Adventures With Calvinistman - Episode 2 - You Must Be Born Again

God Centered Theology

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Welcome to Adventures with Calvinist Man. He's faster than a speeding

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Arminian, more powerful than man -centered synergism, and able to leap tall strawmen in a single bound.

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Look, up in the sky, it's a bird. It's a tulip. No, it's Calvinist Man.

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Hello and welcome to Adventures with Calvinist Man. That's right,

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I am the superhero that leads you into greater theological prosperity.

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That's right, we're faster than a speeding Arminian, more powerful than man -centered synergism, and able to leap tall strawmen in a single bound.

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Yes, know that it's not a bird and it's not a tulip up there in the sky. It's the superhero

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Calvinist Man. Now, you're resident superhero here,

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Calvinist Man. I could spend a lot of time doing all of the philosophical debates that you hear.

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It seems like every single time Dr. White debates someone on this subject, they come in and they never really crack a

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Bible. They don't do much exegesis, but they have a whole lot of theological or philosophical arguments and debate patterns that they use.

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They come up with all these terms. The last one he had recently with the, oh man,

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I forgive me, his name escapes me at the moment, but he had one where they were debating open theism. And he created this whole term about fixed points in time and all these things.

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And Dr. White's sitting there with a Bible and doing those things.

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And he's just like, what? So the point of this program, the point of this show, the point of what

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Calvinist Man wants to bring to the masses beyond just what we covered in the first episode, which is to dispel all the myths about the

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Calvinist Boogeyman. Ooh, he's lurking around the corners.

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He's gonna get you. You don't need to be scared, it's okay. Don't need to be scared of the

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Calvinist Boogeyman, but we will deal with some topical things at times.

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We'll deal with current things that are out there and stuff as it comes available.

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But for the bulk of what I wanna do here at this site,

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God Centered Theology, the bulk of what I wanna focus on is the simple, consistent exegesis of scripture.

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And yes, for this program, which primarily deals with a defense of reformed soteriology, reformed theology, which is commonly known as Calvinism, explaining what it is, what it's not, how it's misrepresented, how it should properly be represented, with that being the focus, we will deal with texts that primarily deal with that.

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So I don't wanna be one of these programs I always complain about the shows that take 30 minutes to get started, and here

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I am wasting time. So let's stop all the pleasantries, if you will, and let

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Calvinist Man take you through John chapter three. Why, because this is one of the polarizing chapters that you get,

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I've heard it more times than I can count growing up in independent fundamentalist,

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Baptist circles, King James only, cultic forms of it. And every time you hear the thing about the

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Calvinist, it's always, blessed good, John 3, 16 in the Bible, who says for God's you live, world blessed

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God, and whosoever's. And I've had it, I've done it, had it rammed in our throats, and it's always interesting to me that when the opponents of reform theology want to bring up, say, a

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John 3, 16, it's like they've taken all the proper tools of exegesis and just throw them out the window, because if we take a one verse, and it really makes an argument for us, well, we can't let that get away.

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We've got to use that to our advantage, don't we? My friends, as many before me have pointed out, as many currently and many that will come after me will point out, chapter and verse divisions in scripture are not inspired.

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Now I know every King James only has just fell out the floor, the Rachmanites are going crazy.

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Get your pitchforks, burn him at the stake. How dare you say that John 3, 16 and all my numerology codes are not inspired.

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Well, yeah, they're not. They're just not. Chapter and verse divisions are a fairly modern thing.

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If I'm remembering correctly from what I've learned from Dr. White, who covers this subject quite often,

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I want to say it was somewhere maybe in the mid 1500s, thereabouts, that you started seeing these types of things.

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If I'm wrong on that, I apologize, but I want to say it was somewhere around the 16th century.

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So these chapter and verse divisions are for the being able to find a section of scripture quickly.

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I mean, if you had a long book like Psalms and you just said, well, Psalms, even the

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Psalms were divided, but just take the Gospel of John and say, well, you know, go to the

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Gospel of John, well, we don't have chapter and verse divisions, so go about maybe halfway down the page and then you got to rely on the fact that everybody's copy is written the same way.

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And so it's easier to say, go to John 3, 16. But when it comes to hermeneutics, exegesis, while there are some cases where one verse can stand alone, for example, in the

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Psalms and Proverbs, and in some places, primarily exegesis, meaning, interpretation comes from multiple verses, which make up sentences and paragraphs and context, larger dissertations on a particular subject, and that's what we need to be focused on.

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So with that in mind, we're not gonna go through the whole chapter that deals with this today, but we're gonna get started.

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We're gonna go through probably the first four or five verses here. So remember, this is about defending

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Reformed theology, explaining it, dispelling the Calvinist boogeyman, and just plainly showing, one, that we are, you know, those that are opponents of Reformed theology, we agree on far more than you realize, but two,

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I believe this to be the biblical model of what's taught. It's not about teaching Calvinism, it's about teaching the text of Scripture.

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We believe that that fits that system of teaching and that's the system of what you would call that. So verse one, now there was a man of the

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Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. So he's a ruler, he's a

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Pharisee, he's one that, you know, had high status and would have had a, you know, a prominent position, and so he, here, this man came to Jesus by night because he doesn't want all his friends to see that he's going to see

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Jesus. Like, let me look to the left, look to the right, see any other

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Pharisees walking around? Okay, hey, Jesus, over here, man,

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I gotta ask you something. Goes to him by night, says, "'Rabbi, teacher, we know that you have come from God "'as a teacher, for no one could do these signs "'that you do unless God is with him.'"

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One of the primary ways in which God would demonstrate his power, demonstrate that his message was authentic was through powers and miracles and signs and things like that.

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So that's why the New Testament authors would do signs and wonders and miracles to authenticate the new covenant in the gospel.

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It's not something we need to see for our day because there's no new revelation. So he clearly knew there was revelation and God -based,

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God -centered revelation coming from this man, and so he knew that God was with him. And so Jesus answered and said to him, now notice, he says, "'Truly, truly,

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I say to you, "'unless one is born again, "'he cannot see the kingdom of God.'" Now, we have to always be fair and consistent and only say things about the text of Scripture that we would do consistently in other places.

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So it is possible that Nicodemus said more than what's here in verse two, where he says, "'We know you've come from God as a teacher, "'no one could do these signs unless you do "'unless

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God is with him.'" It's possible he would have asked Jesus, how can one enter the kingdom or something along those lines where Jesus is answering him in verse three and maybe

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John just didn't record it. The Holy Spirit, for whatever reason, decided not to divinely inspire the other things

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Nicodemus was asking. We have to allow for that possibility. Just because it isn't recorded here doesn't mean it didn't occur.

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We have everything recorded in revelation that we need and that God wanted to reveal to us, but this is not an exhaustive timeline and exhaustive thing of events and every event it records is every possible detail that could be recorded.

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So that's possible. I tend to lean another way. I think in this case,

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Jesus, knowing Nicodemus, knowing his heart, knowing what was on his mind, anticipated what he was gonna talk about and cut right to the chase to make a point to Nicodemus.

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Yes, you recognize God is with me because I do these signs and wonders, but you need to understand

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I'm the son of God. I am God incarnate in human flesh and I know your mind and I know your heart and I know exactly where you're going with this and I'm gonna cut right to the chase.

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I think that's the case here, but to be a fair, consistent exegete, we have to allow for the possibility that I could be wrong on that and it could have been something else, but regardless,

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Jesus answers him and says, "'Truly, truly, I say to you, "'unless one is born again, "'he cannot see the kingdom of God.'"

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This word here, born again, literally means born from above, born spiritually, because that which is from above comes down to earth.

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Jesus is the bread of life. It's the spiritual birth because we know this to be spiritual for more than we get from the text as we move on here, but people at this time were highly concerned and focused on the kingdom.

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Notice he says, Jesus deals with this. You cannot see the kingdom of God. These people want to see the kingdom of God.

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You remember his disciples, when he was about to do the ascension, they were like, are you gonna establish your kingdom now?

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And he said, those types of things, it's not for you to know, but you should know that in the same way

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Jesus left, he'll return the same way. That's what we believe will happen at the second coming at the summation of the kingdom when it is at its fullest point and that time in which

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God has ordained that he will come back and judge sin and usher in eternity and the eternal state.

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But this focus on that is partly in our day of well in the sense that we would say, if we talk about presenting the gospel, if someone wants to be saved, but what

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I try to do is introduce the language that really what you're talking about is an entrance into the kingdom of God. And the way you see the kingdom of God is by being regenerated, by being justified, being saved.

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You're now part of the body of Christ. You're a child of God. You're part of God's kingdom. You see God's kingdom like that mustard seed that grows into a large result, but it takes a very long, gradual, slow, over many years, we could possibly still be in the early church here.

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We may have centuries left. Who knows? I know based on our current world situation, I don't see the word of God ruling the nations in a large scale fashion.

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So we're certainly some time off, but we also see that the kingdom has grown considerably since it was established.

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There are far more Christians living today than there was at that time. So this idea of seeing the kingdom, yes, we wanna be part of the kingdom.

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We wanna see the kingdom come to fruition. And part of being a citizen of that kingdom, many thought it was their law keeping or being a

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Jew or being in good standing with God. Well, we're gonna find here from New Testament scripture with the new covenant, the way to be in good standing with God is to be justified before God.

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And we find out the way man is justified before God is the same way Abraham was, and that was by faith.

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And so he says, you gotta be born again. You gotta be born from above. So man is born with a physical body and with a soul.

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I believe in what we would call a trichotomy, that man is body, soul, and spirit.

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Every person that is born has a body that is alive. They have a soul, meaning they have being, meaning they exist.

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So in like fashion, God is one being, meaning he is one eternal being, one essence that exists in three distinct persons.

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We are one being in the same fashion as God, but we exist in one person.

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And that is the difference between the infinite God and the finite human being. Now we have body, soul, but we also have a spirit, but we are born in Adam, meaning that our spirit is dead in sin and trespasses.

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Our spirit is in bondage. It must be released from its prison. Our spirit is dead, not just wounded, not sick, it is dead.

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A dead person cannot raise themselves. They must be raised to life, just like Lazarus.

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I mean, it was John 11, right? Where we get everybody's favorite memory verse. I think it's John 11, 35,

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Jesus wept. They always ask you at VBS, where can you recite a Bible verse?

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Jesus wept, you know, I got my star. But just in like fashion that a dead person cannot raise themselves, you cannot raise your spirit to life.

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Those that worship God must worship in spirit and in truth.

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Well, we have the truth of the truth of the word of God, but we have to worship in spirit.

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Your spirit as a prerequisite must be alive in order to worship in spirit.

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So we must have our spirits raised to life. So then now we have a body that is alive, a soul that is alive and in existence, and now a spirit that is alive.

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That's the born again, born from above, the spiritual birth. And we see him bring out this point here.

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He says in verse four, Nicodemus says back to him or said to him, how can a man be born when he is old?

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Can he enter a second time to his mother's womb and be born? So clearly

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Nicodemus was missing the point. He's sitting here thinking, well, okay, I was born once physically.

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His mind is only on physical and this whole sermon for another day, but we could look at Old Testament and New Testament and how so many of God's people missed it because they were thinking and looking for a physical kingdom.

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And yes, there is a physical kingdom in this world, but it's primarily spiritual.

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So that's why when we talk about post -millennialism, we're not talking about a top -down structure where we change all the laws and force, you know, when we talk about theonomy, we're not talking about forcing laws which somehow converts people.

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We're talking about the preaching of the gospel, which God uses to convert people. And that naturally as a result, results in God's people and God's nations wanting to be under God's law.

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So that he was missing it here. He was thinking, well, I've already been born once. What are you talking about? He saw no need for his spiritual birth.

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And so that's why he's confused here. He's thinking, what are you talking about? I have to go back into my mama's belly and get born again?

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And so Jesus answered and says, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

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So naturally, if you'll, you know, without getting into too much detail, when we are born physically, we're born of water.

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A woman's water breaks. We are born through the birth canal. There's water there.

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There's other stuff going on, but that's what he's referencing here. Being born of water, meaning being born physically, because you don't have like other false religions would talk about these spirit beings.

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And now there are spirit beings, angels, Satan, and his demons, things like that. But as far as the children of God that enter the kingdom of God, we're not just spirit beings that maybe take on human flesh.

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We are physical flesh and blood creations, people that have a soul.

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We have a mind, we exist. We are born of water. Every single human person is born that has a mother, mother and father, male and female.

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I know that's controversial, but that's the way it is. You must be born of water, meaning you must exist.

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You must have a body, you must have a soul. You must be an actual human being.

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But Jesus says here, not only must you be born physically, you must also be born spiritually.

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And a lot of your translations will capitalize the word spirit here, showing that this birth by the spirit, this being born again, this being born from above spiritually is orchestrated by, initiated by, and this spiritual life is created and raised to life in us by the third person of the

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Trinity, the Holy Spirit. And he says here, unless you're born of water and the spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.

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So once, right here from the get -go, we have an issue with Calvinism, Reformed theology, we would believe that regeneration precedes faith, that faith is a natural consequence of a spirit that is alive in a person.

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So unless you, just as we have nothing to do with our physical birth, we didn't create ourselves, we didn't cause our mothers to become pregnant, we had nothing to do with that, we had nothing to do with our physical birth, until we're of an age that we have, our minds are growing and our physical bodies grow, there's not a whole lot of physical autonomy that we have.

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We have to rely on others to take care of us. In the same manner, spiritually, when we're spiritual babes in Christ, we have to rely a whole lot on other people, pastors and teachers and Sunday school teachers and people to spiritually guide us and help us grow, and then there comes a point where we grow an increasing spiritual autonomy in the sense that we can study on our own and start to initiate some of our own sanctification in a sense that, don't misunderstand, it's all a work of the spirit in us, and you can never walk and live the

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Christian life on your own, but I think you get the point that I'm making. So you have to exist, you have to be born by the spirit.

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So we would see this, that he says you cannot enter the kingdom of God. So without the obvious, you have to be a human being, you have to exist, but without the spirit of God, causing you to be born again, raising you to spiritual life, creating you spiritually, so to speak, by raising your spirit to life to where you can worship in spirit and truth, you can't enter the kingdom of God because you cannot produce that on your own.

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There's not one single human being that ever created themselves or brought themselves to physical life, and there's not one single human being that's ever caused themselves to be spiritually regenerated or brought to life in Christ.

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So you must be regenerated, you must be born again or born spiritually to enter the kingdom of God.

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And then finally, here in verse six, that which has been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which has been born of the spirit is spirit.

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Jesus is making this very clear. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, meaning every single human being that is born, they're born through flesh, born through their mother, through a fleshly person, and they are flesh.

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They have being, they exist, but only some are born of the spirit.

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That which is born of the spirit is spirit. So if the Holy Spirit has regenerated you and raised your spirit to life, you've been born again, you are not only of fleshly creation, but you're now spiritual creation.

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And this thing where he says, born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit, Paul picks up on this in Romans eight, and he has his two categories, those that are of the flesh, those that are of the spirit.

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And I think to a degree, Paul has Jesus' words here in mind probably when he's writing and talking about this, or at least it's divinely inspired by the spirit of God.

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This is what Jesus is pointing out here, there's two categories of people. That which is of flesh is flesh, and that which is of spirit is spirit.

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Those that are of flesh can't make themselves be born of the spirit, and those that are born of the spirit can't say it's their flesh that got them there.

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So our entrance into the kingdom, our initiation and adoption into God's family is not of ourselves, it's of the spirit of God.

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And that's why he says, do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again or from above.

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So my friends, this was a good start here to this chapter, and I hope that you will do some studying on your own.

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Remember, it is a being born again, being born from above. It is a spiritual birth, a new creation in God, wrought by Christ Jesus' atoning work and sacrifice on the cross, and is the power of the

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Holy Spirit that raises certain persons to life in Christ so that they can worship in spirit and truth.

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And much like what Hebrews 11, six says, to have faith means that you believe that God is, and it's the only way to please him.

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And it is this faith, which is the result of our rebirth, our being born again, this faith and repentance of the gospel will replace our faith and trust in Jesus Christ as a direct result of our regeneration by the spirit of God.

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So I thank him for it. I hope you thank him for it. And I hope this has been understandable for you.

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I hope this is hopefully shedding some light on some of this, and we'll pick this up and go back into verse eight next time.

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So I wanna thank you for joining me. This is Calvinist Man, your superhero to lead you through these waters of reformed theology.