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A NEW CREATION: DEFINING THE NEW BIRTH [Part 2]

Everyone is born with a preeminent life mission, to discover not only the meaning of life but the purpose of one’s existence, as well as finding the way back home.

IT BEGINS

We often come across stories in the news of a child becoming lost. Somehow or another, a young one ventured beyond his boundaries and outside the scope of his usual supervision. Perhaps the best way to understand how such could happen is by recalling one’s own experience in this area.

Children raised right are properly warned. They are told to never go outside the backyard, or too far down the street, or beyond the gate to the back pasture. Whatever the limits may be in one’s urban or rural world, they are set for one’s protection. Of course, boundaries start from essentially a single point and gradually grow outward as a child matures, but each time they are reset it always involves another test. Would that it didn’t have to be this way.

Like many of you, I grew up in suburbia. It was the usual neighborhood of house after house in a vast grid of interlocking streets created as yet another master development plan. Prior to such largely twentieth century creations, tiny townships that grew to massive cities often had relatively crude starts with no concept of master planning. This allowed for much differentiation and an organic character. My city was like that. It was relatively already quite old when I was a kid, dating to the early 1700s. The main downtown area streets venturing outward were based on and followed original haphazard primitive trails and frontier roads. When mass suburban post WWII housing projects were plotted out, it was usually on the outskirts of town upon raw land though enveloped by previous country roads or open highways and other natural or manmade landmarks.

Our house, for example, was on one edge of the seemingly endless overall development. This was a bonus and allowed for potential adventure as opposed to being stuck somewhere in the middle of an endless sea of plain-Jane little houses. We were the third house from the edge, in fact. That edge was composed of a rough two lane street that acted more as a wild asphalt raceway. To add to the danger, our street was just down from the top of a rise from which the neighborhood raceway descended another half a mile or so downward. The older ones among us here will recall a time in America when suburban street rods ruled and demanded speed and decibels. Such teens thus showed much appreciation for that street on the edge.

As a preschool kid I was warned to never venture down the sidewalk from my front yard toward that edge for otherwise obvious reasons. It was a good part of being raised right. Yet beyond that street was an open field and beyond that the woods, like the woods that our neighborhood once consisted of just a few years prior, and woods which beckoned as a call of the wild.

The day came when little three or four year old me tested the boundaries. It was not my fault that I was a natural adventurer that descended from a long line of such people or that I was landlocked in an artificial construct that did nothing for a searcher’s heart. So, I tempted fate. I ventured beyond my boundaries. I stepped over an imaginary line and left my former world behind. I walked slower as I went. With each soft step on the concrete path I came closer to the forbidden boundary. It was all a wonder of new discovery. About the time I transversed all of about seventy feet and approached the end of the sidewalk at the third house down and only a few yards from the very edge, I heard a sound behind me, an indistinguishable voice as off in the distance though growing louder. What was it? What was cruelly interrupting my happy moment? Alas, my impending adventure, as being roused from an awesome dream, was soon to be ended. As I turned to look back to my house, there on the sidewalk before me was my fast approaching very concerned and very loving mother. We headed back to the protection of home.

The good news is I never got run over by a speeding hot-rodding teenager on the edge road raceway or even got lost in the woods far beyond, but I did gain an appreciation for properly set boundaries and that venturing beyond into the wild world would have to wait a fortnight. I also fully understood that such boundaries would not be crossed easily and would demand much effort to get past on some future date. Thankfully, though I certainly learned my lesson that day, I never lost my great unbounded yearning for the search.

LOST IN A LOST WORLD

“My people have become lost sheep;

Their shepherds have led them astray.

They have made them turn aside on the mountains;

They have gone along from mountain to hill

And have forgotten their resting place.” [Jeremiah 50:6]

But He answered and said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” [Matthew 15:24]

The new birth must begin with a search. A person must be hungry for spiritual truth or will never find it. To simply cruise through life as if this world is all there is reveals a nature devoid of the desire to seek the highest good. One must obviously prioritize survival in the here and now and do whatever one can to make a living but never make that the top priority except at the most on a temporary basis. Nevertheless, searching for spiritual reality and even for the Creator Himself is often met with severe challenges that sometimes cause one to stray off course not due to personal failure or resolve but the character of the struggle. It is the nature of such individual pursuits in a fallen world to be overcome with the sheer scale of the project since it requires doing the opposite of the vast majority, such as constantly swimming upstream and facing off against steady headwinds in one’s face. In this regard, the term “lost” is thus relative.

One must therefore deduce that there is something deep within the heart of those who yearn for something seemingly far away and from long ago which proves an inarticulate spiritual connection which must be identified and secured. This yearning, however, will likely never bear fruit until it is met by another from the other side who enjoins the search on the behalf of the searcher. That is, one’s spiritual hunger is the activation element which causes the searcher not to find but to be found.

So He told them this parable, saying, “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’” [Luke 15:3-6]

DEFINING THE NEW BIRTH

The Lord taught that one’s spirit must be resurrected and come to life again and is exactly what the new birth entails. It is the New Covenant directive which allows one to essentially return to the Garden. Therefore, when comparing the average normal natural non-born again human being to the Lord Jesus, we see such a massive difference. There is simply no comparison. We see the same difference, though obviously not as dramatic and on a lower scale, between such natural sinful humans and actual spiritually born again humans who have been saved from sin by the Lord and released from its power. The latter are certainly not perfect but certainly have been transformed into entirely new creations (see Galatians 6:15).

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. [2Corinthians 5:17][1]

They are thus like Adam and Eve before the fall in the spiritual sense because the salvation process has resurrected their spirits (which had only existed in seed form to that point). Their bodies, however, are still subject to the effects of sin in this fallen world (which results in aging and physical death) until one’s future resurrection when body, soul, and spirit will each be made perfect and whole again for all eternity.

This means ultimate salvation starts with the new birth. Since this is obviously so important, the new birth must be specifically defined. One must know exactly what the new birth entails. For this we must go to Scripture. What was it about the apostles, the 120, and all the members of the Lord’s first spiritual Community that separated them from everybody else? What did they do to become so much like the Lord? How did they gain their spiritual power? What common experience did they all undergo?

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Tags: Adam and Eve, Creation, Discipleship, Genesis, Lord Jesus, Lost Sheep, Real Christianity The Nature of the Church, Resurrection, Search For Truth, The Great Awakening, The New Birth, The Search For Truth, You Must Be Born Again

A NEW CREATION: DEFINING THE NEW BIRTH [Part 1]

Dec 9

Posted by RJ Dawson

Because original Creation was severely damaged by sin and rebellion in both the angelic and human realms, it required God’s subsequent plan for a New Creation.

AND GOD SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD

Creation does not work as intended according to the will of the Creator unless the Creator is recognized and honored by all members of His Creation. Anything less than this will cause problems, allow for faults and malfunctions, and may ultimately cause major failures. Yet the Creator has deemed that all who desire His intention and will can only agree to it voluntarily. It is why He gifted humanity with a free will. People are thus given both the authority and responsibility to choose the Creator’s will and vision or not. The correct choice also should be their top priority since it is the Creator who created everything to begin with, and everything in His original Creation extended forth and branched out from Him, that is, from His plans and creative process—and that it was good.

In this we can see that the Creator is both benevolent and non-coercive in that He never forces one to recognize and honor Him and will not violate His complimentary endowment of free will, which proves His love and His obvious understanding that love can only be freely given. He has also created human beings with the power of perception—the ability to perceive on their own—and the desire to “look around and discover” whatever His Creation has to behold. He knows that in this process, if one remains honorable and honest in one’s ongoing search, one will eventually find Him.

OF SAINTS AND SINNERS

The perfection of His original Creation was marred due to an angelic revolt. One may wonder why such a thing happened or how it could have happened within the bliss and harmony of the heavenly realm. Such bewilderment reigns until one considers the foundational culprit at the heart of it all—the sin of pride. This unfortunate trait is the result of a strange brew. It arises as an alchemical concoction formulated deep within the bowels of worshipful reflection upon self—arising from gifts such as outward beauty, lofty intellect, and/or superior attributes and abilities—that which the self had nothing to do with but takes possession of as if it did.

When one is thinking correctly, the proper response to such personal gifts and attributes is the very opposite of the aforementioned sin. It is one’s focus on the Creator and the recognition that one is a created being with no right to claim creative title nor the right to choose as one sees fit. Thus, rather than personal pride, in which one puts his or her own selfish interests first, one chooses instead to yield to the will of one’s Maker and appropriate the positive character trait of humility, which is a recognition of endowed blessings as gifts given in love. This is an acknowledgment of the Giver and an expression of gratitude to Him. Humility thus originates from the unpretentious heart of a person very aware that he or she is the blessed creation of a loving and beneficent Creator.

As such, rather than focusing laterally on self and generating rebellion, one instead looks upwardly towards one’s Maker and offers praise.

REBELS WITHOUT A CAUSE

And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. [Revelation 12:7-9]

An apparent third of the angels of heaven rebelled against the Creator (Rev 12:4). This was followed by a much greater percentage of humanity throughout history. Such defiant outcomes had to be in order to allow for a dutiful Community willingly dedicated to the Creator composed of those who honored Him, appreciated Him, and loved Him. Those who refused were culled by their own choices. Each of the rebels, whether angelic or human, chose incorrectly, having been made vulnerable by personal pride, which caused their inability to withstand temptation, which further caused their descent into the darkness of deception.

THE TEMPTER’S TRICKS

The temptation tactics of the enemy are exactly the same in pretty much every respect as that which was presented to the Lord during His temptation in the wilderness, though nuanced to varying degrees to fit the person thereof:

(1) It was suggested to the Lord that He act out of character and turn stones into bread to satisfy His natural hunger, that is, prioritize natural desires and natural food over spiritual desires (serving God) and spiritual food—the Word of God.

(2) It was suggested to the Lord that He act out of character upon arrival at the “pinnacle of the temple” (having the highest level of spiritual authority and power) by operating outside the Law of God through engaging in a potentially harmful and injurious personal act, knowingly and purposely, in the sight of all, as if to prove He was bulletproof and above approach no matter what He did, in order to summon God’s unilateral protection and unconditional approval, and thus verify His official outward exalted sanitized religious image. (Sound familiar?)

(3) It was suggested to the Lord that He act out of character and accept the rule over all the kingdoms on earth in exchange for worshipping the devil, that is, trade His spiritual authority over His eternal spiritual kingdom for all the temporary perks of natural authority at the highest level over the entire planet, while serving as the devil’s flunky.

This is pretty much what Adam and Eve did. Of course, their spiritual kingdom was the Garden and the devil lied about the world outside it, which brings to mind the following:

For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand outside.

I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God

Than dwell in the tents of wickedness. [Psalm 84:10]

Therefore, we must understand that there are basic natural tendencies endemic to every person which can be utilized by the enemy to gain advantage. The serpent in the Garden knew this, of course, since he was a fallen angel who had failed his own temptation battle. He was very aware of personal makeup and knew the newly created humans had a similar nature in that they were free will beings made in the image of God. It is why temptation always starts in one of three overall areas:

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. [John 2:16]

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate… [Genesis 3:6]

IN THE IMAGE OF GOD

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. [Genesis 1:27]

One might take a step back here when thinking of the devil and demons as somehow being like God but one must also understand that such fallen angels were at one time bright shining sinless creatures who dwelt in heaven and that in his previous personification the devil was apparently the most gifted angel among them. We must also understand that God Himself has a particular distinct and unique nature and that He draws from Himself to create those whom He would be in relationship with, which, again, means that both angels and humans are at least similar to Him if not predominantly like Him (until they rebel against Him). It is why both have such wondrous abilities in both the spiritual and natural spheres.

Human beings, “made, lower than the angels” (Hebrews 2:7), are intelligent, physically gifted, and infused with potentially tremendous spiritual aptitude including the inherent capacity for accomplishing the things we see the Lord doing in the Gospels. The first man was like that, whose attributes also included immortality before his fall into sin, and was “a type of Him who was to come” (Romans 5:14). It is why the apostle Paul related the first created man to the Lord Jesus, calling both Adam:

So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. [1Corinthians 15:45] [1]

Adam was made in the image of God. The Lord Jesus IS the Image of God.

This puts things into greater perspective regarding God’s original intentions for humanity and also how very different humanity was originally. What we see in the Lord Jesus is an absolutely perfect Man but also One who is a type of what all people should be. In fact, Christians are instructed by the Lord’s teachings to strive to be just like Him, as impossible as that may appear. What He means by this is one must appropriate the same divine nature that Adam and Eve had before the fall. It is also why the Lord Jesus taught that every one of His followers must undergo a new spiritual birth in that they must be born again, which means “born from above” (John 3:7).

The Lord’s mission is thus the process of transforming humanity back to its original state and condition.

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Tags: Adam and Eve, Angels, Creation, Discipleship, Free Will, Genesis, Lord Jesus, Praise, Pride, Real Christianity The Nature of the Church, Search For Truth, Sin and Rebellion, Spiritual Humility, Spiritual Warfare, Temptation, The Great Awakening, The Last Adam, The New Birth, You Must Be Born Again

OBSERVATIONS ON THE GENESIS CREATION ACCOUNT

May 7

Posted by RJ Dawson

In the beginning, God set out to create a perfect world. While in the process of creation He often looked upon His work and saw that it was good…

It continued being good until His great project was completed and all the finishing touches were made. It was an astounding and truly amazing success. At the end, “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).[1]

From this initial Scriptural account we learn that the goodness of original creation reflected the goodness of the Creator. We understand further that everything God does is good and perfect because God is good and perfect. Regardless of whether anyone recognizes or acknowledges such an otherwise easily discernable fact has no effect on God’s true nature or the nature of His Creation but, if contrary, certainly hints at the makeup of the observer.

THE GENESIS OF HISTORY

The initial Biblical creation account comprising Chapter 1 and the first three verses of Chapter 2 of the ancient Book of Genesis gives an accurate though brief depiction of how things came to be and the perfect state in which Creation originally existed. However, it is not actually the very beginning of the story. Instead, it is an account of how God made something great and very good of a place that was originally quite the opposite.

In Genesis at the beginning of God’s work He does not actually start with a necessarily clean palette so to speak. Instead there is the clear inference of a prior state or condition that was not good at all. From New Covenant Scripture we understand that God creates something from apparently nothing or at least that which is not visible or a part of the three dimensional world of which we are aware. As the writer of the Book of Hebrews records:

By faith we understand that the worlds [during the successive ages] were framed (fashioned, put in order, and equipped for their intended purpose) by the word of God, so that what we see was not made out of things which are visible. [Hebrews 11:3 AMPLIFIED]

As the preceding verse states, we must note something quite significant in the Genesis 1 record, that God actually spoke things into existence. That which was created was by the spoken word of God. It is also apparent that whatever God made did not exist physically as we know it prior to His making it, meaning that He used something or some means beyond the observance of the five senses. It must also be noted that, again, whatever God made was always good. The clear inference is that God does not make bad stuff. Yet Genesis 1:2a describes a pre-existing state or condition that is precisely that:

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. [KJV]

The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep… [NASB95]

The earth was without form and an empty waste, and darkness was upon the face of the very great deep. [AMPLIFIED]

Now it could be the case that the author of Genesis is simply describing a prior level of God’s Creation in which He brought it to that particular not so good condition from an original state of pure non-existence. Geologic science seems to confirm this by claiming a consensus hypothesis that the early planet existed in a relatively smoothed over state and was fully covered with water. Is this what Genesis is stating? Was the earth a water world?

The Hebrew certainly describes something that is akin to desolation, primeval chaos, formlessness, emptiness, a void, and a veritable wasteland or extreme wilderness. These descriptive terms are not good. How so? And to top it all off, the earth was also enveloped by total darkness. Was this condition simply a state of creation leading to its final stages as science portends? Or was the earth actually a place of former goodness that met destruction, which was somehow destroyed? If so, there would have to be a destroyer. Whatever the case, whatever existed here prior to the Genesis Creation account was not good.

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Tags: Creation, Genesis, History, Lord Jesus, Real Christianity The Nature of the Church, The Great Awakening

GAINING SPIRITUAL HEALTH

Sep 7

Posted by RJ Dawson

Everyone wants to be healthy. Everyone desires to walk in good health and feel good. However, spiritual health should be our top priority.

It is readily available. Spiritual health is God’s promise to us. He revealed to the world multiple centuries ago what it is and how to acquire it. In fact, in the very beginning, spiritual health was the norm.

THE BOOK OF GENESIS

First of all, we know that God is good. He is perfect. He can be trusted to the nth degree. Therefore, anything that God creates is good and anything God creates to sustain life, including food, is good.

In the Genesis account, at the beginning of Life on Earth just after the Days of Creation were completed, everything God had created was pronounced good. This included the good health in general of all living creatures but also the spiritual health of humanity. Yet God created only one life form akin to Himself:

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them… [Genesis 1:27-28]

By this we see that not only is God good but the first people God created were good. He had blessed them abundantly with every form of good health. He had provided for them everything they could possibly need or want. They were living in a good place. Life was good.

As you read the following familiar passage from Genesis Chapter 1, see if you can find any hidden details in the narrative one might otherwise pass over. See if you can ascertain clear facts pertaining to spiritual health and good health in general. The foundational basics are all there. Let’s take a look:

²⁷ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. ²⁸ God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” ²⁹ Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; ³⁰ and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. ³¹ God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. [Genesis 1:27-31]

According to this ancient narrative, whatever living creature God creates is not only good but God created the beginning and consequent perpetual process that allows for such living creatures to birth new generations. He also created the means required to sustain such living creatures, that is, how each must be nourished and gain the proper nutrients for good health and ongoing life. All of these were good.

In reading Genesis 1, then, we discover that at the end of each Day of Creation, God deemed everything He created on each day as good. The Hebrew word is טוֹב ṭôḇ (tobe). I suggest your own research to discover the full description of this word but Strong’s defines it as: Beautiful, best, better, bountiful, cheerful, at ease, × fair (word), (be in) favour, fine, glad, graciously, joyful, kindly, kindness, liketh (best), loving, merry, × most, pleasant, pleaseth, pleasure, precious, prosperity, ready, sweet, wealth, welfare, (be) well(-favoured).

You get the idea. Regarding such Creation days and specific life forms and living creatures, on the Third Day of Creation God created the Plant Kingdom. On Day Five He created Part 1 of the Animal Kingdom (the creatures of the air and water, primarily birds and fish). On Day Six, the final day of His active work, God created Part 2 of the Animal Kingdom, the land creatures, that which may be termed advanced life. These land animals are listed in three categories: (1) cattle, (2) creeping things, and (3) beasts of the earth. The original Hebrew equivalent of these three are bᵊhēmâ (be-hay-maw’), remeś (reh’-mes), and ḥay ‘ereṣ (khah’-ee) (eh’-rets).

The following brief Strong’s definitions gives us a better idea of these three primary life forms:

(1) בְּהֵמָה bᵉhêmâh (be-hay-maw’); from an unused root (probably meaning to be mute); properly, a dumb beast; especially any large quadruped or animal (often collective):—beast, cattle.

(2) רֶמֶשׂ remes (reh’-mes); from H7430; a reptile or any other rapidly moving animal:—that creepeth, creeping (moving) thing.

(3a) חַי chay (khah’-ee); from H2421; alive; also (as noun, especially in the feminine singular and masculine plural) life (or living thing), whether literally or figuratively:— age, alive, appetite, (wild) beast, company, congregation, life(-time), live(-ly), living (creature, thing), maintenance, merry, multitude, (be) old, quick, raw, running, springing, troop.

(3b) אֶרֶץ ʼerets (eh’-rets); from an unused root probably meaning to be firm; the earth (at large, or partitively a land):—× common, country, earth, field, ground, land, × nations, way, + wilderness, world.

One of the common characteristics of all of these land animals was their food: They were apparently all herbivores—plant eaters. This included the birds:

²⁹ Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; ³⁰ and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. [Genesis 1:29-30] [1]

The first thing which may come to mind here is this: What about the carnivores? Why does the Genesis account apparently either not list meat-eating predators or makes the apparent claim that such predators were actually herbivores at that long distant early time before the fall of man?

This opens up a big box of questions, to say the least, but I will try to stay on point here. Remember, the author of Genesis, as God’s spokesman, was primarily referencing the grocery list of early humans in that God had originally made human beings to subsist on a diet of “every plant yielding seed,” the fruit of “every tree which has fruit yielding seed,” and by extension, “every green plant.”

Now, it is also a fact that the majority of quadruped mammals such as cattle and deer are herbivores. Most birds of the present are not strict herbivores but the majority of their diet is plant-based. Some mammals and most birds are omnivores in that they eat both plant and animal matter. Some birds are carnivorous predators. Scientific studies have shown that animal diets in general have changed over time and location and that the normal process of such change, when it occurs, goes from herbivore to omnivore and in some instances to carnivore.[2] Of course, natural herbivores and carnivores are quite different in physiognomy regarding their teeth and digestive abilities which obviously portends original creation.

Again, I don’t want to get off point here, but this section of Genesis, while it never mentions it, also brings up the topical discussion of animal death. Some believe there was no death whatsoever on the planet before the fall of man. Others explain that there must have been death as part of God’s original creation or the land would eventually be overrun with far too many animals which it could not possibly support. Death would therefore require predators to keep nature in the proper balance. Death would also require carrion eaters.

But back to our topic. The Genesis account is clear that mankind was originally created to be strict herbivores (no meat or dairy). Our bodies are constructed in such a way to back this up. We have the teeth for it. In fact, the Garden of Eden was actually primarily a fruit tree orchard. Human health, then, depends on proper human diet and if we were originally created to eat only fruits, vegetables (including leafy greens), grains, and nuts (and possibly roots) then a diet of that sort would appear to be far healthier than one that introduces foreign matter not suitable for human biology and digestion.

Sadly, much of our food supply and subsequent diet at present consists mostly of “foreign matter” in that it is predominantly non-organic, factory processed, and chemical-laden/saturated. This makes the very food we need to survive the likely leading cause of disease and general ill health whether people know it or not (or care).

What does this have to do with spiritual health? I’m getting to it. Stay tuned for Part 2.

[2] www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120416154417.htm

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Tags: Creation, Day and Night, Divine Healing, Garden of Eden, Genesis, GOD IS GOOD!, Health, Humanity, Lord Jesus, Real Christianity The Nature of the Church, Spiritual Maturity, Spiritual Seed, Surrender to a Loving Creator, The Great Awakening