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OK, Nicodemus.......

We are spiritually dead. While we are alive physically for a time, that does not give us spiritual life. In order to have spiritual life, we have to be born spiritually, just as we have to be born physically to have physical life.

The spiritual is reality just as the physical is, albeit, undetectable by our physical senses because we are dead to it. When we are in reality born by the Spirit in the spiritual realm, then we have the ability to perceive the reality of it. The spiritual birth is a reality, not a metaphor.

John 3

1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’

2 Corinthians 4:17-18

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.