<TITLE>23. Par 234-244</TITLE>L-234 What is the new Birth then? You'd say, "Well, Brother Branham, what is the new Birth?" It is the revelation of Jesus Christ personally to you. Amen! See? Not you joined a church, you shook a hand, you done something different, you said a creed, you promised to live by a--a code of rules. But Christ, the Bible, He is the Word that was revealed to you. And no matter what anybody says, what takes place, it's Christ; pastor, priest, whatever it might be. It's Christ in you, that is the revelation that the Church was built upon.

L-235   You say, "Well, I'm a Lutheran. I'm a Baptist. I'm Presbyterian." That don't mean one, don't mean [Brother Branham snaps his finger--Ed.] that to God, not a thing, not a snap of your finger.

L-236 What is it? It's Christ being revealed, and He is the Word. And when the Word is revealed, It expresses Itself. See? That's God's purpose for Jesus Christ, was to express Himself, to take His Own laws and live by His laws, con-... and fulfill His law, by death. And Christ, God, died in flesh, in order to condemn sin in the flesh, that He might bring to Himself a glorious Bride, redeemed back, that will believe only in the Word of God; and not swap It, like Eve did, for intellectual conceptions of man. You see it? That's Christ's idea. That's God's idea. The new Birth reveals this.

L-237   And if a man says he is born again, and try to place these promises of Christ, in this last days, to some other age, making Him Christ yesterday but not today, then that man or that person has been in a--a delusion by Satan. And if that man says that he believes That, and it doesn't manifest itself through him?

L-238 Jesus said, in Mark 16, "These signs shall follow them that believe; into all the world, and to every age." Casting out devils, and speaking with tongues, and--and all these great manifestations of gifts that would follow, that, "they shall!" Not, "they may be; they ought to." "They will!" And heavens and earth will pass away, but His Word won't.

L-239   So it's Christ expressing Himself in the individual, whether he's intellectual or whether he's--he don't know his ABC's. Half the apostles didn't know it, see, but they knowed Christ. They never taken heed to Peter and John, knowing that they had been out of some seminary. They said, "They taken heed and noticed that they had been with Christ," when they healed the lame man, see, at the gate. They knowed they--they had been with Christ.

L-240   The new Birth is Christ, is the revelation. God has revealed to you this great mystery, and that's a new Birth. Now what are you going to do when you get all that group together, where the revelation is perfectly in harmony, and God expressing it through His Word by the same actions, the same things that He did, making the Word manifest! Oh, if the Church only knew its position! It will, one day. Then, the Rapture will go when it knows what it is. Now notice.

L-241 You say, "Brother Branham, but that--that ain't..." Oh, yes, it is, too. It is the Truth.

L-242   Did you notice? Paul never knew Jesus, physically. Paul never knew Him. The only way that Paul knew Him was by a revelation, by a vision. Is that right? [Congregation says, "Amen."--Ed.] Paul only knew Jesus by the revelation, just like Peter did.

L-243 Peter had seen Him in flesh, but he didn't know Him by flesh, 'cause Jesus said so. "Flesh and blood didn't reveal it to you. Even My Own life didn't reveal it to you. But My Father which is in Heaven has revealed the thing to you, that He is the Word of God, and upon this rock I'll build My Church." Peter didn't know Him by flesh. Man walked, and handled Him, and everything else.

L-244   Paul had something greater than any of the apostles did. See?


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