Two Camps
What does all this mean? Well, it simply means that while many topics within Christianity are gray areas (though we sometimes make them black and white), one cannot be. The new birth says there are two kinds of people: People who are still dead and people who have been made alive. There is no spectrum of goodness or badness that really means anything in regards to whether someone "will see the kingdom of God". The ultimate question is NOT Catholic or Protestant, Emergent or Reformed, Lutheran or Presbyterian, Religious or Non-religious, even Good theology or Bad theology.
The only question of eternal significance to you or me is simply, Dead or Alive?
A person's religion, denomination, righteousness, holiness, doctrine, "niceness", thoughts, feelings, and actions, come in a distant second to the question: "Has he/she been born again". Of course we know that there is usually a corellation between the new birth and things like holiness and sound theology but we also know that a person check off both of those things without ever having experienced God in a saving way.
No middle ground
Someone either is saved, going to heaven, bearing fruit, ALIVE to passionate about the things of God, with a penitent heart that hates sin. Or... they do not. I can't emphasize enough that it's not about being a "good Christian" as opposed to a "pretty good Christian"- that doesn't matter compared to this. Are you born again or not? Are the people around you born again or not? I don't care what anyone says about what they believe (Remember Matthew 7?) Are they born again? If you want to know about the tree look at the fruit. If I want to see what a person believes, I ignore what they say. I watch their lives.
This one issue that is the new birth cannot be a scale. It is binary. 1 or 0. Off or on. Black or white. Alive or dead. Heaven or Hell. Do you want to know where you stand with God? Whether you are a vessel of mercy or a vessel of wrath? You need only ask one question.
Have I been born again?
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