Bridge of Reason

  In the Reasoning Book, p.76, the Watch Tower write: 'Being born again involves being baptized in water (“born from water”) and begotten by God’s spirit (“born from . . . spirit”), thus becoming a son of God with the prospect of sharing in the Kingdom of God. (John 3:3-5) Jesus had this experience, as do the 144,000 who are heirs with him of the heavenly Kingdom. 'Why is it necessary for any Christians to be “born again”? God has purposed to associate a limited number of faithful humans with Jesus Christ in the heavenly Kingdom. Luke 12:32: “Have no fear, little flock, because your Father has approved of giving you the kingdom.” Rev. 14:1-3: “I saw, and, look! the Lamb [Jesus Christ] standing upon the Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand . . . who have been bought from the earth.” (See pages 166, 167, under the heading “Heaven.”) Did Jesus Need to be Baptised? It is interesting that they are ambiguous in how they state their case; ‘Jesus had thi...

From Death to Life What we find in instantaneous spiritual rebirth is a reversal of the fall. God warned Adam that if he ate from the tree he would surely die:   But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Genesis 2:17) Notice that God said that Adam would die that very day. But Adam went on to live to be 930 years old. So, did God lie? Not at all. What died that day was Adam’s spiritual connection to God . Adam and Eve suddenly found themselves naked and ashamed. Their rebellion had led to them losing their spiritual covering – God Himself. So, what did they do? And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. (Genesis 3:7) How telling this is. The response of man to his spiritual nakedness and rebellion is to try and cover himself. Fallen man believes that he can sort himself out. He be...

  It is no surprise that the Book of Mormon has something to say about spiritual rebirth. Latter-day Saint history speaks of times of religious fervour and renewal during Joseph Smith’s younger years. It was, they claim, this period of spiritual fervour that caused Joseph to become confused. The First Vision account recounts what he did: When Joseph was 14 years old, he was inspired by  James 1:5 , which promises, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” Joseph determined to pray to know which church he should join and to ask for forgiveness of his sins. [1] There can be little doubt that during such a period, Joseph would have heard preachers declaring that a person must be ‘born-again’; that a spiritual rebirth was required to enter the Kingdom of God. But why were these enthusiastic preachers proclaiming this? Because they were convinced of what Jesus taught Nicodemus. In m...

  I love having the use of a thesaurus when writing in Microsoft Word. I find the suggestions it offers extremely helpful, and I get to use some words that would not normally be in my vocabulary. One such word offered by my helpful thesaurus recently was ‘exacerbate’ which means to ‘make worse’. My wife says I am a natural when it comes to making things worse. I don’t set out to make things worse or ‘exacerbate’ (my new favourite word) the problem, but sometimes in trying to clarify something, we can find ourselves making something less clear. I came across an example of this as I read about what Mormons teach concerning Jesus’ famous words at John 3:3. Speaking to the Jewish religious leader Nicodemus, Jesus said to him: Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. The article began by saying that Jesus’ words have become a ‘matter of debate and controversy amongst Christian believers.’ It ...