A Psalm of Life
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is bora of the Spirit is spirit.” — John iii. 6.
“^p^ORN! That is true of us all. We were not asked if we would be born, or of whom we would be born. B”t w awoke gradually from months of almost
~(y/¥lf unconsciousness to find that we had been born. And birth was the gate into life. Through birth we rj entered the blessed kingdom of life.
Bui what Life? There are many kingdoms of life, rising one above another. Into which of these were we born? The lowest is the kingdom of vegetable life, with fungus and palm, with lichen and oak, with hyssop and cedar. But our kingdom is higher than this. The next is the kingdom of animal life, separated by an impassable gulf from that beneath it, embracing all living things, from the microscopic organisms of deep-sea dredgings, or the invisible kingdoms that exist in drops of water, to the noblest forms of creature-life around the throne of God. But our kingdom was higher than this. The next is the kingdom of mind and soul: in which there are the faculty of reason; the rudiments of conscience; the sparkle of wit; the aurora-glory of the fancy; memory as librarian; poetry as minstrel; hope, as fresco-painter; love (to use Spenser’s exquisite simile) as mother of all. Into this kingdom we were born, when in our first birth we passed into the light of life. If we were to adopt the phraseology of the New Testament, we might call this the kingdom of the flesh; for the flesh is employed in a very wide and special sense, and includes the whole drift of human life, even to its thoughts, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” ( Rom. viii. 6, 7).
But above this kingdom there is another — the kingdom oithe “Jc must be §nrtt ^gam!” 73
spiritual and eternal This is the supreme realm of life, the element and home of God. Our Lord alludes to it twice in the same breath as “the kingdom of God” (3, 5). The kingdom into which we are born as babes is filled with bright and beautiful things; but it is shut off from this by a gulf as vast as that which severs the vegetable from the animal, or the animal from the moral nature of man. As easily might the water-lily become the spaniel that dived for it, or the spaniel the poet Cowper, who sings his exploit, as that which is born flesh become spirit. As there is no entrance into the kingdom of the flesh-life save by natural birth; so there is no entrance into the kingdom of the spirit-life, save by spiritual birth. Only that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. And this made our Lord so emphatic in repeating his announcement, “Ye must be born again.”
Nicodemus was an admirable type of the world of men outside the kingdom of the spirit-life. He believed in God, having no sympathy with the cold infidelity of the Sadducees. He was, probably, like another of the same school, blameless in all the righteousness of the law, and irreproachable in moral character. He would be classed among the high-churchmen of his time. Courtly, thoughtful, inquisitive; willing to consider the claims of any new system; prepared to acknowledge Christ as a teacher; perplexed at spiritual truth; thinking that it was only needful to know in order to be — how apt a type is he of the children of the flesh!
See him as he muffles his face in his cloak, and steals along in the shadows cast by the full Passover moon, startled by his own footfall, fearful lest the watchman on his beat should recognise the magnate of the Jewish Sanhedrim in the suppliant for entrance at the door of the humble lodging of Jesus of Nazareth. A nervous, timid old man this, defending his friends on general principles; not liking to identify himself too publicly with a dead enthusiast; fonder of asking questions than of arguing points (John iii. 4, 9; vii. 50, 51; xix. 38, 39).
To such a man Christ said, “Ye must be born again.” When Christ says must, it is time for us to wake up. He is so gentle, winsome, tender. He is always persuading, inviting, entreating. He so seldom uses the imperative mood. When, therefore, He speaks thus, it becomes us to inquire into the matter on which He insists so earnestly.
I. The Nature of this Life. — It is “eternal life.” This is the epithet perpetually applied to it throughout this chapter and the writings of the beloved Evangelist. Our Lord was the first so to describe it (15). The Holy Ghost repeats the words as though to stamp them on our minds (16, 36; iv. 14, 36; vi. 54; X. 28; xu. 25; I John v. 13). Surely they cannot simply mean everlastingness, the duration of a never-ending existence. To have that alone were to gain nothing by our second birth. Nay, it would repeat the mistake of the old Greek myth, in which the goddess obtained for her lover immortal life, but forgot to clami also immortal youth, so that his years became an insupportable anguish. “Eternal” refers rather to the quality than the quantity of’ that life, and tells us that it is altogether removed from the conditions of space and time, and partakes of the blessed, timeless, glorious, spiritual, nature of God.
This life is never shadowed by dread of condemnation (18); it suns itself in the very light of God’s face (20); it does the truth (21); it finds its true nest and home in the very heart of God (13).
n. The Source of this Life — God. “The Father hath life in Himself” (v. 26). To use the sublime language of the Psalmist, “In Thee is the fountain of life.” All life finds its source and origin in the nature of God; as the verdure of an oasis in the desert, or of a valley among the hills, is entirely due to the presence of a perennial fountain, which makes music through the years. Drain away the fountain, and the glade slowly fades into desert. Blot out God, and the universe becomes as devoid of life as the moon.
From the firefly that flashes through the forest glade to the firstborn sons of light — the seraphs, who burn in ceaseless adoration before the throne — all the life that exists throughout the universe is due, if I may say so, to the spray of the Divine fountain of life. And this is specially true of spiritual life. Underived, independent of supply, original and ever-flowing, all spirit-life has its centre, home, and fountain-head in God.
III. The Storage of this Life. — If we may use the words, the Father stored his life in the human nature of our Lord. It dwelt in Him in its fulness, and it pleased the Father that it should be so. By a deliberate act. He gave to the Son to have life in Himself And so at last that life was manifested, and men saw it, and bore witness of that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested to them (Col. ii, 9; John v. 26; I John i. 2).
Of course we know that, as the second person of the ever-blessed Trinity, our Lord Jesus shared from before all worlds in the inherent life of God; but when He became the Son of Man, it was the Father’s special bcstowment that stored up in his human nature all the marvellous life of which we speak. It was as if our God yearned to make us partakers of his Divine nature; but, since the fountain-head was in his own being, and He knew that it would be inaccessible to us, therefore, in tender pity and condescension, He brought it within our reach in the human nature of our blessed Lord. Who need be afraid of Jesus? What little child may not venture to his arms? what penitent not kiss his feet? what trembling one not lose all terror in his presence? Thank God that He has put his best gift on so low a shelf that the weakest and smallest of his children may go and take it for themselves!
But it was not enough simply to store the life in Jesus. It had to be made accessible to us through his death, resurrection, and ascension. There is, therefore, special significance in the repeated references of this chapter to the Son of Man being lifted up on the cross (14, 16). That precious death was the full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice and satisfaction for the sin of the whole world, through which alone our sins can be pardoned, or we accounted worthy to stand in the presence of the holy God. But, at the same time, it made Him able to pass on to others that life which was in Himself; and, as He passed through death into resurrection. He became the author of eternal life to all who are united to Him by faith.
He was filled, that out of his fulness we might be filled. He died that we might live. Having overcome the sharpness of death. He opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
IV. The Communication of this Life. — “Bom of water and of the Spirit.” All the world of Judaea was ringing with talk of John’s baptism. At this very time he was baptizing in non, because there was much water there. This then was our Lord’s point, when He spoke oi water. He clearly referred to the work of his Forerunner, and all that it meant of repentance and confession of sin. It was through John that men were to come to Himself. The porter must open the gate of the true fold. And the Lord Jesus would not for a moment allow this man, ruler though he were, to escape the wholesome ordeal of taking his place with every other sinner on the Jordan banks, and of thus becoming one of the people prepared for the coming of the Lord. In every soul there has to be a process analogous to that signified by the baptism of John. First the baptism of water, then the baptism of fire. First repentance, then remission of sins. Bom of water and of the Spirit.
But at the most this is only part, and, though necessary, the less part, of the process. We need not only to turn from the old life, but to become possessed of the new. And this is the express function of the Holy Spirit. He is significantly called “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom. viii. 2).
Faith is receptiveness. Those that believe are those that receive (i. 12). Now the one spot in all the universe where faith is most easily and constantly called into operation is at the cross of Jesus. When the soul beholds that mystery of love, the Son of Man dying for its sins, uplifted on the cross, as the serpent on the pole, it yearns after Him with a passion which is God-begotten; it cannot refrain from faith; it opens towards Him the deepest recesses of its being: and that is the blessed moment of the impartation of the germ of the new life through the agency of the Holy Spirit. We may not say which precedes the other. They are simultaneous, as the simultaneous movement of the spokes of a wheel, or as a child’s first cry with its first breath.
We may not have been conscious of this gracious overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, our hearts may have been too much occupied with love and penitence and ecstasy to think of aught else than of the death which atoned for sin and made us nigh to God; but in after years we must look back to that moment as the birthday of our eternal life, the hour when we passed from death unto life, and became alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Ah, august and glorious experience, never to be forgotten, never to be excelled in all that may transpire through untrodden ages, by which we were translated from death into life, from the power of darkness into the kingdom of God’s dear Son!
V. The Laws of that Life. — (i) Mystery. As the wind (8). Whilst our Lord was speaking with this inquirer, “trusting Himself to him,” as He did not to the majority of those who sought Him (ii. 24), the night-breeze may have passed over the city, stirring the vine-leaves as they drooped over the casement, and breathing through the open window. “Mark this wind,” said our Lord; “how mysterious it is! You cannot see it, though you can feel it. You know not from what scenes it comes, or to what it hurries; its laws and ministries; why it is now a hurricane, and again a zephyr, now laden with the softness of the western sea, and again hot and feverish with the fire of the desert waste — of all this you are ignorant; and do you think that you will be more able to understand the nature or laws of that new life of which I speak?”
It must be always so. No kingdom can understand another kingdom. You must be born into life to know life. It is only by what you experience of life in yourself that you can judge of it in others. This is the contention which the Apostle enforces in words that burn with undimming flame, though almost two thousand years have elapsed since they were first penned: “The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God” (i Cor. ii. 11-16).
Those, therefore, who hear us talk of the new birth may well marvel, as did Nicodemus; and it is almost useless to try to make these mysteries plain. As well ride on the wind, or follow the rush of the tide as it drives its foaming steeds up the estuary. But we who have it know it. We are conscious of its throb, its pulse, its ecstasy. We have traced its parentage to the nature of God. We hear its music as it rises up like a fountain towards eternity.
Thank God that, with all its mystery, the wind is all-pervasive. No lung so consumptive, no mine so deep, no orifice so small, no court so foetid, but it will enter to purify and heal. So, unless we seal ourselves hermetically against Him, the Divine Spirit will enter our natures, ridding them of the miasma which has gathered there, sowing the germs of life, and inspiring us with the very nature of God.
(2) Knowledge. — Though we do not come to the Lord Jesus primarily as Teacher, yet we cannot receive the new life without turning naturally to Him as its Teacher and Guide. Come to Him as Teacher, and you only marvel. Come to Him as Saviour, and, being saved, you learn, whilst sitting at his feet, not earthly things only, but heavenly (12).
It is passing wonderful how soon the new-born babe begins to understand things which baffle the wise and prudent. That which the intellect cannot receive is welcomed by the loving humble spirit. We receive the Spirit of God, and we come to know the things that are freely given to us of God. They are revealed by the Spirit, who searches the deep things of the Divine nature. Oh for more time to spend bending over these translucent but infinite depths, beneath the teaching of such a Master!
(3) Growth. — hz the Baptist said ot the Lord, using the third must of this chapter, “He must increase, I must decrease.” This also is true of the Christ-life within. It is destined to grow and increase, from strength to strength, from grace to grace, till Christ is perfectly formed within us.
The growth of the Divine life is in exact proportion to the denial of the self-life. Bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. Learn what it means to be crucified with Christ in daily acts of unselfish love and pity. Mortify the deeds of the body in the power of the Eternal Spirit; and as the mould is broken, the true ideal will emerge in the perfect beauty of eternal life.