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As you can see, my previous posts claiming that a good doctrinal basis for our faith statements can never be extracted using a grammatical historical hermeneutic, discrete analysis of disparate texts. I showed it in explaining what receiving the Holy Spirit means through looking for what actually happened when people believed God. And now I showed it by explaining what being born again means by observing what happened after receiving the Holy Spirit. Through studying the experiences faced by the believers in both the OT and the NT. Consider, all the standard texts used as support for explaining the born again experience are vague and inconclusive, and more than that, sparse. That is, there is no repetition, reinforcement of the idea anywhere in Scripture.
The normal view of that experience explains it as the result of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit leading to a change in moral character. A rebel becomes a submissive follower. We can in no instance show that this is what happened to any believer.
However, we can see that when Abraham stepped out from his father's idol manufacturing factory, after believing God, he experienced the help of God (received the Holy Spirit), which caused him to change from a self caring person to a person who depended on God to take care of him (became born again).
When Israel stepped out of the idol dominated environment of Egypt, also after believing God, she again also experienced the help of God (received the faith building ministering of the Spirit). However, only Caleb benefited from receiving the Holy Spirit, the trust building, faith edifying ministry of God, through retaining the lesson like Abraham, and producing fruit (became born again).
And Jesus was called out of Egypt too, and led into the wilderness, mirroring the journeys of the OT believers. He too learned obedience from suffering. Of course He did not need to go through the experience, but obeyed the commands to do so to fulfill all righteousness: He saw it as obvious, and chided Nicodemus for missing the teaching, being obligatory in learning, it would seem, as a teacher of Israel.
As stated, very little evidence of the description of being born again to be that as stated by the mainstream church, of being changed from rebels to submissive followers, and more of what I have outlined, proved by the occurrence of that description, not once, but on several occasions. All as a result of asking for bread, as taught by Scripture, so all credit going to the Holy Spirit.
Moving forward, let's learn from that which was recorded for our benefit, as stated:
Romans 15
4For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
In other words, let's not be like Israel:
Heb 6
4It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6and who have fallen c away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. 7Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
Or worse like Chorazin and Bethesda. At least the Exodus group saw the great works and believed and received the Holy Spirit. The latter did not even believe, did not receive the edifying work of the Holy Spirit, through suffering:
Matt 11
21“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
And compare what we have experienced ourselves. Spiritual journeys don't change, as we have seen in the description of what both OT and NT believers went through.
The normal view of that experience explains it as the result of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit leading to a change in moral character. A rebel becomes a submissive follower. We can in no instance show that this is what happened to any believer.
However, we can see that when Abraham stepped out from his father's idol manufacturing factory, after believing God, he experienced the help of God (received the Holy Spirit), which caused him to change from a self caring person to a person who depended on God to take care of him (became born again).
When Israel stepped out of the idol dominated environment of Egypt, also after believing God, she again also experienced the help of God (received the faith building ministering of the Spirit). However, only Caleb benefited from receiving the Holy Spirit, the trust building, faith edifying ministry of God, through retaining the lesson like Abraham, and producing fruit (became born again).
And Jesus was called out of Egypt too, and led into the wilderness, mirroring the journeys of the OT believers. He too learned obedience from suffering. Of course He did not need to go through the experience, but obeyed the commands to do so to fulfill all righteousness: He saw it as obvious, and chided Nicodemus for missing the teaching, being obligatory in learning, it would seem, as a teacher of Israel.
As stated, very little evidence of the description of being born again to be that as stated by the mainstream church, of being changed from rebels to submissive followers, and more of what I have outlined, proved by the occurrence of that description, not once, but on several occasions. All as a result of asking for bread, as taught by Scripture, so all credit going to the Holy Spirit.
Moving forward, let's learn from that which was recorded for our benefit, as stated:
Romans 15
4For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
In other words, let's not be like Israel:
Heb 6
4It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6and who have fallen c away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. 7Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
Or worse like Chorazin and Bethesda. At least the Exodus group saw the great works and believed and received the Holy Spirit. The latter did not even believe, did not receive the edifying work of the Holy Spirit, through suffering:
Matt 11
21“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
And compare what we have experienced ourselves. Spiritual journeys don't change, as we have seen in the description of what both OT and NT believers went through.
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