John 2

Division 2. (John 2:23-25; John 3:1-36; John 4:1-54; John 5:1-47; John 6:1-71; John 7:1-53; John 8:1-59; John 9:1-41; John 10:1-42; John 11:1-57; John 12:1-50; John 13:1-38; John 14:1-31; John 15:1-27; John 16:1-33; John 17:1-26.)Eternal life as communicated and dependent. The second division of the Gospel comprises the larger portion of the book. In it we have as the thread upon which its precious truths are strung, eternal life as communicated to men, with its accompaniments and implications for the possessor of it, when now it is known in its abundant blessedness (John 10:10). It is divided into four parts: in the first of which the life and all that accompanies it are seen as individual blessings simply, as in new birth, and the living water springing up within the soul; in the second, they are seen in relation to the scene around, as quickening out of a world lying under judgment, and the living waters pouring out for the refreshment of others. The third part is of a larger character, and has three different portions: (1) the soul is brought to God and is at liberty, -has the freedom of the house of God; (2) it belongs to the Shepherd’s flock, outside the fold, and follows Him who saves and leads it into His abundant pastures; (3) it has life in resurrection-power, death abolished for it, and the Son of God glorified thereby. The fourth part, in the Lord’s last discourse with His disciples, gives the furnishing for the way through a world out of which He is gone, but as expecting His return to receive us to Himself. The relation of these things to one another, with the unity and harmony of their presentation in the Gospel, can only be considered as we take them up in detail. Subdivision 1. (John 2:23-25; John 3:1-36; John 4:1-54.)As individual blessing. The first subdivision, then, speaks of eternal life and its accompaniments as individual blessing. This is naturally the first thing to be considered, before we look at the relationships into which we are brought by the reception of this divine gift. The beginning of all is new birth, which we have in the first section, made known to us by the Lord Himself in His words to Nicodemus. This is a field much traversed and by the feet of many combatants; nor must we shun a conflict upon the issue of which, as will be evident, so much depends. We are here at one of those beginnings from which such different roads open that much will depend for us upon our not missing the right way. The second section gives us the Baptist’s final testimony, both in work and word; in which, in utter despair of man, he puts us into the hand of the Heavenly Guide, to be led on where he as of the earth cannot conduct us. Upon which the third section carries us on, in the Lord’s words to the Samaritan woman, to realize what life is in the Spirit; and here a Gentile scene opens, and fields are seen white to the harvest, while Israel rejects Him whom the faith of the Samaritans recognizes as the “Saviour of the world.” The fourth section, however, as an appendix to this, reminds us by a sign again wrought in Israel -nay, in Cana, the scene of the first miracle -that God has not cast away His people of old, and shows how in their distress they will seek to Christ at last, and find His grace still ready to receive them. Here the first subdivision manifestly closes.

John 2:1-12

Subdivision 5. (John 2:1-12.)The governmental order for the reception of the blessing. The next scene that is presented to us is also in connection with this; and here we have Galilee once more, the third day, and a marriage, to which Jesus and His disciples are invited guests. In connection with Israel these things are suggestive symbols; and while we would in no wise make light of the natural significance, it will surely not do this to show, as others have done before, how the spiritual significance shines through it and adds lustre to every feature. Indeed this is no exceptional character of the scriptures we are now considering. We have been constantly realizing it in the Gospel histories and in those of the Old Testament, as well as in the types and shadows of the law. When we come to the doctrinal epistles this character of the inspired Word is no longer found: for the plain reason that the spiritual is no longer under the veil of the natural, but is openly revealed. In the book of Revelation we find it, however, taken up again, and in a more pronounced way than in any other part; and here the natural significance is for the most part only a veil, the hiding in parabolic enigmas not only of prophetic announcements as to the earth, but of the glories of eternity itself and of those precious realities which we long to know in their full blessedness. Happy he, then, who has best learned this language, which from our Lord’s use of it we may call His favored speech, the apocalyptic tongue of heaven. But let us look at the natural aspect first; in which yet we must not think it strange that the spiritual should come in, since that which is truly natural according to God can never be divorced from the spiritual: the Word, as we have just heard, is the Creator, and creation is therefore but the expression in nature of the spiritual -of the divine mind. With the disappearance of the spiritual, the very basis of the natural would necessarily disappear. Here in the Lord’s first miracle, we do right to expect in some way an introduction to His work in general on and in behalf of nature. For this is the character of all beginnings in the word and work of God. They are really of the nature of introductions to all that follows and which is developed out of them, as the seed encloses and outlines the future plant. Thus it is that the book of Genesis, and above all, the first part of it, gives the germ and outline of all Scripture. Here in the miracle at the marriage feast we shall surely find a “sign” of this kind: it is called a sign -something which has significance after the divine order. “A marriage” carries us back at once to Eden, and to the divine word whereby it was instituted. “It is not good for man to be alone.” He is made for communion, as the gift of language shows -to communicate and to receive communication. And in this, too, he realizes not merely the need of the creature, but is in the likeness of his Creator. In the very preface to his creation, the words, “Let us make man,” speak of communion. Man truly is made to recognize in it the dependence of a creature, to whom independence would be every way unsuited and unwholesome. If not mere misery, the pride through which an angel became a devil would be fostered by it, and God’s will is to “hide pride from man.” His whole mode of existence here is but one interconnected series of dependencies in which marriage is a central point. And here love finds its opportunity and displays itself in the sweet ministries of life, which reflect so much of the character of God and of His ways who is Love. Marriage is central, therefore, in the web of human life, the basis of all relationships as God has instituted them. And as marriage (not mere sexual union) it has at most its mere shadow in the temporary attachments of the creatures below man. Personal obligation, voluntarily assumed, and expressed in constant fidelity, distinguishes it by the height of a whole heaven from these partial reflections of it. We can understand, therefore, the importance of the sanction which the Lord gives by His presence at this marriage feast; and even why He takes at it the place He does, as Maker of all. It is every way harmonious; while the need and limitations brought us by the fall are recognized also and provided for. The wine runs out: the joys of earth pass and cannot be renewed; alas, the empty forms of purification, like the six empty water-pots of stone, provide no basis upon which the blessing can come. Only the servants who draw the water know how, when at his bidding the pots are filled with water, this is changed into the new wine which is alone really “good”; and in which we recognize the memorial of His own deep sorrow, yea, of the blood out-poured for the guilt of man. And here Cana, “purchase,” comes to its true significance, as the secret of the return of blessing of which Galilee reminds us. But we shall see all the details of what is here more fully brought out as we take up this story in its connection with the series of pictures in which the glory of Christ is being continuously displayed. In this, which is the full application, Galilee will speak specifically of the return of blessing to Israel, Cana still showing us how the blessing is regained; and the “marriage” in such connection will take us back to the language of the Old Testament prophets, who figure in this way Israel’s relation to Jehovah in time past, broken by her sin, but to be restored again in a more perfect and glorious way (see Hosea 2:1-23), in what will be the resurrection time of the nation, of which, no doubt, the “third day” mentioned speaks (Hosea 6:2). Here are the elements of what is now before us. Beside this, the “mother of Jesus” is here: who can only figure Israel, of whom Christ came, as concerning the flesh (Romans 9:5). And the disciples of Jesus coming with Him to the marriage point to those associated with Him in nearer intimacy and a higher order of blessing than the Jewish bride herself. But a marriage still for Israel, raised as a nation from the dead, brings up of necessity the thought of her broken vows and the long delay of blessing. The feast, which should have been for her continuous, has failed, the wine has run out. The mother of Jesus, the nation in the flesh, aware in some sense of her condition, appeals to Him vaguely, as we see in this Gospel; would take Him by force even, and make Him a King (John 6:15), from which He can only withdraw Himself. This is the “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” of the chapter here; His “hour,” indeed, “is not yet come.” Why? when the need is apparent, and confessed? Ah, the need of wine is; but there is another need, deeper, yea, fundamental, which they do not confess, nor realize. Those six empty water-pots of stone, set there for purifying, but incapable now, symbolize the condition of hollow formalism. Six is the number of labor without rest, though capable of assuming another significance; but how long has this been the suited expression of a people away from God; the practical comment upon His words, “Mine hour is not yet come”! In this interval time is not reckoned, and not as yet have we seen the end of it. But the time comes at last, and He must work to secure the blessing which without Him will never come. Now He says to the servants, “Fill the water-pots with water”; and they fill them to the brim. The number now may be that of discipline, which we know in fact God will use to bring them under the power of His word, which is His means of purification. “The washing of water” is “by the Word” (Ephesians 5:26). Thus self-judgment is accomplished: the Word received, the basis of blessing is established for the soul: faith is come, and the object of faith will soon be clearly seen. The water changes into the wine of joy, which is identified, as we have seen before, with the remembrance of Christ’s precious sacrifice. It is very much the story of any sinner saved by grace; and it will be Israel’s in the day at hand. Then indeed will the wine be the best wine; better than the lips have ever before tasted. The words of the master of the feast point the contrast with the world’s joys which spoil the taste and then deteriorate. With this there is no intoxication, no perversion of taste, no evil, but only good. It can be said, “Drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved”; and of Judah (the worshipper), “He has washed his garments in wine, and his vesture in the blood of grapes; his eyes shall be red with wine.” The fear of intemperance here is never before the soul. The numerical structure here emphasizes the governmental order for the reception of blessing, and shows the reason of the long delay of it in the case of Israel. The conditions are the reception of the Word in faith, with the self-judgment which is repentance. And thus Christ becomes the Saviour of the lost, the one Object, for the heart that has known Him so. Thus He takes His throne among men.

John 2:13-22

Subdivision 6. (John 2:13-22.)The purging out of evil. There follows, at Jerusalem, upon the occasion of the “Jews, passover,” as John characteristically calls it, a first purging of the temple by Him, which He repeats, as we have seen in other Gospels, after His presentation to them openly as their King. It is given as one of the features of millennial blessing by the prophet Zechariah, that “there shall be no more a Canaanite” -or “trafficker” -“in the house of the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 14:21). The profanation of that which, till he finally leaves it, He always calls His Father’s house stirs within Him the zeal for it which, as the psalmist is cited here as saying, consumed Him. How much did that house, God’s dwelling-place among men, mean for Him whose great work was to establish it! In His own Person God had come down, and in such a way as implied no mere temporary visitation. His Name Emmanuel had told that out.

Wisdom’s delights were with the sons of men; yet with iniquity He could not dwell. The precious blood shed for their sins could only make their persistence in them after this more hideous and more hateful. Thus the house must be purged in which God is to dwell; and the glory of God and the blessing of man required its purgation. As Son of God, therefore, Christ casts out the defilement, taking openly a place of authority which none dare openly dispute. The shadow of future judgment falls upon them and scatters them. The Jews ask what sign He can show that the authority He claims belongs to Him. He answers them with a challenge to “destroy this temple and in three days He would raise it up” -referring to His death and resurrection: a parable which they could not interpret, and applied falsely to Herod’s building, still unfinished; while even the disciples understood it only when it was fulfilled. The eyes of those held by externalism were not on Him; while as yet it held even those of true disciples. Thus the blow had to fall even upon the temple itself which left not even one stone upon another, and scattered its worshippers also far and wide over the earth; while the new temple of His humanity, glorified by the out-breaking of the glory that was within, becomes in heaven an open sanctuary, whence the divine Light shall irradiate the earth.

John 2:23-3

Section 1. (John 2:23-25; John 3:1-21.)The beginning in new birth.

1. Before we look at new birth itself, we must realize man’s need of it; and this is shown us in the most striking way, -not in the case of those who openly refuse Christ, but on the contrary in that of those who accredit His claim. The miracles he did at Jerusalem at the passover wrought, we are told, conviction in many minds. They believed in His name": the words used in the first chapter as to those to whom He gave authority to become children of God; yet here no such result follows, but the reverse. “Jesus did not commit Himself to them: because He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man; for He knew what was in man.” It was a natural work then, this conviction: sincere enough, but merely intellectual; the result of a reasoning process, leading to a correct conclusion, but with no vital change in the men themselves. They were convinced; they were not converted. Their judgment was formed upon evidence strong enough, but not derived from any glory they had seen in Him. It is not said therefore of these, as of those in the first chapter, that they “received Him.” Christ had not gained admittance at the door of their hearts. It was still the light shining in darkness: He had still no beauty that they should desire Him. They had no imperative need, that should demand Him.

Alas, here was in reality the deepest and most fundamental need, which nothing that was in man, or of man therefore could meet at all. Death could not produce life; and with the Lord’s knowledge of what is in man, He can trust nothing that is from him. This need can only be met from a Source outside of man: he to whom Jesus can trust Himself can only be a man new born. This brings us to Nicodemus and the Lord’s teaching as to new birth. The circumstances are to be noted under which he comes, with a caution which shows his apprehension of the danger for himself, and which shows therefore his earnestness in coming. His history afterwards, as the evangelist gives us the means of tracing it, confirms both these things as true of him. In the cleansing of the temple the first note had sounded of a conflict whose end (from any human point of view) it was not hard to foresee. The chiefs of the priesthood were implicated in that desecration of the house of God which the young prophet of Galilee had so denounced and broken in upon: a man who had risen up unsanctioned by the leaders of the people, of whom Nicodemus himself was one. Yet at such a juncture he risks reputation and abases his Pharisaic pride to come as an enquirer to the despised Nazarene. He comes with the distinct acknowledgement that He is a teacher come from God; and that on the same warrant of the signs wrought by Him, which those before had grounded their faith upon, -a faith which He had discredited and set aside. But there was a hunger in the heart of Nicodemus which was not in theirs, and which brought him to the feet of Jesus; and none were ever rejected there. Yet the Lord meets him with an abruptness and peremptoriness which we do not expect from the grace which characterized Him. Putting side by side with this His manner with the Samaritan woman afterwards, it is striking to see the difference. To her was the assurance of God’s readiness to give (if she but asked Him for it) living water; the token of a love she had not known nor sought to know. To him the conditions, strange and impracticable as we know they seemed, upon which alone one could see the Kingdom of God: a shut door, as it might seem, in the face of the real seeker; while she who sought not was to be wooed and won for Him.

And this was, no doubt, one reason for the difference; and which makes for Nicodemus, instead of against him. Won he was: his heart drawn, and ready to receive the truth as made known to him, even to face the unwelcome, if it were but truth; and the Lord treats him accordingly. But there is another side to it in the fact of the Pharisaism that yet cleaves to him, and which knows nothing of the lost condition of man as man. Yet to this he must be brought, stripped of every remnant of his own righteousness, and clothed even with the spotted robe of shame in which she at the well listened in wonder to hear of what God could be, even for her. Grace itself, with Nicodemus, must humble before it can exalt, must teach the worthlessness of man that all God’s glory may shine out for him. The Pharisee must renounce his many years, laboriously built up claim on God, and go back behind infancy itself, to a nothingness which would be shelter to his dishonor if it were only that, there to lie down helpless at the mere pleasure of God to save or to destroy! “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born anew, he cannot see the Kingdom of God;” and who then by his own will was born at the first? So is man born again: “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” The Kingdom of God was that which the prophets had announced, and for which all Israel waited. We must not think of it in the form it has now taken, the King away, and its administration in the hands of men. We must think of it as established by power at the coming of the Lord, when for Israel a remnant alone will enter it, whose character Isaiah explicitly declares (Isaiah 4:2-4). For “in that day shall the Branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel. And it shall come to pass that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem shall be called holy: even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem; when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughter of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning.” Then follows the account of the glory of Jerusalem in millennial days. It is certain therefore that, when Israel enters the Kingdom, every one will be born again that does so; and it should be clear that this is what a Jew like Nicodemus would expect, and had right to expect, if taught of the prophets. Of the Christian form of the Kingdom he could know nothing, and could be expected to know nothing; for it was not yet revealed. Nor could the Lord’s words even apply to the present time, in which all the parables declare a mingled condition of things, tares and wheat together, wise and foolish virgins. On the other hand, for us, in the perfected form of it, it will, of course, apply in the fullest way; but of all this Nicodemus could as yet know nothing: so that the Lord’s expression of wonder, “Art thou the teacher of Israel and knowest not these things?” forbids all direct reference in this way, and the passage in Ezekiel 36:1-38 from which He takes the words that presently follow are a positive prediction of Israel’s entering the Kingdom in this manner. This, if true, has an important bearing upon the meaning of new birth which we shall presently consider. The principle of man’s need of it for blessing at any time remains, of course, unaffected. Man is man, naturally the same all through his history; and “as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.” God also remains the same, and the need of renewal, therefore, to be with Him. Nicodemus is confounded at the thought of such a change as the Lord speaks of. It is not simply the application to Israel over which he stumbles, though this would be, of course, an additional mystery; but as to the thing in itself, how can it be possible? he asks: “How can a man be born when-he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” That is naturally impossible; but he has no explanation of it: what spiritual change can there be, so complete, so radical, so entirely beyond man to accomplish, as would be implied in a new birth? The Lord reaffirms what he has said in the same solemn and emphatic manner; but now with explanations which go to the heart of the matter: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” Then He states the need of it: 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 anew." In considering this it is natural to think first of the need, before we consider how God’s grace has met it. It is evident that when the Lord is declaring the need of man’s being born again, the words that declare it must have in view what man is as fallen. Thus, if with Muller and Weiss we interpreted “that which is born of the flesh is flesh” as meaning that “the corporeal birth produces only the corporeal sensuous part,” one would suppose this to be as true if man had never fallen; that is, supposing that man naturally has nothing but this; and what follows would affirm, as in contrast with the sensuous part, that the spirit of man was a product of new birth; or else “that which is born of the Spirit” would refer to creation and not to new creation. But we may confidently maintain, on the one hand that new birth is spoken of -that it is the Lord’s subject here; and also that man every where has spirit, as well as soul and body, -that is, the sensuous part. Nay, spirit is in man the very seat of personality, as of all human knowledge (1 Corinthians 2:11), and that by which naturally men are the “offspring of God” (Acts 17:28), as the “Father of spirits” (Hebrews 12:9). New birth does not create a personality, or make a man out of a mere bestial creature. If, then, “that which is born of the Spirit” speaks, as it certainly does, of the product of new birth, “that which is born of the flesh” covers all that man is naturally; and that he thus is only “flesh” is the effect of the fall. “Flesh” is not a new element of personality: it is strictly and evidently a degradation of it, a fallen condition. Spirit and soul are in men still, and yet these are but “flesh” after all: sunk into it, penetrated by it, so that in this way it has come to have a “mind,” a “will,” independent and away from God, “lusts” therefore (John 1:13; Romans 8:6-7) of a heart unsatisfied. God and the unseen having ceased to be a reality for the soul, or at most having become a dread reality, the visible, the tangible, the sensible, possess and control it. Man is therefore flesh and only flesh. In looking at the other side of what is here, the new birth of the Spirit, we have to remember what the trespass-offering teaches us, that God in restoring never merely restores. He does not reconstitute humanity as it was in Adam, but brings in Christ and makes Him the type of a new humanity, another order of manhood. This is according to a definite law of progress which runs through creation, and to which new creation conforms. According to this at each step in advance we find not the higher developing out of the lower: the plant out of the mineral, the animal out of the vegetable, man out of the animal; but a higher principle brought in and made by stooping to it to raise the lower. Thus life does not develop out of the inanimate, the crystal is not the budding of an organization, though it may be a prophecy of it. That life is only from life is admitted by men of science generally as far as observation and experiment can determine.

Life then is a new principle which by union with it raises up the inorganic. In the animal again, the soul is not developed out of the life principle, but unites with and raises it up similarly to a higher level. In man spirit unites itself to soul. After the failure of man we may expect a new development after the same manner, by the union of a higher with a lower nature, and thus the formation of a “new man.” Of the “last Adam,” however, we do not hear as yet, although we shall before the Gospel is concluded. At present we have only the new birth itself and its product a “spirit” nature. “Except one be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Water and Spirit combine to effect this wondrous transformation. What are these two that can thus unite for such a purpose? “Of all ancient writers,” says Hooker, “there is not one to be named who ever expounded the text otherwise than as implying external baptism.” Among moderns also this is by far the most common view; although some would take water as simply a symbol of purification. Those who make it baptism apply it mostly to Christian baptism, but some to John’s and some to proselyte baptism. The “washing (or bath) of regeneration” (Titus 3:5) and the two baptisms of water and the Spirit are naturally taken to support this view. But the baptism of the Spirit is not in order to new birth, as the Lord’s words after His resurrection clearly prove. He says to the disciples: “For John verily baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence” (Acts 1:5).

But certainly it was not at Pentecost, to which the Lord’s words refer, that they were born again; and as certainly, therefore, when they were born again, they had not received this baptism. Thus, plausible as it may look at first, water and the Spirit cannot be united in this way. But moreover Christian baptism was not as yet instituted, and the Lord could have expressed no astonishment at a Jewish teacher like Nicodemus being ignorant of such value attaching to it as would be thus expressed in the words we are considering. As for John’s baptism, his own words are against any thought of this. His “I baptize with water” not only contrasts his baptism with that of the Spirit, but deprecates the very thought of water as capable of having so great significance. As a symbol of purification we come nearer to the truth of it; but here the apostle helps us further with his statement that “Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word” (Ephesians 5:25-26), and Peter adds that we are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. . . . And this is the word,” he goes on, “which by the gospel is preached unto you” (1 Peter 1:23-25). Thus it is by the word of the gospel, and not by the word that sanctifies baptismal water, as some have dreamed, that this wondrous change is effected. And if we have difficulty in understanding how the Spirit should unite with the water of baptism to accomplish a spiritual work for which water is plainly incompetent, it is on the other just as easy to see that the Spirit does unite with the Word for this purpose. “For our gospel came unto you,” says the apostle to the Thessalonians, not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance" (1 Thessalonians 5:1-28). Thus, by the Spirit and the Word, comes in new birth. The apostle John under the figure of “living water” speaks of the Spirit in the believer (John 7:37-39). We can understand it clearly by this united action of the Spirit and the Word. If Christ by the Word purifies His church, the Spirit is necessary to make the Word effectual. As has been said by another, the Word without the Spirit is merely rationalism; the Spirit without the Word -the claim of that -would be fanaticism. Water is the Word; the Spirit with the Word the “living water.” In the Lord’s words to Nicodemus we have the bringing of the two together; and then, as “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” so “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. A fleshly nature is the product of the natural birth; a spiritual nature is the product of the new. It is only the Spirit that is spoken of here; but elsewhere we are reminded that “his seed” -the incorruptible seed, of which Peter speaks, -“abideth in” the one born again (1 John 3:9); and James in another but similar figure speaks of the “engrafted word” (James 1:21), by which, as the word of truth also, God has begotten us (ver. 18). All this speaks but one language. We see that in the children of God there is implanted a nature in moral likeness to God, -in this sense, a divine nature. The full doctrine of it will develop as we go on: the co-existence of the flesh with it in the believer, the meaning of this, the hindrance resulting, the power over it, all this we shall have to look at elsewhere. So much is clear, that the believer is a true child of God as begotten of Him, and recipient of His nature: and this is what new birth implies. The words “water” and “spirit” are, no doubt, from Ezekiel 36:25-26, which describes the divine preparation of Israel for the Kingdom; but the Lord makes them stronger than the prophet, who does not use the expression “born again.” “A new spirit” also is not the same as “spirit” from the Spirit. Yet the prophet’s words should have made a teacher of Israel recognize the import of the Lord’s words in relation to that change, so complete and so essential, which the people must undergo in order to enter upon the long desired inheritance. For us also the parabolic mode of speech employed should be no difficulty, constantly as He uses it to convey spiritual truth. The exercise needed for its apprehension He never seems to desire to avoid; for by it that apprehension is made more real, full and heartfelt. As spoken to a Jewish teacher, the words are perfectly natural; as his ignorance of their meaning shows his want of understanding of Israel’s true condition and his own. Marvel it was indeed to her teachers that the people of God should need to be born again; but that need, so real and great, could only be met by the power of the unseen Spirit working in a way uncontrollable, as invisible to man, however plain the effects of it. It was the sovereign grace of God, therefore, which worked and must work, free as the wind, and if grace to Israel, could not be confined to Israel: we all have the same need, and are debtors to it alike. 2. But we have another need, and as imperative, which the Lord goes on to put beside the former. If men must be born again, the Son of man too must be lifted up that they may have eternal life. Death must minister to us as well as life: that which was against us must be put on our side; and then the full reality of His gift will be manifested, -not merely life, but eternal life. Nicodemus can only express his bewilderment: “How can these things be?” he asks. The Lord asks in turn how he can be the teacher of Israel, and yet not know them. Then He affirms His own knowledge, from which He speaks, not with the uncertainty of their traditional teachers. Yet Israel received not His witness, even when He spoke of things upon earth, where what He said could in many ways be tested. New birth was a thing in this way sufficiently within their knowledge: for the work of the Spirit in men had a voice if they could hear it, and the prophets also had borne witness to it. Now if still they believed not, how would they believe if He spoke of heavenly things? of a sphere as to which they would have no witness but His own?

For it was plain that there was no one -He is speaking of accessible witness only, as is manifest, not of Enoch or Elijah or the spirits of the dead -no one who had ascended up to heaven, to give any confirmation. His own witness must stand alone. He, the Son of man, had been in heaven; from heaven He had come down; still, by the mystery of His nature, the One who is in heaven. The divine-human Person comes out distinctly here, the One always in heaven, though a man on earth: of no created being could such a thing be said. And here at once comes in the witness of heavenly things; which, alas, Israel would reject, as we know they rejected Him who bore the witness, and of whom the witness was. But that rejection itself was controlled of God to work out His purpose, and to this immediately therefore the Lord now goes on: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so also must the Son of man be lifted up, that every one who believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Here the Cross is spoken of in its full character, as it clearly would be where the divine purpose is in view as here. Men indeed might lift up the Son of man (John 8:28); and man’s sinful act could not work out the righteousness of God; but that lifting up in the divine ordering was to be for us the token of wrath endured, of curse taken and removed: for “cursed is every one that hangeth upon a tree.” (See Deut. notes, p. 585). This answers, according to the type which the Lord brings forward, to the lifting up of the serpent in the wilderness, which healed, by looking to it simply, the serpent’s bite. And Christ being made a curse for us, by faith in Him the power of sin in us is overcome, the poison of the serpent is done away for us. “In the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin” -a sin-offering -He has put away sin for us in that which condemns it in us: we are justified, and set upon God’s side as to it. The Cross is salvation for us in this double character, as penalty owned, and penalty removed; which in result turns our eyes away from ourselves to Him who is henceforth to fill them. The penalty borne for the believer, there can be for him no perdition. The application of the brazen serpent here seems fully to confirm the reading “shall not perish,” omitted though it be by some of the earliest MSS. The having eternal life goes beyond the simple removal of death, and beyond the type, while it gives us the connection with the Lord’s theme with Nicodemus. For, if “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” the possession of the divine nature implies of necessity eternal life. That which is divine is that which is truly “eternal:” not simply unending when begun, but which had no beginning, and thus can have no end. The sacrificial work of Christ is here affirmed as the basis of this priceless gift to men, which in the moment of faith becomes assured to him who has this. For this the Son of man must be lifted up: atonement must be made, and made by One in the nature of him who sinned; thus capable as man of taking the penalty upon man, and affirming the righteousness of God in it as bowing to it. Righteousness, the first necessity, is therefore met: the righteousness of God is put upon the side of the sinner who believes, as the apostle Paul will show us elsewhere. The ground of blessing is laid for all who will accept it. But that is the human side; and God, if that be all, is the recipient only. His righteousness is declared, true; but that is not an adequate manifestation of Himself, and God is fully manifested in the gospel. Hence the Lord goes on to that most precious, most familiar statement of it in the Bible: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His Only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Here we are at the heart of the matter. We have not now the conditions emphasized upon which divine mercy can come to us, though still it remains true that such conditions there are and must be, if God abide faithful to His own nature, as He must. But here we have the moving cause of our salvation, the activity of that nature: “God loved,” for “God is love.” Then He loved whom? the Jew? the better class among men? those that love Him? No: but the “world,” and not even “the world of the elect,” as some would put it, but (as what follows should make plain) the world at large, the great world of His creatures, though now estranged from Him. Loved them, then, how much? how can we find measure for this love of His? Here is the measure of it: He “so loved the world that He gave His Only-begotten Son; that every one who believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Divine love has thus sought men with an earnestness and seriousness which can only be questioned by questioning the true dignity of Him who has come so far on God’s part, to give us the assurance of it. And to Him all the ages witness, who is Himself above them all, the unique phenomenon in human history, of all God’s miracles the crowning one. But if God’s love has come out in such a manner, the rejection of it is as fatal as the acceptance is fraught with blessing. “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” “He that believeth not is judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the Only-begotten Son of God.” But not for judgment, but for salvation, did God send His Son. That the Redeemer will in fact be the Judge of men (John 5:22-23; John 5:27) is something very different from this, nay, opposite to it. 3. But light is come into the world, and the light makes everything manifest. Here is the judgment, that men do not desire manifestation when their deeds are evil, but love the darkness which conceals them. By turning from the light, they show that they know where the light is -that it bears witness to the conscience, although they are not in it so as to get the good of it. The practises of truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest as being wrought in God. Here, for the present, Nicodemus and the Lord part. The Pharisee is yet hindered by his Pharisaism, and these parting words seem words for his conscience, governed as he is so much by the people among whom he is. His name bears the same equivocal stamp with his character as yet. It may be “victory of the people” or “one who conquers the people:” which it will be with him is yet in the balance. But in a darker night than the present he is to come forth at last as conqueror, not conquered. His soul will have passed out of the shadow, just when the light might seem to have failed it. For him, as for many, “it shall come to pass that at eventime it shall be light.”* \