Cheryl Schatz

Mark,
It looks like you and I are online at the same time for once. Welcome buddy! I am going to answer your last set of questions now and catch up on the others just because you are here…now.

You said:

It appears that we disagree on being born again. Let me just state what i think it is and what i think it isn’t.
Being born again is not being saved. Being born again is being made alive when we are dead in our sins, so that we may have faith and believe in Jesus and then be saved. Being born again happens before salvation not after.

Mark, it isn’t a matter of what we “think” being born again is, but what the Scriptures say it is. Is being born again making a corpse live?

John 3:6–7 (NASB)
6 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 “Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’

From this scripture, we can see that the birth that Jesus is talking about is the birth “of the Spirit”. It is something brand new. Something that wasn’t there before, but is now born “of the Spirit”.

Jesus is talking to an unsaved man and reasoning through the Scriptures with Him. Jesus didn’t say to him that he can’t believe in Him until he is born again. He doesn’t say that there will be no faith until you are born again. And Jesus doesn’t say to him that you are dead. Jesus reasons with him as one who is capable of understanding. In verse 7 Jesus says “do not be amazed”. Jesus said “truly truly I say to you…” If the dead man could not hear Him, it was a waste of Jesus time to preach the gospel to him. Jesus was given this unregenerate man reason to believe in Him.

Another great passage is in 1 Peter 1:

1 Peter 1:3–5 (NASB)
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
4 to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,
5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Here we see that being born again is tied into the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and being born again makes one an heir of God. We can also see in verse 5 by being born again is tied to salvation through faith. It is never something that belongs to an unregenerate man. No person is born again who is not an heir of salvation at their rebirth. No person is born again who is not there “through faith”. Being born again is inseparably connected to our salvation and our inheritance so that it is absolutely impossible for an unbeliever to be born again.

This is the heart break of Calvinism that teaches that unsaved people are “born of the Spirit”. Those who are unbelievers cannot know the new birth nor can they know the One who gives the new birth.

John 14:16–17 (NASB)
16 “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;
17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.

Mark, I ask you, was Jesus wrong? Can the world (unbelievers) receive the Spirit of truth through the new birth? He said that the Holy Spirit cannot be received by the world. An unbeliever cannot know the Holy Spirit or experience Him (which is knowing Him). It is impossible for the new birth to come through unbelief. It is only by faith by believing God because an unbeliever cannot know the Holy Spirit.

Also:

1 Peter 1:22–23 (NASB)
22 Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart,
23 for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.

Being born again is not bringing to life a dead person, but it is a new life through a new “seed”. It is reviving the old, but giving something new. The “seed” of God is never within an unbeliever.

And lastly:

1 John 3:9 (NASB)
9 No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

Here John talks about being born again as one “born of God” as His “seed” within us. John makes a big deal about this “seed” of God within us so much so that those who are “born of God” with His seed cannot continue to sin because he has been reborn. Does this fit unbelievers? Do they have God’s “seed” within them?

Now I ask you – where does it say that those who have God’s seed within them are not saved? Where does it say that they are just brought to life but without faith and without salvation?