More Explanation of the Meaning of "Born of the Spirit"      The totality of scriptures screams out truth to no avail for many theologians, who teach, unabashedly, year after year, the errors which, they, themselves, have been taught. A particularly dangerous lie, because it strikes at the very core of who we are as Christians, says that Adam already had been given a living self-aware spirit, which was corrupted when he sinned. It also says that the redemptive Spirit of Christ regenerates that corrupt spirit through the new birth. The problem with this teaching, however, is that I cannot find a single scripture which supports this train of thought. Genesis 3:22 would make no sense if this were true. If this were true, why couldn't the angels, who sinned, confess Christ too and receive this makeover? However, nowhere does the bible indicate that a corrupted fully self-aware spirit can be made okay again, by receiving a retread from God. (Okay, granted, some put a different twist on this line of reasoning, by saying God completely removes the old spirit and gives us a completely new one.) Once again, this is not supported by scripture. The bible makes it very clear that every fully formed self-aware spiritual being (angels), who sins, finds no recourse, and eventually winds up in hell. How could God have one recourse for part of his creation without providing the same opportunity for others of His creation, the angels? The answer is that He doesn't. Angels are held to a much higher standard because they are spiritual beings. Adam was made much lower than the angels. He was only made a living soul the bible says. His spirit couldn't sin because it had not been born yet. Adam was not a fully formed self-aware spirit at his creation and neither were you. He received only the spiritual breath of God, which could either unit with the tree of life, or the spirit of Christ, to become that fully self-ware spiritual personage. The tree of life had no ability to redeem. The Spirit of Christ did. If the spirit of a person has not been born yet, it can't sin. Therefore, when Adam committed the first sin, his spirit did not participate, because it couldn’t.      Here is another fact. Adam's first sin was a sin of the soul, affecting him and the plight of this natural world alone. It affected nothing in heaven. When a spiritual Satan sinned, he affected the entire kingdom of heaven. That's a sin which cannot be undone. here is the big question. Is the reader going to believe what the bible says, or are you going to chose to believe what others say about the bible? The bible clearly explains that God originally placed Adam in this lower state of existence. The bible also makes it clear that it was God’s plan, all along, for mankind to become God's eternal offspring. However, to do that, God also realized that He needed to protect His offspring from sin. God protected mankind by creating a temporary cosmos, and by making Adam a little lower than the angels. He gave him a living self aware soul to navigate this lower state of being (natural world). Nowhere, however, does the bible say that Adam was given a living self aware spirit.  After his creation, Adam was given a choice by God. He could partake of the tree of life which would have given birth to an eternal self aware spirit. He could also chose to sin against God and partake of the tree of good and evil. God knew what Adam would do long before he did what he did. He had already provided a way of escape through His Son, Jesus Christ, before the foundations of the cosmos were ever laid. Adam's soul sinned but he couldn't sin in spirit because that spirit had not yet been born. It is Christ's spirit, united with our human spirit (the breath of God), which causes us to become "born of the Spirit" and thus become the children of God, himself. (2 Corinthians 5:17) That new creature is shielded from the ultimate consequence of all sin, past, present, and future. After Adam sinned, future generations were now presented with a choice which was not available to the angels. We can either confess Jesus Christ as Lord of all and become born of the spirit or reject Him and spend an eternity in hell. The consequences of sin, however, still affect greatly God's creation here on earth and can still affect even a believer's body and soul, while living here on this earth.      I realize that most Christians are not willing to spend the time to digest what I have just said. Neither could I, until the Holy Spirit revealed it to me. Here’s one last thought. Christian, before you brush” aside what I have just said by declaring it a non-essential truth, I beg you to reconsider. This is not a non-essential truth. Its truths like this which have remarkably changed my life for the better, and no, I cannot always figure out the connections, but I do know that this is an essential truth for this life here on this earth. If you want to win all the time, every time, in this world, then it is very important to start with knowing foundational truths and this is one of the most basic essential truths of all God's truths.