What Does it MEAN to be Born Again? Fallacies Put To Rest

Many people throw around the word Born Again like they throw around the world justice or mercy. People have an idea but not a precise meaning. Even many Christians do not really know. Hence, I hope to dispel some myths on this all important topic. If you chose to reject it, at least you will know what you are rejecting.

One has to start with the anatomy of a person, based on the Bible. There are three parts–the spirit, soul and body. I get this from the teachings of Andrew Wommack, my favorite Bible teacher. The body is self explanatory. The soul is the personality . It is the will, the decision making process, the choices, the past programming and the general sense of what we know of any given person. We say she has a nice personality or she is combative and likes to stir up trouble. People are known by their “souls” and they, themselves, feel their own soul.

The spirit is the innermost part which cannot be felt by the person. The spirit of every man will have a spiritual ruler or master. A person will protest and say that he rules himself. This is not true, according to the Bible. No man rules himself in the realm of his own spirit, which he cannot feel, remember. One serves God or the ruler of this world, Satan. There are NO other choices. One’s spirit has a spiritual head. That spiritual head is either the author of light or the author of darkness. If you say that you don’t serve either and you serve yourself, that is not correct. You will have a spiritual head and it will be one of the two and one of the two only. Why is this so? Because man was made to have his spirit connected to some spiritual force outside of himself. The anatomy of each man’s spirit was made to have some ruler in the spiritual realm. The man himself is not a spiritual force. He is flesh and blood. Therefore, the man who says he is his own master is lying. He is not aware of it, in most cases, but according to the Bible, he is.

So, when a person gets Born Again, ONE part changes. That part is the spirit. There is an exchange of his spirit for God’s spirit. The person is still the same in the soul and body. If the man had lots of bad habits, addictions etc, he would still have them after he got Born Again. The only thing that changed at the moment of the New Birth was his spirit. A man cannot feel his own spirit. He must learn about the event that transpired through the Bible. He must take an understanding of his spirit, on faith.

To sum it up to this point. When a man accepts Jesus as his savior, that man’s spirit goes from a connection with Satan to a connection with God. The person cannot feel this. The person must take it on faith.

Now, we do see changes in people who get Born Again. The change can be striking, at times. One can clearly see that something happened. If the change was only in the spirit, what do we see? We, as humans, can only see the soul and body of another person.When a person gets Born Again, his spirit is changed, only. However, if the person studies the Bible, he will learn about his spirit and what happened. In learning this and in applying God’s Word to his life, he will change in his soul. The soul change usually takes time.

This brings me to the next question or comment which I get ALL the time. “I know Christians who are worse than non Christians. If being a Christian is so real, why does this happen?” This answer is more complicated than you think, but there is an answer and it is a precise and specific one. The simple answer would be that all men have a flesh and that flesh stays intact until they die. The flesh is all that a man is, minus the spirit., The flesh is the body, of course. It is, also, the personality with all it’s quirks, addictions, anger, fear, selfishness, envy, judgement etc. When a person sees a Christian acting badly, they say they never want to be a Christian if THAT guy acts like that. That is really a ludicrous statement because that Christian will always have his flesh to struggle with, just as you will.

The Christian has a changed spirit and from that point on, he will try to make the change reach his flesh. Every Christian who is sincere will try to do this. However, he is a work in progress, so if you want to judge Jesus on any man, you will be in error. You are obfuscating the truth of the Bible. You will end up on your rear end looking up at the sky because you will go on a one way journey to nowhere. On the other hand, a Christian should try to emulate Jesus and a true Christian does. I had an example where I was swearing. A person said that I could not be a Christian because I swore. I apologized because he was right. I tried to turn over a new leaf but I still slip. That would be an example of what I am talking about. I find it very frustrating when people pile on stories how they knew a Christian who was a much worse person that anyone else they knew. These are legend to any Christian. The people miss the main and overarching point that a Christian is a flawed man. Any christian will admit this and point you to Jesus. I hope I put this issue to rest.

So, to summarize. A Christian gets changed in the spirit when he makes Jesus his personal savior. The world personal savior is another that people don’t understand. The concept behind personal savior is that man is too sinful to be in God’s presence. I think most people know this, down deep. Many people will protest but I think this truth reaches to all man’s hearts, as all men know what they are down deep. Hence, man cannot come into God’s presence as is. There is no person who can be good enough to enter God’s presence. Think of all the men people worship such as Buddha. Each was a man and hence, flawed. This brings us to why Jesus had to become a man and take on a human body and come to this earth.

The reason is that God deeded the earth to a MAN. That man was Adam. When God deeded the earth, God could not take back the deed and head the earth, Himself. If He did, he would be breaking a promise. God cannot break any promises or the whole universe will implode. It says that in the Psalms. ( This should be taken note of by those who cling to Replacement Theory.If God revokes off His promises to the Jews, He will have no credibility in His promises to the Gentiles. That is a whole new story and one I will leave for now)

Back to Jesus becoming a man. A MAN had to take back the deed to the earth God, who is a spirit could not do it. It took a flesh and blood man. That is the reason that God became a man in the form of Jesus and came to this earth. I am sure many of you did not know that. The Bible hangs together perfectly to those who invest themselves in a serious way to understanding.

The concept of Jesus as our personal savior is quite simple, in theory. Man’s nature could not be in the presence of a holy and 100% pure God. Hence, man needed his spirit changed. Jesus exchanged His spirit for man’s. How, you ask? There was a spiritual exchange. The spiritual realm has it’s own rules and one must study to see what they are. However, the New Birth is a spiritual exchange of God’s holy and perfect spirit for man’s sinful and defiled one. When one accepts Jesus and what He did, one gets Born Again. Then, one can enter into God’s presence, now and when one dies. Inside the Born Again man is the actual presence of God. it is in the form of the Holy Spirit. That is why you can see a light in the eye of a true Born Again person.

I went into a lot of detail. I hope I made things clear. Ask any questions or make any comments, as usual.

Forgive any typos, please. I will be back