will" because we were smarter, wiser or just not as evil as those who rejected Christ. But in truth, we are not. It was ONLY because of Christ's work (Early Rain) within us that caused us to accept Christ as "Lord".
What I have stated above is part of the wide pathway that
leads to destruction. We ALL MUST and WILL travel it since our vessel must be destroyed before we can receive a new vessel (be "born again").
Because a fallen away believer cannot be renewed by repentance, they will remain in this lost, spiritually worsened condition until either they
physically die OR
Christ comes to them a second time.
CONTINUED ON NEXT POST...