John 3:1-181There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: 2The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, 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. 3Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 4Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? 5Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 8The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. 9Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? 10Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? 11Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. 12If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? 13And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. 14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 15That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:1‑18).
Many years after the Jews had rejected Christ it was written, “He came to his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power [or privilege] to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:1111He came unto his own, and his own received him not. (John 1:11).) How high then the privilege, how great the dignity! Born of God—sons of God. Let us bear this in mind. One of the true marks of the operation of the Spirit was seen in a religious man, Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. There was a felt need in his soul that brought him, though by night, to see Jesus. He owns Jesus as a Teacher come from God, he believes the evidence of the miracles, which could not be done by any man except God be with him. Jesus treated him as all wrong if he supposed that teaching could meet his case or need. “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again [or wholly anew], he cannot see the kingdom of God.” This fills Nicodemus with amazement. He says, “How can a man be born when he is old?” &c.
Now the astonishment of Nicodemus shows that the learned Jews had no idea of the new birth. This ought not to have been the case, but it was so. It was distinctly foretold, but it never was understood, till Jesus arose from the dead. We find David, under a deep sense of sin, longing for it. And, as we said, it is distinctly foretold, that when God restores Israel to their own land, then they shall all be born again, or have wholly a new heart. Let us read the words. “For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you. and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I 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. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers,” &e. All this is of God. Then afterward they will repent. “Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities, and for your abominations.” (Eze. 36:24-3124For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. 25Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. 26A new heart also will I 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 an heart of flesh. 27And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. 28And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. 29I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. 30And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen. 31Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations. (Ezekiel 36:24‑31).)
Now is it not remarkable that Nicodemus should have had no idea of this? The disciples also had no knowledge of the new birth. And though all the offerings, and such a scripture as Isa. 53, pointed to the atoning death of Christ, yet neither the Jews, nor the Jewish disciples of Jesus, seem to have understood either Moses or the prophets on that all important foundation truth.
Is it not sad to think that Christendom returned very much to the same state of ignorance, both as to the new birth and the atonement? For the one they substituted baptism, in place of circumcision; and for the other, the blasphemy of the mass.
Let us then read our chapter as a restored revelation from the lips of Jesus, yea, from the heart of God. Jesus answered, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” We must notice that Jesus here is evidently speaking of the kingdom of God to be set up on this earth, as foretold in the scripture above. Man as he was in sinful flesh, had proved himself totally unfit morally for the presence and kingdom of God. He was to be cleansed, purified, of which water was the well-known type. He must have a totally new nature. Nothing could improve the old nature, called flesh in scripture. So that Nicodemus was entirely mistaken in supposing that God had sent Jesus to improve the sinful nature of man in the flesh by education. This was new and astonishing truth, that man’s nature was not fit for God, even on earth in that kingdom He had promised to set up. New, yet not new, as it had been foretold, but not understood. Nicodemus himself was a proof of this. The King had come; He was there, the kingdom was there: but until Nicodemus was born again, he could not see nor understand who Jesus was.
Jesus now says a few words which settle the whole question, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” This is a self-evident fact, true in all generations. With all the childish talk, a monkey never brings forth a man. Everything partakes, IS, of the nature of that from which it is born or generated. Gather a thousand different birds’ eggs, mingle them together, let them be hatched; the form, the feathers, the very instinct, all is true to its generation. Is it not so? Even a Darwin must have said, Yes. God said, “after his kind, and it was so.” This John 3:66That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (John 3:6) is a most important verse, and corrects a very common mistake as to the new birth. It is not that the sinful nature, the fallen nature of man, is changed, or made holy. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Thus they are, and remain, in each believer, two totally distinct natures. But we must not anticipate, but just take scripture as we find if, on this most important subject. The Lord now shows that the new birth is the sovereign act of the Spirit, even as “ the wind bloweth where it listeth,” &c. This shows the utter fallacy of baptismal regeneration.
If the act of a priest baptizing the whole population was the new birth, or effected the new birth, there would be no divine sovereignty in it at all. And in like manner, if you say the water of baptism is the agent, or medium by which the Spirit effects regeneration, there would still be no divine sovereignty in regenerating the whole population by water. The whole thing is a gross delusion, not only has it no foundation in scripture, but it is in contradiction of scripture. Happily this is a sure mark of false tradition. When tradition contradicts divine revelation, it is and must be false. That baptism is a figure or type of the regeneration we quite admit.
Let us not forget that the Lord is speaking to a Jew, and about the kingdom of God to be set up in the land given to their fathers. All that that Jew can say is, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered,.... Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?” Plainly He refers to the things that had been foretold in Eze. 36; so that most assuredly being born of water could not be christian baptism at all, but water is used in the Jewish sense as the emblem of purity. He had spoken of the pure and new nature needed in order to be suitable for the earthly kingdom, and Nicodemus did not understand; as Christ said, “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?” No man but Jesus knew what was suited to heaven. He spoke that which He knew. No man had been there and could tell, or knew, as He did. You would say no one surely thinks that man in the flesh, in his sinful, vile nature, is so foolish as to suppose that he is fit for heaven, and the presence of God? Friend, that is just what the whole religion of this world is doing, trying to make that sinful nature holy, and thus fit for heaven; some in one way, some in another. Some, by fastings and prayers and sacraments; some, by striving to keep the law; some, by washing in the river Ganges; and some, by holiness by faith. Oh, that all these would ponder the words of Jesus, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.”
There is then this universal feeling, or conscience, that man as he is, is not fit for the presence of God. Just as if a message arrived from the Queen to a collier in the mine, ragged? half naked, covered with dust and soot; you would scarcely need tell him he was not fit for clean carpets, and spotlessly clean apartments, and attendants, and especially the eye of Her Majesty. Would he not be miserable there, and wish himself out? Ah, how well did Jesus know that man in his natural state, his sinful, defiled nature, was totally unfit for the purity of the presence of God in heaven! If He said then to Nicodemus, speaking of the earthly kingdom, “Ye must be born wholly anew,” how much more does he thus speak to us now as connected with heavenly things! What is that new birth? How is it effected? Is it enough to give the anxious soul peace with God here? Is it enough to fit a sinful man for heaven? Surely these are deeply interesting questions. Are you quite clear about each of them?
It is far from our desire to attack or offend any reader of these lines, but we do beg you to fairly test whatever you are resting in. Do you really believe that in your baptism you were made a child of God, a member of Christ, an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven? Has this improved or changed your sinful nature? If it be true, then you are fit for heaven. Is it so? Oh, baptized thousands, are ye fit for the holy presence of God? One cannot but pity the man that sincerely believes such a delusion. But what can we say of the man who does not believe it, yet tells people it is so, knowing it to be false? Is it not fearful wickedness? To these we give the word of warning. Could anything be worse than this willful deception? But we affectionately ask the baptized, Are you quite sure, if summoned into the presence of God, that you are fit for that presence?
The same question may be put to such as are seeking fitness for heaven by fastings, prayers, sacraments, masses, and the like. Is your sinful self so improved, that you are fit for the holy presence of God? Or are you supposing that sin, that old. nature, is so eradicated by holiness through faith, or by faith, that you are now so pure that you are fit for heaven? Can you give thanks to the Father that you are now meet for the inheritance of the saints in light?
We will now—leave for a little while our chapter, and see what the Holy Ghost teacheth on these deeply solemn questions. We shall find all in perfect harmony with the words of Jesus, “ That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”