Q. What is the bearing of the new birth in John 3:3-63Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 4Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? 5Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (John 3:3‑6), as compared with eternal life (ver. 15, 16, &c.)? What of the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost in Titus 3? of the renewing in Eph. 4, Col. 3, and of similar expressions in 1 Peter 1, James 1, as well as Matt. 19:2828And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matthew 19:28)? Has it to do with baptism, as many suppose in John 3? and what of John 6? And how do the Old Testament saints stand related to all this? How the future calling in the last days, and millennial saints?
A. It is to be remarked that in John 3, not eternal life but simply the kingdom of God is connected with being born again: this is necessary for it. We get a nature suited to have to say to God in whatever way. It is the Spirit's work—a nature capable of knowing Him. Eternal life is connected with heavenly things, and the lifting up of the Son of man, who is Son of God. This shows us what eternal life is. It is wholly in Christ (comp. 1 John), and to us through the incarnation and necessarily also the death of the Lord Jesus. (Comp. John 6:35-5835And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. 36But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not. 37All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. 38For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. 39And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. 40And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. 41The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. 42And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? 43Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. 44No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. 45It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. 46Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. 47Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. 48I am that bread of life. 49Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. 51I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. 52The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? 53Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. 54Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. 57As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. 58This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. (John 6:35‑58).) It is in Him and promised to us before the world was, but brought into man by the incarnation (for He was in heaven), and we into its place and condition through His blessed death, resurrection, and ascension. (Compare John 6:6262What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? (John 6:62)) The bread from heaven is Christ. Then we come into its own proper place by redemption and in resurrection; for redemption in the full sense brings us into heaven. No doubt every blessing wants it for sinful man; but as the proper fruit and result of redemption, heavenly things are connected. Eternal life knows no other place—in Christ thus, who was and is eternal life. Here He, the Son of man, was in heaven. There may be condemnation by rejection here, but entrance into that to which Christ belongs involves for us redemption, death, and resurrection. This in its great principle of application is reasoned out in Rom. 4-8.
Further, we have the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace we should be heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The ἀνακαίνςσις of the Holy Ghost is not merely regeneration or a new life It is objective—bringing into the sphere we are introduced into by Christ and redemption, the καινά or new state of things (καινἢ κτίσις). Regeneration is more subjective, essential but subjective, and in application does not, that I see, go beyond earthly things, but earthly things with God—the desert now (not Canaan), and the desert to blossom as a rose, but not Canaan. So in 1 Peter 1:22, 2322Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: 23Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. (1 Peter 1:22‑23), it is subjective:” Ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth.... being born again... by the word.” No doubt, heaven is here full in hope; but the regeneration, the being horn again, is subjective condition. The strongest point of connection (for that is what it is) is in James 1
18. But it does not in fact reach out of the sphere down here, though the root of nature for that according to the purpose of God. In Peter it is ἀναγέννησις. In Matt. 19:2828And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matthew 19:28), the παλιγγενεσία is clearly earthly and a state of things. So that what I get in regeneration is a subjective state, born of God, of the Spirit, of water, of the word, and, as a sphere, merely so far on earth, only the foundation of relationship with God. But the Spirit as shed on us (Titus 3) goes farther. Here I have an ἀνακαίνωσις of the Holy Ghost. The whole sphere of relationship is changed, and the hope of eternal life comes in. So in Colossians and Ephesians. The παλαιὸς ἆνθρωπος is put off. This is general—the former man now grown old and rejected; but then we have distinctly the νέον and the καινόν. Here νέον, is connected with regeneration and subjective; καινὀν, new in nature and character and brought into a new sphere—its relationships are in question. N έος begins; κιωός is different, and so lives in a new sphere. Thus, in Colossians, we have put on the new; it is a new man now beginning, but it is ἀνακαινούμενον into knowledge according to the image of Him that created it. This is the renewing of the Holy Ghost shed on us, ἀνακαίνωσις. The nature is proper and capable, but it is in a wholly new scene, and there developer in power. In Eph. 4 we are ἀνανεοῦςθαι in the spirit of our minds. This is subjective again in contrast with the corrupt old man (what it is), and we have put on the καινὸν ἆνθρωπον, one new in character, different, created according to God in righteousness and holiness; neither corrupt, nor innocent, but according to the character of God Himself. The sphere is not entered into. The apostle had largely done this, and his object here is character: still it is objective, κατά. The washing of regeneration cleanses subjectively; and what is born of the Spirit is spirit, has its essential nature and characteristics; but the renewing of the Holy Ghost leads us into the whole sphere of that new state of things into which Christ has entered as risen and now gone up on high. It is shed on us through Jesus Christ. And though we must be born to have life and have life if born, yet eternal life is only known in redemption and the scene and state into which redemption brings us. Hence, though we have put on the new man (καινόν) in putting on the risen Christ, yet there is an ἀνακαίνωσις through the Holy Ghost in bringing us into the apprehension of the καινὴ κτίσις where πάνα κανά.
In John 3 water is in no way baptism. Baptism is death, as is evident—my purifying, having done with the nature in which I lived. The water came out of Christ's pierced side; and life is in the Son, the second man, and that consequent on death as come amongst the first. Therefore, it is said there, God has given to us eternal life, and as the water and blood through death testify it to be in the second risen One, Son of God, so the Holy Ghost is a witness of it. Here again we have what eternal life is. But the water, though really purifying—the application of the word, yet is here only by birth, not death and resurrection, as in baptism, and goes only to the kingdom. “Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken to you—a new nature and moral effect that was produced and must be by John 3; but the sphere did not thereby go out of the world: by death and resurrection it clearly does. But the Son of man coming in, in the power of that which was before the world, and then dying and rising, introduces into the καινὴ κτίσις. He abode alone while here, but by redemption and being in Him we have our place there, and to this the Holy Ghost corresponds.
The Old Testament saints will clearly have been born again and have the kingdom. They, as everyone else blessed, are dependent on the work of Christ as propitiation (as in Rom. 3). But there is more in the cross. It is not the blood on the doorposts the blessed Lord referred to in John 3 There is the recognition of the world having no place, though God may be with us in it, not as in Egypt, but the world recognized as a place of Satan's power; and so Christ, proving it, lifted up out of it. While He was in it consequently, He was alone; men were of it. And though born again, they got the kingdom, here was more. He, Christ, was alone in His person that eternal life which was with the Father and was alone such in the world. Hence the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, the Son of man who is in heaven (who else was there, or even had ascended?) He was this alone. He came, eternal life into this world, but was alone in the out-of-the-world heavenly condition of relationship and being in which eternal life consists: which was before the world, not only in God, but in counsel for us, given us in Christ, manifested in Him alone in the world, and now, consequent on His being lifted up and gone out of it into the heavenly place of which He brought word, that into which we are introduced in Him.
Now in John 6 we have this brought out; not the blessed Lord's death as offered to God, the one ground of all blessing, but the reception of it or entering into it by man. He is the manna, the bread which came down from heaven—was not of this world, though in it and born of woman. This is expressly stated in John 17 and carried on to the disciples. It is life to the world, Jew and Gentile all merged in sin, in nature, and so children of wrath; and here Ephesians joins in chapter 2. We are then quickened together with Christ, and set in Him in the heavenly places. But in John 6 we have the process in the apprehension and reception of Christ, the digesting by faith into the life of our own being. He is first the bread which came down from heaven to give life. But so only, though really such in power, He remains alone. We have it only in resurrection, a new life and condition of man, because in nature he was away from God, in nature and wrath—a condition entirely away from God, yea, in enmity. Hence, in receiving this life, we enter into the expression of this (and that in our conscience) in Christ's death and resurrection. We are rejoiced to have a part in death, because it is death to the nature and system estranged from God, and have life only in the new condition in Christ. It was in Him in this world, not in the old condition of life, though entered into it—come down from heaven. But we have it who were of that condition by being delivered out of it, having wholly done with it by death, ceased to exist as to it and entered as receiving Him dead into the new place.
But John 6 takes up, not our entering, though we receive Christ for it, but the full reception by faith of His dying in grace. So that, divinely for faith, the life-giving One separates us by death and atoning redemption, but here in the power of separation absolute and judicial, from the old: not leaving it, which He could have done (and so no use for us), but dying to it. He is so in that which was needed for man as coming under that judicially, and man's ceasing to have to say to it in the only possible way; because we were alive in the nature which made it such: death only could end that (besides the putting away of sins). Hence we have eternal life through it, in due time the form of it in that we shall be raised again and conformed to Him where He is gone; but it is not our dying with Him here, though that he true, but our full entering into His doing it in grace—giving Himself in flesh for the life of the world. And this belongs to the character of life He had with the Father before the world was; for He ascends up where He was before. Nor is there any full truth as to what man is, or God (in respect of man), or the world, so as to be with God according to the power of Christ's work, but by this. He gave Himself for our sins that He might deliver us from this present evil world: that (though the truth) is its lowest expression; for He brings us to God according to all God's judgment of good and evil as glorified in Christ in His death (and so taking man to Him, and making him the vessel of the revelation of what He is). Whoever believes in Him has this life: but it is only by His death and bloodshedding he has it. The Word has been made flesh that it might be thus.
To guard against false conclusions from this as to the term “eternal life,” we must remember that the spared Gentiles of Matt. 25 go away into it. Still even there it is those who have received Christ in His humiliation in His messengers, and will have had share in the sorrow of a Christ the world rejects. (So the hundred and forty-four thousand of Rev. 14, and the great multitude of chapter 7, though the matter be not there in hand.)
In John 6 we have One in whom is eternal life in nature and being, always in the bosom of the Father, living here, coming down and bringing this new heavenly thing, and dying, giving Himself even to death to close the old thing and set it aside, so as to make an end of that and introduce us into the pure glory into which He is entered according to the worth of that which He has wrought. He has taken flesh, eternal life being in Him, and given it for the life of the world. It is the death we enter and receive in our souls, so as to have a part in the eternal life in Him.
Hence, in the sacraments (so-called), figures of this, the first, baptism, has no connection with union with Christ in its signification; the second has. “We are all one bread, one body, being partakers of that one bread.” Yet it is not so, as that in itself we are thus one with Christ therein even in figure; but we arc all one out of the world as united to Him. This union with the Head is by the Holy Ghost—another truth founded on the ascension, yet supposing His death. Being so united we return to see how it all came in, and we own death, not union. In one sense death goes deeper than union, because all God's moral nature is made good and glorified in it, and the question of sin settled. Union is a special privilege of ours. In a word Christ is eternal life with the Father, becomes man, and dies, setting aside for us the whole condition of man with God in the world, and thus takes man up into the new glory purposed of which He was thus worthy.