Meaning
You Must be Born Again
Baptism
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Is Water Baptism Required to be Born Again? No! Is Baptism in the Holy Spirit Required to be Born Again? No!
How can we know anything about anythingTo try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible? NO! That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about. Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us? How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences? We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers. Why is that? How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read. Why is that? Same scientific facts. Different answers. Same Bible. Different answers. Why is that? The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible? How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible? How do we analyze what we have seen and read? How do we interpret what we have seen and read? We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly. An example might help. Question: Why do you believe in evolution? Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact. Question: Why do you believe your science teacher? Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read. Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice. If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts. When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from? There are three possibilities.
Question: Why do you believe in creation? Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him. See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved. In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same. Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us. The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan? The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know. Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me" The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem. Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God. How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32) "If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it" Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay. "[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31). "There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48) That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own. "When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19) Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true. In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations. They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him. Is Water Baptism Required to be Born Again? No!
The word translated as "and" has kind of a squishy meaning, though. It could be translated as : "water, and of Spirit," "water, also of Spirit," "water, even of Spirit," "water, indeed of Spirit" "water, but of Spirit," The word, "but," makes no sense. The words, "and," and "also" would seem to confirm the majority opinion. The words, "even," and "indeed" confirm the revelation received by the brethren. If the Scripture were subject to private interpretation, we could argue about this, but to what avail?
In the following verse, John 3:6, Jesus says: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Also, in the same Gospel of the Bible in John 7:38-39, Jesus says, "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." The verse goes on to say: "(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)" And other Scriptures make it plain that you are born by believing, never mentioning baptism. Baptism is another vital step in our walk, but it is not the method God uses for us to be born again. Baptism plays a role in our salvation and is an example of fulfilling the free gift of righteousness. Looking at the diagram on this page, being born again is how you get started. Baptism is one of God's ordinances (orders) for taking ground. There are other Scriptures, though, that tell us that we are born again by believing. Some Christian brothers and sisters are taught the idea of infant baptism. While there is no Scripture to defend the idea of infant baptism, the rationalization for it is that God would put that baby into hell forever and ever if it dies without being baptized. Some may have a different reason, but this is the reason usually given. The back up Scriptures are "baptism doth also now save us" and "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned." Baptism is part of our salvation, but it isn't part of being born again. It is he that believes not who shall be damned, not he who is not baptized. Is Baptism in the Holy Spirit Required to be Born Again? No!When you are born again, the Holy Spirit leads you. The Holy Spirit is acting on you. Christ [the word, Christ, means Anointed One, and the Anointing is the Holy Spirit] is the Light Who lights every person according to the first chapter of John. The Holy Spirit is constantly giving His Light to every person. Some people acknowledge Him. Others do not. Once you are born again, then the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is a further work that is well documented in Scripture. Some miss that and settle for a sprinkling that they had when they were saved. The word, baptism, means to whelm, to bury, to immerse. You need to be immersed in the Holy Spirit to help you walk in the Spirit.
Author/Compiler Last updated: Nov, 2011 |
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God has established the pattern of Scripture, for life and for the Church. You can feel free to use the Contact Form further down on this page to ask any question regarding this pattern of Scripture. The Church, the Body of Christ, and discernment of this Body, is the method that God is using to finish the work in His Body. The Body of Christ, God's Temple, is built up by that which every joint supplies, building each other up in love, and the Temple must be built according to the pattern of Scripture. 
We believe the Holy Scriptures teach:
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Contact FormYou can feel free to use this Contact Form to ask any question regarding this pattern of Scripture. The Church, the Body of Christ, and discernment of this Body, is the method that God is using to finish the work in His Body. The Body of Christ, God's Temple, is built up by that which every joint supplies, building each other up in love, and the Temple must be built according to the pattern of Scripture. If you would like to ask any other question on any subject or submit a correction or suggestion you may use this form.Please remember to include your email address if you want an answer. John 10:35b the Scripture cannot be broken, Put a Link To This Page on Your Site. HTML Code: Links: SeekFind.net ~ Is Water Baptism Required to be Born Again? No! Is Baptism in the Holy Spirit Required to be Born Again? No! Is Water Baptism Required to be Born Again? No! Is Baptism in the Holy Spirit Required to be Born Again? No! Human theology and reasoning is not necessarily correct, but the Bible is without error. The Bible can only be understood by revelation, and revelation is given by the Spirit of God. God does reveal in His own way. But we only know in part. If we think we know any thing, we do not know it as we ought. We are instructed, by God, to keep seeking Him. The Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth. The truth sets us free. Lies bind us. Whoever seeks Jesus does find Him. Jesus is the truth. 
THE CONCLUSION |
Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born of water and the Spirit. That is the King James version, and virtually every other translation says the same thing. Some have interpreted this to mean that you must be baptized to be born again, but that is not the mind of God in this matter. God is not driven by popular opinion. He doesn't conform to the results of the latest survery. We have received revelation on this issue through the apostolic office that was restored to the church in 1948. It has been revealed that the water is the Spirit.
