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To: Rutles4Ever

Are you suggesting at this point in time Jesus became "born of God"?

What precisely does it mean to be "born of God"?


90 posted on 11/11/2005 10:15:48 AM PST by HarleyD (1 John 5:1 - "everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God")
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To: HarleyD
At Baptism, we becomes sons or daughters of God, and receive the blessing of the Holy Spirit. We receive the vocation to be priests, prophets, and kings. In the same way, Jesus began HIS vocation as priest, prophet, and king among men.

Jesus' baptism sanctified the waters for all baptisms. He did not need baptism to be born of God. He was certainly already born of God because He was the beginning, and "in the beginning", the Word, begotten by God, eternal. We, in our mortal being, must be born of God through water and spirit - baptism - since we are not eternally made, constrained to temporal being until such time we are called into eternity. To prepare for that, we must be born of God, and not just man.

The Church, in practicing infant baptism, welcome us into God's family as spotless lambs, wiping away the stain of original sin and certainly not guilty of any other sin thereof. The graces are not something that need be won by OUR faith, but as Jesus healed the paralytic because of the faith of those who surrounded him, we are welcomed into the family of God by the faith of our loved ones who bring us to the sacrament for blessing.

To imply that being born of God requires a conscious decision to "accept Jesus Christ" as our Savior would seem to leave out the mentally handicapped who cannot make decisions for themselves and must rely ON THE FAITH OF THOSE AROUND THEM. To demand that one must be born of God by fiat implies that God loves not the imbecile, but only the learned who can rationalize their faith.

95 posted on 11/11/2005 10:34:16 AM PST by Rutles4Ever ("Fizellas! Looks like you guys are up to no good. Well, THIS gang used to be like that TOO, 3, 4)
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