The effect of being Born Again on our Free Will

[Pablo]

What is it that's "Born Again?" I believe we don't die to our volition, to our free ability to make decisions. Receiving Christ does not displace our ability to make choices in concert with Christ.

What we die to is autonomous living. We die to independence, and choose to live in continual partnership with Christ. This union of God and Christian is what it means to be "Born Again." What do you think?

Born again is definitely not talking about the physical but the spiritual (or the spirit). Thus the soul which is the totality of our being, contains parts that are not consistent with the kingdom of God, for example our physical  body and our flesh which are carnal in nature.

Our Flesh has to die.

1Co 5:5  To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.


As Corinthians 15 states the corrupt part of us has to die, or rather has to be presented as a spiritual sacrifice to God and the new us will at the time of redemption (at Christs second return) be given a new glorious body which covers our reborn spirit. We will not be found naked.

Paul talk about this new glorified body in 2nd Corr.

2Co 5:1  For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 
2Co 5:2  For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:

Peter says the same thing in 2nd Peter 1

2Pe 1:13  Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; 
2Pe 1:14  Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.

When Adam died in the garden, his body did not die but his spirit did die.
God told him that he would surely die.

Thus being born again is that part of us, the spirit which is renewed or reborn when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and He gives us His Holy Spirit which does a work in us including the rebirth of a new conscience.

We know in part and thus are continually being perfected by the Holy Spirit towards perfection.

We were made in the image and likeness of God which parts include our mind and our heart (spiritual components), which are of God if we are born again  or can become corrupted and used in service to the devil if we are without Christ.

Thus we use these components of the heart and mind to serve God through the power of the Holy Spirit which indwells us.

I am not teaching anything here as these are my personal current convictions at this time in my walk with God and I also believe that we are all subject to modifying our perspective at anytime even as the Apostle Peter did soon after his conversion.

[RandyPNW]

Born again is definitely not talking about the physical but the spiritual (or the spirit). Thus the soul which is the totality of our being, contains parts that are not consistent with the kingdom of God, for example our physical  body and our flesh which are carnal in nature.

Our Flesh has to die.

I agree that the flesh has been predetermined to die. But I also think that creating an excessive dichotomy between the human spirit and the human flesh can be misleading.

An example of an excessive dichotomy, as such, can be seen in the religious cults that have focused on abstinence. They say that physical liberties are inherently evil, and so believe that by abstaining from sex, foods, and wealth they become "saints."

But this isn't Bible. Our bodies, even after being condemned to death, are viewed as "good" in the sight of God. We simply have to repent of our wrong-doings, and resist the temptation to indulge our carnal inclinations under the duress of internal sin.

Thus being born again is that part of us, the spirit which is renewed or reborn when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and He gives us His Holy Spirit which does a work in us including the rebirth of a new conscience.

We are also told to yield our physical bodies to Christ, which we can indeed do! The inward spiritual change can drive us to exercise freedoms of the body, instead of simply abstaining from all physical activity.

Rom 6.13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.

All men can do right, since God speaks to all men through their conscience. But the advantage of the New Birth is that when we choose to have God guide us internally *all the time,* then He lives within us, as in a temple, so that  we are choosing to follow Him all the time.

This is what God wants--not a partial observance, but a complete sacrifice. We do choose to live by the inner man, but we choose to do so *all the time!* This is, I believe, the Rebirth--not abstinence, but guidance. Abstinence only has to do with resisting our carnal impulses, and certainly not all bodily activities!

Thanks for the conversation! We may be in more agreement than it appears?

[Athanasius]

Thus the soul which is the totality of our being, contains parts that are not consistent with the kingdom of God, for example our physical  body and our flesh which are carnal in nature.

This is clearly not what's taught in Genesis 1 regarding the creation of humanity. The totality of our being is the whole of our physical and spiritual selves. Pitting one against the other, or declaring the spiritual to be pure while the physical is carnal, is misguided. Docetism was rightly rejected, as was the Gnosticism of the 2nd century, for good reason, and the view expressed above seems to retread old ground.

You even quote Paul, for whom a physical resurrection was utterly important. Confusing. How have you come to this view?

[Aijalon]

What we die to is autonomous living. We die to independence, and choose to live in continual partnership with Christ.

Yes, this

This union of God and Christian is what it means to be "Born Again." What do you think?

I think "born again" is a phrase that we must always remember has a special Old Covenant Jewish context.   The 1st century Hebrew believed in his ancestry (in part) for salvation.   Jesus was abolishing the thought that his physical birth was related to his salvation.  The question is then asked of Jesus again.... "how can I enter my mother's womb again".   Obviously, he cannot.   

In the new covenant context, we are not born again - at all - we are merely born a first time - spiritually.   In other words, to be born again means to be born "other".  We are aliens on this earth, we wait for a new home, we are born of the spirit.  the disparity between flesh and spirit is the critical thing to understand.

Not to fully disagree with you... I think that we can certainly point to our salvation as a turning point in which our life changes and becomes "new".    We are newly-founded (new creation) in Christ.  We have put off our old man and put on the mind of Christ.

1 Cor 2:14
The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is not subject to anyone’s judgment. 16“For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct Him?”d But we have the mind of Christ.