Subject: Born Again

The doctrine around which most controversy swirls in the greater Church of God these days is the understanding of what it means to be born again.  While some have adopted a protestant view as to the understanding of this doctrine, others have adapted a half-way step in which they believe a person is in some partial way born again at baptism.  This confusion generally revolves around the misunderstanding of what the Bible means when it says at baptism we are a "new" creature.  Does becoming a new creature mean we have been partially born again, or does it merely allude to the fact that upon baptism we have received a spirit as yet unknown to us, and we become different from others who have not as yet received this gift?  Here are some statements from Herbert Armstrong, the Apostle of the modern era, concerning what it means to be born again.

Coworker Letter of August 1984:

God is a FAMILY.  God himself is Father of the GOD FAMILY.  Jesus is God's Son.  The true Church is the affianced bride who will marry Christ when he comes in his KINGDOM.  To the Pharisee Nicodemus, Jesus said the kingdom of God is something we shall SEE, but cannot see until BORN AGAIN.  He said we who were born of the flesh ARE flesh, but when born again we shall be no longer human, but composed of SPIRIT.(John 3:6)  But the world's churches are deceived by Satan into thinking they already, still in human flesh, have become "born- again Christians."  In I Corinthians 15, we read that flesh and blood humans cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but our natural human body shall be changed into a spirit-composed body by a resurrection or instant change at Christ's coming.

Coworker Letter of June 1984:

Adam had to make a decision.  Before him in the garden of Eden was the symbolic tree of LIFE, freely offered him.  Had he taken of it he would have received the Holy Spirit of God to join with the human spirit already created in him.  God's Spirit would have begotten him with eternal life -- GOD life -- and with it, spiritual understanding and knowledge, leading to the righteousness and perfect spiritual character of God, that he might be born again as a son of God in the very God Family.