Re: Left, Right, Dylan & War

Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 11:34:15 +0000 (UTC)
Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan
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"Delia" <email-address-deleted> wrote in message
news:prD5a.191693$SD6.9885@sccrnsc03...
>
> > >
> > > What is being "born again" if it is not the exchange of the "old Adam"
> with
> > > the new?
> >
> > I think that's exactly right. That is the Christian message, as told
> > by every Christian since Jesus, including Dylan. But maybe Delia's
> > right too. Because it's the putting to death of the old Adam that is
> > required, as well as the birth of the new nature, the Christ nature.
> > So human nature in the sense of the old Adam just has to die, it can't
> > reform. And a new "nature", dead to sin but alive to God, has to be
> > born. Then there is a change, or rather a new creation.
You're completely on the money here!
> Preacher was a talkin' there's a sermon he gave,
> He said every man's conscience is vile and depraved,
> You cannot depend on it to be your guide
> When it's you who must keep it satisfied.
>
> Human nature remains degenerate even when saved. Even the soul who has
> been reborn to Christ lives in the old defiled world and is subject to the
> old temptations and snares, as all the old authorities knew. John
Calvin's
> last words were "I am a miserable sinner." In French of course.
>
But the word in the song is "conscience" not nature.
I am more inclined here to quote a more pertinent Dylan lyric on the
subject - the astonishingly titled (given this debate) Ye Shall Be
Changed...
Ye shall be changed, ye shall be changed
In a twinkling of an eye, when the last trumpet blows
The dead will arise and burst out of your cloths
And ye shall be changed
There is a new Nature waiting to be born - which will mean an end to
troubles, war and hatred and a New Jerusalem of peace, mercy and Love.
By the way, Calvin might well say that - he probably realised that all his
bunk about predestination and the elect was the work of the devil and not
God!
> It's the new-fangled philosophies, like Marxism or behaviorism, that
thought
> they could remake human nature.
That's exactly right - and they were wrong because they relied on a
materialist view of creation and did not take into account the world of the
Spirit, the only route through which degenerate man can be transformed into
what Blake called The Human Divine.