So We won't Die, but what is Eternal Life actually like?

And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

Daniel 12:2

....and I have the same hope in God as these men themselves have, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.

Acts 24v15

I've talked a little about the permanence and security of the life we have in Christ. There's a lot more to be said about that, and a lot of verses to work through and contextualise. But for now I want to look at this new life we are receiving. As we saw, the New Testament calls it zoe life. In fact, zoe aioneos. Eternal life. We discussed what 'eternal' might mean. Regardless of exactly how time is experienced in eternity, everyone agrees there is no end to it. What is it like? How does it feel? How much can we know about it now? If Heaven isn't a wonderful home, why aim to go there at all? 

Winston Churchill was voted the Greatest Briton a few years ago. However I read that as he approached death, he told his doctor that life had been fun, just the once. He didn't want a re-run. That's sad but illuminating. Life lived eternally in the Kingdom of God will have qualities which we don't experience now. We won't want this life to end. Not with the entirely new quality of life He gives.

We must trust God knows what He's doing, and that eternity with Him will have no place for boredom or disappointment, trials or tedium. We must believe that all negatives like these will find no place.

The whole aim of dealing with sin is for opening up and perfecting relationships. Sin is in a sense a secondary issue with the Gospel. We need the root of it dealt with, and it has been. We need, as these verses below say, to walk free from it without getting entangled again. But the aim, and the aim for Jesus, is the joy of friendship and spiritual family.

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1,2

God is not tempted by, or fixated with, sin. He just knows it needs to be got out of the way for life to work. The Westminster Catechism is right when it says the chief purpose of man is to know God and enjoy Him forever. Sin is merely a passing obstacle. Christ dealt with it. He dealt with it because He wants an eternal, big happy family! He's not selfish but He does have a big heart for family relationships. He has very high ambitions for His children!

We may not understand how (or if) time works in eternity. We may not be able to fully anticipate the 'physics', the environment, the 'architecture' or 'scenery'. But we have been told quite a lot about how relationships will work in Heaven.

Jesus spoke mostly about relationships. John and others got some physical information about eternity, things like streets and a city.

The Flesh

Relationships on Earth work according to the 'flesh'. Though men want to put on a 'righteous' front, they are not righteous in God's sight.

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Galatians 5:19-21

That is about real human nature without the Holy Spirit. There is conflict, greed, oppression, manipulation, fear. When God withdraws fully from people, relational and social Hell will result. The environment of Hell will just be a fitting backdrop. Many unbelievers are now living in the blessing of praying, Spirit-filled Christians. The Holy Spirit is still active even in this fallen world. In Hell, that will not be so. Envy, strife, conflict, cheating, getting one over on people, every kind of turmoil, uncertainty and insecurity. There will be no real harmony and no real rest and peace.

Those who have come to love the strife, the ruthless competition, the exploitation, the greed, the selfishness, the lust and oppression, the lying and cheating, and have rejected their answer in Christ, will be removed summarily from the presence of God and the sanctified. Done at the end of the age, this is necessary for the blessing of the righteous. God won't tolerate the nonsense of sin forever. They will burn with these feelings and motives eternally. Conflicts will arise and escalate. There will be no real or lasting resolution. They will burn with regret and never achieve real peace or fulfilment.

The Spirit

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

Here are listed the attributes which make eternal life viable and enjoyable. Believers are filled with the Holy Spirt, the person of the Trinity who inhabits us. When His virtues have taken over completely in us, leaving no room or desire for the fleshly things, God can trust such people and bless them with Heaven.

In Heaven there will be an intimacy of relationship, totally impossible when people don't trust each other. There will be a framework allowing for true harmony and fulfilment, a hosting of the blessing of God.

In the present age, we have been delivered from the penalty of sin, which is death and Hell. We are being delivered from the power of sin. We are often still aware of it tainting our lives. 

We will, at the resurrection of the righteous, be delivered from even the presence of sin completely. No inward or outward presence of defilement!

Loneliness will not exist, because people will be free to know each other completely and love each other completely, without the fear of rejection or alienation. We have been reborn to dovetail with each other. There'll be no need to hide or pretend. We will all understand that Christ saved us from our depravity, and that we are all recipients of His mercy. But there will be a permanent chasm between our past sins and our present reality. We will be distantly aware of our past sins and failures, but we will feel no embarrassment over them, or even any sense of identification with them. They will be a remote, distant folly. There will be no judgment and no condemnation, from ourselves, or others, or from God. There will be no sense that our past sins define who we are now, or taint us to any degree. We will be absorbed in enjoying the new, and the past will only be relevant because we are so thankful it is behind us.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 10:10

Do we sometimes feel a fleeting longing for something we can't put into words? A sensation that there is more to be known, experienced and enjoyed, in our inward life, in our emotions and thinking? That there are vistas and nuances of consciousness we can't quite get in touch with fully? A childhood friend who lived life 'down here' full on, seizing every opportunity to have fun, good or bad, once said 'there must be more than this'. There is. Our hearts tell us.

At the moment there are aspects of mortal life which are in the themselves death. They are the fruits of the flesh mentioned above. We might think we'll miss them, if only for the contrast and the intrigue. But in God's eternity, new aspects of life will be present. People who have had experience of Heaven have mentioned this. There are new colours, new sounds, new experiences. Completely new. We won't miss the old order.

We will have so many people to spend time with, and we won't be restricted to a small context of relationships by proximity, by money or even by earthly family. We will be understood, heard, loved, cared for, by all.

While we don't know, and probably couldn't presently understand, our new physical context, we can deduce a few things about it from the character of our Maker and Redeemer. Our environment will be granted by God to please and delight us. It will lack the marring hand of sin we see now, seen as it is alongside the shadows of glory this fallen world undoubtedly still shows. It will be wonderful, in ways we can't yet even imagine. It will be harmonious, without jarring elements. It will resonate with possibilities and discovery. It will satisfy every corner of our being. We will have an eternal home. Many are seeking a little escape, a paradise for themselves and those they clique. But in Heaven there will be no need or desire to escape, or to shun. The fulness surrounds. It's the natural backdrop. It's who we all are and where we all are.

God has always planned to put sin in remission and then to do away with it entirely. With no efforts spent on security and secrecy, our creativity will flourish as never before. The God who granted us a context of existence also grants us an ability to help create it for ourselves and others. There will be work, but not toil. Our minds will be sharper, our perception clearer. We will enjoy the abundance of very good thing.

When I got saved, the staleness went, and freshness came. It was vivid like nothing else before. I haven't remained in that emotional place constantly, but it was the first installment and foretaste of what awaits. A new sense of wonder, praise and thankfulness, along with a new pleasure and satisfaction in life. In Heaven, these blessings will abide permanently.

The sorrow and sighing, the longing for more and different, will have dissolved into pure daylight. Frustration and disappointment move into satisfaction, satisfaction for all who came.

The Beatitudes 

That's some taster, some deductions based on Scripture, about eternal life for the redeemed.

How are things in the meantime?

These verses are found in Matthew 5v3-12.

They tell us what the hunger for the final fulfilment of eternal life, experienced in the here and now, feels like.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. 

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. 

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Those who are not self-satisfied, and hunger for something else, something altogether better, may feel longing now, but they are blessed. They will be fulfilled. The depth of their longing will be more than met in the delight of their fulfilment. 

We can bury our longings under worldly ambition and escapism. Or we can wait patiently for the coming King and His Kingdom.

Getting Saved - What is Repentance?

Repent of your Sins?

I do street preaching, and the approach preachers take to preaching the Gospel to the lost is important. We want to convey God's heart to people. Some people exhort listeners to 'repent of their sins'. 

Listeners don't always know exactly what this means. What does 'repent' mean anyway? 

'Repentance' can sound like a heavy word, full of impending gloom and judgment, with a sense of impossible demands from an angry God. However it is part of the Good News, the light yoke Jesus gives us. What went wrong in our perception of a word intended for our immeasurable blessing?

It's the first word the evangelist uses in his exhortation. Repent, believe, be baptised. That sequence is there in the New Testament many times. The phrase 'repent of your sins' is not.

Why would this matter? A series of conversations with others made me think perhaps it matters quite a bit. Does this phrase scare people away unnecessarily? Are we burdening people in a way God is not? I love to hear people are getting saved, and I love to hear about their individual experiences. But people being convicted about a list of sins to repent of hasn't really come around in the conversations. Instead, when they came into the Kingdom, the people I spoke to called out to Jesus; not always out loud but in their hearts. I've yet to hear an instance where people laboured over individual sins.

Now it is perfectly true that people, in turning to Christ, must turn away from their life without Him. When a man marries, he is very likely to lose certain facets of his previous life. The old life was full of sin, infected with sin beyond self-remedy. But how we phrase this repentance reflects on how people will see Christ. We must endeavour to phrase it in line with the examples we have in Acts. 

Before we get to looking at the examples we have, I want to highlight the fact that Jesus, according to Paul, is not wishing to impute (or account) our sins to us. 

.... in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

2 Corinthians 5:19

What the NKJV calls 'impute', and the ESV here calls 'count against', is a Greek word 'logizomai', which basically means 'to take an inventory of' or 'to reckon'. God is not wishing to take an inventory of people's sins to use against them. (However if they don't come to Christ, their sins will still stand. He is the only effective sacrifice and mediator).

We have Good News. And there is no answer until we have embraced Him. So what we don't need to do is make people think they have to sort their lives out and clean them up themselves. 

When Christ came, His emphasis was on reconciliation.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

John 3:16-17

 

Interestingly the popular NLT (New Living Translation) does use the phrase 'repent of your sins' or something very similar several times in Acts. It is always an addition to the original text. The Good New Bible does the same in places. Other translations, such as the ESV, NIV, KJV, and NKJV, are more literal.

Here's the NLT is Acts 26v20. Paul is speaking.

...all must repent of their sins and turn to God—and prove they have changed by the good things they do

The ESV has

 ......that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.

If you search an accurate New Testament translation you just won't find 'repent of your/their sins' anywhere.

Acts 2v38 and 3v19 have also been doctored by the NLT. 

At the end of Acts 3 is a verse which sums up the dynamic of salvation as it concerns our sins. The NLT is actually fine here. 

When God raised up his servant, Jesus, he sent him first to you people of Israel, to bless you by turning each of you back from your sinful ways.”

Acts 3:26 NLT

God is active in turning us away from our sins here, not us ourselves. 

In every instance I'm aware of, the New Testament sees the forgiveness of sins as a result of repentance. It's a by-product, an outcome, an inevitability! There's no real sense we need to confront our sins and tackle them in some manner first. Yet a lot of our outreach is inclined to make people think they need to do this. It seems God's preferred emphasis is on the invitation to eternal life, and His desire to have us and include us, love us and know us as family members.

And the word 'Repent' ?

The Greek word metanoeo is translated 'repent' in nearly all English versions in nearly all cases.

Metanoeo means 'think again', 'change your mind', 'reconsider'. It derives from two other Greek words meaning 'again/after' and 'think'. 

You'll find plenty of people out there saying 'repent' means 'turn around', and even that it was a Greek military term. You won't find any actual evidence for that. It appears to be hearsay with no distinct source. My wife heard a sermon saying that Alexander the Great spread the common Greek language and that the term was used routinely by his soldiers to get them to march in the opposite direction. It's a nice story, and variations of it are in widespread circulation, presented as fact. Try Googling what 'repent' means in the Bible; you'll see all sorts of posts from church leaders saying stuff like this. It's just that it's flat out wrong.

This common understanding of 'repent' looks like a case of reverse etymology. There's a word in  common English usage, routinely used to translate a Greek word. But the English word has come to mean something substantially different from the word it is used to represent.

Repent (Cambridge English Dictionary) 'to be very sorry for something bad you have done in the past and wish that you had not done it'

Repent (Greek metanoeo) 'to reconsider (something in the light of new knowledge)'

We must go back to what the writer meant, not what the translation has come to mean.

It is noteworthy that there are 30 occurrences of metanoeo, 'repent', as a command, in the New Testament, and of those, only in Revelation 2v21 and 22 are there things to be 'repented of'. The context there is Jesus confronting churches. In all other cases, the 'repent' command stands alone; no object is given.* 

So two things are often misunderstood. The meaning of 'repent' and the fact that 'of your sins' was not present in the Greek texts. Between these two things, we could easily get the thrust of the 'repent' message wrong.

People will not first turn from their sins, and in fact they cannot. They will likely be driven away, unnecessarily. But they can turn to Jesus. The twelve disciples were not told to 'repent of their sins' by Jesus. Neither did He say to the crowds, 'Come to me, you weary and burdened, and I'll also demand you work out where you are sinning and deal with it all'. 

Now it's true, you cannot turn to something or someone, and not turn away from something else. In turning to Christ, it is implicit that you turn away from your life without Him, sin and all. But the focus is not on the sin. The focus is on giving everything to Him, and living with Him, accepting Him as He accepts us. He is after relationship in the first instance. Once we have that connection established, He can work in our lives to clean us up and transform us.

Christianity is first and foremost a release from burdens, an empowerment, a gift, and a change of identity; 2 Corinthians 5v17, 21. There are requirements too, but the requirements follow on, and they flow from the new identity, the new sense of personhood! And they are an outcome of walking in the Spirit! The Holy Spirit graciously provides the power to live differently, and He changes us, mostly, in gentle stages. He is not an impossible taskmaster, as the wicked servant accused in Matthew 25v24. This difference concerning repentance may seem subtle but it is important, and it seems to me many of us may have had this rather wrong!

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trivialising sin. Sin is eternally lethal and needs an answer. The answer is costly, and precious, the Blood of Christ. But the answer is available, and it is free. As far as paying the price, the penalty, is concerned, Christ has done that and we who believe are free from the judgment and penalty otherwise due. That is wonderful. That is grace. A free gift of true life, and a paying-off of what you could never, ever pay yourself.

How many of us, prior to conversion, remember being convicted of particular sins and felt the need to try and change our behaviour? If you did, maybe it showed you were serious, which is not a bad thing. But I know someone well who had no sense of that. She merely cried out involuntarily 'Oh, alright then!' when Jesus was preached. She was prayed with and told to tell someone. Her life was one of much frustration and despair. But her awareness of her sin came later. I was similar. I was not convicted of particular sins before I confessed Christ publicly. I had been feeling a sense of general failure in relationships, and a sense of wanting to hide. Two others I think of were each walking away from God and each nearly died, one from drug use and one following a car crash. They experienced a sense of dread and terror. Both thought they were going to Hell. They cried out to Jesus to save them. Both had some previous knowledge of the Bible. The central decision was to reconsider Jesus and the direction of their lives and to turn to Christ. Acts 3v19 and Acts 26v20 add the extra word 'epistrepho' to denote the 'turn' bit. 

It's easy to see why people who are disappointed with behavioural lapses in new believers want to get them to put away sins, or promise to put them away, before they believe and are baptised. But that doesn't seem to be God's way of doing things. We see who Jesus truly is, we believe, we are baptised. He is the answer to our sinful condition. Our sins are forgiven, and we are given a new life. God has dealt with the root of sin, which is unbelief. He will graciously deal with sin which lingers around, and this may require our co-operation, but He isn't asking for our resolve to sort them out before we receive Him! He came to bring rest for the penitent. Now if we are sincere, we will hand our lives, sins and all, to Him, to make what He will out of them. It's true we can't insist we keep hold of our sins. That is different from thinking we have to acknowledge them and get rid of them before He will receive us.

I encourage you to look at the Acts outreach sermons in a fairly straightforward translation such as the ESV or NKJV and see if they fit with the 'repent of your sins' teaching. I really don't think they do. We repent toward God, away from our life without Him. When we do that, forgiveness of sins is found too. We then believe, and get baptised. We also receive the Holy Spirit. We are thereby born again, saved, children of God. Good News.

Repentance is salvation. It involves believing. Repentance is not something we must do before we can be saved. It is true we are leaving our old life, which was sinful. However, in accepting the Saviour, we repent. He will then, gently and in stages, sort our lives out.

For salvation, repent and believe are inseparable processes. A rethinking of life and believing in Jesus. Baptism is a visible sign and seal, performed very soon afterwards, or immediately, in Acts at least. 

God is emphasising answer, not problem.

*A further 4 verses from later in Revelation report the failure of mankind, under suffering, to repent of things like idolatry and murder, and of not glorifying God. These verses are not recording a command to repent and be saved. 

Certainly, there are other contexts to repentance. Repentance happens for people who are already believers, and it happened in the Old Testament. That's another discussion. Here we are looking at how it works at salvation.

How Safe and Secure are we before God? Part 3 - Passing from Death to Life

Entering Eternity

...Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

1 Peter 1:23-25

The word of the Lord remains forever. We have simply believed. It is the imperishable seed. You have been born again of it. There's no going back possible for the real eternal you, because the new birth was the birth of the real eternal you.

The phrase 'born-again' is Johannine. It occurs only in John, of the four gospels, and only in the Nicodemus discourse. A similar phrase is found, just twice, in 1 Peter chapter 1. It is a minority teaching, therefore, in Soteriology, the study of salvation. But it has something very important to say. Behind the Pauline concepts of the new man, the new creation, there is first the need for new birth. The new birth births us into these things. And the concept of birth, used as an analogy, is very illustrative of the experience of entering the Kingdom of God. 

We have, for all time, entered into a new realm of existence, with a new type, a new quality, of life within. This was discussed in Part 2. We've entered into His love, which will take us over by degrees. We don't cease to have personality and individuality. Instead we are recreated in spirit and infused with the nature of God. We are family members. If you don't want this, you are not a Christian believer. He doesn't push you where you don't want to go, He is honourable, genuine, sensitive, gentle and considerate. And so He wins us over in that way.

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

1 John 4:16-18

John is saying that love will be perfected in us, and it leaves no remaining place for fear. In other words, God's end game is that we are completely swallowed up in love. This love will then govern our behaviour. Love is sufficient. Our new, true, nature is designed to be indwelled by love, at one with love. Man may think in terms of a little fear to keep us in line, but this is unnecessary and undesirable. We don't need the fear of damnation to keep us in line, not once we are saved. The closer we get to God, the less fear we have. When we fully share His nature, there will be no danger of us showing Him treachery by walking out. And He hasn't even mentioned the possibility of throwing us out. His nature is not treacherous, and so His nature in us is not treacherous either.

Human seed is sperm. It is perishable. It requires moisture and body temperature to remain alive. (It can be cryogenically frozen also, we won't go into that). If it dies, it cannot initiate reproduction and there will be no subsequent natural birth. But you are born again from imperishable seed, and into eternal life. It's extremely hard to argue that, based on scripture, the new birth is temporary or reversible. If you're born again, that's it. It is true there may be a gestation period; the seed needs to be sustained until the birth actually happens. There will be a certain time between planting and birth, during which the decision to go through with birth needs to be upheld.

By all normal word meaning and analogy, I'd say the new birth once it occurs is permanent and irreversible. The life it brings forth is eternal.

Entering in to the Kingdom

So entering the Kingdom is through the new birth. It isn't by membership of a church. It isn't by our own efforts at behaviour improvement. That's putting the cart before the horse. (The true church consists of born again believers. The church of God is a body of believers first and foremost, not an organisation with buildings).

When I read John 3, I'm struck by how radical Jesus sounded to the stunned Nicodemus. The encounter  reminds me of Rudolph Hess, a very senior Nazi who wanted the British on side against Russia.  He approached a member of the British gentry in an attempt to win him over. The mission was secret, only a handful of sympathetic Germans knew about it. (The analogy has its limits). 

Nicodemus was also a reconciler. As a respected Jewish religious leader, he approached Jesus at night, early in His ministry, perhaps because he didn't want to be openly associated with Him for fear of his fellow jews. Nicodemus seemed to like Jesus and clearly esteemed Him. Perhaps he was going to try to 'tone Jesus down'. He states that Jesus is clearly from God because of the signs He performed. God was with Him. Jesus had read out Scripture and spoken in synagogues for a while without much problem. Maybe Nicodemus thought, 'if only we could get Him to do away with the bits where He implies He is God, we could do a deal and understand one another. He'd be a decent Rabbi. I can broker it. The Pharisees will be OK with that. So Jesus; just be a great Jewish teacher, maybe even a prophet. Don't stretch it too far. Everyone might benefit' 

All this is indeed conjecture. If it's so, Nicodemus was to be disappointed and further challenged by what Jesus said next. 

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

John 3:3

Bam. Nicodemus, there's way more to my ministry than you think. There won't be a watering down.

Born Again and Saved

So we need this new birth from on high. This is the 'passing from death to life' experience we spoke about earlier.

I believe if we have really received salvation, we have undergone the new birth too. They are essentially terms for the same thing. Believers are saved. It's in the past for us. (It's true the final salvation of our bodies awaits us, so in the bodily sense, we will be saved, although we have, in essence, already been saved. Similarly, we are being saved from the remaining power sin has over us. There is a progressive sanctification of the soul. At the end of the age, at the resurrection, we will be saved from the power of sin altogether. But these future 'salvations' are inevitabilities after initial salvation. It is worth bearing these tense distinctions in mind when we encounter the words for salvation). 

How does it happen?

So what does it mean to be 'born again' ? And what do we do to choose, or allow, this new birth ?

“How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

John 3:4-6

The new birth is instigated by the Spirit. We are born again of the Spirit.

Water and the Spirit

Opinions vary on what Jesus meant by 'born of water'. I'm inclined to think He meant born of amniotic fluid, mostly water, i.e. the mother's 'waters'. He might also be alluding to Ezekiel 36v25, one of several Exile-era Messianic prophecies from Jeremiah and Ezekiel. This one speaks of a sprinkling with water for cleansing, which was prophesied to occur prior to the granting of a new heart and the outpouring of the Spirit. This seems less likely to me.

Now a person cannot birth himself. (They cannot, incidentally, baptise themselves either). Either naturally or by supernatural re-birth, another is the agent. In the case of natural birth, a newly-minted little person merely yields to processes already in motion in the mother's body. With the new birth we also consent to what God already wishes to do. He does it though. If it were a question of saying a prayer, or washing ourselves, or vowing to try to improve ourselves, we could do that. But this is a spiritual birth, and only God can do it. The Christian life, in authentic form, is supernatural. It's not something we can conjure up ourselves.

So what is our part? How do we chose this new birth? How do we allow it to happen? First we must understand God passionately wants it to happen, and it is definitely something where God has to 'kick in' for it to be happen. 

I believe it is chosen by us and by God. If we choose, He chooses. It is a meeting. He doesn't force us. That would be close to spiritual assault. Instead He wins our hearts, by degrees, usually. If we let Him.

Can two walk together unless they are agreed?

Amos 3v3

God already wanted to save you. He has said so pretty clearly.

(God our saviour) who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

1 Timothy 2:4

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

2 Peter 3:9

Calvinism

A few hundred years ago John Calvin and the Armenians developed rather differing views of salvation, which they believed were derived from scripture. Calvin emphasised the sovereignty of God, while the Armenians emphasised human choice. There are various forms of Calvinism, and a popular strain is known by the mnemonic 'TULIP'. As far as I can see the verses above cause great difficulty for this five-point Calvinist doctrine. Two of those five points are;

-Limited Atonement. The sacrifice of Christ on the Cross only paid for the sins of the elect. If so He isn't what 1 John 2v2 says He is.

-Irresistible Grace. You don't choose Christ at all. You can't resist. If salvation is irresistible, then logically, so is damnation. Those not chosen are damned. God must surely know this, and yet scripture says He wishes all to be saved. 

Well it's true there are verses like:

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

John 15:16

This clearly says He chose us, rather than us choosing Him. Jesus came along and pretty much commanded these first disciples to follow Him. If any refused outright, it is not recorded. But some seemed to follow more closely, to take their call more seriously. One ended up betraying Him outright. We seem able to veto, or even sabotage, God's calling. People can refuse God's call to salvation, which, based on Scripture, is a universal call. This will lead to perdition and damnation. (As Christians, we can also decide to resist God's will in our lives. However, I don't believe that jeopardises our actual salvation. There will be loses, perhaps serious, but our new spirit survives, 1 Corinthians 3v14,15. God also chooses certain people for particular tasks, people who have already chosen salvation, such as Paul and Silas in Acts).

Now there do seem to be contradictions on some points. God wills all to be saved, but some He hardens and gives over to a powerful delusion, 2 Thessalonians 2v11. But the powerful delusion only comes on those who have hardened their hearts by refusing to love the truth. In other words, harden your heart for long enough and God has set things up so as to further harden your heart. You can't sit on the fence forever, you side with sin and fallen angels or with God. He needs to fit you for Heaven or give you over to Hell. Even when God sends a delusion, I don't think He is the author of it. He merely gives a person over to Satan and his schemes, which is where they are headed. The road to destruction is wide, Matthew 7v13.

And so how to escape all this....

How to be born again

The really important bit. Nothing in life is more important.

We come back to how to be born again, as John 3v3 stipulates we must.

Jesus of course understands what is necessary. The experience is obviously not the same for everyone. Some just slowly realise they now believe, often when very young. Actually the terminology 'born again' is never used in association with an individual being saved in the New Testament. Instead, when people come to Christ, we see other words used. If there is a formula, it is 'Repent, believe and be baptised'.

That fits with Romans 10.

.. “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

Romans 10:8-10

So it's extremely simple. You believe, form the heart, and you are saved. What do you believe? That Jesus is the Son of God. He came as a man, died and rose from the dead. He took our sins and is ready to give us new life. By simply believing these things we are justified, or put right with God. In addition, we are to confess Him as Lord before men. Clearly, we use our mouth. If you are mute, believe for healing, and God will accept your public act of acknowledgement at baptism. There is a command to be baptised. There need be no time delay; there generally wasn't one in the New Testament. Acknowledge Him before men. Invite family, friends, colleagues.

As faith, confession and baptism occur, the new birth will occur too.

Only if the actions did not stem from heart faith is there the possibility that a person is not really saved.

I believe a good test of heart sincerity here is if a person asks himself or herself whether they are making a permanent decision to give God everything, as best they know. They are then truly trusting Him with their lives and giving them over to Him in every area, for ever. That's all God requires. We don't have to change first, we can't. Without Him we can do nothing, John 15v5.