| Archive for FREE FAITH, EXPRESSION AND THOUGHT BREAK THE CHAINS OF IGNORANCE AND FEAR |
| brainout |
"Born-again", "Saved": what is it?This opening post is intended as a simple primer of what "salvation" means and how to get it. The post is not intended to sell you anything. There is much confusion about what "Saved" and "Born-again" mean in Christianity. What you do with this information, is a private affair between God and you. It will not be sugar-coated.Bible has this really harrowing message: you must believe in Christ to be "saved" from hell, John 3:16, 3:18, 3:36. The verses in English translation (I'm translating directly from the original Greek) go as follows. Verb tense is important here, and English can't really convey it, so in English you must add words to show the Greek tenses properly and thus convey the real meaning. Commercially-published Bibles are not allowed to insert the extra words, are hampered by a weird rule that you can only use one English word for one Greek word; so their translations are ambiguous. The original text is not ambiguous, so neither is the translation, here.
Pretty scary verses, right? Stark choice: believe Jesus the Christ paid for your sins 2000 years ago, or you go to hell. If you believe, you permanently are saved, since you get Eternal Life, which is God's Own Type of Life. Now since you get a new life if you believe and cannot ever go to hell as a result, it's called "born again". Actually, it means "born from above" (from God):
Why so high a salvation, and so low a penalty if you don't believe?
So only God can solve this problem, huh. Yep:
So, just like Eternal Life, you receive God's Own Righteousness that moment you believed, so you can't lose your salvation. You can't lose what's Infinite and Eternal. And to get this, to be born from above spiritually and be saved forever, you merely believe Christ paid for your sins on the Cross 2000 years ago. He did it whether you believe or not, but God will not coerce you. Maybe you don't want to live with Him forever. So believe means you do want to, and not believe, means you do not want to. Therefore, hell is the only alternative, if you do not want to. Because, you are turning down a free gift.
That's the basic meaning of "Born-again" and "Saved". "Point of the Cross" topics in this "Christianity" section will explain more basics. Discuss? Debate? |
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| All_Brains |
Re: "Born-again", "Saved": what is it?
Which sin was paid for on the cross? And do I still go to heaven "be with God" if I sinned a great deal, but believed in JC? |
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| brainout |
ALL sin was paid for on the Cross. Idea that ALL sin is wrong, no matter how great or small. 1 John 2:2 is a sample verse on that. Deeper point is that no injustice should go unpaid, and since man is tainted, he can't pay. Hence in the OT you had all those sacrifices, which depicted Messiah To Come paying for the sins, which the animal represented (and so did the Mercy Seat, gold=Deity, acacia wood=Humanity). So the person would bring the animal to the priest, and put his hands on the animal. That's to depict the substitution OF the animal, which then is slain, so the sin is paid for. It's all metaphorical of a then-future event.
That's why Isaiah 53 calls Christ the lamb (53:7, ka seh latevah yuval uk rahel lifnai gozezeha clause). You could be an axe murderer or even a Hitler and if you believed in Christ at least once in your lifetime, you still go to heaven when you die. Many people balk at that, but 1Jn2:2 doesn't exclude anyone. No verses in the Bible exclude people due to certain sins. Because, they were already foreknown and all of them were paid. So the only reason anyone goes to hell is because he never once believed in Christ, John 3:36. Bear in mind, though, that a person who practices evil doesn't mature spiritually, so WHERE he is in 'heaven' (the eternal state, really) might be very low on the totem pole or far away. There is a hierarchy. That's why the Bible talks about thrones and stuff (John 14, "crown" verses, "kingship" verses like Rev5:10, etc). Again, just trying to give you a brief on this. No way anyone can be convinced in a forum, not enough information can be given. Only, exposure to root ideas and maybe food for thought... |
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| Mutley |
Re: "Born-again", "Saved": what is it?
It means seeing things as they are, rather than the lense of our concepts, categories, words......We use these things so much that we don't see the thing itself, we see our category for it, and lump them all together, when in fact, everything is unique, despite their similarities. It also means, seeing something for the first time....again and again......constant renewal that occurs when one sees the thing itself rather than one's stale concept for it. [quote="brainout"]
There is a concept that is called, having things done through you. rather than by you. It's a sort of denial of the self similar to what is found in Eastern concepts. When one is no longer exihibiting any concern for themselves, then God has the room to work through them. I suppose, iin it's highest form, it would be God doing the thinking, not you anymore.
You can't find it either, because you've always had it. How can one find what they already have?
Nobody really knows what God would or wouldn't do.
Who wouldn't want to live forever with a God that gives you what you want?
What about just simply not letting them continue on to the next life?
I don't think that this reasoning, in of itself, is reason to torture someone. There might be reason for the torture that we do not know, but what you said ain't it. |
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| Fathom |
Re: "Born-again", "Saved": what is it?
Many years ago I investigated whether or not "only begotten son" was a legitimate comprehension of that Koine Greek verse, and like yourself I determined it wasn't. At one time I came to the exact same conclusion as you did with "Uniquely-born Son." However, as my studies progressed, I arrived at the conclusion that the verse means quite simply "only son." Let me show you how I came to that. outwV gar hgaphsen o qeoV ton kosmon wste ton uion autou ton monogenh edwken ina paV o pisteuwn eiV auton mh apolhtai all ech zwhn aiwnion. I wish I could actually type out the Koine Greek here but this transliteration will have to do. So let's pick out the words we need to examine: monogenes & huios So let me give you an idea of what I've been working on for a few years. Below is my translation/interpretation of John 3.16, and I'd like you to tell me what is wrong with it: 3.16: Therefore in like manner, because the God loved his creation, so also his son- himself the only son- gave all who have faith in him no damnation, but to have eternal life. Before we continue, I need your opinion on the above translation. After that, I'll go into other things you have mentioned. |
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| brainout |
Fathom, Here's the whole John 3:16 verse in Greek phonetic transliteration which I like better (I recognize the transliteration system you used, but most here would be unfamiliar with it, hence the retyping). For the eta I'll use "E": it's pronounced "ay" as in "bay". (For the rest of you, the "w" is a longish "oh" sound, there is no English letter equivalent. The "ch" (chi) is really an "X", transliterated phonetically. The "h" is a diacritical mark for rough breathing preceding the vowel, not an actual Greek letter, here represented as "h". The original-language text was all block letters, no punctuation, spacing between words or diacritical marks; occasionally you'll see samples of its style in History Channel documentaries. So the spacing, capitalization, diacritical marks and punctuation were all added later, in copies, so that it would be easier to read the text. Everyone KNEW that stuff was added, so are taught to ignore those additions, when exegeting. But almost no one remembers to do that, hence many mistranslations are in published Bibles, especially in James 4:5.)
So it reads like this. I'm putting in extra information in superscript because some of the others will need it to follow along (i.e., some ask how the accusative of huios is used when both an object, and when in a prepositional clause which takes the accusative but is NOT an object). "houtws gar EgapEsen ho theos ton kosmon, hwste ton huion ton monogenE edwken, hina pas ho pisteuwn eis auton mE apolEtai all' echEi zwEn aiwnion." Fathom, you can't translate "ton monogenE" as you have. Never mind this is the Bible, the words have meaning which long predate the text. The term is a compound of "monos", meaning "unique, one of a kind", and "genos", cognate noun (related to "genea") from "gennaw", to SIRE. So it solely means "uniquely-born". Sadly "only begotten" was begotten in Christian literature (pun intended), so this misunderstanding has persisted down to this day. Repeat a mixed-up translation long enough and it passes for truth, with everyone defending it; never mind, what the actual truth is.
Also, they imposed this stupid one-English-word-for-one-Greek-word standard, which LEAVES OUT meaning that is in the Greek text. So to put BACK at least some of that meaning, I will use extra words here. It's never possible to convey all the meaning in a translation. "For (garpost-positive conjunction/particle) God loved (EgapEsen ho theos aorist tense of agapaw, 3rd masc. sing.) the world (ton kosmon masc. singular accusative case of kosmos) SO MUCH (houtwsadverbial, quasi-Attic because it begins the sentence, proleptic) with the dramatic result that (hwste, Attic Greek, hence "dramatic") He gave up (edwken aorist 3rd masc. sing of didomi, tense matches agapaw) His Uniquely-Born Son (ton ho is in 3rd masc. sing. acc., the article as possessive, huion ton monogenE, 3rd sing. masc. acc., monadic use of definite article ho stresses uniqueness meaning in huios and monogenes-1-) with the final purposed result that (hina final purpose clause signifying blending of purpose and result, normally takes the subjunctive-4-) anyone who believes (pas ho pisteuwn present active participle masc. nom.sing translated as a finite clause, pas masc. sing has substantival force because it's w/masc. sing. nom. article) in Him (eis auton -- eis takes the accusative case, means "into" but in consummative idea clauses far more often "because of", like in Romans 10:10; English "in" conveys both meanings here; auton (sing. masc. accusative of autos, ="him"-5-) is ANARTHROUS, stresses Uniqueness+Divinity) CANNOT perish (mE apoletai -- the mE+positive indicative aorist denies even the IDEA of perishing being possible) but (alla conjunction of stark contrast) possesses (echo means "to have, hold, grasp, possess" and is in subjunctive active present 3rd masc. sing. to agree with apolEtai, TENSE SWITCH IN ECHO, BIG RED FLAG stressing a INSTANT present reality result from an aorist purpose, TIED TO the present active participle of pisteuw, so it's a matching between the instant of belief and the instant in which you get Eternal Life -3-) God's Own Eternal Life." (Greek zwEn aiwnion is a technical term for God's Own Property/Attribute of Life everywhere in Bible, which has no beginning or ending, qualitative, gift-able for that reason.-2-) Hermeneutics demands that you translate in light of what the words meant at that time and that you know which KIND of Greek is being used; that you know how that particular word is used IN the text itself, just as in any legal text the words must be defined within the text itself; only if no definition (via usage or specific article of definition) is given, can you use the common meaning of a word in usage at that time in that language. These rules are true for all textual criticism, not merely Bible. So if you wanted to know what Socrates meant by a term he used, you'd have to look up everything in Plato which used the term that way. Until the 1930's, Greek scholars all understood that the Bible frequently used Attic Greek constructions and Atticisms. But then they went wacko, and insisted it's all koine. It's not, and you can prove that, with a little legwork. Mainstream scholarship in Bible has declined markedly in the past 30 years, especially. It's pathetic, because often you can't even know what's meant if you don't know WHICH Greek is being used (i.e., the stupid double nominatives' mixup over Eph1:7 and Col 1:14, not reading the Ionic dative of epi in Ephesians 2:10, etc., ad nauseum, but I digress). So sorry, dear Fathom, we can't agree on the translation. Some of the sense you mean to convey is there, but as you can see above some is quite different. And a lot of it, is untranslatable, which is why I stuck in the Greek tenses: i.e., there's no equivalent for the aorist tense in English, and when TENSES SWITCH, as they do between aorist and present -- it's dramatic, stressed, important to the interpretation of the phrase. It may be awhile until I can post again. Tax season ends March 15 and now I'm swamped (my slow season was November December, now over). So if you don't see me post back to you, that's why. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -1- The double-definite-article usage is also for officialness. It is frequently used in Chronicles and Kings to denote an absolute specific as distinguished from all others, most especially fixed calendar dates. Hence Luke 1:26 tells you that Gabriel visited Mary in the month of ADAR, because it uses the double-article style. So much for not knowing when Christ would be born (nine months later is Chislev, ties to Haggai 2). Something of that same double-article officiousness is being used here, but there's no way I can think of to translate it. It stresses that Christ is different from everyone else, and Official. How to put that in English, I don't know! Re monadic use of (nee: definite) article, see especially 2 Cor13:14, a succinct statement on Trinity which I WISH the Westminster Confession people would have just used, rather than their Hydra-headed definition. -2- The idea of being given God's own life is as old as mankind, even as the promise of that gift was given in Genesis 3:15ff. So the idea morphed into all the world's faiths, hence polytheism and savior developed in many cultures. It all is a response to the problem of Genesis 2:17, the doubled moth-tamuth, spiritual death giving rise to physical death. So you can't trace the origin of the idea by dating an ancient religion, for whatever cultural faith you're looking at, its own faith is a morphing of something else. Chicken and egg. -3- Tense switches are always important in Greek. You can't read 1 John and "get" what he's doing, without tracking the tenses and the prepositions. Here, the stress is on how the (constantive or culminative, probably constantive) aorist tenses RESULT in a permanent reality of having Eternal Life. I don't know how to translate that stress. It leaps out at you in the Greek. Maybe my pastor has a way of translating it better, I've not looked at his translation of John 3:16 in a long time. But he spent weeks going over the three Atticisms in the verse. So I might revise this post later, when I've gotten that far in my own retranslation of 1 John from the Greek (an ongoing project for 2008). -4- Sometimes it takes the indicative, and when it does, the CERTAINTY is stressed. I can't remember at the moment which verses, but I remember that there are some. I'm typing this off the top of my head, sorry. -5- This is actually an intensive pronoun (not just "he" but "he himself", roughly equivalent to French "moi" or Spanish "si mismo"); but the Attic spheis got replaced with autos in koine Greek. It's really important to notice when the INTENSIVE usage is being employed. Usually the intensive meaning is embedded in Atticisms, since in Attic Greek autos was the intensive pronoun. It's too hard to format stuff like this in a forum. BBCode is buggy, makes it hard to read, goes wrong when you don't expect, server goes down and I maybe have to redo all the work again. The HTML code doesn't work either, though enabled. So I'll not do translation work here again. |
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| Fathom |
Okay so let's examine in detail your position by examining each word post by post: 1. houtos - an adverb referring to text which either preceded or succeeded text. It carries the following meanings: a) In this way b) After that c) After this manner d) Likewise The word denotes a meaning which uses the previous text as a basis. You have used the word "For" as your interpretation, but that word does not accurately describe the meaning because it shows no indication of any reference to the previous text. If you would have used "For this reason" you would be far more accurate. To justify the proper interpretation, we have no choice but to examine the previous text to see how it relates to John 3.16. So let's have a look: 3.14 - 15: And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, it is also necessary to lift up the son of man so that all who believe in him will not perish, but have eternal life. Likewise, because the God so loved his creation, .... Do you see this point? |
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| brainout |
Your posited definition of houtws is wrong here because its ATTIC usage being employed in John 3:16. I explained the usage in my post. If you don't agree, fine: my pastor explained it in detail, you can get it from him. It modifies agape, and is NOT a "manner" but a DEGREE. It's proleptic (out of order, first in sentence).
Both Thayer and Bauer Danker lexicons note that it's idiomatic even in koine to translate houtws as signifying degree/extent when a) it precedes the verb (gar being post-positive is treated as not invalidating that), and b) when coupled with hwste (the latter being Attic). Several examples are given both inside and outside Bible in Bauer, Danker. Thayer's lexicon you can get online somewhere, I heard. Bauer, Danker lexicons are in many versions, but I know of none on the internet. You'll have to check these yourself, I don't have time to deal with this further. Again, my pastor taught from the Greek and Hebrew texts for over 53 years, and in the year 2000 spent several weeks on this, so if you want you can get the exegesis for free from his church, start with lesson #1890 of "Spiritual Dynamics" (series 376, I think), www.rbthieme.org. You'll need a good 30 lessons, but the mp3 containing 1890 will probably have enough. I got work to do. It will be a long time before I come back here. Enjoy! |
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| BMZ |
Re: "Born-again", "Saved": what is it?I consider John 3:16, 3:18, 3:36 as John's own views and words. Those are not the words of Jesus and one should not worry about Greek, the translations and the tenses.Why did John write that way? John was directing that at Jews, who were already fiercely monotheistic, believed in God and righteousness or good works/deeds. A new approach had to be tried to convince them about Jesus. He used the point which Jesus made about getting reborn. What Jesus meant by getting 'reborn' was that people should truly repent and turn to God, who would provide salvation. BMZ |
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| BMZ |
Re: "Born-again", "Saved": what is it?
No sin in particular. That is a post-Jesus doctrine, which even Jesus did not know and he never mentioned.
No. Believeing in God would be a bet more safer instead of just relying on JC. Remember JC also cried out loud to God? BMZ |
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| Fathom |
Sorry, and I don't mean to insult in any way, but your paster is dead wrong and very guilty of both literal translation and failure to consider the context of the verses. He's also over-analyzing the text. I can see your pastors mistake very clearly; he's breaking his train of thought with the verse numbers and considering each verse on its own instead of in the context. He should be removing the verse numbers from his mind and dealing with the verse in the context of the complete train of thought of Jesus. In this way, he would have seen that houtws is a continuation from John 3.15, and refers to the text of John 3.15. There is absolutely no doubt about this whatsoever. "gar" is rightfully translated as "because" when you consider houtws in the context as meaning "Likewise etc." Classical Attic Greek might much more commonly use a TOSOUTON where John 3:16 has hOUTWS, but the Koine of John is considerably looser in its diction. John 3:16 hOUTWS is translated as "so" loved... But "so" is usually misunderstood to mean "so much." It can on rare occasion mean that, but its root idea is that of "in this way/manner." Translations made in the past 15 years or so have begun to translate it as the HCSB has done " For in this manner ..." God bless the soul of your pastor, but I feel his scholarship is lagging behind. |
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| Mutley |
Re: "Born-again", "Saved": what is it?
Mark 10
Matthew 20
Luke 18
Actually, in Islam, you have the book of records where every deed is recorded and weighed on a scale. All bad needs need to be re-payed with good deeds. Sometimes Muslims try to borrow the Christian concept because it's appealing to think that you can simply be forgiven. |
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| BMZ |
Re: "Born-again", "Saved": what is it?
Mark 10, Matthew 20 and Luke 18 have nothing to do about the so-called sin. None of them talks even about the original or the first sin. They don't even mention that the sin was related to the one committed by Adam and Eve. However, I do agree with this whole-heartedly:
It is common knowledge that the disciples never understood what Jesus spoke. They are on record for not understanding Jesus. The Doctrine of Sin was concocted after Jesus was long gone and this is a fact which not a single Christian can deny. Muslims have not borrowed a single concept or doctrine or teaching of Christianity, which in itself is a distortion of Judaism and the Torah. There is no theory of sin in Islam. The mention of Jesus does not constitute any borrowing. God is loving. Right? So how could God punish humanity for the mistake of Adam and Eve? Since God is full of love, according to Islam, God forgave both of them and showed love. What Jesus went through and the punishment he received, was an act by people and had nothing to do with God. It was not ordained. By the way, about the "three days stay", I have something to bring to the attention of Christians, who merrily quote Jonah's stay in the belly of the fish. Please note that Jonah LIVED in the belly and did not die. Same goes for Jesus, if you read the New Testament carefully. 
Cheers BMZ |
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| Mutley |
Re: "Born-again", "Saved": what is it?
Why do you believe that?
And how much of what Jesus said are you supposed to take literally? Like I told you before, Islam is the right religion for you. |
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| MrInquisitive |
Saved or born again...When we are born, we are born human. Nothing more, nothing less...Being saved or born again, is a "scare tactic" that someone invented after realizing that the weak minded majority could easily be swayed into following ideas for the benefit of the inventor, and not the follower... I am no follower...And if invented any such thing, you can bet that I will ensure to have YOU, as my most dedicated follower!!! Do you remember the reverend Jones, in Guyana, South America, in the 1980's??? |
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