Cheryl Schatz

Hi Gazza,
I am happy that you have found this topic to be of great interest to you. It is good to know that others are reading and following along. It has been a lively discussion and yes, it has had long comments. I need to figure out how to get them shorter, eh? 😉

I am going to answer your comment before I return to Mark since it is good to have some variety, and you certainly brought that by your analogy.

Let’s interact with your analogy. You said:

In my analogy lets put a rotten carcus and a roast dinner side by side. In our sin nature we are like a vulture – we will choose to eat the rotten carcus.

Would you allow me to change things a bit? I would say that in our sin nature, we naturally are drawn toward the rotten carcass as the rotten carcass stands for sin. But even with our sin nature we are not incapable of eating a roast dinner (with the roast dinner being doing good things). We can eat roast dinner with our family and we can treat them with love and respect, but even with the roast in our bellies, we still find ourselves drawn to that stinky carcass because it pulls at our inner desires.

Our choice is made not because we don’t have access to a roast dinner – it is right beside the carcus but because we actually prefer the carcus – in our sin nature the carcus honestly seems like the right choice, the best choice.

Here I would like to bring a bit of change too. We choose the stinky carcass not because it seems like the right choice, but because we just want to choose it. After all we have been given a gift from God called our conscience and our conscience tells us that the stinky carcass is the wrong thing to eat. It is not the best choice, but the choice that we crave despite our conscience telling us something different.

It is the choice we will always make as it is our nature to actually prefer the carcus over the roast just as the vulture does.

It isn’t the choice that we will always make because Jesus said that we are capable of choosing the roast, but it is a choice that if we are honest with ourselves, that we would choose if no one was watching and we would not have to suffer any bad consequences like stomach pains or someone watching us shamefully eating the bad meat.

Once God opens our eyes (Mark refers to this as being born again from my understanding) we see the carcus and the roast for what they are.

But if this is what our eyes are open to, then God has made the conscience to be of no use at all. No, I don’t think that being “born again” is opening our eyes to the stink of the carcass. We already innately know about the stink because of God’s gift of a conscience.

What we need is for God to reveal our shame. It is like we have been privately gorging on the bad meat without anyone knowing and then the curtain we are hiding behind is pulled back and our shame is exposed. It is then that we see that we have a need for the Savior because of the light that shines in our darkness.

But is the exposing of our sin the same thing as being born again? I don’t see how it can be for God has defined the “born again” experience as a new birth with the “seed” of God and the life it brings is eternal life not temporary life.

Peter talks about our being born again as coming from the imperishable seed within us.

1 Peter 1:23 (NASB)
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.

If we are given an “imperishable seed” at our rebirth, how can this new life be less than eternal life?

Peter also tells us that the new birth is tied to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

1 Peter 1:3 (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,

If the new birth is tied to Jesus’ resurrection, how can it anything less than eternal life?

The new birth is also called “new creation”:

Galatians 6:15 (NASB)
15 For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

The new creation is a miracle, not just a new way to look at things. It is literally becoming a brand new creation and it means that one is now “in Christ”.

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NASB)
17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

When we are made alive in Christ, it is our salvation.

Ephesians 2:5–6 (NASB)
5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

Never does the Bible say that the new birth is a time without Christ or without eternal life or without salvation. It is always attached to salvation, God’s “seed” (being a child of God), eternal life and grace.

If the new birth is not becoming a child of God through His seed, then when does one become a child of God through what other seed?

Why would God use words for new life and words that make us an heir of God by His seed if at our new birth there is no eternal life, no inheritance, no seed of God within us? Did God use there metaphors to confuse us about when we inherit eternal life? What other miraculous event happens after the miracle of the new birth that would make us an heir of God?

The new birth is called the “washing” and “renewing of the Holy Spirit”. Titus 3:5 attaches this new birth to salvation.

Titus 3:4–6 (NET)
3:4 But “when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, 3:5 he saved us not by works of righteousness that we have done but on the basis of his mercy, through the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, 3:6 whom he poured out on us in full measure through Jesus Christ our Savior.

Why is there a need for a subsequent miracle that would bring us into the family of God and save us when the “new birth” is already attached to salvation?

The new birth shown in 1 Peter 1:3-5 is a new birth “into” a living hope and “into” an imperishable inheritance reserved in heaven. What else can God do to tell us that the “new birth” is our miracle that is salvation?

1 Peter 1:3–5 (NET)
1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he gave us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1:4 that is, into an inheritance imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. It is reserved in heaven for you, 1:5 who by God’s power are protected through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.