The New Birth

“Ye must be born again.” John iii. 7.

TrOES the value of a lost soul depend, in the estimate of Jesus, upon its antecedents or surroundings, its past and present, what it has been or is? Is it, for example, better worth Christ’s trouble to win good Nicodemus, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a sincere and candid man of great openness of mind, an earnest seeker after truth, than the bad Samaritan woman who came out to Jacob’s well?

The answer is that to Him both are equally lost, and both worth equal suffering to save. Both are

The value
of a soul.

Matt. xvi.
25.

John iii.
I, 2.

John iv.
17, 18.

Rom. iii.

23’
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The new
birth.

Gal. V. 21-
23.

John iii.
3-7.

alike and equally capable of becoming children of God, by the new birth; both are equally good raw material out of which the Divine Potter can make saints, but as far as the record goes Jesus gets more profit of the bad Samaritan woman than of good Nicodemus. This puts no premium on antecedent badness, for He has still greater profit of conscientious, religious Saul, whose training in the Scriptures, and in the law, made a magnificent foundation for grace. Only he must first become the new Paul.

Here then the imperative falls, ‘’ Ye must be born again,” and the must, though imperative, is not arbitrary. It is inevitable in view of what human nature has become. The natural man cannot produce the spiritual character: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, so ‘’ Ye must be born again.”

anb (letter Snterpretationsi To the inevitable question ‘* How? “Our Lord returns a twofold reply. The new birth is the work of the Spirit, fertilizing the seed of the word. Like the wind, the Spirit is invisible, mysterious, in the new creation; and this new birth becomes the instant possession of ^’ whosoever “believes on Christ, ‘^ lifted up,” that is crucified.

Not faith in Christ’s character, or divinity, humanity, words or miracles — though these are elements of true faith — but faith in Christ crucified; the personal trust in Him as having put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself — this brings the new birth.

There is a sense in which, by creation, all men are the offspring of God. This was Paul’s doctrine from Mars Hill and it is a truth, which distinguishes man from the animal creation, but upon it has been built a doctrine of the divine

The Fatherhood of
God,

Acts xvii.
28.

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Gen. i. 27,
28.

Eph. ii. I,

Eph. iv. 18,

Eph. ii. 8.

Titus iii.
3-6.

I Cor. xii.
12, 13.

Fatherhood which it Is sought to make identical with Christ’s new doctrine of the Fatherhood through the new birth.

This hopelessly confuses two things radically distinct, namely, the supreme position of men in the material universe as the ‘’ offspring “of God by creation; and the new relationship of birth into the family of God through the Holy Spirit. Christ came that the “offspring” of God might become, by a spiritual re-birth, children of God. The ‘’offspring” are mere lost souls, “dead in trespasses and sins,” “alienated from the life of God by wicked works.” The children of God are saved, recreated in Christ Jesus, made partakers of the divine nature, baptised into Christ.