What Does it Mean to be Born Again Part II
In Part 1 I asked what it actually means to be born again according to the words of Jesus in conversation with Nicodemus in John 3:2-11. I’ll start by recounting how it was initially explained to me when I made the decision to surrender and ask Christ to become Lord of my life. I was told that because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience or sin in the Garden that they became separated from God and died spiritually. The result, according to the doctrine of Original Sin, developed by some of the early Church fathers over the first several centuries after Christ’s death was that all humans born from that day forward were born with and carried in them the sin nature of Adam. There is no doubt that immediately after Adam and Eve were displaced from the Garden man became predominately separated from God, depraved and lacking in any kind of Godly values, morals or direction as we might understand them today, especially leading up to the flood. Of course we also see many instances throughout the Old Testament of men that did know and communicate with God and were temporarily filled with His Spirit.
With that said and in light of what Jesus says to Nicodemus, I believe we do need to go back to the origin and revisit just exactly what happened at the creation and in the Garden, what the deception of the serpent was and how it relates to this new birth Jesus is talking of in John 3.
In Genesis chapter 1 and 2 we see two instances speaking of the overall creation, but for our purposes of this study we’ll look specifically at the creation of mankind. In chapter 1:26-27 we read;
“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
Here we find that we are created in the image and likeness of God and that we were to have dominion over all the earth including every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.
The Hebrew words tselem and demûth, image and likeness respectively are defined as; a phantom or (figuratively) illusion, resemblance, hence a representative figure, a likeness or model, while likeness is defined as a, similitude, resemblance, model, and shape. One thing we can be certain of here based on scripture, is that the image or likeness is not one of a corporeal nature for God is Spirit (John 4:24), but rather must be representative of God’s nature, essence, character or the moral disposition of His soul, His Spirit or life force contained within our physical body . But He also created and provided us with a functioning reasoning brain, a will and emotions, as well as a I believe, a conscience that instinctively knows right from wrong.
Having eaten of the tree of their own free choice, the result was not an immediate bodily death but it was a separation between man and God. Man had chosen to bow down and give his authority to the god of this world, the serpent, thereby removing God from the picture. The result then through our own free choice was to go our own way apart from God having been deceived into believing we would become as God by eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or calamity, toil, hardship, sickness, all forms of wickedness, whether knowingly, innocently or through deception, the ultimate end choice was theirs to make and they ultimately turned it over to a fallen angel whom we now refer to as the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4), whom blinds the minds of unbelievers.
But that was not the original plan as the writer of Ecc. 7:29 points out;
"This only have I found: God created mankind upright, but they have gone in search of many schemes.” NIV
What the writer has discovered is that man was created upright, righteous and holy, a perfect image of all God’s attributes. In other words our spirit man, the very Spirit life of God breathed into Adam was an exact representation of God’s very essence and nature and our role was to be God’s representatives in this earth clothed in His authority and character. We were to rule over all the earth as previously stated, through His indwelling Spirit and divine power and through an increasing knowledge of Him thereby becoming partakers of His divine nature. (2 Peter 1:3-4) This was God’s original purpose and plan for mankind, an incorporeal invisible God becoming visible in and through a corporeal visible human being within a creation that God saw as perfect and good and which would more than abundantly supply our every need and provision.
It’s at the end of chapter one that we see God performing His final and ultimate act of creation, that of mankind, a conscious social creature capable of self-awareness, containing intelligence and a mind capable of reasoning, having emotions and free choice or a will and then infused with all the divine power, eminence and fullness of the eternal God of all creation! God saw all that he had made and indeed it was not only good, it was very good! As we enter chapter two we see God now resting from all His work that He had completed. Why? Because there was nothing more to add or take away for His works were finished from the creation of the world. (Heb. 4:3) His creation was to abundantly provide for our every need continuously.
At least that was they plan, but as we continue on to Genesis 2 looking specifically at verses 8 and 9 and into chapter 3 things go sideways;
“And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
And verses 16 and 17;
"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
Here in verse 8-9 we see that God created a garden and from the ground caused to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food and we also read that the tree of life was also in the midst or middle of the garden as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Further in verses 16 and 17 we read that God commanded or directed that the man could eat freely of every tree in the garden which would have included the tree of life, but with one exception. He was not to eat from tree of the knowledge of good and evil for in the day that you eat of it God said, you shall surely die. The word die here is the Hebrew word mûth and its use throughout scripture speaks to a natural physical death which was not God’s original intention for man. That said we are also a triune being having a material flesh, blood and bone body, a soul that includes our reasoning mind, our will and beliefs as well as our feelings and emotions plus God’s Spirit, His very essence which animates or gives life to our body. Therefore beyond eventual physical death there would also be a spiritual death through separation from God spiritually. Yet I believe every human being still contains that life force or essence of God’s Spirit, just spiritually dead, disconnected or separated from and having little or no connection to God. We became directly connected to and subservient to the world’s system instead of the dominion imparted to us from God.
Another note of interest here and that is that according to scripture to this point, when God commanded Adam saying that he could freely eat of any tree with the one exception Eve had not yet to be created. This occurred in verses 21 and 22. Just to further add and that was the discovery, while studying this section and reading various commentaries, that God was the creator of evil according to Isaiah 45:7 which in the King James Translation reads;
“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”
Many other translations replace the word evil with the word calamity, which is the Hebrew word ra‛ or râ‛âh which I believe the Word Study Dictionary describes best in our current context;
“It means bad in a moral and ethical sense and is used to describe, along with good, the entire spectrum of good and evil; hence, it depicts evil in an absolute, negative sense, as when it describes the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”
This initially confused me as so many accuse God of allowing evil to happen which on the surface it could appear as such until one reads James 1:13-15;
“When someone is tempted, he should not say, “I am being tempted by God,” because God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone. Instead, each person is tempted by his own desire, being lured and trapped by it. When that desire becomes pregnant, it gives birth to sin; and when that sin grows up, it gives birth to death.” - ISV
But, connecting Isaiah 45:7 with James 1:13 and Genesis 2:17 we discover that yes, God did create evil in that He caused the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to spring up in the midst of the garden along with the tree of life, but as we read in James it is man himself who allows himself to be tempted and drawn away by evil which gives birth to sin and ultimately death. God has no part in it nor can He for God is Love (1 John 1:7), and He is Light and in Him is no darkness (1 John 1:5) neither any variableness or shadow of turning (James 1:17) He gave man the choice to eat freely of any tree in the garden with one warning, that the choice to eat from that tree of the knowledge of good and evil would lead to death. So although God is the creator of evil and darkness He certainly has no part in its role in this earth. That is strictly man’s doing and continues to be man’s doing. People choose to be wicked and evil and as we’ll see look for other’s or some other thing to blame for those actions. Why? Let is find out as we continue on to chapter 3 and the story of The Fall as it’s become known as, or rather, man’s fall from God’s grace and original intention. Of interest and something I had never noticed before are that spiritual death and separation from God and the tree of Life come to man in the third chapter of Genesis while the solution to a new Spiritual life and reconciliation with God and the path back to the tree of Life comes in the third chapter of John.
Here in verse 1 we find the serpent, described as more crafty and subtle than all the creatures the Lord God had made appearing and saying to the woman,
“Did God really say you must not eat from any of the trees in the garden?”
I want to look at each verse individually here as several things become apparent to me. First and foremost notice the serpent didn’t speak to Adam. He spoke to the woman who, if we follow the sequence of the scripture in chapter 2, had not yet been created when God had given the command to Adam. Second he puts a spin on words from what God actually said as we read it translated from The Voice;
"God: Eat freely from any and all trees in the garden; I only require that you abstain from eating the fruit of one tree." - Gen. 2:16-17
God commands him to, eat freely from any and all trees but one while the serpent says, did God really say you must not eat from any tree. It’s a spin on words. God gave Adam dominion over the entire world and everything it and warned him to stay away from only one tree. Yet the serpent whom according to the ISV translation is the Shining One;
“Now the Shining one, was more clever than any animal of the field that the Lord God had made. He asked the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You are not to eat from any tree of the garden’?”
And the shining one represents Lucifer who ruled and reigned over the earth in a prior age (Isa. 14:12, Ez. 28:13-14) but fell from heaven (Luke 10:18) due to pride wanting to be his own god and above God.
The woman responds, “We can eat of the fruit of any of the trees in the garden, but that tree which is in the midst (or middle) of the garden God has said not to eat or touch it otherwise we would die.”
Here again we see a play on words from what God actually said. It’s intriguing how, even still today, most of us are terrible at relating exactly what was said to us when we retell it a second time to someone else and then the third person tells it to someone else. By the time it gets back to us it sounds almost nothing like or even close to what was originally said. Adam heard it from God, Eve would have heard it second hand from Adam and now she is relating it to the serpent third hand. We all seem to add our own spin. The first thing I see in the woman’s response is that God never mentioned anything about eating fruit; he just told Adam he could eat from any and all of the trees but the one, that they were pleasant to the sight and good for food, fruit directly was never mentioned. Then she speaks of the tree in the midst of the garden, referring specifically to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and says that if they eat or touch it they would die. But God never said anything about them dying if they touched it, only eating it would bring death. She says nothing of the second tree, the tree of life that was also in the midst of the garden? The focus is craftily diverted away from that tree and all that they can and do have and toward that one thing that they’re not to do or have. Like telling a kid you can have anything in the fridge or the cupboards to eat but keep your hand out of the cookie jar.
A perfect opportunity for a wiley serpent or fallen angel to take advantage of and usurp God’s divine plan, misrepresenting God by spinning what He’s actually commanded or directed man to do and preying on their innocence, given they have no knowledge of evil at this point.
The deception we see in the serpent’s response is to question God and what He said, as translated from The Voice,
"Serpent: Die? No, you’ll not die. God is playing games with you. The truth is that God knows the day you eat the fruit from that tree you will awaken something powerful in you and become like Him (God): possessing knowledge of both good and evil."
The Hebrew word for God here is the word 'ĕlôhı̂ym which is a plural noun meaning God, gods, judges, rulers, divine ones, angels. The serpent implies here that when they eat the fruit of this tree they will become as gods or as God Himself knowing good and evil!
Do you notice that he neglects to remind her of the consequence or rather diverts her attention away from the consequences of eating the fruit by calling God a liar and giving the impression that God is intentionally keeping something from them. Once again deflecting away from all that they have been given and focusing on that one thing that they don’t have and in the process it seems she has clearly forgotten or chosen to disregard the first command God gave in Chapter 1, to take dominion over the earth realm including every creature in it and to subdue it.
As we continue the story we soon discover that;
“So 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 to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.”
What I’m not so sure of is how or why she suddenly became aware or was able to know with certainty that this tree was good for food, delightful to the eyes and desirable in making one wise when in fact God had declared that they would die if they ate from it? Why would she listen to and trust some serpent rather than God’s decree and the scripture says without question that Adam, standing right there with her took of the fruit and did eat too. Why was he silent, completely disregarding, forgetting or otherwise not enforcing the commission God had imparted and appointed upon them? Which was to take dominion over every aspect of the creation including every creeping thing and the serpent was clearly being a creep in the garden. But these questions take on far less relevance once discovering and believing what’s been restored to us today through the completed work of Jesus Christ.
In any event the question of free choice and where evil came from are answered here in the second and third chapters of Genesis and the same principal holds through to this very day. God had created us and placed us in and on this perfect of planets and commissioned us, giving us authority and dominion over all the earth including all of its creatures and to subdue it. To be good stewards of it while harnessing all that God has provided within it that’s able to supply for our every single need. This I believe was, still is and now is God’s plan for those of us that believe, become born again according to what Jesus is teaching us in John 3 and get our minds renewed to this truth and reality. Romans 12:2. That we will look at in part III of this study.
"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
Here in verse 8-9 we see that God created a garden and from the ground caused to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food and we also read that the tree of life was also in the midst or middle of the garden as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Further in verses 16 and 17 we read that God commanded or directed that the man could eat freely of every tree in the garden which would have included the tree of life, but with one exception. He was not to eat from tree of the knowledge of good and evil for in the day that you eat of it God said, you shall surely die. The word die here is the Hebrew word mûth and its use throughout scripture speaks to a natural physical death which was not God’s original intention for man. That said we are also a triune being having a material flesh, blood and bone body, a soul that includes our reasoning mind, our will and beliefs as well as our feelings and emotions plus God’s Spirit, His very essence which animates or gives life to our body. Therefore beyond eventual physical death there would also be a spiritual death through separation from God spiritually. Yet I believe every human being still contains that life force or essence of God’s Spirit, just spiritually dead, disconnected or separated from and having little or no connection to God. We became directly connected to and subservient to the world’s system instead of the dominion imparted to us from God.
Another note of interest here and that is that according to scripture to this point, when God commanded Adam saying that he could freely eat of any tree with the one exception Eve had not yet to be created. This occurred in verses 21 and 22. Just to further add and that was the discovery, while studying this section and reading various commentaries, that God was the creator of evil according to Isaiah 45:7 which in the King James Translation reads;
“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”
Many other translations replace the word evil with the word calamity, which is the Hebrew word ra‛ or râ‛âh which I believe the Word Study Dictionary describes best in our current context;
“It means bad in a moral and ethical sense and is used to describe, along with good, the entire spectrum of good and evil; hence, it depicts evil in an absolute, negative sense, as when it describes the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”
This initially confused me as so many accuse God of allowing evil to happen which on the surface it could appear as such until one reads James 1:13-15;
“When someone is tempted, he should not say, “I am being tempted by God,” because God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone. Instead, each person is tempted by his own desire, being lured and trapped by it. When that desire becomes pregnant, it gives birth to sin; and when that sin grows up, it gives birth to death.” - ISV
But, connecting Isaiah 45:7 with James 1:13 and Genesis 2:17 we discover that yes, God did create evil in that He caused the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to spring up in the midst of the garden along with the tree of life, but as we read in James it is man himself who allows himself to be tempted and drawn away by evil which gives birth to sin and ultimately death. God has no part in it nor can He for God is Love (1 John 1:7), and He is Light and in Him is no darkness (1 John 1:5) neither any variableness or shadow of turning (James 1:17) He gave man the choice to eat freely of any tree in the garden with one warning, that the choice to eat from that tree of the knowledge of good and evil would lead to death. So although God is the creator of evil and darkness He certainly has no part in its role in this earth. That is strictly man’s doing and continues to be man’s doing. People choose to be wicked and evil and as we’ll see look for other’s or some other thing to blame for those actions. Why? Let is find out as we continue on to chapter 3 and the story of The Fall as it’s become known as, or rather, man’s fall from God’s grace and original intention. Of interest and something I had never noticed before are that spiritual death and separation from God and the tree of Life come to man in the third chapter of Genesis while the solution to a new Spiritual life and reconciliation with God and the path back to the tree of Life comes in the third chapter of John.
Here in verse 1 we find the serpent, described as more crafty and subtle than all the creatures the Lord God had made appearing and saying to the woman,
“Did God really say you must not eat from any of the trees in the garden?”
I want to look at each verse individually here as several things become apparent to me. First and foremost notice the serpent didn’t speak to Adam. He spoke to the woman who, if we follow the sequence of the scripture in chapter 2, had not yet been created when God had given the command to Adam. Second he puts a spin on words from what God actually said as we read it translated from The Voice;
"God: Eat freely from any and all trees in the garden; I only require that you abstain from eating the fruit of one tree." - Gen. 2:16-17
God commands him to, eat freely from any and all trees but one while the serpent says, did God really say you must not eat from any tree. It’s a spin on words. God gave Adam dominion over the entire world and everything it and warned him to stay away from only one tree. Yet the serpent whom according to the ISV translation is the Shining One;
“Now the Shining one, was more clever than any animal of the field that the Lord God had made. He asked the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You are not to eat from any tree of the garden’?”
And the shining one represents Lucifer who ruled and reigned over the earth in a prior age (Isa. 14:12, Ez. 28:13-14) but fell from heaven (Luke 10:18) due to pride wanting to be his own god and above God.
The woman responds, “We can eat of the fruit of any of the trees in the garden, but that tree which is in the midst (or middle) of the garden God has said not to eat or touch it otherwise we would die.”
Here again we see a play on words from what God actually said. It’s intriguing how, even still today, most of us are terrible at relating exactly what was said to us when we retell it a second time to someone else and then the third person tells it to someone else. By the time it gets back to us it sounds almost nothing like or even close to what was originally said. Adam heard it from God, Eve would have heard it second hand from Adam and now she is relating it to the serpent third hand. We all seem to add our own spin. The first thing I see in the woman’s response is that God never mentioned anything about eating fruit; he just told Adam he could eat from any and all of the trees but the one, that they were pleasant to the sight and good for food, fruit directly was never mentioned. Then she speaks of the tree in the midst of the garden, referring specifically to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and says that if they eat or touch it they would die. But God never said anything about them dying if they touched it, only eating it would bring death. She says nothing of the second tree, the tree of life that was also in the midst of the garden? The focus is craftily diverted away from that tree and all that they can and do have and toward that one thing that they’re not to do or have. Like telling a kid you can have anything in the fridge or the cupboards to eat but keep your hand out of the cookie jar.
A perfect opportunity for a wiley serpent or fallen angel to take advantage of and usurp God’s divine plan, misrepresenting God by spinning what He’s actually commanded or directed man to do and preying on their innocence, given they have no knowledge of evil at this point.
The deception we see in the serpent’s response is to question God and what He said, as translated from The Voice,
"Serpent: Die? No, you’ll not die. God is playing games with you. The truth is that God knows the day you eat the fruit from that tree you will awaken something powerful in you and become like Him (God): possessing knowledge of both good and evil."
The Hebrew word for God here is the word 'ĕlôhı̂ym which is a plural noun meaning God, gods, judges, rulers, divine ones, angels. The serpent implies here that when they eat the fruit of this tree they will become as gods or as God Himself knowing good and evil!
Do you notice that he neglects to remind her of the consequence or rather diverts her attention away from the consequences of eating the fruit by calling God a liar and giving the impression that God is intentionally keeping something from them. Once again deflecting away from all that they have been given and focusing on that one thing that they don’t have and in the process it seems she has clearly forgotten or chosen to disregard the first command God gave in Chapter 1, to take dominion over the earth realm including every creature in it and to subdue it.
As we continue the story we soon discover that;
“So 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 to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.”
What I’m not so sure of is how or why she suddenly became aware or was able to know with certainty that this tree was good for food, delightful to the eyes and desirable in making one wise when in fact God had declared that they would die if they ate from it? Why would she listen to and trust some serpent rather than God’s decree and the scripture says without question that Adam, standing right there with her took of the fruit and did eat too. Why was he silent, completely disregarding, forgetting or otherwise not enforcing the commission God had imparted and appointed upon them? Which was to take dominion over every aspect of the creation including every creeping thing and the serpent was clearly being a creep in the garden. But these questions take on far less relevance once discovering and believing what’s been restored to us today through the completed work of Jesus Christ.
In any event the question of free choice and where evil came from are answered here in the second and third chapters of Genesis and the same principal holds through to this very day. God had created us and placed us in and on this perfect of planets and commissioned us, giving us authority and dominion over all the earth including all of its creatures and to subdue it. To be good stewards of it while harnessing all that God has provided within it that’s able to supply for our every single need. This I believe was, still is and now is God’s plan for those of us that believe, become born again according to what Jesus is teaching us in John 3 and get our minds renewed to this truth and reality. Romans 12:2. That we will look at in part III of this study.
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