Featured Were Men Born Again Before Pentecost?

Yes, since Jesus told Nicodemus to be born again. Seems pretty plain to me.

 

Not men, but women and children were.

It all depends on what you mean by "born again."

Does "born again" or my preferred interpretation of John 3, "born from above," mean someone who has the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit?

If so, then no.

If you are asking if persons knew God, were empowered to obedience, experienced grace, and received eternal life, then yes.

 

Ezekiel 36:25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

If God could do this nationally, I see no reason why He could not do this individually as well.

 

This question has been kicked around several times. When was the person born anew? Before or after Jesus arose from the dead? After.

When did Jesus send the Holy Spirit, before or after He ascended? After

When did the thief enter Paradise? On the day Jesus died, Friday.

Since no one enters heaven until born anew, then we have the first person being born anew after Jesus died. But was anyone born anew while still physically alive before Pentecost? If we assume when a physically alive person is born anew, made alive by being united with Christ, they are immediately indwelt, then it is possible no physically living person was born anew until Pentecost. But it is speculation.

 

Where are you looking to see that Jesus told Nicodemus "to be" born again? I have never seen that.

 

"I will...."
When? is the question, though.

It seems I read that this would be part of a New Covenant to come at a later time.
I think it's written that the New Covenant was inaugurated in Jesus' blood

 

John 3:7--"Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again."

 

He said "you must be"

Then added "unless you are ______, then you cannot _____."

Jesus never said "be born again", this was all in response to Nicodemus' initial statement. Maybe some paraphrasing might help drive my point.

Nic: We know you're from God, we saw your miracles

Jesus: you can't perceive the Kingdom of God unless you're born again.


Then that begs a few questions:
What has "Kingdom of God" anything to do with the miracles Nic saw?

Or does "Kingdom of God" relate to "we know you're from God" ?

What is "Kingdom of God" anyway? Sounds like Jesus came out of left field.

But it's not out of left field if Paul is to be believed as to what is "Kingdom of God" (Romans 14:17)

 

I don't believe either of those would be accurate.

The new heart and new spirit, quoted earlier by pastor Bob, almost universally acknowledged as the New Covenant. The writer of Hebrews defined the scope of the New Covenant in chapters 7-10, and particularly in 9-10 for this issue.

The blood of bulls and goats could never remove sins, or make the comer perfect. But the blood of Jesus does remove sins (John said it cleanses us) and has forever perfected those who are sanctified.

This "born again" thing is something that happens to us by the Holy Spirit, whereby He cleanses our inner man of all sin - not behavior, but the disease of sin.

Just like when Jesus went around healing people of physical infirmity, our spirit is healed of infirmity by the cleansing in His blood.

Titus 3:5 - the washing of "born again"

By His stripes we are healed.

If the blood of an animal could do all that, Christ died for nothing

 

I think 98% of the last thread on this issue of "born again prior to Pentecost" was everybody talking past everybody, and almost everybody taking for granted that everyone was defining the terms the same way.

This one may be no different.

I'm firmly convinced that if "born again" is defined biblically, there can be no way to misunderstand that Hebrews 9-10 absolutely portray it as a New Covenant distinctive

 

my understanding is that born again is a cleansing. A removal of the infirmity of sin. Washed, purified, forever perfected. Without spot or wrinkle. Unblemished. Healed. A holy bath, if you will.

a new creation, not just a new demeanor.

And the new creation comes about in two stages, inner man and outer man. Spirit and Body

The spirit is cleansed upon enlightenment and faith, conversion

The body will be cleansed in the resurrection.

Born again is an issue of our substance being made anew without sin.

 

Jesus used the Greek verb dei, as Tom Cassidy has pointed out: "It is necessary...." Then He used the aorist passive infinitive of "born," so "to be born," followed by anothen, "again." So you are wrong, Jesus did say "be born again."

Drive home your point all you want, but it will be in vain--the Greek is clear.

Come on, this is not rocket science. It wasn't out of left field at all to Nicodemus, because John preached the Kingdom of God and then Jesus did (Matt. 3:2, Mark 1:15, etc.). Nicodemus would have known this with no problems or confusion about it.

 

I see these as the highlights of your post, and I agree there is a substantial amount of agreement.

I abolutely love the distinction you proposed, that the Old dealt with man's sins while the New deals with man's sinfulness. That's a succinct way of expressing it

And I agree that both relate directly to Abraham. My pastor asked me if I believe there's a distinction between Israel and the Church, and it took me a week of pondering to put it into words. Israel relates to the outer man - lineage, posterity, nationality, geography. Church relates to the inner man - faith, hope, love, eternal

The Old was an external temporal regiment that, in its entirety, looked to a future eternal realization in the New