QUESTION -
Does "born again" claim make you a SUPERIOR Christian or a perfect human being? Does confessing, believing you are saved make you saved? Absolutely NOT!

By Fr David Olusi

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. They only change whenever they claim to be "BORN AGAIN" Why?

Catholics and Protestants agree that to be saved, you have to be born again. Jesus said so: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3).

When a Catholic says that he has been "born again," he refers to the transformation that God’s grace accomplished in him during baptism and reinforced weekly through the reception of the Eucharist . Evangelical Protestants typically mean something quite different when they talk about being "born again."

For an Evangelical, becoming "born again" often happens like this: He goes to a crusade or a revival where a minister delivers a sermon telling him of his need to be "born again... If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and believe he died for your sins, you’ll be born again!" says the preacher.

So the gentleman makes "a decision for Christ" and at the altar call goes forward to be led in "the sinner’s prayer" by the minister. Then the minister tells all who prayed the sinner’s prayer that they have been saved "born again."

But is the minister right? Not according to the Bible. Salvation is not a cup of tea! In fact Saint Paul tells us "Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling" Philippians 2:12.

THE THREE STAGES OF SALVATION :

We understand that to be saved we need to come to Jesus Christ, receive Him as Savior by faith, repent of our sin, and receive from Jesus forgiveness of sin and the free gift of eternal life. However, this is not the entire message of the Bible regarding salvation. There is more …

There are actually THREE STAGES OF SALVATION, and every person in the entire world has this threefold need for salvation. Why threefold? Why are there three stages? What are these three stages?

Firstly, we need to be saved in regard to YESTERDAY.

Secondly, we need to be saved in regard to TODAY. And,

thirdly, we need to be saved in regard to TOMORROW.

In other words, we need SALVATION PAST, SALVATION PRESENT and SALVATION FUTURE.

Salvation is a definite threefold process. It begins in JUSTIFICATION: The Bible says in Romans 5:1 that WE HAVE BEEN JUSTIFIED THROUGH FAITH, and because of THIS, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The word “JUSTIFICATION” is a LEGAL term, and means to declare NOT GUILTY.

This proceeds through SANCTIFICATION: Philippians 2:12-13 reads “…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”

This definately means that our good works saves us. It means that having received salvation through faith we are now to work it out "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,..." Mathew 25:35-40.

The sin of the past has been removed and we have been justified. However, the present is still here. We are still living and we face a world full of temptations and sin every day. This scripture says that we must CO-OPERATE WITH GOD in His WORK OF SANCTIFICATION to save us on a daily basis from sin.

Finally it ends in GLORIFICATION: Lastly we’ll briefly look at SALVATION FUTURE or GLORIFICATION. In Philippians 3:20-21 we read “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself."

Jesus died on the cross to save our souls from eternal death and granting us eternal life. He is coming back to complete our salvation by changing our bodies into immortal GLORIFIED BODIES to live with Him in the new, forever. Then our salvation is complete. SALVATION FUTURE, GLORIFICATION.

So we see that our SALVATION is a THREEFOLD PROCESS. It begins in JUSTIFICATION and deals with the PAST forever. It continues through SANCTIFICATION as WE DEAL WITH THE PRESENT, as we WALK DAILY WITH JESUS and ALLOW GOD TO WORK IN US. It ends in GLORIFICATION, that FUTURE day of our final salvation that we eagerly await.

My challenge to each and everyone, including myself, is to WALK THE ROAD OF SANCTIFICATION WITH JESUS, just as Paul did. To be saved and to have dealt with the past is good, but not good enough.

We need to deal with the present on a daily basis. We need to allow God daily to work in us for His purpose. We need to grow in holiness as we allow more of the Light of Jesus to come into our lives. We need to continuously put behind us the things that are revealed by the Holy Spirit as wrong. We need to have JESUS CHRIST AS PERSONAL LORD and not only as personal Savior.

We can say that WE ARE SAVED, WE ARE BEING SAVED and WE WILL BE SAVED. This is also how the Bible speaks of our salvation. This is the meaning of salvation for Catholics.
[but we cannot know that we are saved and saying that we are is the sin of presumption, for as Jesus says in Matt 7:21 Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.] and that judgement is of Jesus