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Dealing adequately with the ultimate issues cannot be undertaken
successfully unless one has taken the inward journey to fully
understand and
embrace one's own legitimate needs and desires.
There IS NO other valid point of perspective! - Site Author
"Born Again" and Nicodemus
Updated:
03/12/2020
Born Again
First of all let it be said that I am singularly unimpressed
with those that claim to be born again Christians! Maybe that is unfair, and
maybe it isn't, BUT you don't have to DO anything to be born! To be born
means to come into existence. Simply put, you can't be born again unless you
first cease to exist because there can't be two of you. I want to know how, why, and in what way these "born
again" Christians ceased to exit! That would be interesting to hear.
You DO have to
do something to grow up and mature, namely at first to suckle, then to
eat and drink, and eventually to learn a myriad of things.
To be born means that you arrive as a helpless, ignorant baby, and need
lots of care while it takes between 18 to 40 years to mature, if ever. If
you haven't matured within 40 years, chances are that you never will. I have
a feeling, close to certainty, that there is no meaningful consensus
regarding what "born again" means. I AM certain that
it does NOT mean having a license to remain intellectually irresponsible,
but that is how some interpret it.
At other times in his ministry Jesus talked about becoming as
a little child, but not to be reborn. The admonition of Jesus clearly is not to stay as
a babe or child but to "be mature, even as your father in heaven is
mature."
The First Spiritual Meltdown
I have friends that consider me to have been born again
spiritually, and MAYBE they are right. However, I have gone
through a small SERIES of profound changes in my belief, each one of which
could be considered as comparable to a born-again experience, mainly because
the trauma and agony of the process felt like dying
If there is a demarcation in my life most worthy of the term, it
would have been when I had a complete spiritual meltdown in my late 30's. I
had been studying the Bible so intently, thinking so intently, that the
criticism was directed toward me, "Michael, you study too much. Michael
you think too much." What with all the burdens I had, and all the
requirements from "God" that had been heaped on me, I was abjectly unhappy,
and determined I was going to be free even if it meant I was doomed to hell.
The ultimate result was that I
abdicated entirely the religion into which I was born, and put my life in
God's hands to raise me and teach me while I became free to live and behave
as I felt like doing. Just like a baby! Newborn babies don't know, haven't
learned, the whole array of spiritual, intellectual, philosophical issues of
ethics, morality, honor, nobility, love, critical thinking and judgment,
etc.; they just want and need. I really didn't know right from wrong at that
point, and knew one thing above all others: I didn't know anything much! And I
didn't know if I would survive the experience of living as a baby, by my
feelings, out of legalistic control.
I thought I was free! But what ensued was a long series of
disappointments in that regard. I wasn't free from the physical and
psychological laws of the universe nor pain and disappointment,
I wasn't free from the burdens of life including parenthood, and worst of
all I wasn't really as free as I thought from the load of religious
programming and baggage that had been dumped on me from childhood. But an early major step
was taken when I determined to be totally, personally responsible for my
belief system. I internalized authority, and accepted that MY rationality,
logic, and reason would be supreme.. Maybe that was like transitioning from a carefree childhood
to enrolling in school.
Yet, I WAS free to now begin a lengthy process of
challenging – actually going back and revisiting – every single precept that
I had been programmed with along the way. I had not lost my ability to think
critically, but was now free to use it more consistently and effectively. I had NOT lost the
large knowledge base that I had accumulated along the way, which
included a formal degree in the sciences, and a wide array of information
gleaned from being a curious and avid reader from early childhood. I was now
free to challenge the idolatry that had been built up and buttressed so
extensively by traditional religious indoctrination.
The first idol that was destroyed was the foundational
legalism with which I had been instilled. I was already familiar with there
being two sets of the 10 Commandments in the Old Testament and was now free
to consider them more as promises than as demands, but I still accepted them
as having been dictated by God. This was the stage of my thinking that there
were two covenants, and that accepting the "new covenant was equivalent to
accepting Paulian "righteousness by faith".
The First Inward Journey
Based upon my long-standing fascination and familiarity with
Jesus, I was now free enough to set aside fear. Not completely eliminate it,
but to no longer be controlled by it. I made a contract with myself that
never again would I be afraid to look at any reality full in the face, whether
that reality concerned the aspects of life in the world as we know it, or
whether it be concerned with the truth.
So, the first reality to confront was the reality concerning
myself. I took what I call the inward journey to look into my own soul to
see how bad it really was. That took all the courage that I could muster. I
looked to see how small, petty, weak. immature, hypocritical, insecure,
ignorant, inconsistent, etc., I was. What I found was not pretty, and I also
realized that God could see me as I was yet loved me anyway. I also saw some other good and
valuable things concerning myself.
The Second Spiritual Meltdown
The second spiritual meltdown was almost as traumatic as the
first. My life was not working, and I kept asking, "Is this all?" God was
not delivering in the way that I expected, and I was unfulfilled, confused,
frustrated, and suffered a huge financial loss that was not my fault. I was
ready to give up on God, or belief in God of any kind, and desperately, I
made one last bargain with God. I gave God one last chance. I closed myself
off from the world except for buying groceries, receiving mail, and going to
the bank. I determined that I would read the words of Jesus, and if there
was ANYTHING that I couldn't agree with didn't like I would throw him
overboard, he would be in my rearview mirror.
Well, guess what? I found things that I didn't like. But I
determined to do due diligence and to study and dig deeper
and possibly reinterpret these issues to something
that I did like if it could be intellectually justified within the bounds of
logic and reason. About this time I was exposed to a Greek-English
interlinear New Testament, and upon reading the words of Jesus in that, I
was appalled at some of the translation that has become endemic in the
common Bibles. I was already familiar with understanding that the world's
greatest and most elite scholars of ancient Greek laugh with derision and
scorn at the way the New Testament is translated, but I didn't actually know
why. Now I do. See:
Evolution of the Modern Bible and
Paradigm Translation
I saw that I was going to
have to go deeper and investigate the translational issues with new
translation insights. I felt once more
that I was overwhelmed with discouragement, because to learn the truth I was
going to have to learn ancient Koine Greek at least to some extent in order
to re-translate the Gospels for myself.
I acquired three different Koine Greek reference works: 1)
Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 2) The
Analytical Greek Lexicon published by Zondervan, 3) Youngs Analytical
Concordance of the Bible, and 4) the latest Greek-English interlinear New Testament.
I already had Strongs Exhaustive Concordance. Using these as
reference material I started with the text of the Revised Standard
Version New Testament Gospels, and went through them with a fine tooth comb,
rephrasing them, doing in-depth research on key Greek words and phrases, and
re-translating when appropriate in my judgment. During this project I
discovered about two dozen verses, primarily in the Gospel of John, where
Jesus is clearly talking about delivering immortality to us imminently.
My heart fell to its lowest level. How was I going to believe THIS? Something
that is not only outside the domain of the corpus of traditional Christian theology,
but something outside of our experience! Something
that I was unaware had ever been achieved. We KNOW everyone dies, don't we?
It was something that others had
believed; they claimed immortality, yet they died anyway!
The Second Inward Journey
Believe it or not, the second inward journey took even more
courage then the first. I determined that I would again look into my own
soul and see what I really wanted and needed to be completely satisfied and
happy, regardless of whether these things were approved by God, family or
society; regardless of whether these aspects were realistically available or not.
I got in touch with the real me! For me to change myself on this level would
be for me to lose myself. Having
done this gave me a new basis for evaluating the message and offering of the
J person. If he was not offering this non-negotiable set of fulfillments,
then I could never be satisfied, and I could rop any further concern
regarding Jesus as valid.. What I discovered by going over the message of Jesus
once again was that it actually promised to match and deliver these internal
requirements!
The Gospel of Thomas
I was still faced with the daunting challenge of believing
something so extreme, something that others before had believed and failed
to reap the benefits thereof. I asked myself if it was reasonable to believe
something so astounding on the testimony of just one man, in this case
the eyewitness testimony of the disciple John, and saw that even Jesus agreed
that it was not valid to do so upon the testimony of just one person,
Shortly thereafter, I discovered the Gospel
of Thomas, and bought 3 different expositions of it. These convinced me that
this Gospel is actually the most authenticated of them all as an eyewitness
account. Now I had my second witness in the dock. It was STILL hard to
believe, because all of our experience and programming tell us differently,
and do NOT SUPPORT IT. To accept the IFISEEKUS package as being actually
offered by God, I was going to have to believe in my own intellectual
integrity and what the J-person said against the face of all known history and
experience!
The Visit of Nicodemus
({pl} indicates the plural form of "you")
Having said all of the above about the "born again"
experience. let's take a closer look at the visit of Nicodemus and what was
actually said.
After a short introduction and writing up to that point
about only 4 subjects–John the Baptist, the collection of the disciples,
the first miracle, and the cleansing of the temple–John tells us about the
visit of Nicodemus, an account that comes very early in his Gospel because
it made such an impression upon him. It is most probably not in
chronological sequence but rather that of importance. It follows right after
two chapter out of all 21 chapters.
Nicodemus surreptitiously visited Jesus at night under cover
of darkness, but let's give the man some credit. He was a leader in Israel,
an influential man, and these seldom if ever crept around at night visiting
itinerant teachers. If he did not have a very strong interest, he wouldn't
have come.
Of prime importance to Jesus was to not get in an argument
with this learned man because. of course, he wanted to give this man the very
best chance of seeing the truth. Nicodemus began the discourse by
acknowledging that Jesus was a teacher sent be God, but this only set them
on an equal but improper footing. Jesus needed to make this issue of his
spiritual supremacy crystal clear, and said, "Truly, truly, I say to you,
unless one receives birth again from beyond, he cannot understand the kingship of
God." In other words, Nicodemus, you weren't born from beyond and can't be expected to understand at this
point.
Nicodemus answered with an obvious question, "How is a man
able to be born when he is old? Can he enter into his mother's womb a second
time and be born?" This shows that he was taking Jesus literally. This is likely
correct. because Jesus was establishing his credentials as the ONLY one that
knew the truth on the basis of having been in BOTH realms.
Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one receives birth of both water
AND the spirit [eeal meaning], he cannot enter the kingship of God. That
receiving birth from the flesh is flesh, and that receiving birth from the
Real meaning is spirit
Do not wonder because I said to you, 'You{pl} must receive birth from
beyond. The wind blows where it wills, and you recognize its
sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is
with every one who receives birth from the Real meaning."
Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things come about?" Jesus answered him,
"You are the teacher of Israel, and you do not understand this?
Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we
understand, and testify about what we have seen; but you{pl} do not receive
our testimony. If earthly things I tell you{pl} and you{pl} don't
believe, how will you{pl} believe if I tell you{pl} heavenly (glorious?)
things? No human has entered into the finer realm of empowerment but he who
came out from the kingship of God (finer state of empowerment?) the one who is now in heaven
(realm of empowerment?). And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that everyone choosing
what to believe within Him
may not die, and instead have everlasting life."
It should be clear enough that Jesus was emphatically making
the claim and point that he was the one that knew what he was talking about. Jesus was telling Nicodemus that there was only ONE way he
could enter the Kingship of the Heavens, and that was by listening to HIM
and believing what HE said!
That is the point of all that is above. A secondary point is
that it doesn't matter how many or how dramatic our experiences are on the
spiritual path that we can call a rebirth (It should better be called
re-growth!). What matters is that we go all
the way by believing what Jesus said. |