(…continues from part two…)

3)            I remember a very long time ago, in the seventies to be precise, when I attended Apostolic Faith Church’s annual retreat at the Anthony Village Headquarters, Lagos; and after the retreat we were going back to Ibadan in the vehicle that brought us to the camping site. I sneezed a couple of times just like I am wont to. One woman wondered why I was sneezing again and again. A girl simply said, in Yoruba, “Kò tí ì nígbàlà” meaning, “He is yet to be saved – born again.” You need to be there to see the sorrowful looks I got from the women in the vehicle. You see how people just arrive at a conclusion that is absolutely far from the truth? This year, 2026, five decades after, I still sneeze many times as I did about seventy years ago as a new born baby, I believe. I have been born again more than three decades past.

She saw me sneezed, yes of course, did she enquire from the Holy Spirit whether the cold symptom was as a result of an unregenerate soul? Of course, she did not. Remember they asked Jesus, “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” According to the Lord’s answer, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents.” If anyone had judged either him or his parents to be the cause of his blindness, would he not have uttered an unrighteous judgment, certainly, he would have called God, Who knows otherwise, “Liar!” and this is how dangerous it is to render an unrighteous judgment.

One pastor friend of mine asked me, “You say your Pastor is a man of God but he is sporting jerry curls, does the wearing of jerry curls meet scriptural ethicality for a Christian and especially a pastor, for that matter?” I looked at my friend and pitied his ignorance. The same pastor believes that once saved is not always saved meaning that the born again Christian may lose his salvation, as a matter of unscriptural facticity of Arminianism. When I asked him to give me a Scripture proving that Christian salvation is prone to loss, he quoted 2Timothy 4:10 “For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.” Many pastors believe that one sin after having born again makes one to lose salvation, simply because the said Christian ceases to be righteous before God.

Can there be a true breach of righteousness in Christianity? A good study of Scripture points abundantly otherwise. That which makes one a born again Christian – child of God – is never earned as a result of an individual’s righteousness. It is strictly a Divine gift after one has genuinely accepted the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It says, 27) “Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. 28) Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:27-28). Paul also wrote in Galatians 3:2-3 2) “This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3) Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” What makes a Christian different is his righteousness, not of works, but of the eternality of Divine donation.

“all our righteousnesses [are] as filthy rags” Isaiah 64:6

Does a Christian dwell in righteousness by his good deeds? Philippians 3:9 “And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:” shows clearly that my human righteousness cannot account for the soteriological quiddity. Romans 5:21 says, “That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” Can we not see very clearly that the righteousness question has been theologically met in Christ Jesus? The Book of John explicitly told us in the verse that happens to be the microcosm of the entire Bible that on account of the love God showered on those who believe in the finished work the sanguineous Golgotha, He gave to us what is called eternal life.

To get born again, say, believing every word of it, this prayer:

“Dear heavenly Father, I come to You now in the name of Jesus Christ. I believe in my heart that Jesus is the Son of God. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sin. I believe that You raised Him from the dead. I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and I receive Him now as my Lord and my Saviour. I give God all the glory. Amen!”

(…to be concluded…)

Read part two here

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