The Simple Things of the Christian Life

That whichsis born of the flesh 4s flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” — JOHN iii. 6.

THERE are two facts concerning Christianity which are never called in question at the present hour. The first is, that in the Person of Christ Christianity has revealed to the world the highest ideal of human life it has ever seen. The second is, that in the teaching of Christ Christianity has given to the world at once the most perfect and severest ethical code which has ever been enunciated in the listening ear of humanity. In Him is a perfect Pattern: by Him a perfect law,

Whatever opinion men may hold concerning the principles of Christ, or the doctrines of the Catholic Church, they at least agree that if only all men could live His life, or could perfectly

4 obey His instructions, there would be an immediate solution of all problems, a healing of all wounds, a righting of all wrongs, and the bringing in of that golden age concerning which the prophets and seers and psalmists have been singing to men through all human history. But there is the if. Jf men could live as He lived! Jf men could obey His law! And the if at once suggests the very solemn and almost appalling consideration that, if Jesus has done no more for men than to have given them the pattern of His life and the illumination of His teaching, He has only succeeded in revealing the depth of human degradation, and the impossibility of man’s ever attaining the highest or the best.

I am particularly anxious to state these things as clearly as in me lies, and therefore let me make that last assertion again in slightly different form. If Jesus Christ has done no more than give me the pattern of His life, He has made me the most hopeless and despairing of men, for I cannot reproduce it in my own.

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The New Birth II

If Jesus Christ has done no more than enunciate the laws which I find in the New Testament records, then He has only succeeded in mocking my impotence, and leaving me helpless and undone upon life’s broad highway. I cannot imitate that example, I cannot obey that law, unless He is more than Pattern, more than Law-giver. Unless, in some way, He brings to me the power with the pattern, the dynamic with the ethic, I am hopeless and helpless. The vision of the ideal fills me with great desire, but with an agony of disappointment, for I am brought no nearer to its realisation. All this is but to say that the very essence of Christianity lies in the fact of the something else that every man demands when he sees the perfect pattern and hears the perfect. law. Christianity is not merely an ideal presented. It is not merely a law enunciated. It is essentially a life communicated, in the illumination of which I see perfectly the ideal, and feel all the severity of its demands upon me, and in the power of which I find myselfi — oh, matchless miracle of grace — being transformed into that fair likeness.

How does this life begin? The third chapter of John is peculiarly interesting and valuable, because it plainly declares the truths concerning the beginning of the Christian life. It also distinctly reveals to us the ‘fact that there were truths which could not be so declared. I find the great principle of the Old Testament manifesting itself very remarkably. “Revealed things” are for us and our children. The “secret things” belong unto God. When Nicodemus, the honest inquirer, looked into the face of his Teacher, and said, “How can these things be?” Jesus said to him: “Art thou a teacher of Israel, and understandest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, we speak that we do know, and bear witness of that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you heavenly things?” Christ never attempted to tell the heavenly thing, to unveil the mystery of the life-giving touch of

God. He ‘very clearly stated, however, its conditions of operation. Here, as in all matters where man has to do with forces that are beyond his analysis, He declared the law, obedience to which would place the force at his disposal. He did not explain the force. He did not deal with the infinite mystery, that is for ever more hidden, of God’s method of working.

At the heart of this wonderful conversation of Jesus with Nicodemus, the words of my text occur. I have selected these words, not that they form a complete statement within themselves, but because in them Christ explains His insistence upon the necessity for the new birth; and because in them, also, He suggests to us what is the actual nature of the new life to which He is calling men,

Wherein lies the necessity for the new birth? Because “that which is born of the flesh is flesh.” What is the nature of the life into which men enter by the new birth? “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” In this verse we have suggested to us — first, the necessity for, and, secondly, the nature of the new birth.

Let us begin, then, with those words of Jesus, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh.” Here we must be careful that we do not read any of our own philosophy into this word of Christ. We must interpret the saying of Christ by Christ Himself, and by His presence and mission. He did not for one moment mean to declare that flesh is in itself necessarily evil: He was not discussing or making reference to any of the philosophies of His own day, which declared the evil nature of the flesh. He was stating a common fact about human nature, dealing with it, as He always did, with reference to its failure and not to its attainment. In His great declarations, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost,” and “TI came not to call the righteous but sinners,” He revealed the fact of humanity’s helpless and hopeless condition; and He here puts all that fact into the one pregnant sentence, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.”

If I would have that saying of Jesus resolved into its component parts, if I would have it ex- ‘plained satisfactorily to my own mind, I must wait, as the disciples had to wait, for the coming of the Spirit, and for the Spirit’s interpretation of the thinking and teaching of Jesus as we have it in the writings of the apostles. Jesus told His disciples distinctly that He had many things to tell them, but they could not bear them then; but when the Comforter should come, He would bring to their remembrance the things that He (Jesus) had said. The office of the Spirit is to unveil the essential, unified truth which Christ uttered, and make it clear, and simple, and plain.

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