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However, egennathasan is aorist indicative (passive voice), which still makes the case for the view held by all the Reformed/Calvinistic churches, because the GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCTION demands that the relative clause modify that which is antecedent to it and thus, those who received/believed and were given the right to become children of God were antecedently "born of God".



The relative clause certainly modifies something. If it modified what was antecedent to receiving, it would be pluperfect. no offence, but can you actually read Greek unaided, because i am having a hard time believing that?

if what you were saying were true, it would read "who had been born" - pluperfect. since it uses gen gennao twice, nmeaning, I give birth to, produce, beget, it could be read this way

"to those who received him he gave the right to be born/begotten children of God...who were born/begotten not of man, etc"
You cannot get around this. the being born directly corresponds with the being made children of God, and this latter is to those who receive him.

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It was in this helpless and hopeless state that God "made them alive" (Gk: suzoopoieo) "together with Christ". There is not even a hint that this "reanimation" was the result of any act on the part of the individuals themselves.

But this very passage in Colossians, as I have pointed out many many times, shows that the quickening is through FAITH:

"In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses" Colossians 2:2.

There is first a dying by being crucified with Christ, then a resurrection into newness of life through faith.

"But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name." John 20:31

if believing is required to have life, why do you deny it? this is a simple question, but you won't come to terms with it. dead means unable to have fellowship with God, or to know God. it means the spiritual part of man which contacts God is dead. when a person believes, they receive new life. you cannot get around this verse. regeneration purifies the heart, but the bible says that faith purifies the heart. you cannot dance around these scriptures at will.

"And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith."

"For though ye have ten thousand instructers in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel."


"Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever."

any philosophy which contradicts these plain scriptures must be wrong, however reasonable and good it sounds
Zion Seeker