30. “J. L.,” Old Cumnock. The words in our June number, page 166, “walking in the flesh,” were used in the sense of walking disorderly. (2 Thess. 3:11.) It is quite true we are reckoned dead, and, as to our standing before God, we are not in the flesh. (Rom. 6:11; 8:9.) It is blessed to know our acceptance in Christ wholly in the new creation. But it would be a great mistake to suppose the flesh is not in us. And we need being kept every moment by the power of God. The moment we allow it, or walk after it, we find, to our deep sorrow, it is sin. You will find the apostle uses the expression in 2 Cor. 10:2, 3, though the charge was false as to him. If the flesh is allowed, if it acts, it is still the law of sin—yes, as bad as ever, though we have found deliverance in Christ. “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” (Rom. 7:25.) May we ever remember the words of warning: “I say, then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” (Gal. 5:16.)
31. “R. S.,” Northumberland. We judge that carelessness in parents as to where their children go, is a sign of a bad state of soul. If the Israelites were to instruct their children so carefully, both as to their redemption from Egypt, and the passage of the Jordan into the land, how much more diligent ought we to be instructing our children in the eternal realities of redemption, and our present entrance by faith into the heavenlies in Christ! What grace is needed for this! But to allow our children, whilst they are at home and under our care, to go where the eternal character of redemption is set aside, and thus expose them to unbelief and confusion, is the very opposite of the teaching of the word of God. “And ye, fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” We must, however, be very careful that the obedience we inculcate should be in the Lord, truly according to His mind. The word to them is, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right.” Just as it would be wrong to obey, if a heathen parent commanded a child to go and worship idols.
In these matters, then, it is all-important that parents are assured that the obedience they require is in the Lord, especially in this day of increasing infidelity and superstition. We feel we have all much cause for humiliation in these matters.
Matt. 26:36 may help us to understand verse 45. It is most touching. “Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.” Yes, full well did He know the contrast expressed in these few words. How His heart longed that we might rest—“Sit ye here.” But, oh, to Him yonder! What He had to meet for us. And yet as man He felt the need of sympathy. “And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee.” Then He went a little further, and fell on His face, etc. What a scene! But they were heavy with sleep. When He came the third time, it was as though He had said, Yes, I must meet it all, and bear it all, alone: “Sleep on now, and take your rest.” It was not that He intended them to remain asleep. There was a gentle reproof, and the deep consciousness of what His soul was now to puss through. The moment had come. “Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me.” All this shows what He truly felt as man.
Your third question, What is the meaning of the word, “water,” in John 3:5?—there would be no difficulty in this, were it not for the mistaken notion that the Lord was speaking of baptism. What would Nicodemus understand it to mean? From its constant use in the varied washings of the law. water signified that nothing unholy or defiled was suited to God. Now for man to be suited to God, he must not be merely washed, like the purifyings of the law, but he must be born of it—that is, have an entirely new, holy, undefiled nature. And indeed this had been promised in Eze. 36 Nicodemus ought to have known this. To us it is the new creation, pure and holy. Thus the new birth answers to the holy requirements of God, as set forth in the washings of water. Now it is the washing of water by the word. But we are not children of God by water, or baptism, but “by faith in Christ Jesus.” (See Gal. 3:26.) All the purifyings of the law failed—the purity of the new creation can never fail, as it is wholly of God.
We must, therefore, understand, the words, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,” in contrast with all the washings of the flesh in water, or baptisms of the law. That dispensation must be laid aside. Man must be born entirely anew. It is not, however, water that the Spirit uses to effect this new birth, but plainly the word. (See 1 Pet. 1:22.) “Being born again,.... by the word of God.” (Also Jas. 1:18.)