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And we sing hymn #330.
In 330.
And I lost.
Learning where I am.
I guess we pick up with verse 8.
How far a time would you like to eat down, please, Steve?
The same again.
Perhaps we could.
Read down verse 21 This time.
John's Gospel chapter 3, beginning at verse 8.
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whether it goeth? So is everyone that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him.
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Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily I say unto thee, we speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen, and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?
And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man, which is in heaven.
And 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. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal, but have everlasting life.
For God send not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him.
Might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he had not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness.
Rather than light because their deeds were evil.
For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that adoreth truth, how much to delight that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
We are starting in verse 8 here.
Taking up more details on the question of what it means to be born of the Spirit. So before we do that, I have a question about born of water. I agree fully with the answer that was given this morning of what it means, but what would you say to someone who thinks that being born of water would have a reference to Baptists?
Thank you, Rob. I was just going to bring that up. I have had people tell me that that's exactly what it means, that this is speaking about being baptized and receiving the Spirit. And then they go to Acts chapter 2 where Peter speaks on the day of Pentecost and says to those who were pricked in their conscience, he says repent and be baptized for the remission of sins and you shall receive the Holy Spirit.
And they say, so you see, it's the same thing. And this is how a person, the way they say it usually is, would get salvation. And of course, we're going to see us not talking about salvation. It's new birth. There's a difference. I think we're going to take that up as we go through here.
But that's not speaking about baptism, it is speaking about what Bruce brought before us in the earlier meeting.
From first Peter chapter one, you remember he gave us that verse at the end of the chapter that says being born again by the word of God, that liveth and abideth forever and the word of God. Bruce mentioned I'm just repeating little of what he said is connected with water in the word of God. Ephesians 5 for instance. Christ loved the church and gave himself for it and that he might.
Sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water.
By the Word, very clear example as to how water is used to connect with the word in that passage in Ephesians chapter 5. And so this is speaking about exactly what we were saying earlier. It's the Spirit of God that first begins at work by sanctifying a person. You have that in first Peter one as well, and then taking the word of God to produce life where there was none before.
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But the whole thing is by the will of God, and that's how we know that this can't be baptism is so important that we get hold of what Steven said at the beginning of a meeting and I just want to go back to it. John, chapter one.
Where it says there.
Verse 13 Which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
If something about being born again had to do with me getting baptized, and I would have something to do with it. But John starts right out, as Brother Steven said, making it clear that my will has nothing to do with it. It's totally the will of God.
And if we understand that, we won't get the wrong idea by introducing a thought like baptism. So I know there's some here who may have friends or maybe colleagues at work who believe this, and it might be helpful to give them an answer from the Scripture. It's important. This is speaking about the will of God only here.
Doctrine of baptism is hopefully described in Romans chapter 6.
New birth is the beginning of life.
Baptism points us to death in Romans 6 verse three. Really not that so many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ, were baptized unto his death. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism unto death, That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, Even so we also should walk in newness of life, and so on.
So the waters of baptism.
Bring before us death and coming up out of the water resurrection and taking our place in Christ and in first Peter chapter 3 this passage that mystifies people often, but at the end of verse twenty of first Peter 3 speaking about the days of Noah while the ark was a preparing first Peter 320 wherein few that is 8 souls were saved.
Through water it should read the like figure, where unto even baptism doth also now save us. Not the footing away of the filth of the flesh, as people wrongly interpret John three, but the answer of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So again, baptism doesn't save a soul, but it's the picture of that which does. It puts us into a new place.
In Christ on the other side of death, in that new life, it's not not the subject of John 3.
Sorry, sorry. It's full though.
Over Northern Ireland, who were saved through the instrumentality of the Salvation Army, and they realized that.
Our following conversion, they should be baptized. They were baptized and.
This couple were.
Quite limited in their scope of the English language. They could speak, but they could not read. And the husband said to his wife.
I'd like you to make a uniform like that brother that baptized me. And the wife said I certainly will. And she made the uniform and when he went to put it on he said something is missing.
They have words on the uniform and.
They didn't weren't able to read those words so.
The wife said to her husband, you go out on the street, go up and down the street, and if you see any words, write those words on a piece of paper and I will embroidery those words on the uniform and so.
He came back with the words under new management and so it was very appropriate and a picture of what baptism is an active identification.
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Christian baptism is.
Entirely different to the baptism that John the Baptist preached. He was the forerunner of the Lord Jesus and.
He preached the baptism of of remission of sins and has been mentioned has been mentioned. Going down into the waters was an expression that they were worthy of death and.
John preached not the gospel of the grace of God, but the gospel of the Kingdom and people who who submitted to that.
Ordinance.
Took upon them, they took the responsibility of their sins, and it was a baptism unto repentance.
Christian baptism. It is placing the name of Christ on the individual.
The Scripture in Ecclesiastes 11.
That's connected, I think with our chapter, or at least illustrative of what we have. Ecclesiastes 11/5 as thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her, that is with child. Even so, thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.
And so our verse where we started the wind bloweth where it listeth. Now here's the sound thereof, but can't not tell once it cometh and whither it going. So is everyone that is born of the Spirit, Jew or Gentile. We don't know the how of these things. God tells us it's by the Spirit and the Word. How? We don't know, but we see the effects. You can't actually see the wind. We say I see the wind out there. What do you see? You see trees moving.
You see leaves blowing around, you see something like that. You don't have to see the wind, you can see its effect and so.
One who is born of God sees things themselves they never saw before because they have a new capacity, a new life. And that's really what new birth is. It's a capacity for things that there was never a capacity for before, a capacity to know God, to enjoy the things of God, to desire the things of God.
Outwardly, from our point of view, we can see the movement too. There's something new that's happening there. How? We don't know how. We don't know how it happened, but we see the effect. We see the effect of new birth and a soul. And so we don't know all the insurance and outs of it, but we do see the effect.
Someone has someone questioned the person that was flying a kite, can you see the wind? And he said no, but I can feel.
The tug on this on the string.
You can see the effect in Nicodemus in verse 9.
No longer.
Like so outspoken as he was in verse four, How can a man be born when he's old? Almost goes a bit far in saying that. Can he enter the second time and his mother swoon and be born? Well, now the effect is working on him. How can these things be much softer now, isn't he?
We can see the process, and I believe it's important to understand the process before we can ask the questions. So we just were told about baptism. Well, you were just learned to see and understand. How can you be baptized? And now we see that light was given in a sense to Nicodemus. Nicodemus, so we can see. So a natural man will never understand the word of God.
It has to be through the help of the Spirit of God. These are not uncommon questions because they see it from a different perspective. I had a four year old asked me not long ago, in fact couple weeks ago, he was saved after a gospel meeting. And at first I thought, well, a four year old could be just mimicking what was said. And then a few days afterward, actually a couple of weeks afterwards, he said to me, I don't think I'm born again.
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I said to him, why do you not think so? He said I didn't become a baby again. Now you might smile at that and say he didn't understand. He didn't, but he is thinking and it's good that we took the word of God and exercise that in our heart because the Spirit of God is the one that will make that good to our soul. So once we see this, now the person is responsible.
You know, if you go to Acts, I think the 10th chapter with Cornelius, how did the Gentile like Cornelius got saved? Well, it doesn't say much about it, but it tells us that he was a pious person who was devout to God. So we find that God is the one that has worked in the hearts all along. Before the Holy Spirit was was a place upon them. So it's the work of God that makes all this good to our hearts. So in the following few.
Verses it goes on to explain to us what is eternal life.
What is everlasting life? And without that, you can see, you can hear. If I may, I'll bear one more example. Some of you may notice that I wear a hearing aid. Oh, you probably don't notice because it's hard to see. And you know, for a long time I couldn't understand why I have trouble with the English language, especially when it comes to the essay. Then I got my hearing checked.
What I hear, just like you folks would.
For the special assessment, you said you've been blessed. I go, how is that? He said you lost a high frequency spectrum. I said, that's being blessed. He said, yeah, you can't hear woman's voice as well. Well, with the new hearing aid on, it gave me a new sense of hearing. Now you hear something that you never thought before when you laugh at this. I said to my wife one day, I said, what is that noise? And they all look at me and say what are you talking about?
I said there is that noise, I don't know what it is. It turned out that it was the bacon sizzling, but I heard bacon sizzle all my life, but assures on the different when you didn't hear the higher frequency. So this is what the word of God helps us to understand that God has as if it were for the news that the hearing aids on you or perhaps use the example a new set of glasses so that you can now see.
Does that save your soul? No, not yet.
You have to see the way of God.
If we read, Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee.
Except a man be born of the word.
And of the Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
And the Lord was saying to Nicodemus, You must be born again.
And he couldn't receive that. He couldn't, He couldn't figure that out. So it's plain to see that he wasn't receiving the word of God. You know, and I thought of that verse in Hebrews 11 where it says in verse 21, I think it is.
No, it's not Hebrews 11. It's where it speaks about DVD grafted word.
Well, James. James isn't. I'm sorry, James One.
Yes, change.
One and 21 wherefore they apart filthiness to include the naughtiness, receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your soul. Now the entrafted word is I receive what the Lord said I receive that just on that simple ground I receive.
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Would sit, said the nicotine. You must be born again.
So I think we could substitute for water the word, but we would come up a little short. The reason the Lord uses the term water because not only is He bringing before Nicodemus, the instrumentality, the thing used the word, He's bringing before him. It's effect. What does it do?
It works like water, and so we would lose something if we didn't have the word water. But it's true. It's the word. But the reason the figure water is given because we want to understand its effect in the soul that it comes in the power of like the flood, judging the old world judges that old life and really cleanses the way for the introduction of a new life. And so water is a figure. Ezekiel gives us that too.
And Ezekiel 36 in verse 25.
Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will cleanse you a new heart also I will give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the Stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.
Speaking of April nationally, which we're about to touch on one other stricture, Isaiah 66 and verse 8.
Isaiah 66 Eight, Who hath heard such a thing? Who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day, or shall a nation be born at once?
For as soon as Zion travelled, she brought forth her children.
There may be one other verse in Ezekiel chapter 16 to pull it together.
Verse 6 Ezekiel 16 Six. And when I pass by the I saw thee polluted in thine own blood. And I said unto thee, When thou wast in thy blood, live. Yeah, I said unto thee, when thou is in thy blood, live.
Ezekiel 16 is Israel's beginning as a nation. He saw them in the affliction of Egypt.
As it were, it was the time of the birth of the nation. Sees them in their blood. And he says, I said unto you, live. And they became a nation, and God brought them up out of Egypt. But they corrupted his way. And just like man, who God formed and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, he fell into sin. And so Israel followed the same pattern, and that old corrupt life was no good.
Before God, it produced nothing for God. And in a coming day He's going to sprinkle water on them like we read in Ezekiel 36. And he's going to take that old Stony heart that can produce nothing, and give to that nation a heart of flesh that will respond to God, that will desire God and receive him. And a nation will be born in a day again. They were born once coming out of Egypt. He said unto them, live, live.
But they're going to be born again as a nation. So interestingly enough, the Old Testament scriptures had taken up the principle of new birth by the word of God and by water. And Nicodemus ought to have known that. He ought to have known and understood those figures that that was going to be required for the nation. And so the Lord saying to him, you're a master in Israel, you don't know this. You don't understand these principles.
Maybe you have never heard them apply to if any man an individual, but he should have known the principles and that's why the Lord says in verse 7 marble, not that I said unto you. Now he doesn't say, Oh man, he says, ye Flora, the nation must be born again. You ought to know that Nicodemus. It's going to be what Israel passes through as a nation, but it is the necessity for every soul of man and woman that is going to come into blessing too, that may be born of God.
There is a moral cleansing connected with new birth.
Whether it's the nation or in an individual soul. So if you go back to first Peter again chapter one believe this is what's inferred in that verse 22.
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Peter 122 seeing ye have purified your souls, obeying the truth of the spirit, and so on. So in John's first epistle he speaks of the water and the blood. The water speaks of life, and the epistle is is dominated by the expressions of that new life.
But then he says towards the end of the epistle, this is he that came by water and blood, not by water only. We'll get to the blood side of it later on in chapter 3. But right now we're on the water. And it's a good question. I think we took it up in the last meeting is why does it say by water and the spirit and not the word in the spirit? And I believe it because it brings before us the picture of the cleansing power, purifying power.
Of new birth. A brother years ago used to describe the work of Christ to us in its double aspect. And he did it this way. And he said he used the figure of a child that's disobedient. Back in Palmyra during mud season, you step off the concrete step and boom, you went into the mud and and so you have all these kids that are dressed for meeting. And so you say to a child, don't go off the step. The meeting is going to begin in 10 minutes. The child ignores you, goes off the step and now you have two problems.
You have a disobedience issue and you have he or she is filthy. And so the work of Christ really applies both. It's a moral cleansing because there's the defilement of sin. The more the Hebrew side, there's also the disobedience, which is a judicial issue. And for that the blood of Christ addresses it. But we're getting a little ahead of ourselves. And I don't mean to get us off the chapter, but I believe that's that's the aspect of the water.
As opposed to just saying the word. I think that's very.
Because.
It's it's it's it's wonderful to his brother not to lose the simplicity of the meaning of these words. Water is something that you wash with and the the Lord saw that the importance of it even when he spoke to the disciples about washing one another's feet. You know, we get defiled. Well, here's a defilement at the very beginning of a soul that that there's no ability at all.
To do anything, there has to be a cleansing. And so it's it's good to see the simplicity in the the type that's being used and just to take it in that way. It's just so wonderful. Just thought I'll add a quick comment on that as well. Not to drag it on the water. Yes, we could use it to apply with the word of God, which has cleansing power. Now remember Nicodemus, know the word of God.
Rather say he knows the law, he knows the Old Testament. We mentioned earlier in the last meeting, this is a transition period. They are just about to go into the day of grace. So there will be the word as the apostle Paul told us that he's going to complete the word of God. There will be certain secrets that were not revealed to the Old Testament sayings as the as the apostle Paul would have revealed to us. So we need.
The complete word of God.
But then the Spirit of God need to work in conjunction with that too, doesn't it? So it's the is the Spirit of God taking the Word of God, making it good to our soul?
Another dimension here we might say the the Lord is connecting the disciples with heavenly things.
Nicodemus was familiar with the earthly Kingdom and that they look forward to it being established. Perhaps this was the Messiah, but the Lord is lifting us above earthly character of things into a new relationship.
Eternal life having the conscious sense that we are children of God, that we know God is our Father.
This was.
Dependent upon the death and resurrection of Christ.
But now we have a divine life that can enjoy the very things that God himself enjoys. And here the Lord Jesus was the one who knew all about these things. He was the one that came from the glory to unfold and to reveal the heart of God. So you, you see this, this addition here the Lord.
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Is bringing us into a region of of understanding.
The new relationship we have now, it was anticipated here because the Spirit of God had not yet come. Chapter four. We have the divine life and nature in chapter 3, but we need something else. What is it? We need a power. We need the power.
That will act upon that divine nature, and that is.
Unfolded to us in chapter 4, the Holy Spirit of God there is is the water that is imparted and gives us the power to enjoy what we are going to have for all eternity. Is that right brother?
So there are two distinct things there, as you say, Brother John, there's the earthly side and there's a heavenly side, and that's the next thing the Lord takes up. And this is one of those places where John's gospel, you might say, intersects with Matthews and the 13th chapter in in specifically.
There you get the Kingdom of the Son of Man here on this earth, and the angels are going to cleanse the Kingdom of the Son of Man. They're going to take out everything that offended.
In the Kingdom of the Son of Man and established that Kingdom. And as you say, Nicodemus was looking forward to that earthly Kingdom, wasn't he? And that's what he had hopes for in coming to the Lord as a teacher, that he was going to help and improve things and get there. And so there's an earthly side. But before Israel comes into that Kingdom, they're going to have to experience new birth. We're going to have to go through that nationally.
Before that earthly side. And so when Nicodemus expresses incredulence about this, he says, don't you understand you you can't receive the things that I'm testifying on. And he says in verse.
11 Verily, verily send to the we, that is, the Father and the Son. Speak what we know.
And that's where we began in the end of chapter 2. Jesus knew what was in man. We speak of the things which we know, and we have seen. He'd seen the glory Nicodemus never had, and he received not our witness. If I have told you of earthly things and you believe not because he was really expressing unbelief.
How shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? What's the rest of the chapter? It's grace, because He goes on to tell them of heavenly things. And so you get another Kingdom. In Matthew 13. You get the Kingdom of the Father, and the righteous shine forth on the coming day of the Kingdom of their Father, and that's the heavenly things. And there is really an illusion here of what belonged to Israel and the earth.
And what is now our portion as Christians and what we have been brought into and what we're going to enter into. I'd like to pause here for a minute and turn to Ephesians One for a verse.
Ephesians 113 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, And whom also after that ye believe ye were sealed.
With that Holy Spirit of promise, what is the gospel of our salvation? It was preached after the finished work of the cross. It was never preached in the Old Testament. There was no one in the Old Testament who could ever have heard the gospel of our salvation and received it and been sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, because the work of the cross had not yet been finished. The Spirit of God had not yet been sent down from a glorified Christ.
Were they saved?
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Not in the sense of Ephesians chapter one and verse 13.
Did they have life? Yes, they have life from God. They were born again.
It's an earthly side of things. They were born of God. They had life from God, but there was no gospel to believe in, nothing for the Spirit of God to seal. They did not have eternal life. They had life from God, but they did not have it as eternal life. And that is the key to understanding.
The condition and position of the Old Testament Saints and contrast to us and the Lord says one is earthly things very connected with Israel because nationally they'll go through new births. The other is heavenly things and more connected with the privilege and blessings we have.
Through the finished work of the cross.
They didn't have intelligence, uh, Steve, right, They didn't have intelligence of, of the divine life, which now.
The grace of God and the the washing of regeneration, renewing of the Holy Spirit. Now the believer has intelligence of his position in Christ, which an Old Testament Saints really didn't have. So Bruce brought out it's the water for cleansing. We're putting a new moral position before God when we're born again.
We have a new moral position before God, but in addition to that, we have to have those sins put away. That's the blood of Christ that deals with the guilt of our sins. So you, you have the two things. Would you say, Bruce, that that is, that is so, yes.
I think one of the difficulty for us is we're going through books like this is to keep in our mind at what time frame are we looking at? At this juncture, The Lord hasn't gone to the cross yet. The work has not been accomplished. So Nicodemus would have no way of understanding what the cross is. So he's foreshadowing as if it were. So we're looking back as well. We know all these stories. He didn't at this point.
So he's telling him I'm jumping ahead. That's why he said there are something you're familiar with. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Well, I believe you understand the story of how the serpent was lifted up, but he didn't understand that. But so here he has to say, just like the Son of Man, the Son of Man in Scripture is not referring to the glorious Lord.
But the one who was despised and rejected of men, so the Son of man, the despise and rejected one will be lifted up just like Moses did in the wilderness. And then he explained as if once you understand that, then you know that God sent his Son into the world, so that that well known verse for God soul of the world that he gave his begotten son, that hasn't happened yet.
But it's good that he's telling him now, beforehand, so we can understand when the time came.
I'd just like to go back to verse 11 for a moment. And I believe that that we we have in this first a basis for a testimony which as we speak that which we do know and testify of that which we have seen.
And I'd like to link this with a verse and the 9th chapter of John in connection with the blind man.
And verse 28 Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple. But we are Moses disciple. We know that God spake unto Moses. But As for this fellow?
He may not when he is.
Man answered and said unto him, Them, Why herein is a marvelous thing that you know not from when she is.
And yet we have opened my eyes. Well, the testimony that he gave were genuine, wasn't it? He testified as to what the ward did for him. He didn't go beyond that, did he? But that was the basis and the strength of that testimony. And so.
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We see in the scripture that we read in the 9th chapter of John.
That there was.
Some reference to.
Moses, they had some knowledge of him, but was defective, wasn't it? But this man could give a clear testimony based on what the Lord did for him.
I'd like to I just add on to that Brother Bruce in connection with what we're looking at in verses 11 and 1311 Through 13.
If we step back and look at what the Spirit of God is doing in the Gospel of John, he's presenting our Lord Jesus Christ as the eternal Son of God. And part of what we learn here in verses 11 and 13, which your brother Steve touched on when he was addressing the meaning and the significance of the we, that it was the Lord Jesus referring to himself and to his Father together and acting together, and in that sense connecting himself with the Godhead. If you go to university, maybe you meet somebody even in high school, and they'll say, well, Jesus never claimed to be God.
And you're right, they're right in this sense that he never came out bluntly and said I am God. And yet if you look at all the interactions that are brought out through the Gospels, it's clear that the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the priests understood that Jesus was saying he is God. He is God in the sense of the eternal Son and he's Co equal with the Father. And so as we go through this, you see here the point that our brother Steve brought out. But then in the 13th verse it says.
No one is going up in the heaven say he who came down from heaven and he was referring to himself and recognizing and indicating that he came from God from heaven sent like we had in Hebrews chapter one into this world as God's last effort to reach men as we had brought before us and then that's very powerful what God was trying to do. He spoke to us by his son and the Lord Jesus is making this point now at the end of verse 13 just one point if you happen to use a translation like the.
ESV or the NIV, you'll probably find that the phrase the Son of Man who is in heaven is not there. And that's because when whatever Greek text they were looking at, they may not have value. That part of it. If you look at Mr. Darby's translation, it's included and he would have had access to the same documents that the the People W Cotton Court who developed those translations that the NIV ESP are based on, they looked at also and they left it out. Mr. Darby looked at it and left it in.
But the bottom line is the message is the same with that phrase is there or not that Jesus is the eternal Son of God. You can see it clearly from verse 11 if you think about what the we means is that brother Steve brought in.
I just like to make that point that if you're using an alternate translation, just be aware that the people who were doing the translation of your or the compilation of the original Greek text didn't necessarily have the same view of who Jesus Christ is.
You and I would have you may not have seen him exactly as the eternal Son of God as we understand him. So I just put that out as a as a a little warning. Every translation has its issues.
The King a positive tissues and IV has it tissues ESP new King James. Everyone of them has their issues and it is worthwhile if you're using a translation. Do you understand what its weaknesses are? It's really good Rob that goes along with.
Chapter one verse 18 No man has seen God at anytime. The only begotten Son which is which is in the bosom of the Father.
He hath declared Him. I think your comment is helpful to show that the last clause absolutely belongs on verse 13.
Here is one who is competent to speak about things because he knew them. He knew earthly things and he knew heavenly things. If I start to talk about some city that I've only read about and you are from there.
You say, hey, let me speak about that city, That's where I'm from. And so in that sense the Lord Jesus as Son of God and starts to refer to himself now as Son of man, is confident to speak about all spheres. He was there on earth in heaven at the same time beyond us to understand that, but he was confident to speak of heavenly things and earthly things. He reproaches Nicodemus because he had taken a place as the teacher.
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And he didn't even understand earthly things.
So in chapter one, the Lord Jesus is omniscient. He sees Nathanael under the fig tree, and then in chapter 2 he's omnipotent. He changes the water into wine. Here he's omnipresent in heaven and on earth at the same time. He's showing very definitely that he is God, isn't he?
So the Lord Jesus says to Nicodemus.
How shall we believe if I tell you everything? So how do we answer the house shelf?
If the Lord asked us that question, how shall ye believe?
Heavenly feet, How's that going to happen?
The wind has to blow.
Say that again, brother, the wind has to blow.
In his soul the wind has to blow. There has to be the work of the Spirit of God.
'S.
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
And men use the expression, well, you know, he picked himself up by his own bootstraps. I mean, as a little boy, I heard my dad say that. And I'm like, how do you do that? I mean, it's physically impossible. So it is that man can't. There is nothing in man, as we started this chapter with the end of Chapter 2. There's nothing in that that is capable of receiving and believing left to himself. So the wind has to blow, except you be born anew, afresh.
Of the water and the spirit. You cannot see, you cannot enter, and you wouldn't want to if you could. That's later in John.
So the wind has to blow.
And the and the Lord was the only one.
The Lord was the only one that country.
On a clean thing out of an unclean thing, He did it with Mary, didn't he? God did it with Mary. And that thing that shall be born of thee.
She'll be called for some thought.
Gonna leopard change its spots, or an Ethiopian skin? It's a rhetorical question, no? And people interpret new birth as if you got kind of a fresh start, as if somehow the flesh becomes sanctified by baptism or by some other thing. And that's not it at all. As these brothers have explained in the last reading, that which is born of flesh is flesh. It remains such. And there's a whole new thing come in, a new life. So.
It'd be wonderful if the presence of the new life that we have received through the work of God.
Displaced the old one, but it doesn't, you know, the new birth doesn't kill the old life. It's still there. And that's the doctrine that Paul develops in Romans and, and in other places where sin shall not have dominion over you, it shall not reign over you. It's there, but it's not to rain. So that's another issue.
For the first necessity.
In the work of God.
Save lost man is new birth, the impartation of life, and there may be a period of time between when new birth takes place and then the next thing, the salvation of the soul. And Cornelius was already mentioned as one who had the evidences of new birth in his life.
And then heard words whereby he might be saved, consequently sealed with the Holy Spirit. And there are other examples in the New Testament scripture as well. Like to look at a scripture in Romans 3.
Romans 3 verse 25, whom God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at this time, or now at this time, his righteousness, that He might be just in the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
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No one in the Old Testament could believe in Jesus. They could look forward to Messiah, but that name wasn't revealed until he was born.
And So what about all those sins? How was God righteous and giving life to Abraham or to any of the other Old Testament Saints? On what basis could he give life and new birth? The same basis on which he gave it to you and I.
The same basis on which He saved our souls, the work of the cross. But that was future. And so God forbore. But He gave life even to those Old Testament Saints on the basis of what was to come, the finished work of the cross. It all rests on the cross. And so the next thing that comes into our chapter is the cross. There are two necessities. New birth.
And the dealing with sins.
We need the work of the cross, the forgiveness of sins. We need that salvation that that cross brings. And so that's the next thing that's brought in. For the Old Testament Saints, they never knew of it. And so consequently there were relationships and things they could not enjoy. They were not brought into that position. Not only, I would say, Brother John, that they did not have intelligence, they were not in that position.
It's not that they possessed eternal life but didn't have intelligence about it. They didn't have eternal life. They had life from God new bird. And so the Lord takes that up next. How is this work going to be wrought? How can God forgive sins all one must give his life.
One must give his life, and it must be a man to give his life for man. And so the Son of Man must be lifted up, just as that serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, that all who looked at that serpent could be saved from the serpents bite. And so man had fallen into sin. Man was under the judgment of God, and it was the Son of man who was lifted up on Calvary's cross.
To give his life, none other could give it than him. That we might be saved, and that we might possess a new life, a new character of life, eternal life.
Through that finished work, being born again in and of itself does not make you righteous.
And that's an important thing to get a hold of because that would be like the new birth. I experienced it on morally cleansed. I'm just going about my business. But hold on a minute, isn't there? Don't we have a problem here? Isn't there a debt? Isn't there an issue? And that's why John says not by water only, because he's describing obedience and love and all these attributes of the new life. But he says not by water only, but by water and blood. It was blood and water that came from the side of a dead Christ.
Because propitiation must be made to meet the righteous demands of God. So just being, after all, say, Well, I thought just being born again was the whole thing. No, it's the beginning. But you still have an old nature. So how do you stand in your own self, even as a born again person? Righteously before God, you do not.
Requires the work of God through Christ, and that's why the blood in the water doesn't come.
From a living Christ, it came from a dead Christ. And so in first John, I think it's verse 4.
Let me find that Chapter 4 I mean.
We have in first John 4.
Verse nine And this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten into the world, that we might live through him. There's the water.
Here in his love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent his Son the propitiation for our sins. And there is the blood side. Both are necessary.
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It's a little far from the Old Testament. We had the comment that can something unclean bring something clean? Church, turn with me to Leviticus Chapter 11.
Passage does not often get referred to, but they talk about something clean and unclean. I'm hoping to tie this to our chapter.
Chapter 11, verse 37, and we'll deal with 38 in minute.
And if any part of the carcass fall upon any sowing seed which is to be sown, it shall be cleaned. Now we know that when a man touches a carcass, these become defiled and it's unclean. But here a seed, a sowing seed is set. That's OK.
Why? I believe it's the picture of us Gentiles. We were dead and in trespasses of sin. We now learn that in Ephesians, a seed, technically speaking, is dead. That's why we're not under the same scrutiny as if we were that Israel of over. We were dead. We had no part, no part of God away from God.
But then let's look at the next verse, verse 37. If any part of the carcass fall upon, I'm sorry, verse 38 But if any water be put upon the seed, and any part of the carcass fall on, it shall be unclean unto you. So the water in this case, the thought I have not so much of the fact that they become unclean, but that water gave the seed a new life.
Now that seed is responsible before God. So we find here that the born again. Now in particularly we have to remember he's speaking and particularly to Nicodemus, but these apply to us that he didn't know any better, but things will be revealed to him and that he's going to learn. And there's some comment that he is learning slowly. And we find that when you have a transition, things don't, we don't learn things that quickly.
Find the the the Lord's brothers for example, is that they didn't even believe in him. That's his own brothers. What happened to James and Josie They didn't believe in him, but after the Pentecost when the Spirit of God came down and enjoy in believers our brother John mentioned earlier on.
That changed things. We look at how James became a prominent figure for the early Christians. Dude, we enjoyed the book he wrote in the book of Jude and so on. That, I believe, is because of the Spirit of God working at the heart of those that who have light already.
Might ask the question if new birth is life from God then what's the difference? Life from God, Eternal life, what's the difference?
How is it that what the Old Testament Saints have is different?
You know, in the old days when they had gold coins, they were made of gold. Well, you could get gold in other forms. Maybe gold Nuggets panned out of a stream, maybe a gold ingot, but as soon as you meant it into a coin, you can use it.
In a whole new way, you can enjoy it in a whole different way than what you could before. Life from God is life from God in its essence.
And just as the coin and the ingot are both pure gold in their essence, nonetheless they're very different in the way they can be used and enjoyed and held and spent, so to speak. And that's the same thing. Maybe it's a poor illustration between life and new birth and eternal life. What is eternal life? New birth is life from God. But let's look at John 17. John 17.
Verse 3.
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. It's evident from that verse. No one until that point could have what is being described there as eternal life. In addition, our chapter tells us that until the Lord Jesus Christ was lifted up on Calvary's cross and Atonement's work was done.
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None could possess eternal life because it's through faith in a lifted up Christ in this finished work.
Eternal life is a life like our Lord Jesus Christ, not just to live forever. So we have in our chapter verse 15 but have eternal life. I know our time is up the end of verse 16. They use the phrase but have everlasting life. I believe the better translation has its eternal life. I'd like to make one comment to support and hopefully clarify and make media a little bit simpler what we've been talking about.
And that is this that those Old Testament Saints that we've been talking about.
Are going to live forever in heaven. They're part of what is referred to as the Friends of the Bike Ride Room, and in that sense, they are just as safe from not going to hell as anyone who truly believes in the Lord Jesus Christ today.
So there they were, perfectly safe, just as safe as we are, because God was looking forward to what the Lord Jesus Christ is going to do on the cross. So David is safe, Samuel is safe, all of them are completely safe. But not one of them knew what brother Dave, what brother Steve been talking about. None of them knew how God was going to do it. And if I can put it this way by way of illustration, and I don't know if you follow it.
If you ask Isaac on the way with his father to Mount Moriah, when he looked at his father and he said, where is the lamb? And Abraham responded, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.
Isaac had no idea how God was going to do that, but on the way back, if you had asked Isaac where did the land come from that your dad was talking about, then he knew. And so often till the time of Christ, David did not know how God was going to wash his sins away, but he counted on God to do it.
Same thing with Samuel. And they were perfectly safe. They were never at risk. God had given them new life. They're going to be in heaven forever, just like we will be. But the difference is they don't have a relationship like you and I do with Jesus Christ as their own personal Lord and Savior. They don't know how their sins are going to wash away. You and I do. And it's amazing privilege we've been brought into you to know that our sins are washed away, that we're accepted in the beloved Son of God.
And God looks at you and me, and we understand that, that we're accepted in His beloved Son.
And we can have such incredible confidence, and it should motivate us to live the kind of holy life and be the holy person and try to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lust of the flesh. So I just wanted to make that point and underline what's been said this morning and this afternoon. All of those Old Testament Saints are perfectly safe. They're not going to help.
But they didn't know salvation the way you and I know salvation with Jesus Christ as our Savior and our sins washed away in exactly how that's good, brother. Think of the ark. Noah and his family were on the ark. The waters of the flood had come up. They were safe.
But when he stepped off that ark onto the new Earth, he could say we've been saved.
Different.
Eternal life is a life that was known and enjoyed in the Godhead from a past eternity. And you and I have been brought into that life, given that life, and into that circle of fellowship, of communion with the Father and the Son, highest Christian privilege. And that is what is the essence of eternal life and no, the only true God.
And Jesus Christ, whom he has sent, implies that He's the Father. That is the circle of fellowship we have been brought into, far beyond anything any Old Testament St. ever knew.
Sorry for interrupting you, but I just like to make this one comment is that it couldn't be just any man.
It couldn't be just any man. There are good men, and some men would die for you. A good man may die for you, but it couldn't be just any man. Why?
Well, with the If there's a spotless, sinless man in this room, please stand up.
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If you could have did it too.
But I'm thankful to see that nobody's going to stand up. And so it says.
And no man has to send it up to heaven, he that he down from heaven.
But he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man, which is in heaven.
It had to be a spotless, sinless man. And there's only one. There's only one.
As we sing together hymn #70.
Suffering.
And.
Deep thy don't sound it the way it's like no more brightness and town.
May I cry, swear, bring it all around.
See any players?
That I have no more life, nor our parents ever. Jesus are strong.