Path: igor.rutgers.edu!christian
From: hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Does born again really equal salvation?
Date: 8 Aug 1995 03:25:53 -0400
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gregm@cc.gatech.edu (Greg Montgomery) says

>I've recently started reading the Bible a fair amount and I'm having
>some problems understanding the concept of being born again and saved.
>From what I understand, being "born again" means you accept Jesus as
>your savior and you want to live a Christ-like life.  And once you are
>born again, you are saved and going to heaven.  However, this seems
>contrary to the Bible.  It seems to me that your works here on Earth
>determine whether or not you are "saved", not just the fact that you
>accept Jesus as your savior.  Can somebody please explain this to me?
>I'm feeling very confused as I just started attending a church that
>stresses the Scriptures and being born again for salvation, yet they
>don't seem compatible.

The idea of being born again is Scriptural.  It's from John 3.  But if
you read John 3, Jesus doesn't seem to be emphasizing the act of being
born again so much as the fact that after being born again, we're
different.  Because we are born again of the Spirit (he seems to mean
the Holy Spirit), we're now in the realm of the Spirit rather than
flesh.

As I see Jesus' teaching, he talks about being a follower as a way of
life.  It's not enough to have a one-time experience.  Jesus comments
on that in the parable of the sower (Luke 8).  There are people who
sprout rapidly.  But they don't have staying power, but fall away in
various ways described in the parable.

I don't want to be understood as teaching that we earn our way to
heaven by doing good works.  We could never do enough to earn anything
from God.  We're saved by Christ.  But being saved means being "in
Christ," as Paul so often puts it.  That's a continuing state.
Protestants talk a lot about faith.  That's great, but what does it
mean?  As far as I can tell, Jesus' model of faith is a child's faith
in their parents (Mat 8:2 ff).  This is not a one time act, but living
your life in dependence on God.  That mode of life isn't a thing you
do to be saved.  God gives us that.  Rather, it's what it means to
live as a saved person.

There's a common misunderstanding that Protestant theology says we are
saved because of our faith.  That's not the case.  We've saved because
God gives us salvation.  Faith is the way we live once he's done that.

I don't have any problem with saying we're born again.  Christians
certainly ought to be born again.  But once we're born again, we're in
a new life.  We should now stop being concerned about being born, and
start concentrating on growing properly in that new life, as Heb 5:12 ff
describes, and bearing fruit.