What scripture teaches is, that man is not recoverable. Men are recoverable; but it is by being born again, by dying and rising, putting off the old man and putting on the new. The law, and even Christ's coming as addressed to man's responsibility, was the proof that there must be a second man instead of the first, and that death and resurrection must come in to found a place for man with God, that there must be a putting off the old man and a putting on the new man. The character of infidelity in the present day is that man can be improved and recovered—does not want a new man or to be born again. This will just lead to Antichrist. It is anti-Christianity unawares, the denial of the fundamental principles of Christianity—the new birth, and the cross. Man is not recoverable as in flesh. One must be born again (ἄνωθεν, entirely anew from the origin of his nature), and be redeemed.