"Jesus... said... Verily, verily, I say unto
thee, Except a man be born from above (R.V.M.), he cannot
see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3).
These words and nearby
verses are used almost exclusively in speaking to the
unsaved, and, of course, originally they so applied. But
I am remembering that John wrote this many decades after
the incident. The aged apostle, who outlived all the
other apostles, went right back to that early time and
wrote this, not for the unsaved but for the Church.
John's writings are undoubtedly for the Church, and he
wrote for the Church, "Except a man be born from
above, he cannot see the kingdom of God." I do
not mean, of course, that he said to the Church that it
had to be born again, but he was laying down something of
primary importance for Christians. You will notice that I
have quoted the marginal rendering of the Revised
Version, "born from above," because the
original Greek word used here is the same as in verse 31
- "He that cometh from above is above all." It
is an unusual thing to speak to Christians on that text,
but the fact is that, in one way or another and in
varying degrees, the whole of the New Testament is about
that which is born from above - the nature of it, what it
is, what it does, how it should behave, and everything
else. That is a sweeping statement, but it will stand
investigation.
Let us read a section
of the Word, ignoring the very unfortunate chapter
division, which of course was not in the original
documents. We go back to what is verse 24 of chapter 2
and on to verse 13 of chapter 3.
"Jesus did not
trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men, and
because he needed not that any one should bear witness
concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man. Now
there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a
ruler of the Jews: the same came unto him, by night, and
said to him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come
from God; for no man can do these signs that thou doest,
except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him,
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born
from above he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus
saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can
he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be
born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the
flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born
from above. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou
hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it
cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is
born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him,
How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto
him, Art thou the 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? And no man hath ascended
into heaven, but he that descended out of heaven, even
the Son of man, which is in heaven."
Two
Men - The Earthly and The Heavenly
Now, in that section,
we have two persons face to face, an earthly and a
heavenly. One word is used of them both, the word 'man.'
"Jesus did not trust himself ("commit
himself" A.V.) unto them, for that he knew all men,
and because he needed not that any one should bear
witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in
man. Now there was a man..." I do not want to pass
over anything without its force striking you. That John
put in that word 'now' is tremendously significant. For
some time I puzzled over the place of Nicodemus in the
Gospel by John. John in his summary said he had written
his Gospel with the one object of showing that Jesus is
the Christ, the Son of God (John 20:31), and I could not
see how Nicodemus fitted into that, but that little word
'now,' linking with what had just been said and what
follows, is a key. "Now there was a man..."
Then as we go on we find that this word 'man' is used of
Christ, the "Son of man." That title occurs
some eighty-eight times in the New Testament, eighty-four
of which are found in the Gospels, and eleven of these in
this Gospel by John. Forgive this detail, but it is
important. Thus John wrote, "Now there was a
man," and then later he began to speak about Jesus
as the Son of man, or to record His sayings concerning
Himself as the Son of man. You will see something very
important in that connection in a minute or two. This
title is used of others besides Christ in the Bible, but
whenever it is used of anyone else it is always without
the article - 'son of man'; but when it refers to Christ,
it has the definite article - "the Son of
man."
The
Earthly Man Represented by Nicodemus
You have, then, two
people called 'man,' and they are facing one another. On
this side is the earthly man. Jesus does not commit
Himself unto him. He knew all men in that category, knew
what was in that kind of man, what he was made of, how he
was constituted, what he was capable of. It is to that
earthly man that these other words relate, "There
was a man...", and John is really saying and
meaning, 'Now there was an earthly man named Nicodemus.'
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh";
that is the earthly man. So in verse 13 again, "No
man hath ascended into heaven" - that is the earthly
man. Perhaps you say, 'Well now, that is doubtful; Elijah
did and Enoch did.' But the exactness of the Greek here
has this force - 'No man of himself hath ascended into
heaven.' Elijah did not of himself, nor did Enoch of
himself; but this One, this heavenly Man, ascended
Himself. Not so the earthly man - 'no man of himself.'
Verse 19 - "This is the judgment, that the light is
come into the world, and men loved the darkness."
This again shows us the earthly man. Verse 27 - "A
man can receive nothing, except it have been given him
from heaven." The earthly man 'cannot' - he has no
capacity for heavenly things. Thus we note some of the
features of the earthly man - what he is made of, how he
is not going to be trusted by heaven, what his
limitations are, what he cannot do of himself, what he
cannot receive of himself. 'There was an earthly man.'
The
Lord Jesus, The Heavenly Man
On the other side,
there is the heavenly Man. "That which is born of
the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit
is spirit." "Born from above." Verse 12 -
"If I told you earthly things, and ye believe not
how shall ye believe, if I tell you heavenly things? And
no man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended
out of heaven, even the Son of man, which is in
heaven." Here is the heavenly Man. Verses 16 and
17 - "God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son" - the heavenly Man, given from heaven.
"God sent not the Son into the world to judge the
world" - God sent His Son. Verse 31 -
"He that cometh from above is above all." Then,
of course, you want to read all those other passages
which are recorded later on. Take chapter 6, for example.
"I am come down from heaven" (verse 38);
"I am the bread which came down out of heaven"
(verses 41 and 51). You know how much there is of it
there, and especially verse 62 - "What then if ye
should behold the Son of man ascending where he was
before?"
The
Earthly Man at His Best
An earthly man and the
heavenly Man standing face to face - two representative
men. Look at Nicodemus. There is a touch of genius
(speaking naturally) about this thing in John's selecting
Nicodemus and putting him in here - let us say rather
there is the genius of the Holy Spirit. Here we have
Nicodemus, a representative earthly man. As to his
nation, he belongs to the nation that was chosen of God
out of all the nations, to whom belonged the oracles and
the covenant, a nation peculiarly and particularly
related to God (Rom. 3:2; 9:4-5). As to his sect, he is a
Pharisee. 'Pharisee' is a Hebrew word which means
separated by specific beliefs and practices. Within the
chosen and particular nation, the Pharisees were a
particularly religious people or sect - you may say the
very core of the elect nation; very strict, as we know,
in their tithing, in their eating and drinking, their
washings and rites; and they held very strictly to the
belief in the natural immortality of the soul; yet Jesus
says to this representative Pharisee, "Except a man
be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of
God." As to his position, he is a ruler of the Jews,
that is, a member of the National Council, the Sanhedrin.
As to his character, he is not a man to be despised. He
is a man to be honoured, a perfectly honest man. He is
mentioned three times by John. The second occasion is
when he raises the question of right procedure in the
Council - "Doth our law judge a man, except it first
hear from himself and know what he doeth?" (John
7:51). The third time is when beloved friends were
bringing their spices to the tomb, and it says, "And
there came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to
him by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes,
about a hundred pound weight" (John 19:39). He is
out in the open now, in plain honesty. Yet as to his
spiritual condition, he is blind, ignorant and helpless.
"Art thou the teacher of Israel, and understandest
not these things? ...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?" Blind, ignorant, helpless - that is this
representative man, the earthly man at his best in every
way.
Features
of the Heavenly Man
Then by contrast we
have the heavenly Man. His nationality is from heaven.
"He that cometh from above is above all" -
above all sects, above all laws and regulations, above
all ritual; that is what John is bearing out throughout
the whole Gospel. His position is one of Divine
authority; "the Father... hath given all judgment
unto the Son" (John 5:22). "As the Father
raiseth the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son
also quickeneth whom he will" (John 5:21). His
character also is Divine. With regard to His spiritual
condition as over against that of Nicodemus, there is one
word that sums up so much - "knowing."
Nicodemus was blind, ignorant, helpless. Here is the Lord
Jesus just the opposite - knowing, and, because knowing,
never being at a loss, never in a quandary, never brought
to an impasse. He knew all men, He Himself knew what was
in man. "If I tell you heavenly things...",
meaning that He could, He knew them. "We speak that
which we do know."
Now for the real point
of this, we must go back to chapter 1:48-49.
"Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me?
....Thou art the Son of God." In the Bible this
attribute of knowing man is restricted to God alone. It
is attributed only to Jehovah. You remember the words of
Jeremiah - "I the Lord search the heart, I try the
reins (Jer. 17:10); 'I, the Lord, know.' It is an
attribute of God alone, to know man in this way.
"Whence knowest thou me? ...Thou art the Son of
God."
Now you see what I
meant when I said John puts two things together. Jesus is
the Son of God; Jesus is the Son of man. The Son of man
is the Son of God. Because He has Divine attributes. He
knew all men. You notice that this knowledge is both
universal and individual. He knew all men, and knew what
was in man (or "the man" - R.V. margin);
"all men," universal, and "the man,"
individual. This characteristic of Deity was the thing
which was constantly manifesting itself, for in this
Gospel by John this word 'to know' in this sense occurs
more than fifty times. It was constantly coming out -
this that men would call His uncanny knowledge, His
supernatural insight. He was never at a loss for want of
knowing what to do. He would test His disciples on this
very thing. "This he said to prove him: for he
himself knew what he would, do" (John 6:6). He was
always precipitating impossible situations, and pushing
them on to His disciples, and saying in effect, 'What are
you going to do about that?' 'We cannot do anything. Two
hundred pennyworth of bread will not go very far in a
crowd like this!' It was ever a discovery of helplessness
because they did not know. And then He would do what was
needed, for He knew. Here is the heavenly Man over
against the earthly.
The
Two Men - Irreconcilable Differences
Now, how are we going
to bring this together for a present application? We are
brought face to face with these two persons, one
representative of the earthly at its best, the other
God's only acceptable Man - the only One Who stands with
God, yet representative of that new race in Himself which
God could receive with favour. He is alone with God, and
all other men stand apart. Therefore, except you be born
from above, you can neither see nor enter the kingdom of
God. There is a great divide between these two men, and
it cannot be bridged by argument, by discussion, nor by
any kind of explanations sought by Nicodemus. It is a
great divide caused by irreconcilable differences, and
you cannot bridge it. There is the man who 'cannot.' That
word 'cannot' is final - "he cannot see." That
man is the earthly man. But there is the Man Who 'can',
the heavenly Man. John is showing all the way through
this Gospel that when no one else can, Jesus can!
The
Two Men in the Individual Christian
Now our point is not
just the fact of the difference, nor the fact that we
must be born from above, but it is the nature of the
difference. At that point, everything begins for the
Christian. There is nothing at all for you until you have
been born from above; but that is only the beginning. I
doubt whether any of us has got very far yet in the
recognition and understanding of the difference between
these two men, and until we do understand that and mark
the differences, we shall get nowhere in the Christian
life. You and I are still far more earthly and far less
heavenly as Christians than we ought to be. The great
divide between our natural and our spiritual life is not
nearly so clearly marked as it should be; and that opens
the place for the understanding of God's strange ways
with us.
When we get into the
realm of the Holy Spirit's activities through being born
of the Spirit, we get into the realm of the greatest
reality. Let us make no mistake about this, it is
terrible reality. You cannot play with flesh, you cannot
tolerate the natural life, if you have come into the
realm of the Spirit's activity. Carelessly, knowingly,
persistently, habitually, admit there any of the earthly,
and you meet no other than very God Himself. That is the
reality of this difference. You at once begin to discover
that you cannot get on. There is a wall, there is a
barrier, you are brought to a standstill when you admit
any of the earthly into what is essentially the heavenly.
These two are so utterly put asunder in God's sight,
that, as far as He is concerned, this natural 'cannot,'
may not; there is no playing with it. The very first
thing is to recognise the impossibility of the natural
being brought into the spiritual, the earthly into the
heavenly. That will explain all the confoundings.
Nicodemus is confounded when he comes face to face with
the heavenly Man, and if we are on natural, earthly
ground in any respect, we are going to be confounded in
that respect by reason of our relationship with the Lord
Jesus.
The
Earthly Man to Diminish
Hence the strange
dealings of God with us. What are they all about? What do
they mean? We have to recognize there is reality, we
cannot get away from it. Sometimes we would like to run
away from the reality, it is so real; God is so real,
things are so real. They are working out according to
principle. By His strange, mysterious ways with us, His
deep dealings, God is winding up the earthly, bringing it
to an end, in order to make us those who are heavenly.
"Born from above," not only as a necessary
beginning, but with a view to going on to fulness of
growth and manhood, conformed to the image of His Son;
and the course of God's dealings with us is, on the one
hand, to confound us in our natural earthly life, and
write over it, Impossible! We are made to know that in
spirit, in soul, in body, we have no power of ourselves,
no attributes, no qualifications, for knowing or doing
heavenly things. At our best, we are helpless, blind and
in the dark. But that is the negative side.
On the positive side,
God is working mysteriously and strangely to bring us
into heavenly things, in knowledge and understanding. If
you cannot say that is true about you as a Christian,
well, look into it, there is something seriously wrong.
But it is true that we as children of God do know things
that others do not know. We do know - even though it be
only in a small measure - what the natural man does not
know, and our knowledge of things spiritual and heavenly
is growing, very gradually perhaps, but none the less
growing. By deep, dark, mysterious, painful ways, we are
moving through into a realm where we are coming to see
what we never could have seen and what no one could ever
see but by a passage through death and being born from
above. Oh, we cannot explain all God's methods, we cannot
give an answer to all the why's of God's Ways, but what
we do know is that we are passing through into a realm
that is altogether new in the matter of knowledge, a
realm that is different, that is other. All the values of
God are of this kind. We cannot bring our natural mind to
the things of God and give them interpretation with any
spiritual value. However much we study the Bible, it is
closed for real spiritual value to every one who has not
gone through death to a heavenly new birth. Spiritual
knowledge waits upon that. But we must understand this
great divide - that these two men are totally different,
and there is no companionship, no fraternising between
Nicodemus and Jesus: there is no fellowship, there is no
understanding: they belong to two worlds, they cannot
speak one another's language. Even when One from heaven
gives heavenly meanings into earthly things, the earthly
man cannot see the heavenly meanings.
The
Heavenly Man The Only Real Testimony
Now the Lord is going
to get rid of the difference where we are concerned.
"Ye must be born from above", and then the
differences begin to go. The things which lock us up,
which limit us, will go; things which are impossible are
even now becoming the very things of our normal life. We
are learning; but oh, it is a deep way, because this
earthly man is so deeply rooted, he is always cropping up
in some way or other. Understand what God is doing. He is
so working in us that, as we move on through this life
and then leave it behind, the one remaining impress will
be, not how much we have done or said, nor what our
activities have been, but that a heavenly man, a heavenly
woman, has been here. The value of that is inestimable.
That is the explanation of God's dealings with us. If you
forget all else that I have said, do not forget that. The
one consequence that God is after is to leave such an
impress by our having been on this earth - something has
come from heaven and registered its heavenliness here in
this world. Oh, it may have been rejected, the reactions
to it may have been violent: the more heavenly it is,
perhaps the more violent will be the reactions to it.
That is what John says about the Lord Jesus, but that
does not alter the fact that Jesus passed through this
world and left the impress of a heavenly Man; and that is
the whole argument of the New Testament in every part -
that believers are to be here, not for this or that or
some other incidental thing, but to leave the impress of
heaven here: that God should have a witness here: that
heavenly things, things of eternity, things of the
Spirit, are the things which matter. Do not think that it
is a matter of how much preaching or teaching you do or
Christian work in which you engage. Those things may be
accompaniments, but if there is not the presence of
Christ, the heavenly Man, in those concerned, and in what
they do and in what they say, and if the one remaining
thing when they have passed on is not, 'We recognised the
Lord in that man, that woman': if that is not the result,
we have missed the meaning of Christianity. Christianity
is that. Therefore you must be born from above, because
that alone brings in what is of heaven.
First published in "A Witness and A
Testimony" magazine, May-June 1951, Vol 29-3