"The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 'Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words.' So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Then the word of the LORD came to me:" - Jeremiah 18:1-5 ESV
This is a fundamental truth about mankind and fallen systems. Jeremiah needed to see this before he could hear and understand Israel's provision to communicate that provision to them.
Are people fundamentally good and they just need training and occasional mending and healing or are they broken beyond repair and they need a rebirth?
I read the Bible and see the cross as 'an engine of transformation' because it evaporates my humanity and then I am condensed again in the resurrection. That process allows for purity and the cyclical removal of impurities.
I see philosophies and theologies that teach that man is good and doesn't need to be remade and they look good on paper but do they work in practice? No. Not for the vast majority of humanity and the Christian God can't fellowship with anything but absolute uncompromised holiness and purity.
Don't fall for the, 'Wash, rinse and repeat.' advice given by well meaning but false teachers. It isn't spiritual. They aren't hearing from God. They are warmed by their own faulty fleeting fire of a natural idea.
God remakes men.
"Jesus answered him, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.' " - John 3:3 ESV
Rebirth solves a fundamental issue.
"Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ! - assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." - Ephesians 4:17-32 ESV
This isn't a 'look at examples of good people and be like them' theology. This is the exchanged life based on a rebirth.
"And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:" - Colossians 3:10 KJV
A new person can have a healthy self-image in honesty. The old man is slowly being poisoned by things that can only be purged by the cross.
I look to God and declare by faith that practical newness can happen today. I ask Him to fill me with His Holy Spirit and let the evaporation of the cross work on me. Jesus was raised on the third day and you and I are raised with Him. His identity is intertwined with our view of ourselves and we can hear what God's wants to communicate because we agree with Him about a fundamental truth about the nature of our relationship with Him.
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