A man came to Jesus by night. Now we come to the unfolding and application of truth to souls individually — its power over the conscience, and effect in the heart. The glory of His Person, His relationship to the Father, His dwelling in flesh with men, are presented in chapter 1: Henceforth we shall see Him in the midst of sinful men, undefiled and undefilable by the contact, and finally made sin for them (How His essential holiness comes out here! made sin, in no other way could He have to do with it; “made sin” refers to atonement). The Rock that followed them of old, again going after them, in the moral wilderness which their sin had created.” His ways are everlasting, “Himself the Same.” The divine Sower went forth to sow, when the fruit had failed. When the flock are all astray, the Owner goes after the lost ones. When the fold availed no longer, the Shepherd put forth His sheep, and then went before them. Lo, these are parts of Thy ways! The thunder of His power, His righteousness like unto the great mountains, and His judgments to a great deep, will be understood from other passages; but what engages our attention here, is the grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ. Still He is “learned practically,” not so much through summaries of truth, however precious, and they have their own great place in scripture (John 1; Col. 1; Heb. 1), as in hearing the words and beholding the works of Jesus. How in Him the river of God’s grace flowed ever onward, as through a dry and thirsty land, at times overflowing all its banks, but never stopped nor diverted from its course for a single moment!
At the end of John 2 we find two classes of disciples, and two kinds of faith. For true disciples, the Scriptures, and the word which Jesus speaks, are of equal authority. They heard Moses and the prophets, and thus could receive the words of Jesus Himself. They believed when One (Jesus) was risen from the dead (Luke 16:29, 3129Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. (Luke 16:29)
31And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. (Luke 16:31)). This is the faith of God’s elect, these were the true disciples of Christ. The faith of the many who believed, when they saw the miracles, was the faith of man, nothing more, not the gift of God, nor the effect of a word in the heart or conscience. (See Matt. 2:5, 65And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is written by the prophet, 6And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel. (Matthew 2:5‑6)). And Jesus knew all men, therefore He did not trust Himself to them; thus He writes vanity “upon the first of God’s creatures.
But, in this man of the Pharisees, there was something that was not of man, nor by man either. The work in the conscience (his coming to Jesus by night), the recognition of God, not only His power in the miracles, but that He was with the teacher come from Himself, prove that Nicodemus was not of those whose faith is merely founded on a wonder which they have seen. He knows already, by a divine instinct, that if Jesus is of the day, the Pharisees are not; to compromise his position amongst them is a serious thing for a man in the flesh, so he came by night, but, once in His presence, the Pharisees seem to have been forgotten, they are of no account there. He desires to be taught, not saved; to be taught, it may be, a more excellent way of putting a new patch upon an old garment. That he had wants in his soul is evident, but undefined, perhaps, even to himself. Did he know that he was a lost sinner? But the veil was soon to be drawn aside, and the man of the Pharisees manifested in the light: for the Teacher come from God, was that Light which, coming into the world, sheds its light upon every one. (See New Translation). It had shone upon Nicodemus, how could his real state be any longer a question? Flattering words and uncertain sounds do not proceed from the lips of Jesus. We have here, not a revelation of the heart of man, as in Mark 7, of what proceeds from within, nor of the future judgment of the secrets of the heart by that man whom God has appointed, “but a word unheard, unuttered before, which sets aside absolutely and forever the race of man itself, viewed in its present condition.
One must be born anew — a new source of life — thus the first word from the divine Teacher, uttered without softening or modification of any kind, announces the exclusion of man from the kingdom of God — he could not even see it. It will be remarked, that neither judgments nor warnings are found in Jesus words in this passage; no reproaches are uttered, nor exhortations given. There was no place, indeed, for promises and exhortations; to whom could they be addressed? From his inmost thought to his most outward act all was over with man; as for the Jews, they are treated as reprobates from the beginning in this gospel (see John 1:1111He came unto his own, and his own received him not. (John 1:11)). Afterwards, when grace is brought in — the cross, and God’s gift of His only-begotten Son — then indeed judgment is declared, on the ground of unbelief in the name of the only-begotten Son of God, it is grace rejected. (Compare Rev21:6 8 for the same principle.)
Nicodemus is presented to us here in three characters; a ruler of the Jews, the teacher of Israel, and a man of the Pharisees; so that we have clearly before us the foundations of his religious standing before men, highly valued there, no doubt; what indeed could be more desirable, viewed from the side of nature? Was he not one of those who, by profession, rested in the law, and found in it a form of knowledge and truth? But coming to Jesus by night is not the fruit of rest in the law, nor in anything else. It had not brought him out of nature’s darkness. Could the form of truth and knowledge in the law satisfy a soul when it thought of God, or found itself in spirit before Him? Had the blood of bulls and goats ever given rest to a single conscience, or the law itself made anything perfect? (Heb. 7). In His reply the Lord ignores, or makes nothing of, his professional standing. Ruler of the Jews, doctor of law or teacher of Israel, and man of the Pharisees, were but religious names and titles, valued by a lifeless orthodoxy. Jesus pierces the strata of profession, and finds at the bottom only a man, and, as such, as incapable of entering the kingdom of God, as Adam was of regaining paradise, from which the judgment of God had excluded him. Surely the teacher of Israel had never heard such truths before, but He who taught him was the Teacher come from God, the Truth itself. And feebly though it may have been, one cannot doubt that Nicodemus was truly exercised in soul; he came to Jesus, even though it were by night. It is true his reasoning shows how faintly the light had penetrated. “Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God be with him.” How different the state of the woman in Luke 7! Was it the beholding of miracles that brought her to the feet of Jesus? There at least one ceases to reason, at a distance from Him it is possible, but who can conceive such a thing as reasoning about His Person while anointing His feet? No, it was the Pharisee who reasoned in that scene, it was only in his heart that he spake, but that voice revealed his rejection of Jesus. The woman’s heart spake also, but the voice was heard in her act. How bold was the faith that led her to the house of a Pharisee, because the Lord was there! We may be sure she did not wait to come by night, on such a journey the day was pleasanter than the night; arrived there, the Pharisee of no more account than a publican. A beautiful example of how the faith that leads to Jesus conquers the world. Nicodemus had not got so far, (he was a long way yet from her position!) but, looking at the history of souls, the way to the feet of Jesus seems to be much shorter for a sinner of the city, than for a teacher of theology, when one is only that, God is high above them all, “but great” are “the difficulties arising from worldly-religious and social position, honor from men, and so on. Advantages in the flesh are but hindrances in that which is born of the Spirit: “what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.” Read all that Paul says in that passage, and compare it with the action of this woman, and then say which is the more beautiful. Did ever the heart or mind of man picture to itself such a scene of moral beauty as that in Luke? She spake in her heart, “but her voice was not heard,” she poured out her soul before the Lord. She had by some unrecorded path known the grace of the Lord Jesus; Nicodemus had seen the effect of the “power of the Teacher. How various the secret leadings of the Spirit of God! Still, of the passages which give us the Lord’s intercourse with men, few, if any, are more interesting, and none more important than the chapter we are studying. Sins, and often gross sins, were the common characteristics (I am speaking now of the Jews), but one who could unite in Himself the various characters of Pharisee, theologian, and ruler of the Jews, moved on no ordinary lines. How were they all broken up in a moment, and the illusions in which they had their force dispelled! God is not found at the beginning or end of such lines as these. By the words of Christ, the religious pretensions and assumptions of the flesh are set aside for ever. Underneath them all, He could find only a man, not as God had created him, but as Satan had formed him in his distance and “alienation from the life of God.” This was and is the truth so far, who is he that loves that? But honeyed words of lies find an ever open door to the heart of man; with one of them the course of this present evil world began, and with another it will end. “Ye shall not surely die, “was Satan’s lie in the garden; he was a liar from the beginning. The lawless one will come according to the working of Satan, his last representative, deceiving by wonders of falsehood (2 Thess. 2). Who is a liar but he, the denier of the Father and the Son? This person’s judgment, because of the voice of the great words Dan. 7), his lie against God, against the Father and against the Son, coming in his own name (Christ comes in His Father’s name), closes the course of this present evil world (age). Adam believed the lie of Satan; his fall involved the creature in subjection to vanity. Antichrist’s lie, bringing down his own destruction from the Lord, involves in judgment all who accept the lie, not having received the love of the truth.
Verse 3. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” This is the end of man, morally, before God; every attempt to modify the meaning and force of these solemn words comes from the father of lies. The race, as such, is set aside; one must have a new source of being, partake of the divine nature, to enter the kingdom of God, to be with God Himself. To talk of nature being improved, is, to say the least, to talk nonsense; can the divine nature become more divine, the evil nature less evil? It is true that by our deeds, as measured by the law, all the world is guilty before God (Rom. 3), but Romans5 shows that all connected with the first man are in that position, lost. It is in itself a lost race, of which Adam was the head; in the second Man alone is life and salvation, and He came to seek and to save, not merely guilty, but lost sinners. Of all this, Nicodemus, a perfect representative of many since his day — as well in position as in intelligence, knew nothing.
We must distinguish between the kingdom of God and heaven itself. For the moment, the kingdom was comprehended in Himself, it has not come in power yet, this kingdom of God on earth, as foretold by the prophets; it is, in its moral aspect, termed the kingdom of God, in its dispensational bearing, as in Matthew, the kingdom of the heavens. John the Baptist proclaimed it as near at hand. It commences with the establishment of the rejected King at the right hand of the heavenly throne, and hence its, present mysterious form, so that the unfolding of its history could only be in mysteries (Matt. 13). Wheat and tares growing together until the harvest, was not like a king reigning in righteousness. We are all in the kingdom in this form now, true believers and professors together in the world-field. Church ground could not be taken until the Holy Ghost had come; that ground is holy, not so the field of the world.
But Nicodemus does not know what the new birth means, therefore he cannot understand the Lord’s words. The teacher of Israel seems to, have forgotten, or never to have known, that great scripture in Ezekiel 36, “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, a new heart will I give you, a new spirit will I put within you.” [the Lord had said, “born anew” ], and “I will put, My Spirit within you.” “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
Verse 5. “Born of water and of the Spirit.” The application of the Word of God to the heart and conscience of man, in the power of the Holy Ghost, is the source of the new nature: “Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures” (James 1:1818Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (James 1:18)). What a position! He is going to make all things new, and believers are already first-fruits of the new creation. That which is born of the flesh — the energy of an evil nature is flesh, nothing else, enmity against God, is not subject to the law of God, neither can be (Rom. 8:77Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. (Romans 8:7)); witness its development in the man of sin, who sets himself above God Himself, taking His place. The mind of the flesh is death “(Rom. 8:66For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. (Romans 8:6)).
Man as he is will not, cannot, draw near to God. Alarmed in his conscience, he will heap to himself mediators, in proportion to his ignorance of, and distrust in, the one Mediator between. God and man — “the Man Christ Jesus.”
The wind blows where it will, and thou hearest its voice . . . thus is every one that is born of the Spirit. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit” — the new nature, which is developed by drinking into that from which it proceeds — the word and Spirit of God. We read in the following chapter, “God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth,” that is, according to His nature.
It would be difficult, even if one wished it, to pass on quickly when studying this great chapter. One is arrested, almost at each verse, either by some foundation-truth, or fresh revelation. We have seen what the new birth is, a nature which is of the Spirit; nothing more is said about it in this passage, and it is only spoken of in connection with entrance into the earthly part of the kingdom. That in this nature one is capable of enjoying the things of the kingdom, is rightly inferred from the Lord’s teaching, but there is nothing beyond this as yet. Heaven, and heavenly things, are not in view here, or referred to, it is a matter of necessity, not grace, here; not so stated, I mean. Man must be born again; this is not the language of grace, but of truth, though the truth be full of grace when man’s blessing is contemplated.
But the Lord is passing on, He is about to speak of heavenly things, things new and unheard of before. If the new birth be a necessity for all, far deeper foundations must be laid for those who are to be in relationship with God, in connection with heavenly things and hopes. The second must — the lifting up the Son of Man — is a far deeper thing than the truth we have been considering; the foundation indeed, though hitherto unrevealed, of all relationship with God. The new birth in itself, being subjective, gives no solid ground before God. In itself it neither brings peace to the heart, nor makes the conscience perfect. It may truly exist apart from the position of sonship, witness the Old Testament saints; and knows nothing of redemption, or of the forgiveness of sins; deliverance and the sealing of the Spirit are not spoken of in connection with it. One may be born again, and not have the Holy Ghost. “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God,” but the disciples believed that, and yet received not the Holy Ghost until the day of Pentecost. The Holy Ghost was not given in connection with, or as a seal of, the new birth, but with faith in the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Savior. (See Eph. 1:1313In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, (Ephesians 1:13); Acts 10:43-4543To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. 44While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. 45And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. (Acts 10:43‑45)).
Regeneration is not a state of liberty or power, what it is in itself, we learn in Romans7; the regenerate person loves righteousness and hates iniquity; but until the work of Christ is known, and the presence and power of the Spirit, weakness characterizes his position, what he would not, that he does, what he would, he does not. Overthrown in every conflict, his wretchedness deepens as the new nature develops in longings after that which is good. Deliverance and power come through Christ and the Spirit — “Who shall deliver? I thank God through Jesus Christ. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath set me free” (Rom. 8:22For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2)).
I have dwelt so long upon this subject because, in so many, the one object and effort seems to be to ascertain whether they are really “born again.” Such a state of soul could only be found in a low state of things, where truth is but little known, and deliverance, power, and joy in Christ wholly unknown. How many of God’s beloved people are in this state!
Nicodemus did not understand these truths, the promises in connection with the new covenant. How different it was with the Teacher from God! He spoke of what He knew, and testified what He had seen, but they received not His testimony. “If I have told you the earthly things,” He says (how alone one could enter the earthly kingdom), “and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you the heavenly things?” The Lord is speaking of the earthly and heavenly parts of the kingdom, and no man had ascended up there so as to tell what he had seen there; the Son of Man had come out of heaven, yet was He the Son of Man who is in heaven (in the divine nature). He alone could tell of what was there; the prophets had spoken of the earthly part, and to that the Lord refers when He says, “The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” This is the heavenly part of the kingdom. But if Nicodemus did not know that one must be born anew, for entrance into the earthly kingdom, he was equally ignorant of the great truth, that the Son of Man must be lifted up, that the believer in Him should not perish, but have (a deeper blessing than admission to the earthly kingdom) eternal life. But now we have come to a grouping of entirely new truths, the Son of Man speaking on earth, yet, at the same time, in heaven. The heaven, too, which is now first fully brought into view, Himself revealer of things therein. Then the world itself, a Jew being only a part of it now, and God loving it with a love without measure, He gave His only-begotten Son.” Eternal life brought to light by the gospel, as presently immortality also, “and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6). The central truth and link of all, is the Son of Man lifted up from the earth. It is of surpassing interest to see how these things are connected, the heavenly things and eternal life, with the cross, which before God was the end and judgment of the old thing, and the way out of it also into the new things, where all is of God. Life and immortality are brought to light — “that condition of eternal life which puts the soul and the body beyond death and its power.” At least we have the beginning of this precious revelation here. How every glorious truth finds its interpretation in the knowledge of Him! No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven.” He tells of heavenly things. The same remark applies to life, light, and immortality. If God gives eternal life, this life is in the Son, and he that followed Him should have the light of life. Further, it was not possible that He should beholden of death, neither did His flesh see corruption.
But what words are these, “God so loved, “and, “the Son of Man must be lifted up”! In this name He suffers for sin, executes judgment, and receives glory, and a dominion that is everlasting. But He is not thinking of His glory, the time will come for that, but rather of what divine love could give and suffer for sinners perishing in their sins. It is this that Jesus announces — the gospel of God’s grace. The ministries of angels and of men had left man, the race, where they found him; but a new period had arrived, the grace that brings salvation was there, “the time of its manifestation” come, “the compellings” of God were now the invitations of grace (compel them to come in ), irresistible for the heart that knew what it meant! Already, too, from the days of the Baptist, the precious violence of faith (its energy), was working in the hearts of believers; the violent seized on the kingdom of the heavens. The time for mere profession was gone by; for John had said, Already the axe is laid unto the root of the trees. He that comes after me shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.” But Jesus testimony necessarily went much farther than John’s. “Light is come into the world, and men have loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. This is the judgment. God’s witnesses had been rejected from the beginning, His law not kept, His prophets slain; but here was a new thing, God Himself present as light in the world, but darkness preferred, as afterwards we see Him rejected and hated as love. “For My love I had hatred. Now have they both seen and hated both Me and My Father.” God is light, and God is love. This is His nature; and man’s? — darkness which did not comprehend the light; enmity, which rejected the love. “Except a man be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone.” It is not merely Gentiles walking on in darkness, who are manifested by the shining of this heavenly light, or Jews saying, This is the heir, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.” Whether they still required a sign, while the Greeks sought after wisdom, it made no difference now; it was the creature, man, who was in view, and there is where the light revealed him — loving darkness after light (the true light), had come into the world. On this state judgment is pronounced. The awakened sinner is delivered from it in the mercy of God, through faith in the Son of Man lifted up on the cross; for there God, who so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son, condemned sin in the flesh, and there Christ died, not only for sin, but unto sin, made sin, yet, at the same moment, by the eternal Spirit, offering Himself without spot to God (all that belonged to man’s position in the flesh has there been judged), and Christ, the glorious Quickener of the dead, has Himself been quickened out of “death to sin (Rom. 6:1010For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. (Romans 6:10)). And here it is, in His quickening, that new creation begins, and God has quickened us with Christ — a new creation in Him. We have died in His death, of which baptism is the symbol, to sin, law, and the world. Thus it is that God views us in His grace; and, quickened by Him with Christ, and raised up, we have life, and that life in an entirely new position — eternal life — Christ Himself being our life. This was the purpose of God, that believers in Him who was lifted up on the cross should receive eternal life. This is much more than the forgiveness of the sins of the old man. This truth of the new creation supposes the old man himself set aside for ever; it was when we were dead in sins that God quickened us with Christ, another aspect of truth altogether. The new creation commences with God setting the risen Christ at His right hand, as the kingdom of the heavens (in mystery), begins with the presence there of the rejected King. The special responsibility, that dates from the coming of light into the world, in no way affects that which is founded on the giving of the law. A broken law, and grace rejected, give us the moral history of man. The Lord’s last words to Nicodemus are more searching than the first. To the general statement, “Man must be born anew,” he could make objection, reasoning from its impossibility to man’s mind, but when told that men do not come to the light, lest their works should be shown as they are, not wrought in God, his mouth is stopped, he is guilty before God, who, in this way, begins the good work in him. The next time we hear of Nicodemus, he is a sharer in the reproach of the Galilean (John 7:50-5250Nicodemus saith unto them, (he that came to Jesus by night, being one of them,) 51Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth? 52They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet. (John 7:50‑52)).
We were talking about the effect of light; it is remarkable that every manifestation of God in the responsible creation shows man afar off. If it be His “glory,” we have all come short of it, cannot stand before it; if “light, it shines in darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it;” if “grace,” it supposes us already lost, for it brings salvation. Yet those things by which God thus manifests Himself (they are all found in their fullness in Christ), become the power of sanctification also, the very means of our becoming like God. “We all, with open face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:1818But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Corinthians 3:18)). That is the power of the glory in the heart of the believer. Then, “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another”, “and “the fruit of the “light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.” That is the consequence of walking in the “light.” Then in Titus, “The grace of God [love to the unlovely] that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men, teaching us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly.” That is practical sanctification. These manifestations of God, that prove our moral state in nature, are the means of our sanctification as believers — glory, light, love.
Verses 22-24. “After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judea, and there He tarried with them, and baptized. And John also was baptizing in Enon . . . For John was not yet cast into prison.” It is very interesting to find here that all this early ministry, as recorded by John, was before the Lord began His public ministry of the gospel of the kingdom. Mark says (ch. 1:14), “Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.” How blessed it is to search the Scriptures! not merely to read them through for the accomplishment of a sacred duty, but the searching for the treasures that do not lie quite on the surface. The Lord refers to the expiration of the time, the whole course of which, the “man Gabriel” was sent to explain to the greatly beloved.” The time for setting up the kingdom was come, if the people had faith to receive it. The King being rejected, it took for the present its mysterious form (Matt. 13). In Matthew 4:12 we read, “Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison” (vs. 17), “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens is at hand.” That is, His public ministry in connection with the gospel of the kingdom. In Luke 4 we have the most beautiful presentation of the character of His ministry in relation to the wants of men, as, in Matthew 4, in connection with the gospel of the kingdom. Anointed Himself as man, for the work to which He came as sent, He proclaims that the Spirit of the Lord is upon Him (Cp. Isa. 61 with Luke 4). No day of vengeance then, but the acceptable year of the Lord, it was purest grace, in “principle embracing the Gentiles; indeed He refers to them almost immediately, showing that in the days of the greatest prophets in Israel, Elijah and Elisha, it was not the many widows and lepers in Israel who were ministered to, but poor Gentiles.
They wondered at the gracious words, and were astonished at His doctrine, for His word was with power. Grace, “power and authority characterize His ministry. Returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, victorious over Satan, He teaches in their synagogues, glorified of all. What a companion picture we have here in John, before the Baptist was cast into prison! What a grouping of subjects, Himself the substance of each! For where, outside Himself, could they be found? God’s love, God’s gift — eternal life — and light come into the world! If in Luke all wondered at His gracious words, here there was at least one who could appreciate the glorious Witness Himself, the source, and, at the same time, the fullness of his joy; he was near enough, too, to hear the Bridegroom’s voice. Yet was there one sorrow left (for we are still in this world), “No man receiveth His testimony,” the echo in his heart of “Ye will not come unto Me.” The Lord’s testimony in Matthew 4 was given in accomplishment of prophecy, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias, The people which sat in darkness saw a great light.” In Luke 4, He first reads the prophecy and then fulfils it (He came in by the door). His testimony is rendered in evident recognition of the Scriptures, they were they which testified of Him, and, as He Himself tells us, could not be broken. It was the same thing in His conflict with Satan, “It is written, His only weapon. He overcame him by the word of His testimony, and loved not His life unto the death! These words were said of His own, how blessedly they applied to Himself! It was so, on to the end, “What is this then, that is written, The stone that the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner?” This carries with it a very blessed thought, of the place the written Word had ever in His spirit, Himself the living Word of the living God (Matt. 4; Luke 24:44-4644And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. 45Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, 46And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: (Luke 24:44‑46); John 5:46, 4746For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. 47But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? (John 5:46‑47); Matt. 21:13, 16, 42; 26:3113And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. (Matthew 21:13)
16And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? (Matthew 21:16)
42Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? (Matthew 21:42)
31Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. (Matthew 26:31)). But here, in John 3, it is not merely as anointed Man on earth, the object and accomplisher of prophecy, that He presents Himself; but as the glorious Son of Man out of heaven, yet at the same time in heaven, the revealer of heavenly things and of eternal life. Such was the commencement of His wondrous ministry, according to John. He performed His service upon earth, guided not only by the words poured morning by morning into His opened ear, for Him the Scriptures, too, revealed the path; and the Spirit of holiness, and of power, that rested upon Him, was in Him the Spirit of obedience and dependence also.
Verse 25. “There was then a reasoning of the disciples of John with a Jew about purification (New Trans.). I suppose the baptism of John gave occasion for this question about purifying. The best fruit, borne by those who went to John’s baptism, was found in their confession that they had nothing but their sins to bring; yet never was confession from the mouth of man so sealed with the approbation of God. Jesus Himself goes into the water with them, He recognizes the work of the Holy Spirit, and is Himself immediately owned by God the Father as His beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased.
But, while insisting upon fruits meet for repentance, John knows that it was One mightier than he who alone could purge His floor, and this He would do when he baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire, the chaff would be burned up, the wheat gathered into the garner. But there is not a word of redemption, nor even of the need of the new birth in this; to Christian baptism there could be no reference here, a living and not a dead and risen Christ, is the subject of the Baptist’s testimony, addressed exclusively to Jews. Yet it was baptism to Christ, that is, to His death, which alone answered the inquiry for and need of purity. Christ’s death was death to sin, law, the world, all that belonged to, and characterized, the responsible creature, far from God in sin. To all that Christ has died, but that is the death to which we are baptized — a death to sin. “We, who have died to sin, “says the apostle, and, “he that is dead, is freed [justified] from sin” (Rom. 6). “Having made by Himself the purification of sins [that is, in His atoning death on the cross], He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1 JND). We see now where purification is found, and how the saint, entering into the meaning and value of that death before God, can accept the exhortation, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Jesus Christ our Lord.” Here, and here alone, “we get this question about purification fully answered.
It was not until the darkness was passing (1 John 2), that such a question could be answered. See also what Peter says, “The like figure whereunto baptism doth now save us . . . the demand as before God of a good conscience (1 Pet. 3:2121The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: (1 Peter 3:21), New Trans). It was answered by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God.
The doctrine of the new birth reveals also the need of purification; to be with God, one is born of water as well as of the Spirit. “Of His own will begat He us by the word of truth” (James 1:1818Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (James 1:18)). We are cleansed by the washing of water by the word. The revelation of the new enables us to judge that which is of the old man, and we are renewed in knowledge, according to God’s revelation of Himself as a Man. Water and blood (cleansing and expiation) came from the dead body of Christ, the true cleansing is in this death. Baptism unto His death, then, is the sign of this regeneration. Faith, in the death and resurrection of Christ, gives a good conscience towards God. The blood of Jesus Christ purifies the conscience to serve the living God (Heb. 9). In baptism, we pass from our own state — dead in sins — into Christ’s state — dead to sin, and alive to God. This is the meaning of Christian baptism, we are not baptized because we had died in His death; baptism is not the sign of this. “Know ye not that so many of us, as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized unto His death?” Thus the ground of our standing in nature before God is changed. We have died out of it in Christ’s death, and so, also, from another starting point, as quickened with Christ, we have left the old state behind, and entered into one of resurrection.
Verse 26. It seems as though John’s disciples were troubled about what they might have considered the waning reputation of their master. “He to whom thou barest testimony, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to Him.” But their jealousy, if that was their feeling, far from finding a response in the spirit of John, becomes only the occasion of renewed testimony to the deeper glory of His Person. For him, the source, as well as the subject of testimony, is now heavenly. A man can receive nothing unless it be given him out of heaven; and He who comes out of heaven is above all, and what He hath seen and heard that He testifieth, and no man receiveth His testimony. And here, I think, we can perceive that these heavenly testimonies have reached his spirit; for the moment, at least, the subject of the kingdom gives place to testimony to the heavenly Witness Himself — the Witness of things above. This is very beautiful, and could only be found in the gospel of John; where, from the beginning, all is regarded as ruined and. gone in Israel. Here he can only think of the things above, which he has heard from Him, who, coming out of heaven, speaks of the things which He has seen and heard; and if verses 35-36 belong to the Baptist’s testimony, he would seem to be occupied, for the time at least, with the truths ministered respectively by the apostles John and Paul, the former of whom is occupied mainly with the Person of the Lord; the latter, in addition to the things belonging to the name, dwells much on the things above, on the heavenly calling and relationship of the saints. Nor did the Baptist yield to either of these blessed servants in personal attachment to the Lord. In this matter of devoted love to His Person, these three holy men, John Baptist, John the Evangelist, and Paul, stand together in the front rank of the noble army of martyrs (witnesses). No one of these servants of God resembled the other in natural character, their lives and fields of service were widely different, in one thing they were wholly one, devotion to Him, whom through grace they served so well. Yet this, too, was from above, as each has been careful to tell us.
How little the disciples of John comprehended their master! in this they resembled the disciples of Jesus. “He to whom thou barest witness; all come unto Him.” They knew not that turning from John to Jesus was the crowning of their Master’s ministry, they were equally ignorant of the joy of the friend of the Bridegroom. How different was it with that other blessed servant, who was left by all in Asia — but not for Jesus! Like Demas, they loved this present world, the world which Paul’s doctrine, manner of life, faith, and purpose united to condemn, as Noah’s preparation of the ark was the condemnation of the world that then was. This condemnation, those who are of the world never forgive, it is felt to be their own. The faithful are treated as the filth and offscouring of it, but Christ says of them, “Ye are the light of the world, “and the Spirit’s testimony is, that the world was not worthy of those who, by their faithfulness, thus condemn it. How different the judgments of the Spirit of God, and the spirit of the world! John, however, does not speak of shame, but of joy; the joy was as peculiar as the voice he heard, the Bridegroom’s voice. Neither was Paul ashamed, in his day, his joy and confidence were in the Lord, it was those in Asia who had left him who were ashamed of the testimony of the Lord, and of Paul His prisoner. So, in the passage before us, John says: “No man receives his testimony” — his soul felt it. How similar are the trials of all who seek to walk with God! It is in the path His holy One has trodden that we realize this. In finding His footsteps, we are permitted to share His sorrows, but His victories also. Finally it will be, “to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne” (Rev. 3:2121To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. (Revelation 3:21)). Never can the lovers of this world become its overcomers. “This is the victory that overcomes the world — our faith.” How gracious and mighty was the power that constrained the foremost man in all the earth in things pertaining to God; one, too, possessing a name and authority with the masses, to take deliberately, rejoicingly, and in the spirit of triumph, not the spoiling of his goods, but what was far deeper “the setting aside of self with all its pretensions, all its reminiscences, all the prestige that attaches to greatness of any kind amongst men; and for what? that which God revealed and faith discovered in the Person of a homeless, houseless, rejected Man! “He shall increase, “was the power in his soul of, I shall decrease.” But the increase was not to be in this age, but in that which is to come; in the present the disciple shares his Master’s rejection here. “If any man serve Me, let him follow Me.” This service does not lead to honors and preferments here, but if any man serve Me, him will My Father honor. Farther on, we have Paul telling us, that by the cross the world was crucified unto him and he unto it. There it was that one, once known as Saul of Tarsus, disappeared. He had verily thought with himself that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, but when he says, “I am crucified with Christ, “he is, no longer thinking with himself, but with Christ. It is not I that live, but Christ liveth in me.” He had decreased, as John terms it, and wonderfully, so that Christ only appeared. What had become of Paul? One only sees now a man in Christ, but this is conquering, not improving, the world. By what path Paul reached this place of present victory, those who know the truth can tell. Was it not found in forgetting the things which were behind, and reaching forth unto the things which are before? while he pressed on to the mark, for the prize of the calling on high. That path leads out of this world; and in what world is Christ won? Paul was looking at Christ in glory, the Baptist beheld Him in humiliation; the circumstances how different, the Object the same! The full revelation of God (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost), forms the glorious circle of light which surrounded the apostle of the Gentiles, he stood before God on the firm ground of His own revealed righteousness; redemption was an accomplished fact, the Spirit’s presence here answering to Christ’s glory with the Father. The veil was rent, the conscience of the believer perfected, himself sealed with the Holy Spirit, by which he was united to Christ in glory, and became a member of His body on earth. Who could separate from this body? it was Christ’s! who separate from Christ’s love, who, from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord? Which, of all these precious truths, formed any part of the ground on which John stood before Christ? These blessed foundation truths in Christianity were, as is said in reference to the Spirit, “not yet, “because Jesus had not yet been glorified (John 7:3939(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.) (John 7:39)). The divine Person, in whom and through whom they would be laid, he did know, and that depths unknown to man would soon flow forth. Blessed man! he was soon to pass through fiery trials, when it seemed as if he were offended in Jesus. “Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another?” If it were said, “Paul never faltered like that in the hour of trial and conflict,” it would be true, but Paul stood in conscious acceptance in a risen and glorified Christ, seated on the Father’s throne, united to Him there by the Spirit; John bore testimony to the unknown Son of God (as Son of Man also unknown), the crownless king of an apostate race and nation. For John, all the foundations were, so to speak, in the Person of Christ, and, on the other side, who was so personally appreciated by the Lord as John? The one word of admonition, “Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in Me, is followed by such a word of praise, as never was uttered before. Was that a reed shaken in the wilderness? The Lord notices his manner of life, it was not in kings houses that John’s sphere of service was found.
Verse 31. John himself being by nature of the earth, having spoken as such (an earthly person), even in his testimony not going beyond that which related to the earthly kingdom of Messiah, (besides this, he bore witness to His personal glory), apprehends, and is evidently deeply moved by, these heavenly testimonies. What eye had not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, He who was from heaven was there to reveal, but no one received them. John’s heart is smitten on account of it, and, I think one might say, that here it is the heart of a heavenly man that thus sorrows; for what makes any one heavenly in spirit, but the revelation of things there by Him who is of it? The goodly fruits of that land, the heavenly Witness had brought with Him. From the beginning, John was linked by faith to the divine Person, who, coming out of heaven, is above all, and who, in declaring what He had heard there, speaks the words of God, as the sent One. “He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God.” How could it be otherwise? Moreover, the Spirit was not given now in a limited way, as a Spirit of wisdom, or for the accomplishment of special objects, connected merely with this earth; but without measure. “No bounds of time or space could limit the sphere of His testimony, thus the testimonies of Jesus were the words of God (see Rev 1:22Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. (Revelation 1:2)), and spoken in the power of the Spirit, given without measure — yet no man received them. Further on, the Lord says, even to His disciples, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” They were to wait for the Spirit of truth, when He was come He would guide them into all the truth.
But if God gives the Spirit without measure, and He came thus first upon Jesus, it was according to the same love, that the Father had given all things into the hands of His beloved Son.