What is "Born Again?'
Author Unknown
What is regeneration? What is born again? I am sure that if you are like me, you have heard a number of different things that come from the religious system. All different kinds of doctrines, depending on which group you are a member of, or which "theological position" you take. But what we want, what we are looking for, is the BIBLE ANSWER. Not an interpretation. We don't need to make an interpretation, we need to come to a conclusion. Now you reach a conclusion by having the facts. And that is what we are looking for, BIBLE FACTS.
Most of us probably know that Paul, in his thirteen books, Romans thru Philemon, never uses the phrase "born again." Most of us know that Peter does. We also know that Paul refers to the "washing of regeneration," but Peter never does. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, uses BOTH the phrase "born again," and the word regeneration. The word, regeneration, only appears twice in your bible, and the phrase "born again," appears in only two places.
Now outside of that, there is NO bible use of these two terms at all. Anything other than the two uses of the terms, comes from man made doctrines and the religious system, not from the bible. And, as you know, entire "systems" of so-called "theology" are based on, and built around one, or both, of those terms.
You have the "regenerated before faith" religious system, which essentially says that mankind is so totally depraved that he is not even capable of believing anything unless he is FIRST regenerated, so that when God sends somebody to share the gospel with him, he can then believe it. He can't believe before he is FIRST regenerated. So to that group regeneration is a very selective and a very limited term, since, in their view, only certain people will ever be saved anyway, and everybody else has already been chosen to go to Hell. The extreme edge of that kind of thinking is called "Five Point Calvinism" and those who hold that view put everybody who doesn't hold that view into a class which they call Armenians. In other words, if you are not a Calvinist then you are an Armenian.
Their next step is to paint such a horrible picture of Armenians, which is what you are if you are not a Calvinist, that they hope to get you to choose Calvinism by default. But the fact is, to be a Calvinist you will have to learn almost an entire new theological language of non-biblical multi-syllable words. I never hear them preaching the gospel but mostly debating theological terms and the "doctrines of grace," as they say. I guess it's not too important for them to preach the gospel, since all Calvinists are predestined to be saved anyway, whether they want to or not, since none of them have any free will.
Another very large group never uses the word "regeneration." Instead they call themselves "born again" Christians. Millions of people, as a matter of fact, according to surveys, the majority of the population of the United States, claim to be "born again" Christians. Jimmy Carter, the former President, made it politically correct to be a "born again" Christian.
As far as documentation of the use of the term "born again," outside of theological studies by men such as those who wrote during the Reformation period, John Wesley and others, who talked of regeneration, the new birth and so on, the earliest published reference seems to be in a newspaper called the Reno Evening Gazette in October of 1913. It says that "Christian Science (that's the religion started by Mary Baker Eddy) gives a man the opportunity of being born again.” The first reference that specifically mentions "born again Christians" is the Decatur, Illinois, Evening Herald of December, 1928. It has a sentence that reads, "I knew I had the new desires that a born again Christian acquires."
Now, in my growing up years, I don't recall ever hearing the term "born again," or "born again Christian." I remember being in Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and Pentecostal churches but I just can't remember the use of the term. But by the 1960's the Ecumenical Movement, the evangelical renewal started, first in the United States and then around the world. There were the Jesus People and the Christian counterculture thing. Remember Charles Colson, the Watergate conspirator? He became a "born again" Christian and published a book in 1976, and the idea of "born again" became pretty much socially and politically correct. Former President Jimmy Carter, in a Playboy magazine
interview, said he was "born again."
THE DAY OF THE LORD IS AT
HAND – TRIBULATION
By Les Feldick
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