"Born again", saved, redeemed, converted, new creation, Kingdom, Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven, Child of God, Heirs, . . . . . Wow! Did we ever step into a quagmire of religious concepts and ideas. The question is; how do we thread our way through this without messing up? If you've been wondering where we've been for the last two weeks, we've been mining for truth. I don't want to move on, until we've all come to an agreement to what 'salvation' is, what the 'Kingdom' is, and what we are to all of this. We're still working our way around it, so there isn't much we can say.
What I can tell you for sure is that SINMAN (our term for sinful man) can't see, enter, or inherit the Kingdom of God.
We also know that SINMAN has a measure of faith that must be activated by hearing the Gospel.
We are now working on what happens when that faith is activated. Before Christ was crucified, was it possible for men and women to enter the Kingdom? What about Lazrus? If Christ hadn't raised him from the dead, would he have inherited the Kingdom? Did Christ have to die first before we could be born again? If so, is there a difference between being saved, and being born again? Is there a conversion process, or is it part and parcel of being saved? What does being born again have to do with any of this?
What makes this discussion difficult is that the 'tenses' used in our translations change from translation to translation. If Christ healed someone, did the Kingdom literally come to that person?
I had to evaluate some of my own long held beliefs on these issues. So, we are still working our way through it. When we are done, we'll report on what we've come to believe. Till then, be patient.
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