MORAL HISTORY IN JOHN 3
R.G. This chapter begins, “But there was a man from among the Pharisees”. I suppose the Lord has in mind to lead us into what is heavenly, and he uses Nicodemus – who was a genuine person – to demonstrate how nothing of the old order or what we may have relied on, is going to be carried forward into what is completely new and fresh. The system that Nicodemus had to do with does not bring anything forward for the pleasure of God, but what is in view is life. I wondered if we could look at Nicodemus from the point of view of the teaching that is contained in the section, “born anew”, and “born of water and of Spirit” and then “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. I think the tendency is always to hang on to what is old; yet Nicodemus did not understand the teaching of what was old, which would have been related to the previous dispensation. Then we come on to this wonderful gospel section in relation to God so loving the world, and what leads up to that. It is a very wonderful outlook we have as this chapter proceeds.
T.D.B. There must have been something about Nicodemus that caused him to come. He was a ruler of the Jews, but he came to Him by night. There must have been something about the Lord that caused interest in his heart.
R.G. The Lord knows everything about everybody. It is the great lesson in the whole of scripture that the Lord knows everything about me. So He knew about Nicodemus. Nicodemus comes out in the end for Christ, but there was a good deal for him to learn, as there is a good deal for us to learn, but the Lord is proceeding to outline the truth to him. I wondered if we could get some help about that today.
R.T. Does it start with what is sovereign, the operation of God? There are the differences that you have pointed out, “born anew”, “born of water and of Spirit”, and further on in the chapter “everyone that is born of the Spirit”. Is there some distinction to be understood between the sovereign operation of God, which is His own act, but then there is a moral side to take place in our souls as well, is there?
R.V. It behoves us to take account of that as sitting here this afternoon. Why are we not somewhere else? Why is someone else not sitting in my seat? It is the sovereign operation of God by the Spirit. Maybe it is a time for us all to look back and see when there was some movement as a result of the Spirit’s operations in us.
R.T. It may have happened very early in our lives through our mother’s prayers or something else – God sovereignly did something – but it takes time for that to show itself.
R.G. You see it in retrospect, I suppose. You can look back and see when there was some kind of stirring in your soul that made what was of God become attractive in a certain sense, only a seed maybe to begin with. It may have made your attitude to the saints a little different from what it was before. It may be that a time came when you wanted to be with the saints. I am just using these as examples of how, when you look back in retrospect, you see that something had operated in you that was not of yourself.
D.P. I think that is so. You feel the urgency of the days in which we are that we need to grow quickly in this sphere. Nicodemus took a long time. You know your heart and I know mine too, that it has taken us a long time to come to an appreciation of these great things that have been opened up to us, truly related to the heavenly sphere. Nicodemus was bound up in Judaism, but the Lord never was held by that. He was held by what had been prophetically uttered which was God’s word expressed. How much we need to be stimulated to be kept in life.
M.C. It is difficult to track in our histories of how God began things with us. There was nothing due to me nor anything that I did to bring myself into the sphere of life, but God operated in His own wisdom, love and mercy to begin something in my soul. It is a very fine thing to trace that back and to appreciate it.
R.G. “Having marked us out beforehand for adoption through Jesus Christ to himself” (Eph. 1: 5), leads you back to God’s purpose, but then God came in in His ways by the Spirit to affect us at some point in our lives. I think it is a good thing to go back to it, because it stimulates you, to see how the Lord by the Spirit operated in your soul in an earlier or later stage in your life.
T.D.B. Would it be subjective, the stirrings in us?
R.G. I think the truth that is laid out in this chapter is more objective, but the subjective is seen in the next chapter in the woman. That was why I was saying that it is often more in retrospect that you can begin to detect it. Nevertheless there was a subjective work in you but you probably did not appreciate what it was. I think He is drawing attention to God’s ways by the Spirit in persons. It enhances to us the greatness of divine Persons and divine workings.
A.B. Does Nicodemus immediately think on natural lines, “How can a man be born being old? Can he enter a second time into the womb”? That is the way he thinks, on purely natural lines, but “he who has begun in you a good work” (Phil 1: 6), would be the sovereign action of God’s Spirit in new birth, would it?
R.G. According to Nicodemus there would have been no change. He says, “Can he enter a second time into the womb of his mother and born?”. If that was the case it would be the same kind of person again and that is what men are trying to do. Cloning is an attempt, and will be an attempt, for man to reproduce himself, and it will only be the reproduction of the same man. This chapter shows that every person who is sovereignly acted upon by God comes into a new order of things, which is heavenly. He is moving on to what is upward here.
A.W. The note speaks about the new source. Is that really the point in this – it is a new source altogether?
R.G. It is entirely fresh, there is nothing of the old connected with it. God has ever had in mind, right from the beginning, that He would have a world populated by persons who would be like Christ and, therefore, in contrast to the man that failed in the garden.
A.W. It speaks prophetically about the Lord Jesus, “For he shall grow up before him as a tender sapling, and as a root out of dry ground”, Isa 53: 2. Would that be the result? I do not mean that the Lord needed to have a new source, but is that recreated in those who have been reached sovereignly by new birth?
R.G. The Lord when He was here was a different kind of man. He did not come this way and He is working now with a view to there being a generation of persons who will be like Him, to take their place alongside of Him. There has to be the work of God but this is the beginning of the workings in the soul. Much exercise has then to be gone through. You come to accept the gospel and receive the gift of the Spirit. That is all part of the ways of God as we move forward. But this is the outset, the seed of what is afresh in you is being planted here.
M.C. Could you say something as to seeing the kingdom of God, “he cannot see the kingdom of God”?
R.G. It is obvious that there is progression. The first thing is that he sees, and then he enters. I think it is what we were saying – there is something that stirs in your heart that makes you see things differently from how you saw them before.
M.C. It is how God works to open up our view to something entirely new, and you begin to realise that there are great things opened up as God works in your soul.
R.G. It says of Paul, “it is hard for thee to kick against goads”, Acts 26: 14. I think that was the beginning of the workings in his soul. While he was still on another course there was something stirring in him that made him begin to be alert to another area of things and another Man, although he did not know who the Man was.
D.P. That comes into expression when he speaks as to the death of “thy holy servant Stephen”. Obviously there were prickings in Saul’s soul but it took time, and that is how things operate. It takes time with us to come to things. Nicodemus here was seeking, but he got help as time went on and things related to another sphere begin to be opened up to him. He had been looking for a kingdom being established here (that was the Jewish mind), but this is a kingdom related to another sphere.
R.G. It is amazing how long you can go on knowing about a thing but not knowing the reality of it. Nicodemus knew about Ezekiel 36, but it had never affected him. He probably gave a word about it in the synagogue, and yet was quite unaware of what it envisaged. If he had understood that, the Lord would have been able to have gone quickly on with him. He says, “If I have said the earthly things to you”, (if I have said things that relate to what is going to happen down here), “and ye believe not”, how if He was to explain heavenly things to him was he going to understand? In one sense that is a comfort to us because it means that if we allow the sovereign work of God to operate in us then there will be a result for Christ.
R.T. His voice from the council – they were criticising Jesus – it says, “Does our law judge a man before it have first heard from himself”, John 7: 51. That was him seeing the kingdom of God. Then at the end of the gospel he identifies himself, with Joseph, with the body of Jesus. There he was entering the kingdom.
R.G. He had brought the myrrh and the aloes with him. That was “entering into” it and he was able to link on with Joseph of Aramathea at that time. Something had been brought to fruition which allowed him to enter in; he saw the king at that point.
R.T. To enter the kingdom of God there has to be the water and the Spirit. There has to be a moral element with us. We have to move, there has to be exercise. There are many who just see the kingdom but they never enter it. There has to be some exercise.
M.C. Why is the water first, “water and of Spirit”?
R.T. It would be a moral question with us. The first thing God does is sovereign; we have no hand in that at all. God sovereignly operates for us to be born anew. Take Lot – he illustrates what it is to be born anew but he went and lived in Sodom. There was no moral element with him; he sat in their council and he vexed his righteous soul. There has to be a moral exercise in our souls to come into the kingdom of God, otherwise the Spirit is not there. There is all the difference between the Spirit acting in new birth and having the Holy Spirit.
D.P. The water is really for cleansing. Does that make way for obedience in view of our knowing the reception of the Spirit and being able to use Him in our lives and pathways here? That sets us forward.
R.T. We do not get the gift of the Spirit unless there is a moral element. If we do not make room for the sovereign work of God in our souls we do not have the gift of the Holy Spirit.
D.P. I wondered if that related to the water, the cleansing side; something morally has taken place and that makes way for the Spirit to have freedom in service.
R.T. When the Spirit is recognised and given His place we come into the kingdom, come under new authority, and we will have a new area of interest and blessing.
R.G. It is good to be reminded about all of this because we know that the blood is essential. The blood removes our guilt and our sins once and for all, but the water is essential. I think it is good to be reminded too that the Spirit operates in the application of the water in many different ways. “The washing of water by the word” (Eph. 5: 26), suggests a cleansing process as you allow the word of God to have its effect on you. It is a continuing process. The action of the water and the Spirit is not something that is once and for all. It proceeds in your soul and then the Spirit has a greater place in you if the water has had its effect morally to wash away all that needs to be washed away in cleansing.
N.McK. I am glad of help in relation to the flesh and the Spirit. It is good to see that even initially there is what is moral and that which is spiritual brought in. The man in John 9 has been linked with the washing. He was told, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which is interpreted, Sent. He went therefore and washed” (v.7). Even after that he did not know where the Lord was but Jesus found him and he got the good of what we have been speaking about because he had been through this side of things.
R.G. The thought of the water runs through the early chapters of John’s gospel, culminating in the pool of Siloam. It is further on because it is related to the Son of God, but it is the same idea. The pool of Siloam was there, available for him to have the mud washed from his eyes.
T.L. Isaiah 42 says, “Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth!” (v.1). It then goes on to say, “Behold the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare” (v.9). It is like the beginning of this chapter is it not?
R.G. You can understand how when Nicodemus did have his eyes opened everything was new to him. It took time, but there was what is genuine about him. We should value what is genuine in one another. I would like to encourage the young people by saying if there is that which is genuine in you the Lord will not leave you at a loose end. He will lead you through as long as you are prepared to genuinely submit and be subject to Him. That was the next thing, Nicodemus had to be subject to the Lord.
R.T. It is hard to see it unless there is a move to enter. What God does is hard to see, but if it is made room for it will express itself in some way.
N.McK. It relates us to earthly things. We are taught that even in saints in the old dispensation there was something of new birth. Would you explain that?
R.G. It is seen in type working in Old Testament saints. We have to keep in mind that there is a progression in this chapter which is going on to eternal life. Eternal life will be known in the millennium, but it is to be known by us now in what Mr. Darby spoke of as to an out of the world condition of relationship and being. It was seen in Christ here. Christ is now in glory and by the Spirit coming here He brings the power and enjoyment of eternal life to the Christian. The Jew is going to understand that according to Ezekiel 36, but we are moving on in this chapter to experience it now.
D.P. The new source is in Christ, it is nowhere else, and yet it brings us into the most blessed things.
Ques. Would you say a bit more as to verse 8, “The wind blows where it will, and thou hearest its voice but knowest not whence it comes and where it goes”? Is there a certain sense of mystery in the Spirit’s movements?
R.G. I think is demonstrates the sovereign operation of the Spirit. Jesus is using the wind as an example. You know that if you are outside in the wind you may not know where it is coming from or where it is going, but you know it is there. That is what he is saying here, “The wind blows where it will, and thou hearest its voice, but knowest not whence it comes and where it goes”; but you do know where it goes when something happens in you. It has had an effect in your own soul and now you have the beginning of an appetite. That may be as far as you can see it at that point.
R.T. There is an identity emerging, “thus is every one that is born of the Spirit”, an identity of something so different emerging which brings me to the work of God.
T.D.B. Would that be what you call a moral element?
R.T. The type that has been used to amplify this chapter was Jacob. Before he was born he had some instincts, he took hold of Esau’s heel. That suggests being born anew. God did that. Before ever anything emerges there were some instincts. A newborn babe has instincts, it knows to feed, it cannot intelligently say anything about it, but it knows to feed; that is like a sign of being born again. Jacob goes on in his life and goes through a lot of exercises, but he comes to see that his life is not with Laban. Then he wrestles with God. There is a moral element entering into that. He has to see that he cannot do anything. God touches his thigh; he sees that there is something there that is not of himself, but there is something of God, he begins to wrestle. That is a moral element. We begin to say, ‘why is that there is something in me wanting to read the scriptures, wanting to go to the meetings, why is there something that does not want to go to the football field or the cinema’? That is the moral element working in the soul and as that is made room for there is an identity emerging. Jacob then is called the prince, there is a new person emerging that has some power with God.
A.B. It left its mark. It says, “he limped”, Gen 32: 31. Is it something that leaves its indelible mark upon us?
R.T. ‘The prince’, “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. There is something there. He was limping, that meant there was no credit to him, but there was a prince there, through wrestling. If we sit and let it go over our head no identity emerges, but if we wrestle with things, begin to reason, begin to make room for the Spirit, there is a moral exercise in the soul and a new identity emerges so God says, You are Israel.
R.G. He did not get everything at that point but he was moving. He wanted to know His name but it was a while before that was divulged to him. You are on the road, you are a prince at that point, but you are to understand the greatness of the person who has made you a prince.
R.T. He did not live there. He says, I have to go to Bethel, and there is in type the enjoyment of eternal life. You do not live in the circumstances that Esau lives in; you could not live with that man, but you live in Bethel where eternal life is enjoyed. As you said, we should go back in our histories and see that God put a seed there. For years and years I never made room for it, but then we begin to make room for it, the moral element works in the soul and you come to live in Bethel.
D.P. You come to appreciate there what is ascending and descending, what is coming from the heavenly source. That is where our life and power comes from so that we might be maintained.
R.T. The boys grew; Esau became a man of the field, he loved the sports, but it says Jacob was a homely man. We may think of him like one who went to the meetings, loved to read the scriptures, began to read ministry. That is how the moral element works in the soul and there is something that emerges that is identifiable with Bethel, this area we are speaking of here, eternal life. But it must be made room for.
R.G. As it is made room for we have a greater appetite and that would be a challenge to us. The Lord may have waited a long time for us to respond to what he did earlier in our lives. It would be good to ask ourselves, are we fully giving ourselves to what the Lord has in mind for us? Are princely feature coming out in us?
T.D.B. Do you put conversion in all this?
R.G. We are coming to that in the chapter. I think there was a recognition with Jacob when he started to limp upon his hip that there had been a change in him. That would be conversion. Maybe he did not understand the fulness of what God had in mind. At conversion you do not understand the greatness of what God has in mind, but you do get an understanding that you have been brought into a new area and you have changed from one man to another man. That is what Jacob did at this point.
R.T. We hold up the Lord if speaking just earthly things. We get an impression at the Supper of heavenly things. We would want to make room for that so that we get the earthly things, the moral element that we are speaking of – shutting out another order of things, but we want to be stimulated by these things that the Lord gives us a touch of. He gave Jacob a touch of it when he said to him, “Thy name shall not henceforth be called Jacob, but Israel” (Gen 32: 28), but it took him some time to come into the dignity of it. The Lord would give us a touch at the Supper of the heavenly things and encourage us to make room for the moral side so that we are in the full joy of what eternal life it.
M.C. Verse 11 seems to reinforce that, “I say unto thee, We speak that which we know, and we bear witness of that which we have seen”. These are very great things. It would seem that it had some impact on Nicodemus. He must have thought about it, and it seems to have had some result in his soul.
R.T. “We speak” – do you think He must have had His disciples with Him then, some persons who had the gain of entering the kingdom? Think of Peter and John and Andrew standing beside Him when He is saying these things, some persons who had come to some appreciation of the heavenly things. They had got past the earthly things and had come to Christ and there is some enjoyment of the heavenly things in them. It says, “We speak”, some persons in the joy of it.
R.G. In that connection would the “We speak” initially be the Lord and the Spirit in Him, but then, as you say, there had been something reached in the souls of the few disciples that He could include them in that? It would be the Spirit in a sense, although the Spirit had not come because He was not yet glorified, but there would be the power of the Spirit manifested, “We speak”.
R.T. We do not want to hold the Lord up. Earthly things may be so long protracted with us. The Lord is urgent; he is urgent here as to these heavenly things. The things the Lord was ready to unfold to them. It says that He could not say things to them because of their state. State comes into the entering into the heavenly things, if there is room made for what the Lord would reveal to us of the Father’s name for example.
R.G. He then says, “And no one has gone up into heaven, save He who came down out of heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven”. That is a tremendous thing for the Lord to say at this stage. He is drawing attention to the greatness of His Person, “the Son of man who is in heaven”. There is nothing short of what belongs to heaven available to those that follow. What He is setting out here is for our blessing.
KIRKCALDY
7 March 2004
Key to Initials
T.D. Beveridge; A Buchan; M. Cowan; T. Lock (Edinburgh); R. Gardiner; N. McKay (Glasgow); D. Pye, R. Taylor; A. Wilson