As I sit here on a Saturday evening in August, I know that tomorrow pastors, evangelists everywhere will stand somewhere in front of a crowd of people and say that they need to be born again. I have no issue with the message. Its a great message! But let's be honest, what in the world does that mean? Nicodemus asked a very valid question in his conversation with Jesus. "HOW?!" Let's face the fact of Scripture, how many times did Jesus ever say something about being born again? ONCE! What Jesus says makes some sense, but I'll be the first to say that he thoroughly lost me about the 2nd statement into His response. However, I have come across some stuff that fleshes it out a little bit better.
I want you to remember something. If you do not remember anything else I tell you here, remember this: Firstborns get justice, second born gets mercy. You hear about something called the double portion. It was an inheritance to the first born. Sounds great right? Don't jump up so fast. There was a price to be paid to earn the double portion. The thought behind it was that if the first born is holy, the whole family is holy. The first born had to be the judge for the entire family. If someone did something that was messed up, the first born had to deal with it. If Aunt Suzy stole Grandma Lilly's stock pot, first born had to deal with that too. Firstborns were also responsible if their younger sibling stole something and got away with it. The one that got stolen from could make the first born pay for it. Let's say that someone had 2 sons. Each son has 3 wives. The younger one dies. The older one, first born, has to marry the younger son's wives and produce a male heir to carry on the name through that line. The double portion wouldn't go to you, it would go to Walmart and Target.
Kinda stunk to be the first born if you ask me, but I digress. What does all this have to do with Jesus and Nicodemus? I am getting to that. Now while we're talking about people getting mercy instead of justice, take a look at Jesus' genealogy in Matthew 1. Notice anything interesting about all those people mentioned? They are all second born. "Judah begot Perez through Tamar." Tamar was Judah's daughter in law who was two times a widow after Judah's sons died after being married to her. This is starts in Genesis 38. I'm telling you, Jesus' earthly family is Jerry Springer on SPEED! David, you know, the king of Israel for 40 years, he was as messed up as any of them. He knowingly committed adultery, murdered 17 people in one day trying to kill one, and then lied about it all. Still to this day, David is called a man after God's own heart. He wrote stuff that got put in the Bible. To further drive home the first born/second born axiom, the first born son to David and Bathsheba was the child that died shortly after birth. The second born was Solomon, the next King of Israel and the next step in the line to Jesus. God is a PRO at turning our mess ups into glory for Himself.
Now, here it comes all back together. Who was the first man? Adam was. That makes him the first born. He got the justice by being kicked out of the garden and cursed. Adam got cursed, so therefore the rest of us got it with him. Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned. The problem is that Adam wasnt strong enough to pay the price that was necessary to be the kinsmen redeemer. Remember, Firstborns get justice, second born gets mercy. The bible says that Jesus longs to be the first born over all creation so that when we accept Christ, we are moved from in Adam to in Christ. In Adam, we got justice and in Christ we get mercy. When we get "born again", we are born of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God made flesh, Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:23). That is how we get born again.
What does that mean for us now? Well, Jesus loved us enough to give up His rightful place as one having mercy to take the punishment for all our sin. We must never forget that. When we are judgmental and condemning towards people, we are trying to step into shoes that we couldn't possibly hope to fill. Jesus took care of that 2,000 years ago at the cross at Golgotha. We need to put our judgement sticks away and bless and love others like He said. You do not want to experience the justice that you deserve. That is what He came to do. Love God, Love others as (or more than) you love yourself, and bless others everywhere you can. That is the yoke of our rabbi!
Grace and Peace be with you always!
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