The New Birth
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.
When I turn to the apostolic writings, I find this statement of Jesus elaborated in such a way as to explain to me all that He meant when He said “that which is born of the flesh is flesh.” He revealed the fact that man was darkened in his intelligence, alienated in his affection; that he was centring his whole thought upon earthly things; that he was under the control of the forces of evil. He said in effect that man lacked spiritual enlightenment, spiritual appreciation, spiritual aspiration, spir- -itual freedom; that man did not know God, did not love God, did not desire God, and did not serve God. Man, as Christ found him, was altogether satisfied within his own personality. He had shut the eastern windows through which the light should stream; he had closed his ears to the voices that were calling him from without, and was living entirely within the realm of the flesh — flesh-centred, flesh-governed, flesh-mastered.
When Paul begins to break up the truth for us, he speaks of the carnal mind that cannot know the things of God; the mind that is at enmity against God; the mind that has its affections set upon things of the earth — that is, under the dominion of the devil. This was Christ’s estimate of humanity without any reference to its cause or permission; and Christ declares in one all-comprehensive sentence that man cannot enter into the Kingdom of God as he is, for “that which is born of the flesh is flesh.”’
In this word, then, is revealed the necessity for the new birth. A man may see the fair vision of Christ’s perfect ideal, but if he be honest he must acknowledge that, when he would do good, evil is present with him; that, when he would realise that high purpose, he finds within him a paralysis that checks endeavour and induces failure. This is the universal experience of human nature of every age and civilisation. In the very fact of man’s being, he is of the earth, earthy.
Man does not know God, and no man by searching can find Him out. No man has seen God at any time. No man has conceived the truth about God until he has been born from above. All the wisdom, and culture, and learning of the world and of the successive ages have absolutely failed in their attempt to know God. There are men who know a great deal about God, but they do not know Him. Jesus did not say to men that a grasp of theology, a knowledge of the systematised truth concerning God, would bring them life eternal. He said, ‘This is life eternal to know God.” No man knows God by his first birth, and because of his ignorance he is at enmity against God. You may challenge that statement. You may tell me this is not the age in which man is at enmity against God. Think well before you make the assertion. Are you welcome in any merely social circle if you want to talk about God? I omit from any such question the circle of Christian people, and yet, even in such, conversation about God is not particularly popular. But go without, not to the vulgar, but to the cultured and refined, and you will find that men do not want to talk of God, nor to think of God. They do not love Him because they do not know Him, If they knew Him they would love Him, and they would talk of Him from early morn till dewy eve. There would be no subject so precious to them as that of God, His Being, and His beneficence. But men do not know Him. They have lost the vision, and there is no affection in the soul for God. Men do not want God; they keep Him out.
What is the issue? The man who has lost the knowledge of God, or who has never had it, and therefore does not love God, turns to the earth, and attempts to feed his soul on dust, The philosophy of the man without God may be expressed in a very few, brief, burning words from Scripture: “What shall we eat? What shall we drink? Wherewithal shall we be clothed?” This is the sum and substance of the life of the soul that does not know God. “Let us eat and drink... for to-morrow we die.” Was there ever such a pessimistic wail? But it is the honest expression of the man who does not know God. ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” It has lost its vision of God, has no love for God; and it turns to satisfy the clamant cry of its inner life with the things of the earth. It yields, therefore, no allegiance to the throne of high Heaven. It does not ask to know the will of God, and it becomes, all unconsciously, and yet most truly, the slave of its own lust, its own passion, its own animalism; and, finally, therefore, the slave of the devil who drives. These things have not changed with the passing of the years, and this is why man needs to be born anew. “That which is born of the flesh” cannot find God, does not know Him, will not serve Him; and all the surging agony of the world, and its vain cry for satisfaction, finds here its explanation.
Notice in the next place what the Master says: “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” interpreting what He means in the light of what we have already learned. In the man who is born from above, upon whom this gift of life has been bestowed, a great change is manifested. His life is no longer the flesh life, circumferenced in flesh, centred in flesh. His life is now the spirit life, centred in the spirit, conditioned by the spirit. The man of flesh does not know God. The man born of the Spirit is the friend of God. Give the twenty-third Psalm to a man of scholarship, of refinement, of mental culture at its best. He will return you an exposition full of charm and beauty, in which there will be no false quantity; no mistake about the Eastern shepherd, no wrong view of the still waters of the river, no inaccurate description of the verdure through which the sheep are led. It will be poetic, finished, a thing of beauty, but a stone which cannot feed the soul. Give that same twenty-third Psalm to some old mother in Israel, who never could read it, but has learned it. Ask her to recite it, and tell you her experience of it; and you know as well as I do that the windows of Heaven are open, and — “God comes down the soul to greet, While glory crowns the mercy-seat.”
The man is living in the flesh, and though he approaches the Divine thing, he never touches it. The woman lives in the spirit, and although she speaks in ungrammatical language, and violates its metaphors, and misinterprets its illustrations, she yet unveils the heart of God.
The man lives in the flesh: it may be refined and cultured, but devoid of spiritual vision. The soul that has come into the spirit realm sees and talks about the things invisible, touches and talks about the things intangible. The man smiles at her folly, and pities her; but she is seeing God! )
Have you ever seen God, my brother, my sister? Your truthful answer will reveal whether you are born again or not. If you have not seen Him, if you have only imagined Him, if you are still speculating as to His existence, you do not know anything about the new birth. If you have seen Him with the vision that is not fleshly, if you know Him, then life is yours. That which is born of the Spirit takes hold of the Spirit, appreciates the Spirit; it knows God. That is the first thing.
The second is that it loves God. There are men and women everywhere who love God. The mention of His name stirs the heart as nothing else can. The thought of His infinite grace and matchless love brings tears when nothing else will bring them, and provokes a smile that lights the dreariest day the soul ever passed through. The knowledge of God is always the birth of love in the soul. You cannot know God and not love Him. To know Him is to love Him. I am never tired of quoting the words of a German poet, who sang:
“O God, of good the unfathomed sea; Who would not give his heart to Thee?”
That was the language of a man who had seen God. When he had seen Him, and had come to know Him, he handed over everything he had to Him. He did what love always does — became prodigal in his giving, poured himself out — heart, will, mind, and devotion. That is always the answer when a man sees God. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” The man born of the Spirit holds with a loose hand the things of the world. Not that he is careless about flowers. He loves them because they are sacramental symbols of the infinite touch of his Father. He is not careless of the birds. He loves them because they sound in his listening ear tones of the music of the Father’s home. He is not careless of the old world. He loves it, but always because he sees through its beauties the God he has come to love. He does not try to satisfy his soul with the things of to-day. He is not concerned with what he shall eat, and what he shall drink, and wherewithal he shall be clothed. His first and supreme concern is the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and he knows that his material wants will be supplied. These things often are, after all, but the baggage which threatens to retard the progress, the impedimenta which man will let fall as he drops the robe of flesh, and, rising into his native air, has personal and everlasting vision of God, and communion with Him,
The final distinction of the man who sees and loves God, who knows and obeys Him, lies in the principle that now governs his life. His motives and aims are no longer selfish and worldly, his actions no longer constrained by fleshly desires. Henceforth he recognises the right of one “must” alone, and that the impelling obligation of the will of God.
No man can pass into this new spirit life out of the old flesh life save by the touch of the Spirit upon him, and by communication of the Spirit life to him. Does the necessity attract us? Does it appal us? Is someone looking on the spiritual side, and saying how he would fain enter into that life? Or is someone looking on the fleshly side. Is your question that of Nicodemus: “How can these things be?’ Then comes the Master’s answer, with characteristic limitation, and yet with wonderful clearness. Let us consider that answer, taking first His statement of the mystery of the new birth; and, secondly, His declaration regarding the law of its operation.
First, then, how does Jesus answer the universal question, as voiced by Nicodemus? “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh and whither it goeth. So is everyone that is born of the Spirit.” In that statement there is a recognition of mystery, and a recognition of principle. “The wind bloweth where it listeth... so is everyone that is born of the Spirit.” What does that “so” refer to? To the wind? No. Our relation to the wind expresses the relation of man to the Spirit. We must have our balances right here, or we shall never understand this. great verse. We hear the wind; this man hears the voice of the Spirit. We cannot tell whence the wind comes, nor whither it goes; this man cannot explain the mystery of the Spirit’s guidance. Christ leaves it there. It is the commencement of an illustration which He left Nicodemus to work out for himself. What is the natural outworking of it? I hear the sound of the wind — that is the fact. I cannot tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth — that is the mystery. What follows? I take hold of the fact and obey its law, and TI gain the benefit, even though I do not understand the mystery.
Some of you know something about boating. You put your boat upon the lake, and hoist your sail, and wait for the wind. Now it is blowing — that is a fact. You do not know whence it comes, nor whither it goes — that is a mystery. But you do not sit down in the boat and say, I decline to make any use of this thing. I do not understand it. I cannot be swayed by mystery. I must have an explanation. Nonsense! You put your sail up, saying, I will take advantage of the fact in order that my boat may be driven over the lake, and postpone the solution of the mystery to further knowledge and understanding. So much for the man and the wind. “So is everyone that is born of the Spirit.” You know the fact of the Spirit. You do not know the mystery of His coming and going.
What then shall I do? Discover the law and obey it? Though I cannot explain the mystery of the new birth, I shall receive the benefit of the Spirit’s power, and shall get the life. But what is the law? “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth, may in Him have eternal life.” Here is the law! Life comes by the Spirit when you believe on the lifted Son of man. Talking to Nicodemus, those wondrous eyes looked on to the bloody Cross, and with calm, heroic fortitude, Jesus said: “The Son of man must be lifted up.”” You ask me how you can get life. He that believeth on the Son shall have life. Life will come to the soul through that lifting up. Again a mystery without explanation; but there is the fact and its law. The Spirit will communicate to the soul who believes the life liberated in the mystery of the Passion. Are you asking how? Never mind the how! Hoist your sail, and catch the breeze of this Spirit of God! Obey the law while you postpone the explanation of the mystery. Obey the law, and that Spirit Whose coming and going no man can perfectly understand, will communicate to your soul at this moment the very life of that perfect One, Who was the ideal and Whose was the ethic; and that life communicated will become the dynamic, in the power of which you will realise the pattern and walk in obedience to His commands. How am I to be born again? Recognise the mystery of the Spirit’s work. Discover the law of the Spirit’s operation, Obey the law, and immediately receive the benefit. Just as the man upon the lake, who, not understanding the mystery of the coming and going of the wind, yet obeys its law by lifting his sail so as to catch it, and finds his boat driven across the water; so you, helpless man, unable to understand the mystery of the Incarnation, or of Atonement, or of regeneration, lift your sail, crown Christ by trusting Him, and the Divine afflatus shall fill your soul. You will begin the voyage that ends in endless life beyond the mysteries and mists of the “‘ittle while.” It is a great mystery! I do not know how I was born again. I do not know how God changed this fleshly life of mine into one that sees something of His beauty, and loves Him a little already. I do not know how He wrought the change, and made me love the thing I hated, and hate the thing I loved. He did it when I believed on Jesus, and as I obeyed that simple law which Christ Himself declared, I was born again, and began a life as different from the old as noonday is different from midnight, as the grapes of Eshcol from the apples of Sodom.
Oh, begin this life; begin right where you are, without a sign or sound, without word spoken to friend or neighbour. Close the eyes of your soul, and say, O Christ, Revealer of God, Redeemer of men, by the mystery of the Passion that I cannot understand, in obedience to the call of Thy love, I trust Thee with my soul.
There will be no newspaper paragraph. There are some things the newspapers cannot describe; but it will be recorded in heaven, and you will pass from death to life, from the thraldom of the world to the liberty of the child of God. God help us to see that there is mystery that cannot be explained, though there is also a law that is simple enough for a child; and that when we obey the law, all the forces of God’s life in Christ are made ours by the work of the Spirit.