Born From Above

This is an introduction for the lessons on Being Born from Above. It also serves as an overall introduction. One thing I have learned during my extensive experiences of guiding tour groups for a long time (and i have guided muslims and christians, as well as people from one extreme to another of christianity), is that when you present someone with a new truth, which undoubtedly is a truth, quite often the first reaction of the person is to attack you.  But believe me, it has happened many times.

So, usually I warn people ahead of time, and I say “Look, you know, I am saying some things here that are going to be new to you… And if you have any holy cows, (because most of us do), put them in the back paddock. And especially if they are old bulls, they are slightly more dangerous than the cows.”

So, as I said before, the Words of God have been entrusted to the Jewish People. This is a calling which is irrevocable. God clearly states in the Word that we are all equal, Jew and Gentile, but then Paul says: “Well, what advantage is there of being a Jew?” He further states that the Jews are entrusted with the Words of God. That’s an advantage, but it doesn’t mean we are not equal. Look at a man and his wife. They are supposed to complement one another. For example where there is two, they are supposed to be gifted in different areas, so that they can help one another in each of their blind spots. And it is the same when you hear two people singing a duet, its beautiful, because they have different types of voices and when they’re singing together in harmony there is a real beauty about it.

And if you listen to my teaching on the five stones, David killed Goliath with one stone, but he took 5 stones from the river. During this teaching, I am referring to Jesus being our foundation stone, but the cornerstone is Jew and Gentile, and we complement one another. For a Gentile not to listen to a Jew, is equivalent to a man not listening to his wife. Just implying that you are totally irrelevant, you know every I’m the boss, and you’ve got nothing to contribute. But of course, Gentiles have got something to give us as well.

For thirty years now, I have struggled with the English Translation of the Bible, and that what I teach on being born from above, is a fact. You know the word “again” in “being born again” is just not in the New testament. The translators have put it in. So, I am coming to give you the indisputable truth. If you go back to the original languages, it’s just not there. So what are you going to do; how are you going to interpret the truth?

That’s a different matter. What’s your interpretation on it? For instance, the central part of Jesus’ teaching is that if you try to save your soul, you will lose it and if you lose your soul, you’ll save it. But the modern translations have put the word “life” in instead of “soul”. This is very dangerous. It makes it out that this central part of Jesus teaching, is only relevant for martyrs who get killed, and then they go to heaven afterwards. But it’s the soul and not your life, and it’s a process. This is the only teaching of Jesus which are recorded four times; Matthew records it twice, Mark once, Luke twice, and John once. But it is mentioned 6 times in 4 different places. There is absolutely no other equivalent when Jesus says: If you save your soul, you lose it, you’ve got to take up the cross. That’s the central part of our gospel, so we are receiving the goal of our faith and the salvation of our souls.

Let’s just look at the word “soul”. It appears in the King James Bible 753 times, but it is translated “life” when it shouldn’t be 117 times. This one word “nefesh” in Hebrew is translated “person” when it shouldn’t, 29 times. It’s translated “mind” 15 times when it shouldn’t. There is a difference between mind and soul in Hebrew. It’s translated “heart” 15 times when it shouldn’t be. This is the King James Version. It’s translated “appetite” twice and it is translated “themselves” 3 times. It’s further translated as “desire” 4 times, and “dead” 5 times.

In the first 10 chapters of Genesis, the word “the”, in English is put in when it shouldn’t 256 times. And believe me, you can go in some of the places and it changes the whole meaning of the scriptures by adding the word “the”. So, we can do it together.

When you listen to these teachings, in Part One, I focus on the “seed” as being born from above. In the second teaching, I focus on the word “born”, which really should have been translated “begat,” because the Western mind refers it to a mother. One of the questions that comes up is your eternal security, saved or once saved always saved. We have to take all the scriptures into context. I am teaching that being born from above is a process. And straight away people think well you know, how much of a process does there need to be for me? Which is a genuine question. But one thing is for sure, if you think that by just receiving the Holy Spirit and having a born again experience, is your gateway to heaven, then THAT is totally out of context with a whole lot of other scriptures. It’s a process for us to go deeper. When we abandon one idea and go to another, it creates new questions all the time. But, we have to run with the truth, and we’ve got to love the truth. And I am not getting into the issue “once saved always saved”, because it is not an issue with me. I just live and preach the gospel which I try to live everyday.

Ok, so people relate salvation to the born again experience, that’s not true for a start. Because, if you read the book of John, whenever he says, “Born Again” he refers to eternal life, not to salvation. Being born from above, or the wrong translation born again is never, ever-ever connected to the word salvation. But, today contemporary Christianity has wrongly connected them. I am going to teach salvation in another part in another lesson and there you will see that salvation isn’t eternal life. It isn’t your eternal security. It is something that happens here on earth. It is your “azozo”, it’s your being made whole, it’s your being disconnected from the world, but it is not eternal life. Salvation is focusing on something that happens to you here on this earth.

Also in the book of John it says that believing in Jesus is enough. Well, in Greek it says to believe into Him. It is not believing on Him. Imagine a circle, believing on it is just believing that Jesus is the Son of God. It is not enough. He says you have to believe into me. We have to put on Christ. So, you might say, “Well, how much of a process do I have to go through?” Mmmm that is not the question at the moment. The first stage is just to bring to your understanding that it is a process. And, as I said before, this is in total harmony with all the other scriptures. The once born again and saved and always saved is out of context with other scriptures. You will find this especially in John chapter 12, if you love your soul, you lose it, and if you hate your soul you will keep it “into” eternal life. The key to eternal life is actually bearing the cross daily and losing your soul life.

I am going to explain this process more in the Third Lesson of the series about being born from above or being fathered from above. It is something to chew over. And as I said before, there indisputable truth is that there is no such thing scripturally as being born again as a one-time experience: “boom.” There’s no such thing as it. But, I will explain that as we go on. We receive the Holy Spirit, yes… we have that experience, yes… but, we’ve got to interpret it the right way with the scriptures. And we will do this, so just please have patience with these next three lessons in particular.

God bless you all with the truth, and let us love the truth… so that God himself doesn’t send us a “delusion” as it says in Thessalonians. The key to one of the safeguards against deception is to embrace the truth. Sometimes you have to embrace what you don’t know and put on the shelf what you do know. You know, I still have questions that are unanswered, and so do you… but, we hold on to what we do know and gradually, like a snowball, the truth accumulates and accumulates.

Halleluyah! Thank you! Enjoy the lessons in the Name of Yeshua. Amen!