DECEMBER 17TH, 1898
DECEMBER 17TH, 1898
MY BELOVED —, — Your letter with some account of the work of the Lord at Mitcheldean gave me much joy, and turned my heart in praise to God. May He lead on in the knowledge of His blessed grace those who have believed, and add to their number! People go to Switzerland and get up at one o’clock in the morning to see the lovely spectacle of sunrise over the mountains. But to see the Sun of infinite grace rising and shedding its bright beams in saving and gladdening [p. 14] power upon the dark heart of a sinner is a much more lovely and interesting sight, to my mind. But one longs to see it more often!
With reference to John 3: 3 - 5, I think verse 3 gives us the new birth in its absolute sovereignty. It is an entirely new beginning. It is a starting of man on a new moral basis that he may be capable of having appreciation of what is of God that he may see the kingdom of God. It is not only “born again” but entirely afresh as a new point of departure. The word is translated in Luke 1: 3 “from the origin” (J.N.D.); “from above” in John 3: 31, and in 19: 11; “from the beginning”, Acts 26: 5; “anew”, Galatians 4: 9 (J.N.D.).
But “born of water and of Spirit” goes, I think, beyond the previous statement. It is now a question of more than seeing: it is “he cannot enter”. I conceive that this is a subsequent thing to the initial action of God by which a man is “born anew”. It is that by which he is morally qualified to “enter into the kingdom of God”. The point is that death must be applied to all that man is morally, if he is to have any access into an order of things which is of God. This was as true in Old Testament times as now, and ought to have been known by Nicodemus, though the explicit statement of it in terms seemed to startle him. The application of water (death) is the setting aside morally of all that previously existed in man. It is death brought into a man’s spirit as to all that he is as a child of Adam. Job knew something of this, and so did David, Isaiah, Daniel, and other Old Testament saints. Death must come in on all that flesh is morally. This is certainly a wonderful preparation for an entirely new order of things. Then “born of Spirit” gives us an added thought which is more on the positive side. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. There is the introduction of that which is entirely diverse from flesh. It is that in which there is capability to have to say to God. I apprehend it would be going rather too far to speak of it as nature, but it is the introduction of that which in essence and character is not flesh but spirit. It is that which renders a man capable of receiving light from God; it is a moral basis upon which God can build up a superstructure as it pleases Him — a superstructure which is formed by the light of the revelation which God vouchsafes at the time of His dealing with any individual soul. The superstructure is not the same now as in Old [p. 15] Testament times, nor will it be the same in the Millennium, but the basis is the same for all. To speak of this basis as a new being seems to go a little too far, as it suggests a thought of formation. Formation is always, I believe, effected by the light of God’s revelation apprehended by faith. But the new birth gives rather that to which God can address Himself; it is — to use a figure — the sensitised plate upon which the light can act. Does this meet your question, or shall I try again?
December 17th, 1898.