THE OLD TESTAMENT SAINTS WERE BORN AGAIN

● Ga 4:22,23: Verses 22 and 23 talk about two sons of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac. Notice that the pagan Ishmael, who was born of Hagar the bondmaid, the bondwoman, was born after the flesh. But the Christian Isaac, who was born of the freewoman, was by promise (the promise God made to Abraham).

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● Ga 4:28,29: V.28 shows that we NT saints are “the children of promise just like the OT saint, Isaac, was. And v.29 says two things: First, it says Ishmael was born after the flesh, but Isaac was born after the Spirit. Second, the verse says, “even so it is now.” That means, according to what the verse says literally, we NT saints (who are born after the Spirit just like God’s OT saints) are also going to be persecuted by the unsaved who are merely born after the flesh.

 

● In order for anybody to be God’s people, the Bible says they must be born again. Being born again is the only thing that makes us God’s children, of His house, His church, His priests, and children of the Testator whose Testaments reveal His promises to us. If the OT saints were not born again they would have been merely born once – of the flesh like Ishmael, and therefore would have been 100% carnal without the ability to walk after the Spirit. Read, believe, and apply 1 Co 2:14, Ro 8:7,8. And then accept the consistency and literal truth of Is 63:8-12.

 

● Above I said, “being born again is the only thing that makes us God’s priests.” Everybody would agree with that statement as long as it only applied to us NT saints because Christ says, “Ye must be born again”, and we are priests serving Christ. But some who don’t know the Bible as well might balk, saying they don’t think being born of God is the only way to become a priest, because these balkers were told OT saints were not born of God – even though the Bible obviously says the OT saints were also God’s priests. So, let’s look at He 5:4-6,10. We’ll have to think as we read it:

 

V.4:“No man taketh this honor (being an high priest) unto himself.” OK, so how does a man become an high priest if he cannot assume the job on his own? Ah, the second half of the verse says a man, such as Aaron, can be “called of God” as high priest. But because everybody is running around today claiming God “called” them to do this or that, we have missed what being called of God means in these verses – so we need to continue.

 

V.5: “So also Christ glorified not himself (like Aaron, Christ didn’t take the honor upon Himself because God says, “No man…) to be made an high priest;” (and here is where we have to pay attention and think:) “but” (the word but is contrasting what is about to follow with what was just said about no man making himself high priest) “he (God the Father) that said unto him, Thou art my Son” (how does one become a “son”? Read on…) “to day have I begotten thee.”

 

What does that tell us? The word “but” is important. Go back very carefully and notice verses 4 and 5 are saying exactly the same thing: they both lead off saying what we can’t do on our own, then “but” connects us to the second part that tells us how it does happen. Prior to “but” it says nobody, including Christ, can become an high priest on his own. After “but” it says you have to be “called of God”/”born of God.” In this context “called of God” and “begotten of God” mean the same thing. Therefore, Aaron, in order to become an high priest, was “begotten of God” just like we are.

 

Someone might hastily object that v.4 uses “called of God” for Aaron, but v.5 is different because it says Christ was “begotten of God”…therefore Aaron wasn’t born again. Let me show you why his objection was too hasty: V.10.  See what I mean? “Called of God” and “born of God” mean exactly the same thing when it comes to high priests. And that doesn’t surprise us one bit because no man who isn’t born of God can serve God because of the stark reality of 1 Co 2:14 and Ro 8:7,8. All Christians today are “priests of God” because we were “born of God/called of God.” Now you’ll begin to pay more attention to the wording in the Bible in places like 1 Co 1:23,24: V.23 says the apostate Jews who have returned to their vomit and therefore have carnal minds, and the unsaved Greeks who have nothing but the carnal mind, are living examples of 1 Co 2:14 and Ro 8:7,8. V.24 says “them which are called”/born of God, whether they are Jews or Greeks, are living examples of the necessity to be sons of God in order to acquire the potential to serve Him. The bottom line: The OT saints are saints and priests merely because they were “called/born of God.” And we NT saints are saints and priests merely because we were “called/born of God.” Nothing has changed – not even the wording. God saved and called us not because of us, but according to His own purpose and grace (2 Ti 1:9).

● 1 Pe 1:10-12: The Bible not only says God’s prophets had “the Spirit of Christ in them”, it also says those OT saints weren’t just preaching to OT saints – they were also preaching to us NT saints.

 

● Jn 3:10: Now you know why the Lord Jesus Christ rebuked Nicodemus (before the cross!) for not understanding being born again; God’s OT saints were expected to already understand “the facts of life.”

 

● Mt 10:28; Lk 12:4,5: When you compare these two you see that Jesus Christ says the people in hell had their first/mortal body in the grave while their soul and their second body were in hell. Question: Since we know the first body that rots in the grave is the one we got after the flesh of Adam, from Whom do we get another body? Right! The Bible says the second body comes from being born again. The first body is flesh/mortal; the second body is spirit/immortal. Some modern Christians hate this teaching of Christ’s because the second body that He says is down there in hell destroys some of their major religious traditions. But you and I have learned from Christ that no soul goes to hell without the second body, and we have learned to despise and attack traditional religious doctrines that make verses like these of none effect.

 

● 1 Pe 3:19: After Jesus rose from the dead He went down to hell to preach to His OT priests in Abe’s bosom. These people, like Isaac, Moses, Elijah, Rahab the harlot, and Noah were children of the Spirit of God, which obviously means they had spirit bodies. That’s why this verse refers to them as “spirits.” That fits with everything the Bible taught us above.

 

● Because the OT saints in Lk 13:28 could see the Kingdom of God, Jn 3:3 says they were born again.

 

● Mt 25:41-46: Verses 42-45 are important because they show that at Judgment God had expected these goats on His left to please rather than disappoint Him! But a quick review of Ro 8:7-9 and 1 Co 2:14 shows that God would never expect the unsaved to please Him.

 

● Jn 6:70: In talking to His 12 disciples before the cross, Christ used the present tense “is” when He said “one of you (Judas) is a devil. Devils are spirits (who are born of God the Spirit) that go bad and go to hell. Judas was already a devil before the cross and before he died a mortal death. That means after the cross when Christ went down to hell to preach to the “spirits” in Abe’s bosom, Judas was one of the fallen spirits across the great gulf. Judas’ spirit body was his second body. He got it the same way Ga 4:29 says Isaac did – he was born of the Spirit. We also saw that Aaron had to have been born of God in order to be a high priest. And the fact that Judas was not a high priest – but he was a priest/son of God just like all Old and New Testament saints – shows that God’s priests don’t take that honor upon themselves…God births them into the job.

 

● While we’re down in Abe’s bosom let’s pause and figure out what was going on and why. We’ll begin by drawing upon our Bible knowledge of testaments and testators. Why did Jesus go to the OT saints right after the cross? He 9:15 says He died for “the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament.” And the verse goes on to link the death of a testator with the “inheritance” spelled out in the testator’s will and testament. In other words, the OT saints’ inheritance is from the same Testator, Christ, as ours. Christ went down there because He is the Testator and they faithfully obeyed His Old Testament.

 

● In the OT “good sinners” weren’t executed; they went to a city of refuge to live until they were set free by the death of their high priest. Yes, the saints in Abe’s bosom were in a city of refuge, and they were only released when their High Priest, Christ, died to set them free. The OT saints serve the same risen Saviour we do – and they always have.

 

PHARAOH

A good example of the difference between God’s people and dogs is Pharaoh. God is the potter and humans are the clay (Je 48:38). Vessels are made for different purposes. Pharaoh was never intended by God to be anything but a beast, a mortal. God had a purpose for Pharaoh (Ex 9:16): he was to be used and discarded in order to show the saints that no matter how important and frightening a worldly power may seem, safety lies in trusting and following God. In other words, God made Pharaoh just to kill him so the Hebrews would learn to honor Him. That’s why God had Pharaoh be born a Gentile and that’s why He did not give him the second birth. Did the unsaved dog, Pharaoh, go to hell? Of course not! And the Bible nowhere says he did, opinions to the contrary notwithstanding.

 

The miraculous plagues God put upon the Egyptians were enough to cause anyone, saved or unsaved, to gladly let Moses lead the Jews out of Egypt. But God didn’t want Pharaoh to make that normal decision, so He deliberately hardened Pharaoh’s heart. The following verses show that Pharaoh hardened his heart because he had no choice and no free will to react otherwise: PHARAOH’S HEART: Ex 7:3,4,13,14,22; 8:15,19,32; 9:7,12-17,27-30,35; 10:1-3,7,20,27; 11:1,9,10; 13:15; 14:1-5,8,17,18,24,25,28; Ro 9:13-22. God also hardened King Sihon’s heart (Dt 2:30) because He wanted the Hebrews to kill him (Dt 2:24,25,31-34). See also Josh 11:18-20.

 

Was it mean of God to have His people kill animals as sacrifices (as the animal rights activists say)? No, because they were mere insignificant mortals – beasts. Was it mean of God to kill Pharaoh, to sacrifice him for the benefit of His people? No, because he was a mere mortal – a beast. And as such, Pharaoh went to hell only if animals go to hell when they die, that is, only if souls without the spirit body are immortal. For the same reason, when God’s people moved into the Promised Land, God was not mean to order them to kill all the pagan men, women, children – and the livestock. (I must confess that my proof that God is not “mean” in these examples is not proper because it suggests it’s mean to send someone to hell. It’s not; hell is a just dessert. I’m merely trying to make the point that mortals, whether animal or human, cannot enter a realm designed for immortals unless they receive everlasting life via the only possible method according to the Bible – the new birth. I’m emphasizing that any mortal creature, because it is already dead from the immortal perspective, is without any significance because it has never received true life, and has but a temporary imitation.) People who think Pharaoh went to hell usually try to justify it (to keep God from appearing mean) by saying, “Personally, I think God just knew in advance what free choice Pharaoh would make because God is all-knowing.” In other words they think God, in order to ensure that Pharaoh would make the free choice He already knew he would make, hardened his heart in order to lock in that decision He already knew Pharaoh would make! That type of reasoning makes you wonder if these people are as prosaic as they seem, or if they have been blinded because they’re not really seeking the truth.

 

People also tend to reject what is said in the above Pharaoh’s Heart verses by wildly throwing out verses like 2 Pe 3:9 and 1 Ti 2:4. In the former they don’t notice the promise is made to the same people the whole Bible applies to – God’s people, “us” (2 Pe 3:1,8,9), not the unsaved. And in the latter verse they are trying to make a New Testament passage, written under the Great Commission – which results in Ga 3:28 – apply to an Old Testament situation governed by Ex 11:7. Don’t be slothful – look ‘em up.

 

SAINTS AND AIN’TS: DIFFERENT RULES

God wrote the Bible for His people. It applies only to His people. The Bible does not apply to the unsaved and they are neither expected nor required to live by it. They have their own masters and their own rules. In the Bible, for example, the unsaved in Egypt were neither expected nor required to live by God’s rules. It was OK for them to pick up sticks on the sabbath and it was OK for them to be homosexuals. In fact, the only time pagans were required to abide by certain rules in the Bible was when they were in God’s nation of Israel because that put them under God’s jurisdiction. Some examples:

 

● Ex 11:7: God says saints and ain’ts are different.

 

● Ex 33:16; Nu 23:9; 1 Ki 8:53: By the favor of God and by separation, saints are distinguished from dogs.

 

● Dt 7:1-16; 14:2: Heathen religions and practices were allowed to exist – but not in Israel. God’s people are “special people” and are “above all people” on the face of the earth. The word “above” was used in this Old Testament passage not only because God’s people were expected to rule over the heathen back then, but also as a reverse application of He 2:7,9,16. Saints are “above” mortals because mortals, lacking real life, have temporary, insignificant existences.

 

● Dt 32:21; Ro 10:19: Not only are God’s people “above” all other people, but pagans from God’s perspective aren’t even real “people” because they are like the beasts that perish, dogs. 1 Pe 2:10 says the unsaved before they obtain mercy are “not a people”, but when they get saved they become “the people of God” and “men” (Ezek 34:30,31).

 

● Le 17:10; 20:2: Only when pagans were in Israel were they expected to live by certain of God’s rules.

 

● Le 25:39-54: One of the best practical illustrations of the difference between saints and ain’ts is that God said pagans could be bought and sold as slaves, but saints should only be hired servants.

 

● Dt 15:2,3: Loans to Christians had to be forgiven during the year of release, but not loans to the unsaved.

 

The unsaved are insignificant because they do not have spirit life. Furthermore, because dogs have only the carnal old man they are absolutely incapable of knowing the things of God (1 Co 2:14), they are absolutely incapable of pleasing God (Ro 8:8), and they are not only not subject to the Bible (Ro 8:7) or to the rule of God (Is 63:18,19), neither can they be (Ro 8:7)! They are just dogs who at death are not penalized for being dogs; they merely die like dogs. In fact, because only saints can go to hell, the Bible says it is better to be an unsaved dog than a carnal saint who lives like a dog (2 Pe 2:20-22). People who think the unregenerate go to hell cannot handle these verses. They either change the subject or claim these verses actually mean the opposite of what they say! They also reject the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ in Mt 10:28 where He says His Old Testament saints who were thrown into hell went there with both a soul and a second body. Because Christ’s teaching contradicts their denominational traditions they simply ignore it! (Religious tradition really does make the word of God of none effect.) Mt 10:28 gives us insight into how the Lord in Jn 3:10 could rebuke Old Testament saints for not understanding the new birth – their salvation was no different from ours.

 

God’s people are different from the unregenerate because saints have significance because they are real, they are permanent, they have been given true life; they are real people – spirits. They have a new man and an old man that war for supremacy (Ro 7:22-25). These two natures are not supposed to be equal; the new man is supposed to learn what God’s will is and then conquer and rule over the old man. The old man will always try to usurp God’s prerogatives by becoming an independent head, by using Natural Reason. The new man, after learning the Bible, should be a body (a submissively-obedient member of Christ’s body) by doing the will of God even when you don’t like it. When something the Bible says offends or scares your old man, your new man is supposed to look at the old man from an eternal perspective and realize and accept the fact that things that are mortal are insignificant and, armed with belief, use that to overrule the old man. If saints deny self (the old man) by accepting and doing what the Bible says, they inherit forever God’s kingdom. On the other hand, if saints are self-willed (carnal) they can’t be punished with the first death because they’ve been saved, so they join the self-willed Devil and his angels in the lake of fire, the second death.

 

When we are born again we begin our Christian walk in our Natural, brainwashed, carnal, opinionated old-man’s body, which will be with us until our mortal death. The deadly Natural tendency, therefore, is to assume that what we think is right and good is the same as what God wants. So we continue to live in the comfortable and familiar old man while deceiving ourselves by redecorating it with Christian furnishings (Mt 12:43-45; 23:25-28). When we try to move into the new house of God as our Bible knowledge increases, we find, for various reasons, we simply do not like it as much as our redecorated old carnal house, so we slide back to it (2 Pe 2:20-22). It is a very subtle process because it is Natural.

 

WHY THE DIFFERENCE IS IMPORTANT

What we’ve just learned, that the unsaved cannot know the things of God, cannot please God, and therefore cannot be subject to the Bible, is important because it is the key to understanding Philosophy and the Age of Reason. Let’s examine why God says those things about the unregenerate.

 

The unsaved have a soul, an intellect – the mind, not the physical brain. How does that soul, that mind, learn things and acquire beliefs, values, prejudices, and opinions? That’s easy; the soul learns everything from the inputs of the physical body. The body sees, hears, touches, tastes, smells, reads, talks, eats, laughs, fights, etc. The intellect takes all of that in and forms a foundation upon which it bases its outlook on life. Then along comes the Bible. But in this case our unsaved example only reads the Bible, goes to church, and picks up the lingo – he was never saved. Did you get the significance of that?! He was never saved! That means he was never given a spirit body! The spirit body, like the physical body, is not there for decoration; it has a job to do, a function. The spirit body is the conduit by which the soul receives spiritual inputs so the mind can form the proper foundation based on Truth. The spirit body is the connection, or stem, between the Vine and the soul. Without a spirit body to provide those spiritual inputs from the Bible the soul is handicapped, incapable of seeing the light, blind! Carefully read 1 Co 2:14 and Ro 8:7 again and realize Is 6:9,10; 29:10-14; 32:3; Je 5:21; Ezek 12:2; Mt 11:15; Mk 8:17,18; Ac 7:51; 28:23-28 are talking about the inputs of the spirit body to the soul – not the inputs of the physical body.

 

But how does our mind receive inputs from our spirit body? Nobody knows; it’s a mystery. In fact, in spite of our detailed knowledge of the physical brain, neither do we understand how the inputs of the physical body interact with the invisible workings of the minds of animals and humans – such as instincts, thoughts, knowledge, memory, judgment, personality, learning, character, values, and beliefs. We have dissected numerous physical brains and we still don’t understand the invisible contents and workings of the mind. I say again, we don’t understand how either the physical body’s inputs or the spirit body’s inputs are received, stored, evaluated, accepted, rejected, and utilized by the invisible mind. This lack of understanding causes some to use the invisible, mysterious, and non-physical workings of the mind, which is also called the soul, as a “proof” that all human souls are spirit and therefore immortal. The fatal flaw in this thinking, of course, is that animals also have minds and the breath of life. Scientists think someday they’ll be able to construct from scratch a new “being”, but they cannot call it a “living being” because they have no idea how to turn the elements of a physical brain into a mind, a living soul. It seems the only one who can give physical animals and humans the breath of life/minds/souls is God, and only He can put life back into a dead person. When doctors and scientists have a dead human or animal on a table, and the still-warm body contains all of the physical elements already correctly put together (including brain, heart, blood, nerves, and DNA) they simply have no idea how to give it the breath of life, a mind, a soul.

 

Something else not understood by modern science is the subject of God-given talents. We know animals are born with certain abilities (birds have the ability to navigate and migrate, for example), and we know humans are born with certain abilities (some people are blessed with mental abilities, and some are blessed with physical abilities, for example). Scientists say all these things are stored in DNA and passed from parents to offspring. But they cannot explain why some “DNA talents” – such as the ability to migrate – are so dependably passed on in birds, but “DNA talents” in humans – such as mental and physical abilities – may or may not be passed from parents to children. It seems that God alone has the ability and the prerogative to give talents, mortal physical life, and immortal spirit life to whomever He will.

 

What happens to the unsaved human, who had already received the breath of mortal life and certain talents from God, when God decides to also give him immortal life via the second birth? He gets a spirit body that enables him to begin receiving knowledge from God via the Bible. The spirit body is that which enables Christians, and only Christians, to see, learn, and understand Scriptural truths that are contrary to the artificial, temporary, physical “reality” of this world (1 Co 1:19,21; 2:14; He 11:1,3,6; Ro 10:17). That’s why, among all the people on earth, only God’s people are required to subject themselves to His rule (Is 63:18,19), which is why only God’s people are punished for disobedience (Am 3:2).

 

So now the new Christian has two bodies that want to provide inputs, but there is only one soul to receive those inputs. And the soul has already been preconditioned by the carnal body and its damning baggage – tradition, science, medicine, education, morals, opinions, pride, Reason, confidence, common sense, etc. Like any newborn babe, the young Christian instinctively hungers and thirsts for spiritual truth. As a result he often grows rapidly. But he has many Reasonable hurdles in his path. For example, contrary to Jn 7:15; Ac 17:11; 1 Co 3:21; 4:6; Ga 1:16, he is told that Knowledgeable Christians are those who paid flesh-and-blood professors to give them a denominational education at a Translation/Version School. (It shouldn’t be called a Bible School because it teaches that, instead of the word of God, all we have is the word of translators in fallible, uninspired versions. In fact, because Version Schools require their pupils to value denominational tradition over the words in any version – by requiring denominational answers on pop quizzes in order to pass – they could also be called Religion Schools; calling them Bible Schools is blasphemy.) And these blind Pharisees then go out and stand behind pulpits all over the world and spew the leaven they were fed in Version School. In fact, today’s Christian has so many Reasonable hurdles that appeal to his already brainwashed Reasonable soul, and he is surrounded by so many Reasonable Christians who conform to their Reasonable societies, and he has so many textbooks full of Reasonable doctrine for sale in the Reasonable, poly-denominational “Christian” bookstores, that his initial rapid growth rapidly stops. He then has no Reasonable alternative but to go back to the comfort and familiarity of the pagan house of his old man, garnish it with “Christian” furnishings, and become a Reasonable Christian by justifying himself before Reasonable men via theology.

 

When a Christian goes back to using Reason his thinking again becomes no different from unsaved dogs. In other words, the carnal Christian, in practice, stops being a he – as in a person, and becomes an it – as in an animal. This doctrine is supported by God in His King James Bible: Modern Enlightened Christian scholars have long scoffed at the Bible’s “confusing” use of his and its in certain verses like Mt 5:13. That lack of doctrinal understanding has resulted in all modern Bible versions rejecting the inspired wording of the KJV in Mt 5:13, which says [with my clarifications added]: “Ye [the personal pronoun refers to people/saints] are the salt [discerning saints] of the earth: but if the salt [discerning saints] have lost his [personal pronoun refers to God’s discerning people] savour, wherewith shall it [neutral pronoun shows God’s people have started acting like unsalted carnal-thinking beasts as in 2 Pe 2:12; 20-22] be [re]salted? [as in He 6:4-8].”

 

God views disobedient saints who have fallen from grace as beasts. Look up carcase (carcass) in an English dictionary: the word refers only to an animal’s dead body, (but can be used as a contemptuous figurative reference to a human body). But God is our only authoritative source of word meanings, so let’s verify the dictionary by seeing how God uses carcase in the Bible: He uses it to refer to bodies of dead animals (Le 5:2; Ju 14:8), but, interestingly, God teaches us more by also using it to refer to dead pagans/dogs (Josh 8:29; 1 Sa 17:45,46; 2 Ki 9:37; Is 34:2,3). And God calls Lucifer’s dead body a carcase (Is 14:12,15-19) because in the lake of fire Lucifer will be truly dead. That’s one reason God refers to him as an animal in Ge 3:1,14: the very day Lucifer fell from grace he became mortal (just like Adam). When Lucifer is cast into the lake of fire he will live forever as the carcase of a dead beast. God also uses carcase to contemptuously refer to the dead bodies of His saints whose disobedience has caused them to fall from grace and be cast away (Le 26:14,18,21,23,27,30; Nu 14:26-33; Dt 28:15,26; 1 Ki 13:21,22; Is 5:24,25; 66:24; Je 7:2,3,24,32,33; Ezek 6:1,2,5). But God never uses carcase in reference to the bodies of His obedient servants because, unlike mortal beasts that die, obedient saints live forever.

 

Like the Bible, The Age of Reason is anti-Reason. Its purpose is to help Reasonable Christians repent. The war between God and Satan is within us. They are warring for control of our minds, our souls. The only people in the lake of fire will be Reasonable Christians. We must understand that fact and by faith surrender to the Bible by accepting what it says. Truth is spiritual and eternal, and is revealed when our spirit bodies feed on the word of God. Dogs have no spirit body and cannot see the truth because all they have is Reason! Reason is blindness! That’s why unregenerate dogs cannot see or enter the spiritual Kingdom of God. In order to develop the mind – not brain – of Christ (1 Co 2:14,16) we first need the spirit body of the new birth. Then we must overcome the Reasonable hurdles in life. Even high-hurdle topics like evolution and Bible versions will topple with study and faith. Most Christians, however, shrink from learning the Bible, so they become captives of Reason. Any differences (aside from denominational differences) between them and unsaved Mormons, Roman Catholics, and social conservatives vanish because they all think alike. They will all eventually join ranks in ecumenical efforts to fight for issues that seem right and good to their carnal minds. Come out from among them and be ye separate.