Christianity

The term “born again” is less used these days, but for 50 years or so was widely used to refer to a type of Christian. Specifically the Evangelical type. Like “Evangelical Christian”, “Born-agan Christian” is really a tautology. To be a Christian at all is to believe the Gospel, which is what “evangelical” means. To be a Christian at all is also to be born again.

The term comes from Jesus, in discussion with Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the council that ruled Judea.

[Nicodemus] came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.” (John 3:2-5)

Being born was not something that we made any real contribution to. Essentially we were presented with an opening and we went through it. Similarly, to be born again is an act of receiving. To be born again is to be saved, a salvation we can receive only through hearing and believing the word of God:

You have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God (1 Peter 1:23)

Paul, who speaks of the righteousness that comes through faith, says:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

As for faith,

Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. (Romans 10:17)

How does this happen? Before he died, Jesus promised that:

When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you” (John 16:13-15)

This tells us both the way to salvation. We are to receive the gospel of Jesus, as presented in the Bible, by faith through the work of the Holy Spirit.

It also tells us the way to evangelism. We are to preach the gospel of Jesus through of Jesus, as prsented in the Bible, through the work of the same Spirit. If the Holy Spirit speaks “only what he hears”, nothing more is demanded of the Christan for evangelism than that he preach the gospel that was preached to us.

“Fallen From Grace” could be the closest most tabloids currently get to engaging with the Bible. The term gleefully describes the drop of status of any important or famous person exposed to scandal. We love taking people down a peg or two.

But the original meaning is much more serious than that: “You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” (Gal 5:4)

These are terrifying words. The crime Paul is addressing is–perhaps surprisingly–circumcision: “if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.” (Gal 5:2). For the Jew of his day, circumcision was a standard rite of passage, an entry into the Hebrew nation. Why should it be so problematic?

The key here is the intent. We can either seek to be justified by the law, or we can seek to be justified by Christ. We cannot do both. We cannot seek to “ensure” our salvation. The whole objective of the letter is to convince its readers of justification by faith alone. It begins with an expression of near-despair: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel” (Gal 1:6). Paul goes on to argue that “if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” (Gal 2:21). He points out that the promises made to Abraham preceded the law by 430 years, and so could not be dependent on it (Gal 3:16-18), and that they are heirs of this promise (Gal 4). By Galatians 5, Paul can conclude:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Gal 5:1)

In a way, then, the modern usage is correct. Someone who falls away from grace has claimed to be a Christian, has sought to present themselves as one, but has been motivated all along by something other than a love of Christ: typically pride, self-righteousness, concern for appearances, or a simple love of rule-following are involved. After a while, appearances become misleading: behind the smile is fear, resentment, need, burden. Sooner or later, something will reveal to them the bankruptcy of their ambition; the hollowness of their beliefs. The fall could be shameful or simply painful.

But all of us are at some point alienated from Christ. There is always time to repent. And, joyfully, the life of the Christian is a life of true freedom.

Paul’s masterwork is his letter to the Romans. Paul’s ministry was a tortuous one, a lived lesson in Christian suffering, and a warning to anyone expecting the Christian life to be a comfortable one. Paul undertook three missionary journeys around the Mediterranean, at a time when sea travel was far from luxury. He was arrested multiple times, flogged, and the last we hear of him is under house arrest in Rome, awaiting his chance to plead his case to the Emperor.

Perhaps the most commonly used idiom from the Bible is “the powers that be.” We have also managed to retain its original meaning, albeit we perhaps use the expression with more of a sense of resignation than is strictly necessary.

The phrase comes from the Tyndale Bible, via the King James:

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. (Romans 13:1)

This comes from Paul’s letter to the Romans. He presents a two-pronged argument: practicality and morality:

Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience. (Rom 13:3-5)

Paul would certainly find himself subject to the powers that were. He was imprisoned multiple times, probably writing Phillipians, Colossians, Philemon, and Ephesians from Roman prisons. The book of Acts recounts an episode in which Paul could escape from prison but chooses not to:

Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!” (Acts 16:26-28)

The jailor–and his family–were thereby converted, while Paul would go on to be imprisoned further times. Acts ends with Paul preaching in Rome under house arrest while awaiting trial.

Jesus himself acknowledged the same during his trial with Pilate:

Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” (John 19:11)

But in the end, Paul can write of Jesus:

He is the head over every power and authority. (Col 2:10)

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. (Acts 2:1-4)

Over the centuries following the Babylonian exile, God’s nation had morphed into a religion. The idea emerged that alongside his written law, God had also transmitted an “oral law” to Moses, which had been handed down through the priestly caste, and was now in the hands of the “rabbis”, the teachers of the law. Two of the great rabbis of the age were Hillel and Shammai, whose two schools did much to form Judaism.

The Bible ends with the Revelation of St John, also called the Apocalypse of St John, the two words being originally synonymous. “Apocalypse” took on its contemporary meaning because of the content of the book, which describes the end of the world.

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (Eph 1:13-14)

The Bible is a book of many parts, written over the space of a thousand years or so; by many different authors; some Hebrew, some Greek; some identified, some unidentified. Yet there is a cohesion to it that has been evident to its readers for two millenia.

It tells many stories: of creation; of patriarchs; of the founding, flourishing, and falling of a particular nation; of the life of one singular historical figure; of the lives of his followers. And yet it essentially tells one story: that of a singular God reaching out to mankind–through indviduals, through prophets, through a nation, through the incarnation of his own Son, though the work of the Spirit.

At times it can be inspirational to read. At times challenging. At times confusing. Its worldview is not naturally our worldview; its sense of right and wrong not always our sense of right and wrong; its priorities not our priorities. It’s not interested in us living our best lives now, at least not in the sense we tend to think of that. It’s interested in us becoming God’s children and learning to live as part of his family.

Paul, writing of those to whom we was ministering, wrote of what it takes to fully understand the message of the scriptures:

My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:2-3)

We can read the Bible to learn things. We can read the Bible to learn about what Christ has done. But to fully understand it, we need to get into its mindset. To get into its mindset, we have to be transformed by what we read, by the person about whom we are reading, the God-man who gave his life for us, and who represents everything we most deeply long for.

Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them. (John 14:21)