If a gardener wishes to prove the worth of the apples on a given tree, he does not gather for a sample a withered apple, nor a worm-eaten one. He plucks the largest, the ripest, and the best! Then when he has tasted it, and has found it to be sour and unacceptable, he rightly judges the whole crop of that tree to be sour and worthless.
So has He who is the Truth, the blessed Son of God, judged and condemned what is in man, Adam's offspring. This we learn when He said to law-keeping, religious Nicodemus: "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”
Not one bad thing do we hear of Nicodemus in the Bible. He was not a sinner of the Gentiles, like the wicked Corinthians. Neither was he a Samaritan, like the sinful woman of Sychar. He was a teacher of Israel, the chosen nation of pure creed and strict orthodoxy. Moreover, being a circumcised man, Nicodemus was outwardly separated to God in his flesh. More than this, Nicodemus believed that Jesus was a teacher come from God, and he came to learn of Him. And yet the only teaching this model man received from the lips of eternal Truth is his own exclusion from the kingdom of God because of his sinful nature.
This surpassing specimen of Adam's fruit is pronounced worthless, unfit for God. Yes, there must be a new nature, another life altogether distinct from that which man receives from his natural parents, or man cannot enter the kingdom of God. Adam and his race are flesh, of the earth. God will only have in His kingdom what is born of His Spirit—born from above.
And where is this new nature to be found? Who is He from whom men can receive another life? Ah, it is from that very Ma& who says to Nicodemus, "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”
How can that Holy One impart His life to sinful man? Hear Him as He unfolds the wondrous tidings of love to perishing souls: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:14, 1514And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 15That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:14‑15).
He Himself, God's Son, will bear the judgment of God due to man. He Himself must be nailed to the cross—LIFTED UP—in order that He may give His own eternal life to whosoever believeth in Him.
Thus is man born of God by acceptance and faith in His crucified Son. And thus he lives to God, a new man, in Christ, risen from the dead.
Reader, do you believe this truth concerning your sinful nature? Have you found life in the Second Man—the last Adam—who, as Son of man, was lifted up on the cross, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life?