John 9

Chapter 9. Christ’s Discourses in John 3-4The Gospel of John contains several discourses of the Lord Jesus. Some of them were addressed to individuals, some of them were public addresses in the temple, and the last two were parting discourses to His immediate disciples at the table and on the way to the garden. Let us first notice two of His personal discourses, the first with Nicodemus, the second with the woman of Samaria. The New Birth and the New Life (John 3)

1. The necessity of the new birth and the new life. It is more than knowledge, and it is essential to all true spiritual knowledge. Nicodemus can say “We know” (John 3:2), but Jesus replies, “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (John 3:3). The very first glimpse of spiritual truth is impossible without the new birth. Nicodemus was, undoubtedly, a man of superior morality, but morality without spiritual life can no more lift the soul into the kingdom of God than nature and pruning can change a bramble into a man, or even into an apple tree. A poor man once brought the two hands of a clock to a watchmaker to be repaired, complaining that they would not keep time. The watchmaker laughed at his ignorance and told him to go home and bring the clock, or, at least, the works of the clock. The man explained that the clock was all right, the trouble was all in the hands, that they would not keep proper time. He went away complaining that the tradesman wanted to draw him into an unnecessary bill for the repairing of the clock and trying to find some other workman that would repair his irregular clock hands. A good many people are like the poor man, trying to repair the hands of their poor broken-down human nature, not knowing or thinking that the fatal ruin is in the deeper springs of the heart, and that what they need is not reformation, but regeneration.
2. The nature of regeneration. It is described as a new birth; elsewhere it is called a new creation. It is the addition of a new element in human nature, namely, spiritual life—spoken of in the latter Scriptures as nothing less than a new man. It is not the creation of new intellectual faculties or physical powers, but a new spiritual principle. Here it is contrasted with John’s baptism, “born of water” (John 3:5). This is more, being born from above and of the Spirit. Again, it is contrasted with being born of the flesh. This term flesh includes not only the physical, but also the psychical nature. It is not always possible to perceive the processes, any more than it is to follow the viewless wind, but we may know the reality and power of both by their effects. Regeneration is not complete sanctification; it is the birth, not of an Adam, full grown, but of a feeble infant; but it will mature into all the fullness of the stature of a man in Christ, and it is real and complete in all its parts, in its infancy, as in its manhood, just as the babe is as perfectly human as its grandfather, though not as old or as fully developed.
3. The Author of the new birth is the Holy Spirit. He is the source of all life, and His highest work is to bring souls into the life of God. The regeneration of the soul is as divine a result as the creation of a world, and involves the putting forth of a mightier effort of omnipotence (John 3:5, John 3:8).
4. The new birth is brought about through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, the Lord Jesus adds the beautiful words from the 13th to the 18th verses respecting His coming and the necessity of faith in Him. The new life is received by believing in the Son of God, even as the wounded Israelites received life and healing by looking at the uplifted serpent of brass in the midst of the camp. The ancient symbol vividly expresses both sides of the process of salvation. The uplifted serpent prefigured the crucified Savior, held up as the object of our faith, and the steadfast gaze upon it finely expresses the look of faith toward Jesus, by which the soul receives His imparted life. And in the closing sentences the Lord refers to the instrumentality of the truth in the great work of regeneration. The new creation, like the old, begins with the coming in of Light (John 3:19). And they who receive the Light are soon led into the life of God, but they who hate and reject the Light receive a double condemnation, simply on the ground of its rejection. “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). Spiritual Life, Worship and Service John 4:10-381. Spiritual life. The Lord sets forth the blessedness of the life which He has come to bring into our hearts by the figure of the water of Sychar. Like all of her race, this poor woman had been seeking for life from the broken cisterns of earthly pleasure, but Jesus reveals to her the deeper fountains of life which she may have from Him, and henceforth carry in her very heart, as a well of water in her, springing up into everlasting life.
5. Spiritual worship. He next leads her thoughts from her sectarian prejudices and her external ritualism to the higher principles of true religion which He had come to unfold. He points to the fact that God was not confined to places or temples made with hands, but that His true temple is the spirit of man, and the worship which He requires is the spiritual devotion of the heart, the conformity of the life to His word and truth, and the knowledge and love of Him in His divine Fatherhood. “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23-24).
6. Spiritual service. Although John 4:32-38 were addressed to His own disciples after the woman left, they contain the true sequel to the former discourse. From the figure of the natural harvest now ripening upon the fields, He passes to the thought of the great spiritual harvest to which He was calling His disciples, and of which He had just given them an illustration in the salvation of this woman, and the still larger fruitage which was coming, even as He spoke, in the thronging Samaritans whom she brought to Him. He tells them that such service is the very food and nourishment of His own soul, and will bring to them, not only the partnership of His joy, but a glorious recompense besides, in the hour of His coming. There are wages now which the true worker receives from day to day, but there is a still more blessed partnership in the harvest itself, for “the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life” (John 4:36). And then He refers to the indirect results of our work through the work of others, and especially of those that we have led to Christ, as illustrated in the beautiful example of this woman who has not only been saved herself, but has now gone forth and multiplied the fruit in the salvation of hundreds of others. So, He teaches them that their work shall thus involve the fellowship of others, and together they shall share the eternal recompense, “The sower and the reaper may be glad together” (John 4:36). One more lesson He adds in connection with this spiritual harvest, namely: the necessity of immediate and prompt action. We are always in danger of dreaming of the future, but in spiritual service opportunity is a passing angel and must be held by the hand of instant decision. “Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest” (John 4:35). And as in the natural, so also in the spiritual husbandry, the fields will not wait our convenience or caprice, but the ripened grain will perish if it is not garnered. Every day brings its irrevocable opportunities, and if lost they, at least, will never return.