READ: John 3:1-9.
In resuming our
meditation in this Gospel, the matter which comes
immediately before us for our consideration is GREAT
TRUTHS AND THEIR LAWS.
Every
Divine Truth Is Governed by a Law
It is very important
that we should always bear in mind that every Divine
truth has its related laws, and is entered into only by
way of obedience to those laws. I would have you pause,
and give due consideration to the tremendous importance
of that fact.
Three
Things About These Laws
1.
God Maintains Them
There are three things
to be said as parts of that general statement. The first
is that God maintains those laws, and He Himself sees
that they are implicit in every movement into new truth;
although they may not be always understood at the time.
In other words, we never do enter livingly into any
truth, except by the way of the laws which govern that
truth, or are basic to that truth. God sees to that. The
experiences through which we pass on our way into any
truth are God's ways of establishing His laws relative to
that truth. We do not always understand what God is
doing, or why He is so leading us or handling us, but He
is dealing with us, not only to bring us into the truth,
but to bring us into the truth according to the laws
which govern that truth. We do not always understand
those laws when they are being made effective, but God
never sets them aside, overlooks them, or allows us to
come livingly into the truth apart from them.
2.
The Peril of Truth Being Taken Up Without Its Laws
Secondly, the truth
taken up without the law operating (a thing quite
possible), leads to an unbalanced state, a false
position, and the truth operates against the
people concerned rather than for them. The issue will be
either a breaking of those concerned unto a reconciling
adjustment and agreement with the truth spiritually, or
else they will abandon the truth. (I want to make sure
that you are grasping what I am saying, so please allow
me to repeat.) What I have been saying is this in other
words. It is possible to take up truth, but not in
correspondence with the Divine laws which govern that
truth, and apprehending, or taking up, or holding the
truth out of correspondence with its essential laws would
put us in a false position. We have climbed up some other
way, we have not come in by the door. We think we are in,
because we have got the truth, but our being in is on an
entirely false basis. We have not got the truth by the
door, which is the life; we have got the truth along some
other line, by some other way, and without the life. We
are in a false position. We have got truth without life;
we are, therefore, unbalanced: the truth, therefore, will
work to our undoing. We shall not find it supporting us
but rather breaking us down, and the issue will be one of
two things, either by our being broken down we shall be
adjusted to the truth, by reason of coming into that
truth, or we shall abandon it as a thing which for us
does not work. We shall give it up, declaring that it
does not "hold water."
3.
Understanding May Come After Experience
The third thing. A true
and pure experience of the truth may be had without a
full understanding of its laws at the time; that is,
because of the purity of spirit and honesty of heart.
There are many who are living in the enjoyment of truth
which they do not understand; living in the experience of
truth which they could never define. The laws governing
their enjoyment and their experience could never, by
them, be set forth, and yet they are enjoying a true and
pure experience of the truth. But the Lord does not leave
it there, and His will is to bring all into an
intelligent understanding of the truth. There is
something added by understanding, something added to the
enjoyment, appreciation and power in the individual
concerned; and something added to the Lord in the way of
having a more useful instrument for the purpose of the
truth. On the one side it is a great day when we have our
experience explained for us, and we are able to say: I
have enjoyed that, but I have never understood it, but
now I see the meaning of that. There has been something
added. And to the Lord it is also a great day to have His
children not only enjoying an experience, but in
possession of the understanding which makes it possible
for them to minister in an intelligent way. In the New
Testament, doctrine mainly followed history, a history
produced by certain truths. Certain truths were
proclaimed; those truths were apprehended, accepted by
faith, and history commenced. If you like to change the
word "history" into "experience" you
may, but experience is a personal word, and history a
more general word. I am thinking in the realm of the Book
of the Acts; the movements, developments, goings and
stayings. The whole history was the result of certain
facts apprehended by faith. A history was occasioned by
those truths. But the history was not the end; later the
doctrine came to explain the history. Acts comes before
the Epistles. The Epistles were written to explain
experience, history. What is the meaning of this, of
that, and, that? The answer is given in the doctrine.
Now this is not so much
technical matter. It is of very great importance; it is
leading up, of course, to concrete examples. I want you
to see the order of things. Truth, not by any means
understood in its fullness, seen as truth, apprehended by
faith in purity of spirit and honesty of heart, producing
history; but the Lord, never satisfied that it should
stay there, afterward giving a great revelation, which
became the teaching, or the doctrine of that history. The
Church, in the Book of the Acts, did not move, and act,
and go, and stay, on the ground of a systematized
doctrine of Church order. It moved spontaneously, but
afterward you have the explanation of that, and you get a
spiritual system of Church doctrine, born out of history,
which history was occasioned by truths accepted in purity
of spirit by faith. If that order had always been
maintained, we should have a very different situation
today from what exists. We begin with an ecclesiastical
system of Church policy and try to apply it and then get
life afterward. The New Testament order is just the
opposite; life, history, and then explanation. It is not
enough to say: Well, we have the experience and it does
not matter about the doctrine. Many say that. This is to
preach an experience rather than the truth, which is
always a dangerous thing, and to make experience
something without a foundation in the Word of God for the
hearer. "Come to our experience." That may be a
tremendous peril. When Peter said, as it is written by
him in his first letter: "...ready always to give
answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning
the hope that is in you," he used there for the word
"reason" the word "logos," and what
Peter actually said was: Be ready to give an intelligent
account, or narrative, or logical setting forth of the
hope that is in you. It is ability to give a logical
narrative, setting forth, presentation, account of what
is in you.
I think that is enough
by way of approaching this matter of great truths and
their laws. Now we can pass to the consideration of the
first of these great truths, and its law, in the Gospel
by John.
The
First Great Truth: The Kingdom of God
Chapter three. The
truth is referred to in verses 3 and 5. "Except a
man be born anew [from above] he cannot see the kingdom
of God." "Except a man be born of water and the
Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
You must remember that this is a great doctrine, the
Kingdom of God. It was something that had to be preached.
It was an object to be presented. It was something that
had to take possession of the interests and concerns of
men. Here, strangely enough, and perhaps you might be
startled to hear it said, being born anew is not the
first thing. The Kingdom of God is the first thing. You
will have no interest in being born anew if you have no
interest in the Kingdom of God. To bring you to the place
where you are concerned about being born anew, you must
first of all be brought face to face with the Kingdom of
God; you must become interested in it. And so the
disciples and the apostles preached the Kingdom of God -
in the main sense a synonymous term with the Kingdom of
The Heavens translated in our Authorized Version
"the Kingdom of Heaven"; an interchangeable
phrase often used for exactly the same thing. They were
to preach the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven.
Paul himself preached that right up to the end of his
imprisonment in Rome, so it is stated in Acts 28.
Briefly then, what is
the Kingdom of God? It is not merely a realm, but a
state. It is not merely an order of outward things, but
an inward state of life. "The kingdom of God is not
meat and drink"; "The kingdom of God cometh not
with observation." It is not a system which is first
imposed from the outside, but it is a kind of nature
which is heavenly and of God. If it is a realm, and it
is, it is a realm in which a state obtains, and before
you can enter the realm you have to enter the state. The
Kingdom of God is that which in nature appertains unto
God; is, in a word, God-nature, God-likeness, the
abbreviation of which is Godliness; that is the Kingdom
of God. In that Kingdom nothing which is not God obtains.
That is a very far-reaching and utter statement. We shall
come back to that in a moment. Just that brief word as to
what it is, and what it is not.
The
Law of the Kingdom of God
Secondly, then, what is
its law? Its law is birth from above. "Except a man
be born...." "Gennethei" means generated
from above. It is something more utter than our meaning
of birth. Birth with us is the consummation of a process.
This is no consummation of a process, it is the original
act. The same word is sometimes translated
"begotten." Generated from above. Now we have
three things in that connection. Firstly, the fundamental
difference; secondly, the essence; and thirdly, the
basis.
New
Birth - a Fundamental Difference
Firstly, the
fundamental difference. "That which is born of the
flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit" (verse 6). I want to lay my finger of
emphasis upon what I have before called "the
otherness" of the new birth. The greatest reality in
the child of God, right on to the end of his or her
experience, is this "otherness." Firstly it is
an "otherness" of being, that is, of entity.
Something very closely related to us, and yet completely
distinct from us. There is a malady from which a great
many people are suffering in these days called
neurasthenia. One of the features of that malady is the
consciousness of secondary personalities; that is, the
sufferer is constantly conscious of some other unseen
presence, usually evil, dark, near them, following them,
haunting them, influencing them, sometimes insinuating,
suggesting; very real, and very terrible, and as that
malady develops and progresses, that secondary
personality seems to become more and more their own
personality, until a great many who have had a religious
background accept the idea of devil possession, and
believe themselves to be now, in effect, devils
incarnate. Now I use that by way of illustration; I know
that it is bringing it on to the wrong side, and on to a
very low level. But in the new birth there is that
"Otherness" which is not ourselves, though
closely related to us, but is from above, and is the
greatest reality of the true child of God right on to the
end. I by nature am one thing, but This is another. I
would go one way. This would not go that way. I would say
a certain thing, but This does not agree with me, and
checks the saying of it. I would choose a certain course,
but This makes me aware that It is not approving that. It
is a very difficult thing to define and explain, but it
is a very real thing. It is the basis and the hope of
everything for us, this "Otherness."
So the first note,
then, is that of distinctiveness of entity. It is us, and
yet not us, and we know that very often these two work
apart, and do not agree. I once coined a technical phrase
to try to define this - if you cannot grasp the meaning
of this do not trouble - I spoke of it as the
subjective-objective. That is, something within but yet
apart, other than myself by nature. You see the
importance of even that technicality. (I would like to
say that I am not trying to give you a lot of technical
matter. I really am anxious to get down to the root of
matters for you. I never think of anything except in
terms of practical value, and I am only trying to get to
the practical value of things for the sake of the Lord's
people. Do not think of this as so much matter which I
have collected and am trying to pass on to you. I want
you to get the real value.)
Then, secondly, it is
an essence not only of being, entity, but of
constitution, nature, outlook; altogether different from
ourselves, differently constituted. So complete is the
difference of constitution that it contradicts - very
often - our very best and highest ideas and judgments and
thoughts. Different nationalities have different
conceptions. When certain nationalities come into our
country, or we go into theirs, we find that they would do
things we would never think of doing, and we do things
they would never think of doing, and things done
represent an altogether different conception and
standard. We should say: That is a thing not done in our
country; for that to be done in our country would
represent something in the nature of a scandal; it is not
so with you, it is the accepted thing. They would perhaps
say the same of many things among us. Take the matter of
language; the same words in different countries mean
entirely different things. We in England think a great
deal of our delightful word "homely." If you
say that about things in America you find people frowning
at you. We think it is the greatest compliment in this
country to say a woman is a "homely" woman.
That saying, in America, means she is very plain and
ugly. There is a difference altogether in conception. Now
in that sense, this "Otherness" is different
from our conception, our ideas, our judgments, our
standards; even our highest, our best are very often
challenged by this "Otherness." It is an
"Otherness" of constitution. To put it in a
word, God is other than ourselves at our very best. A
break has come, and there is no such thing as the
continuity of God in the fallen race. Oh, a great deal is
made of the continuity of God in the fallen race, in man.
A great deal is said in certain realms about God in every
man. Much is said about the Christ in us. But a break has
come, and in man by nature God is not resident, and
Christ is not present. God is other than man, and as
utterly other than man as is possible for the two to be;
so much so that God, rather than put forth a finger or
speak a word to save, to rescue Himself in that creation,
consigns the whole thing to destruction. God would not do
that, if He were in it. He would be consigning Himself to
destruction. If the Cross of the Lord Jesus was a
representative thing in which the whole race died under
the hand of God, then God slew Himself, if He were in the
race. So utterly is the race without God, that God will
not save it as it is. No, there is a break, the
continuity has been ended. That is the
"Otherness."
We have spoken rather
in the impersonal so far, now we have to bring it to the
personal, and say the essence of the new birth is God
coming in, in Christ, by the Holy Spirit. It is God
Himself in Christ, by the Holy Spirit coming in where He
is not. God is not in man by nature. Christ is not in man
by nature. The Holy Spirit is not in man by nature.
"The Christ in every man," of which we hear so
much, is a phrase which makes Christ impersonal and
speaks of Christ as some THING. But NEW BIRTH IS AN
ADVENT NOT A REVIVAL. It is as distinctly and definitely
an advent as the birth of the Lord Jesus at Bethlehem.
That was not an evolution, and that was not a revival;
that was an advent. Revival is not for unsaved people.
New birth is for unsaved people. Revival is for saved
people in whom the life has become either stagnant or has
waned. New birth is the definite act of the Lord coming
and taking up residence as the Lord, other than we are.
You remember what the Lord Jesus said about the Kingdom,
and its coming. "There be some of you standing here,
who shall not taste of death, until ye have seen the
kingdom of heaven coming in power." When did that
take place? Its first movement was on the Mount of
Transfiguration, its second movement was at Pentecost.
The Kingdom came at Pentecost. But what was Pentecost?
The advent of the Spirit! And what was the advent of the
Spirit? The residence of the Spirit within the Church! It
was an advent. Everything was in a state of suspense
under Divine order until then. All the truth was
apprehended, but if they had gone and preached the truth
about Pentecost, they would have been in a false
position, an unbalanced state; there would have been
inconsistency, and that truth would have come back on
them to break them, and not work for them. Pentecost, the
Advent of the Spirit, was the cradling of the Spirit of
God within the Church. There were foreshadowings and
indications of it before then; there were the principles
of it clearly marked and defined before then. There was a
parenthetical period in which everything was in movement,
but the actual consummation of that did not take place
until Pentecost. I mean the Upper Room was the Church
representatively in being, and when the Lord breathed on
them there and said: "Receive ye the Holy
Ghost"; that was the Church constituted by the Holy
Ghost figuratively, but it was not then allowed to move,
neither could it function. Everything was suspended for a
probationary period until the Advent of the Spirit, which
made all that good. Now the law of the Kingdom of God is
birth from above, which is the Advent of God in Christ by
the Spirit in our heart, constituting an
"Otherness" which is to be our true life to the
end.
Those of you who have
any spiritual sense and understanding and knowledge at
all know how true that "Otherness" is. It is
the thing upon which perhaps we have fallen back again
and again as the last word in an argument, or debate with
ourselves over our own Christian lives. That is, there
are times when by reason of various conditions or
circumstances, trials, difficulties, dark passages of
experience, the enemy hedges us up in a corner, and makes
us question the reality of everything; the reality of our
own experience, the reality of our own salvation; and
what is our last word in this argument? Very often in my
own case the last word has been: Whatever I am, or
whatever I am not, this "Otherness" is the
greatest reality I know. I know by experience, that when
for me certain things have been totally impossible,
spiritually, mentally, and physically, this
"Otherness" has come to the rescue and
accomplished them. I know that my experience is not the
product of my own genius; I know the work that I have
done is not the outcome of my own ability. I know
perfectly well my limitations, but I know there is a
history which cannot be accounted for by anything of my
own. I know it when every ounce of my being on its best
side argues in a certain direction, and that
"Otherness" will not go with me and persuades
me against it, and the issue proves that that
"Otherness" was right and I was wrong at my
best. What is that "Otherness"? It is the Lord
the Spirit. That is the essence of the birth from above,
the Lord Himself. He is not as we are - He is other.
The
New Birth - Its Basis
The third thing, the
basis of the new birth. It is the accepting of the end of
the possibilities of the old birth. That so far as the
Kingdom of God is concerned and all that relates to it of
character and conduct, of being and doing, of knowing and
understanding and functioning, the natural birth provides
absolutely no possibility, it cannot bring us there. We
cannot naturally see the Kingdom of God. Even on the high
level of a Nicodemus - equipment, religiously,
intellectually, ecclesiastically, morally, we cannot see
the Kingdom of God at our very best by nature, or by
human achievement. Of course I know I am saying
commonplace things to many, but be patient; it is very
important that in taking the first thing we should say
familiar things, and say them strongly. It is not settled
as to why the Lord Jesus changed the order of His answer
to Nicodemus in the fifth verse from the third. One thing
is clear, that Nicodemus had misapprehended His
statement. Nicodemus had taken Him up as meaning what our
Authorized Version seems to suggest: "Ye must be
born again." That conveyed to him an altogether
different idea from being born from above. The
Greek word used allows of that conception and
apprehension; indeed the same word is used elsewhere in
the sense of again, a second time. Nicodemus just dwelt
on that particular aspect of the word, that of the Lord's
statement in terms of a birth repeated. The Lord, in His
changed address, language, evidently intended to deal
with that misconception and misapprehension, and that is
the only way in which you can explain what He meant in
His second statement: "Except a man be born of water
and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
God." Now some think that the Lord, using the word
"water" referred to the Word of God. Others,
and I think by far the greater number, hold that it
refers to baptism. The word here is: "...out from
water and the Spirit." Now if it does mean that, in
the Lord's usage, it touches immediately what we were
saying in the earlier statement; but whether the Lord
meant baptism and the Spirit or not, the principle holds
good that to be born from above, as set over against a
Nicodemus-position, means that one history is entirely
closed, and another - an entirely different history -
comes in at its commencement; therefore the principle is
the same, that if it is baptism, baptism is A TYPE of
death to the old creation, death and burial, in which one
entire system, order, and creation is put aside and out
of God's sight; crucified with Christ, buried with
Christ, then of course, raised in Christ. It is our
acceptance of the end of the possibilities of the old
birth. We do not bring an end to those possibilities,
that has been reached long ago, and God sees it and
declares it, and birth from above presupposes and
postulates the fact that this old birth at its best can
never see or enter into the Kingdom of God, therefore it
is futile and useless. You and I will never come into the
Kingdom of God on any other ground than that God comes
into us in a new birth; in that sense we are born from
above; an act of God by the Holy Spirit; "...so is
every one that is born of the Spirit." "That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is
born of the Spirit is spirit." The new birth means
that we, by an act of God in the Holy Spirit, become
spiritual, in this sense - that we totally correspond to
the Kingdom of God in its spiritual nature. It is a
suitability to God. "God is a Spirit; and they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth."
Well, now I think we
see why the Lord immediately, and so peculiarly and
strangely, pulled Nicodemus up short with an imperative.
Nicodemus starts his conversation - I do not know whether
in a patronizing way, or in a somewhat high-falutin'
manner, "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come
from God; for no man can do these miracles that thou
doest, except God be with him." "Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God." What is the
connection? The thing does not seem to be connected at
all, it hardly seems relevant. It is a tremendous break
in on the part of the Master, calling this whole thing to
a halt, and saying, in effect: Let us go no further, your
need is to be born from above, if you have come to
discuss spiritual things. If you have come to talk about
the Kingdom of God and how to get into it, you must be
born from above. If you are interested in Me and what I
represent, you can only have a living interest and
understanding as You are born from above. You see, He
brings right forward the end that Nicodemus probably had
in mind, and plants it with an imperative at the
commencement, and says, virtually: Look here, Nicodemus,
it is no use you and I discussing these things, we are in
two different realms; we need to be in the same realm to
have understanding and appreciation of these things, and
I am from above; you have to come from above, Nicodemus,
to be in fellowship with Me; we cannot talk over the
thing while you stand in one world and I in another, you
must come over to the realm where I am, and we will have
fellowship and understanding, because that means you will
have new capacities, a new consciousness; you will be
able with spiritual ability to enter into these things;
which is quite impossible to you, even as a master in
Israel, until you are born from above. That imperative,
that "must" carries with it all the content of
the utter impossibility of man by nature, even at his
highest, to enter into the things of the Kingdom of God,
and all the mighty content on the positive side of what
it is to be in the Kingdom of God. That is, to have what
is of God resident within by birth; Divine capacity,
Divine consciousness, Divine understanding and
intelligence, and all that belongs to God - excepting
deity.
For myself, the wonder
of the Christian life is the reality of what I have
called the "Otherness." The reality of Another
so closely related within me, subjective and yet
objective. In me, but not me, and yet as close to me, to
my consciousness as it is possible for anything to be.
That is the foundation of all our hope and confidence; it
is the spring of everything for the ultimate realization
of perfect God-likeness; "Christ in you the hope of
glory."
In a further chapter we
shall see with what a forceful illustration the Lord
enforced His dictum as to the necessity for new birth,
and the why of it.