....The issue of being born-again as a requirement as being part of the Body of Christ in the prior diespensation is still something I'm researching. My present premise is that rebirth was not required in the prior dispensation because it was not available, just believing God sufficed....
It is literally NOT 'born again', it's
'born from above', as in:
26 But
the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is
our mother.
27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; Break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: For more are the children of the desolate than of her that hath the husband.
28 Now
we, brethren,
as Isaac was, are
children of promise.
29 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was
born after the Spirit, so also it is now. Gal 4
This 'Celestial Zion' and Her children are alluded to in passages such as Gen 3:15:
and I will put enmity between thee and
the woman, and between thy seed and
her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Or Ps 87:
3 Glorious things are spoken of thee,
O city of God. Selah
4 I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon as among them that know me: Behold, Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethiopia:
This one was born there.
5 Yea, of Zion it shall be said,
This one and that one was born in her; And the Most High himself will establish her.
6 Jehovah will count, when he writeth up the peoples,
This one was born there. Selah
7 They that sing as well as they that dance shall say, All my fountains are in thee.
Notice all those Gentiles in Ps 87. All through the period of the Mosaic covenant there were FAR MORE of these ‘children of the heavenly Zion’ with circumcised hearts among the Nations than there ever were in Israel as clearly indicated in Isa 54:
1 Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for
more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith Jehovah.
2
Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them
stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations; spare not:
lengthen thy cords, and
strengthen thy stakes.
3 For
thou shalt spread aboard on the right hand and on the left; and
thy seed shall possess the nations, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.
Christ told of them in Jn 10:
And
other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice: and they shall become one flock, one shepherd.
Paul refers to them in Ro 2:
13 for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified:
14 (for
when Gentiles that have not the law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are the law unto themselves;
15 in that
they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing them);
And in Col 1:
26 even
the mystery which hath been hid for ages and generations: but now hath it been manifested to his saints,
27 to whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of
this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
In Rev 12 we’re given an awesome visual picture story exposition of Gen 3:15, the seed germ of all prophecy, detailing the enmity down through the ages between the Serpent and the Celestial Zion clothed with the sun and the moon and the stars and her children:
1 And a great sign was seen in heaven:
a woman arrayed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars;
2 and
she was the child; and she crieth out, travailing in birth, and in pain to be delivered.
3 And there was seen another sign in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his heads seven diadems.
4 And his tail draweth the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon standeth before the woman that is about to be delivered, that when she is delivered he may devour her child.
5 And
she was delivered of a son, a man child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and unto his throne.
17 And the dragon waxed wroth with the woman, and went away to make war with
the rest of her seed, that keep the commandments of God, and hold the testimony of Jesus:
I assure you, Christ was not implementing a 'new' thing in Jn 3, He was revealing a mystery from of old:
....
It behoveth you to be born from above;
the Spirit where he willeth doth blow, and his voice thou dost hear, but thou hast not known whence he cometh, and whither he goeth;
thus is every one who hath been born of the Spirit. Jn 3:7,8
OT Saints were no better than us, they required the supernatural act of regeneration just as we do in this age.
