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Hello Fish!
Its nice to debate with someone about this. You are absolutely right about being predestined....that ofcourse opening up a whole new 'can of worms'.
You said:
Someone who has been born again was chosen before the foundations of the world to be born from above. Howevever, union with Christ occurs when that person hears the gospel. I really enjoyed reading your postings.
Fish, what do you consider to be union with Christ? I think if I understand correctly you feel that we are united with Christ when we hear the gospel.
Did you see my posts before, about when the gospel was first preached? To Israel, to the spirits in prison, and there is a scripture about the gospel preached to the dead.
Im not saying ofcourse that the gospel must not be preached now, im saying that IF you hear the gospel, and you believe it, its because your spirit is testifying to the truth.
So that implies you must have heard the truth before, since now you are testifying (agreeing) with what you are hearing.
Anyway...about the point where you 'unite' with christ.
Would you consider being IN christ as being united to him?
If you do, then you were already united with Christ on the cross, since you were IN him then. And if you were IN him on the cross, you were ressurrected as well, and it is when you were resurrected that you were saved.
And so...you were predestined to be incarnate at a PARTICULAR time, and you will bear the image of Christ, since being born of God means that you conform into the image of Christ.
The fact that you were predestined from the foundations of the world should help to clarify, that you were born from natural desire first, before christ came, and under the law, and then you were born again, under grace. But you cannot be born under grace, unless you were born under the law first. Jesus came to put away what the bible calls the first to establish the second.
Now you must be thinking when were you born under the law? I cant tell you, but I can tell you that you were born naturally, by human desire, and a slave to sin, and not free, which is why Jesus had to come and save you, pay a randsom for your freedom so that you could be set free from the law, and free from slavery to sin, and free from the master of all the slaves.
. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Jesus was the FIRSTBORN...you are somewhere after that....be it number 4475984353 im no sure. Jesus was incarnated, she he was the first to be incarnated, and you must follow.
Look at this scripture:
13We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit
The scripture says we live IN him, because he has given us....not the HS, but OF his spirit. The spirit of truth. Recieving OF his spirit, means being Born OF the spirit of God. We do not get a piece of God, when we say the sinners prayer.
I was trying to find all the scriptures that have the words 'IN HIM' or 'IN CHRIST' but I cant find them on my software right now, have to learn how to use it properly. But when you read your bible, just see what you make of the scriptures that have these words in them, and then make sure to check the TENSE that the scripture is written in.
Hope to hear from you again.
Lots of love
Heneni.
You were saved on the cross. You are born again when you are incarnated.
We tend to forget that not only did Jesus die on the cross, we died too.
Romans 7:
4So, my brothers, you also died (past tense) to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. 5For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. 6But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
Paul was talking to people that were alive, but he told them, that they had died. He said that they died to the law, since the only thing the law resulted in was bearing fruit for death. This death resulted in their spirits at death returning to darkness. So they had to have someone come and rescue, save and translate them out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light.
When did they die? Their spirits died when they died with Christ. Their spirits existed when jesus died on the cross. What did that result in? It resulted in being released from the law. But to be released from the law, you have to truly die! Their spirits HAD to die! But then, they were resurrected from the dead, and their spirits made alive again, but this time under grace. It is from the place you went when you were resurrected that you are INCARNATED into this world.
Dying to the law, meant being released from the hold the sin master had over them. Since he had posession of you , only because you could not adhere to the law, but by dying, you were released from the law. The only way to get away from satan was to give up! And to cease to exist.
The only way to get away from the sin master, was to die for eternity. So there was no hope of ever having a way back to the kingdom of light.
When you died with Christ on the cross, and I mean your spirit literally died, you were released from the law. It means your spirit said a la vista baby, and died. But guess what? Jesus raised you from the DEAD! And you were resurrected with him. And that is the miracle of salvation!
If it wasnt for Jesus you spirit would for ever been under the slave masters control, and you would have had NO way to return to the kingdom of God.
The only way to get away from Satan would be to completely die! You would have had to be NO more.
But Jesus was the fullfillment of the law. He was the one that could completely do what the law required. And since you trusted in the Name of Jesus you trusted in him to set you free from the sin master and be a randsom for your release.
And after this happened you belonged to another, you belonged to Jesus. It resulted in you being transferred out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light, and therefore you now belonged to 'another'. You could not be transferred into the kingdom of light with sin on you, so your sins were forgiven, and you were washed and cleaned by the blood of Jesus, so that you could be tranferred into the kingdom of God, without spot or blemish.
The transfer happened at the cross, not when you accept Jesus as your lord and saviour.
When you are born again, i.e incarnated, you are born, in a world full of darkness, your spirit being light, but you are born into a world full of darkness. Your incarnated spirit is the light in this darkness.
Matthew 5:
14"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. [1]
Your spirit once belonged to the the master of darkness, a slave to this master. A slave may not and can not leave their master, unless they are bought. Jesus bought us from the slave master.
Eph 5:8
8For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10and find out what pleases the Lord. 11Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.
Colosians 1: 13
. 13For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14in whom we have redemption,E the forgiveness of sins.
Have you ever wondered what Jesus meant when he said, the first will be last and the last will be first.
I think he meant, those that were born first of the natural desire of a man and a women, would be incarnated last, and those last born of the natural desire, would be incarnated first.
When did time start? At adam? Well I guess you could say so. When did time restart? After Jesus. Hence time is now referenced as AC or BC .
I believe we were all once living in the period BC and we all live in the time AC.
If you think about it, we are all on a journey to return back to paradise, where time started for the first time.
Jesus said it is FINISHED, and then he got us started again.
Love
Heneni
Hello Fish!
Like your slogan by the way...hunting for the truth.
Of course when you are born again, incarnated, you are a son of God, and therefore a god. Like Father like son.
Um....when my children are born, do I call them cats? If you are born of God you are a god.
This statement will usually upset most religeous folk cause they think that one is trying to claim devinity, when they would like to be god instead.
The pharasees got very uptight when Jesus claimed to have God as his father. And the religous folk will still get uptight if you tell them that you are a god, less so if you just claim to be a son of god.
But lets put things into perspective. You are a god, but you are not god of anyone! You are simply a god by your spiritual descent, your ' bloodline' so to speak.
You could say cats give birth to cats, God gives birth to gods.
It is very important that we realise that we are not humans having a spiritual experience we are spirits having a human experience. And so even before the creation of the natural world, we existed.
Can the body exist without a spirit? A spirit is released from its body when the body dies, and it has to go somewhere.
Since creation and the fall, spirits have been going to prison when they die. Some like Enoch didnt. Why? Cause no sin could be found in them. Must have been an extrodinary man!
So your natural life here on earth may end, but your spirit does not end. And your spirit is not created when you are born, and you did not start to exist when you were born.
What you are experiencing here on earth, is the effect of being seperated from God. Your spirit is limited to this place, and unlike angels you can not move from one place to the other. You are 'lost' here. You are seperated from direct contact with God. You can not go to His thrown in reality and stand before him and look him in the eye.
What you are experiening here on earth is the effect of sin. Sin caused seperating from god since the fall. And so no one born on this planet whether they lived or died, would be back in the presence of God.(there were exections though, these were men in the OT that never died)
A lot of people died during the flood. But their spirits did not die.
So where did all the men like David and samson, and the patriachs go when they died?
They went to Sheol, the place of the dead, and what were they doing there? They were sleeping there. Sleeping meaning they they were not dead, i.e spiritually dead. David was confident that God would not abandon him there.
David feared that if he should die, he would go to this place and would never be able to go to place of the living. Be that heaven, or paradise. He wanted I think more than anything to be with God. But no one could escape the reality of when they die, they would still be seperated from God.
God has always been able to wake up or RAISE up anyone he felt like waking up from this place, which you can call a temporary prison. When he woke someone up from this place, it did not mean that they were free to go to God, they would be sent back to earth, STILL seperated from God. John the baptist I believe was one such person. He was RAISED up for this purpose. Pharoah was another one of those. But lets not get into that now...
When Jesus died on the cross, he RAISED you up with him. You were woken from you sleep, then you DIED and then you were RAISED up. You were transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. What then was your spirit doing in the kingdom of light? The place you were taken to when you are RAISED up was to paradise. But this is no place to be sleeping, since it is not dark there, and Jesus said, WORK while you have the light, because when its dark no one can work.
So it is from paradise that you are incarnated to do the work of the kingdom here on earth. Each in turn and each occording to rank. While here on this earth in a human body your flesh is forever at war with your spirit, but you have the power to overcome. And it is the overcomers the bible says that recieve the rewards!
So you recieved your salvation for free, its a free gift, but your rewards depend on you!
And what would be the reward for overcoming....it would mean going back to the FATHER, since no one can come to the father except through Jesus. Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us, this place is also where his father is, and we will be back in the glorious presence of God one day as overcomers in this world. The reason there has to be a new heaven, is because the old one was violated by the rebellion of Satan. And so this is the place that Jesus has gone to prepare.
What reward will you get if you are meek? You will inherit the earth
What reward will you get if you are pure in heart? You will see GOD!
So what then if you have been resurrected, in paradise, then incarnated to do the work of the kingdom, and then you die again? I believe you sleep, but this time you sleep in Christ, where your life is HIDDEN. But once again, at any point in time he can wake you from your sleep for whatever purpose. There is a time to work, and there is a time to rest.
Lots of Love
Heneni
Hello Fish!
You worried about who indoctrinated me with this stuff???
I have no religion. I dont even know what a theist, deist, mormon, and whatever else there is these days..actually are.
What I write is what I have studied without the indoctrination of anybody else. If it is from the HS then I am thankfull.
Love
Heneni
Hello Don!
Im not advocating re-incarnation. :cover:.
Incarnation is different in the sense that the natural man has to be born a spiritual man.
What I am saying is that INCARNATION is only the same as RE-incarnation in the sense that there has to be another, but quite different birth.
The first birth is because of human impuls and desire, and the second is because God sends your spirit into your mother, by his will and design. This spirit is the spirit of truth, and testifies to the truth of the gospel when you hear it as a child BORN OF GOD.
Love
Heneni.
Hello FIsh!
I know that this message is... how did you call it 'unorthodox'. But it sure cleared up a lot of things for me!
Just ask yourself this...why would a loving God send you to hell, when it wasnt your choice to be born here in the first place, it wasnt your fault that Adam sinned and you are forever struggling to do the right thing, but to no effect, and no matter how hard you try, you still sin.
People dont understand why the work Jesus did on the cross was so fabulous! They think Jesus had to come and save them because God made a mistake with Adam.
If you realise that you existed before, and that you knew God, and that you did something (pray and ask him what it was) to seperate you from the presence of God, and that there was no way for you to SAVE yourself out of the mess you got yourself into, then you will understand why God had to create Adam, and why Adam did nothing worse than you had already done, and how the fall of adam, similar to your fall from glory, was miraculously turned around to result in your salvation from eternal seperation from God, and if it was not for Jesus you would never be able to go back to heaven.
The HS is our teacher. The HS teaching you and the HS teaching me is not a different HS. So if what I am saying is not plain, its because I am not explaining myself well enough, or someone is not 'catching' it. What Im writing here can not be taught, it has to be caught. You have to read and listen with your spirit.
Love
Heneni
Could it be that narcissistic humans projected this unseemly craving for glory?God's rescue mission is about the glory of God manifested in His act of redemption. Salvation is to the praise of His glorious grace (Eph 1-2). It is not about man, but the glory of God.
Could it be that narcissistic humans projected this unseemly craving for glory?
No doubt it's a contributing factor, and I suspect it's no coincidence that some holy texts depict God as having exactly these qualities.Self-centeredness and pride seems to be the root of evil throughout human history, do you agree? :rainbow1:
No doubt it's a contributing factor, and I suspect it's no coincidence that some holy texts depict God as having exactly these qualities.