Cowboy is right in one regard in his last comments. I am a bit touchy. I get a little touchy about people who claim they are out to destroy something but couch it in nebulous terms such as "religion" as if the word itself were somehow evil. I get touchy about someone who says they need to protect their Daddy's reputation, as if Jehovah needed us to do so. I get touchy when someone who claims to follow Yeshua turns around and seems to deny His eternal nature and Godhood. You want me to ask direct questions, I will. Maybe this will clear things up. In my last post I did not want to be too direct as I wanted to avoid what could have been a real ugly confrontation. I wanted to know that the HUGE red flags that kept popping up were just my imagination, but it seemed each thing you wrote just kept on reinforcing what I was seeing, so Let me see if I even have your position right before I go any further.
You state that when we have a “born-again” experience we become a complete new creation. That Yeshua had to be “born-again” to show us how we can have that same experience. (please correct anything I have gotten wrong) This is why He is the firstborn amongst many. While our rebirth here is spiritual, and we do not obtain our new bodies yet, we become something other than human. In essence we become something greater just like Yeshua. I think that is the essence of what you have said, Please feel free to elaborate or correct me if I am wrong. On to the questions.
You have made several references to Yeshua needing to be “born-again”. What is your basis for this belief? If Yeshua was G_d in the flesh and without blemish (no sin) why would He personally need this rebirth? Was Yeshua something less that G_d before His death and resurrection? If He was indeed G_d before His resurrection what has changed about Him?
You claim that Yeshua has had a “born-again” experience and is the firstborn amongst many. You have also stated that those who are “born-again” are no longer mortal or human, that we are something more. What are we then? Do we become gods, angels, something else?
I think I will leave it at these two multi point questions for now, but something else has stuck in my craw since you said it over at Heidi's. Quite frankly it may have been what set me off to begin with. You made the claim in an almost flippant way that you did not like it when people said that Jehovah is infinite. Why? If He is not infinite then He is finite there is no in between. If He is not infinite then what good was His sacrifice? At what point does it end?
Unlike you Cowboy I did not grow up in the church in fact I was raised in an atheist household. I have a complete mistrust of what most people in leadership roles within the organized church say. I did not come to follow Yeshua lightly. His Word is final to me and I can see how you have possibly come to your conclusions, but I do not see them supported by the whole of His Word.
If you truly understood my calling (most people don't) maybe you would see where I am coming from. I quit talking about my calling because most people look at me like I am crazy. Once you get a glimpse of who He is in all of His Holy Wonder you never forget. When I talk about Jehovah being Holy, I know it is more than just an attribute, I have felt the weight of it, I have also felt the wonderful lightness of His Love. I know that Yeshua is Love, but I also KNOW He is so much more. Only an Infinite G_d could be what Yeshua is.
7 comments:
Cowboy, by "born-again" do you only refer to Jesus' need to die for our sins and thus be resurrected? I just wonder, because if that is "born-again" then what change is there to our current bodies before death? If this is not "born-again" then what "born-again" experience do you think that Jesus had and/or needed?
Sorry, I'm just a little confused at some of the thoughts being written here lately...
Geppy,
I think we all need a little clarity on this central point.
Let's slow down and not turn this into a fight. I have no desire for contention or strife and every desire for clarity. Come let us reason together.
There is a lot here that needs to be addressed and I don't intend to tackle it all at once. I will gladly answer all of your questions, but lets not confuse things by trying to do it all at once.
You've asked two questions and then made - yet another- accusation about something I never said. I would be very interested in a cite for anywhere that I ever said anything about the "infiniteness" of Jehovah or how I felt about people's belief in such. I'm certain I've never typed those words on heidi's blog - or anywhere else - and I'm struggling to recall what I might have typed that you interpreted that way.
I'm nitpicking this because you've recently acknowledged that we seem to be talking past each other and I'm starting to think there's nothing I can do about it. This is the second time you've accused me of saying something that is totally at odds with what I know to be true. Both times you've done it in your own words so that I can't even go back to what I actually said in order to explain. I simply don't know what you're talking about.
You also said in this post that I've "made several references to Yeshua needing to be 'born-again'." That's simply not true. I've made only one reference to that online, ever, as far as I know. I'm sure I've only made reference to it once recently. That was in a comment on this blog and you've taken it out of context. This is a written medium and, in the absence of nefarious interference, we should be able to reliably cite what we've said.
As a start to answering your questions, let me ask you what you think happened at the "Transfiguration" cited in Matthew 17 and Mark 9?
I'm not trying to be coy. I believe that Yeshua experienced there what you and I would consider a "born-again" experience. I would like to know your thoughts. (It might help you to read my response to Geppy over at my blog on the post that started all of this.
Even though there were people "raised from the dead" in the old testament and Jesus himself "raised people from the dead," no one had ever been resurrected prior to his resurrection. No one had ever been "transfigured" either. He was conceived of God and there's no question that he was always special. But he was born and lived on this earth as a man. Spiritual law required it if he was to redeem us.
Thanks Cowboy for answering my question. I believe that you are here saying that the resurrection was the "born-again" experience and that the transfiguration was a glimpse of what it was going to be. That for us then, the "born-again" experience will be when Jesus returns and the dead in Christ are raised first and then we which are alive and remain.
Please correct me if I misinterpreted your statement, but that makes sense to me (for this first issue).
I agree, lets slow things down a little here. I think that for the most part we may simply be talking semantics for the same idea. I will start with quoting you though. This was part of the comment that got my dander up. It was on Heidi's post titled "Pat Answer"
"I won’t check my brain at the door to go to church. He doesn’t ask me to. He’s The One that created my brain and taught me to question. I refuse to stop doing that because some freak dressed up in a frock tells me that “We can’t possibly understand Him. He’s infinite and we’re mere mortals.”
That’s hogwash! He wants to be known. Religion teaches that He cannot be known or understood. Y’know, not really! We’re so small and He’s so big and blah, blah, blah.
I reject that."
I teach that we serve and infinite G_d, and that we are finite beings. Even in our perfected bodies that we will have after the resurrection we will still be finite. How can the finite ever completely know the infinite? The Word does discuss this in an number of places. Isiah 55:8-9 comes to mind as the first glimpse I can think of. I know there are others, and they fit together to make a good picture, but I am tired from working since 5:30 this morning and so not feel like looking them up right now.
I am not saying that Jehovah does not answer the question "Why?", But I know from experience that sometimes the answer is "Trust Me" Sometimes the things that seem arbitrary to us are not to Him and fit into His plan, we just are not able to "see" what that plan is in our mortal bodies.
as a newcomer to this conversation, I apparently need someone to catch me up. Born again as Jesus uses it in John with Nicodemus is not an ethereal pie in the sky concept in the English or the original Greek. The Greek is ver specific in that a Jesus is using a word play to make a point about being born physically with water and spiritually by the "pnuma" = wind or spirit. This is a very descript concept in the Greek that gives quite a different conversation piece than that of the resurrection or the transfiguration.
In referencing back to Joh 1, the transfiguration happened between two Old Testament prophets and the creator of the universe and all that is within the creation. At the transfiguration, it is quite evident that it is Moses and Elijah who have come to see Jesus. Jesus was not "born again" in this experience. I understand that there are spiritual ramifications related to the transfiguration event, but to stretch it into a "born again" experience is taking the Biblical text and making it say something that is does not say.
As for the Resurrection, the "born again" reference does not fit into the Biblical text. He is the first born of the first fruits, but He was that since before the beginning of time. If Jesus was, according to the book of Revelation the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, then He always was and has always been in the annals of this current time/space continuum the first fruit.
When we add extra Biblical importance to something, which is not within the text them we bastardize the Gospel of Jesus Christ and make Him nothing more than a Mormon god in the counsel fo gods with his brother Lucifer. We must continually strive for orthodoxy to the text because it is the only physical, tangible thing that we have been given directly from God concerning how to have a personal relationship with His Son and to be in a right relationship with His concerning our eternal destiny.
Not trying to be meticulous, just completely convinced that the Bible is the sole authority that we have by which we can know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
sorry about all of the typos. I have been sick for 2 days and this is the first time i have been on the computer. The 24 hour stomack visus, or flu is viscious. I pray that no one gets this thing.
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