In the light of the Lord Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus it is a self-evident fact that God cannot accept any substitute for the new birth. Reformation cannot be substituted for regeneration. If God makes no attempt to reform "the old man" surely He cannot accept any fragmentary improvement man might effect. Reformation is purely man's work; it leaves the flesh flesh, for it is the human trying to better itself. Reformation may improve the character of the flesh by the lopping off of certain evil habits but it cannot change flesh into spirit. Reformation may make a man somewhat more kind, generous, courteous, but it cannot make him holy, and "without holiness no man shall see the Lord." Reformation may help a man to better the condition of his living on the plane of the natural but this does not meet God's requirement for a totally new life on the plane of the spiritual.
Respectability cannot be substituted for regeneration. Many people are deluding themselves into thinking that if their character and conduct conform to the moral standards of the best society that is a sufficient passport into the companionship of an altogether holy God. But God's standards are as far above man's as the heavens are above the earth.
Religion cannot be substituted for regeneration. Nicodemus was an ardent, active religionist but he was not a son of God nor a citizen in the Kingdom of God. Over the doorway to the Kingdom of God no one will ever see written "Admittance granted to those who have been baptized, who have been punctilious in church attendance, who have partaken of the holy communion, who have read the Scriptures and prayed, who have given their tithe." In His holy Word God has already written these solemn and irrevocable words over that doorway, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Jesus Himself, the righteous Judge, bars the gate of Heaven to the unregenerate. "And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie; but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life" (Revelation 21:27). "Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again."
The Holy Spirit - The Author of the New Life
But Nicodemus did marvel at what our Lord was saying and could only reply "How can these things be?" Nicodemus like many others today had preconceived ideas and prejudices which made it difficult for him either to understand or to accept the divine simplicity of God's plan of salvation. "He had to descend from the lofty heights of Rabbinical learning and traditional religion and learn the alphabet of the Gospel in the school of Christ." Then, too, it would be a most humiliating thing for this prominent leaders in religious circles who was supposed to teach others concerning the Kingdom to admit that he himself could not enter the Kingdom except he came as a sinner to a Saviour confessing his need of a new nature.
But the Lord Jesus takes infinite pains to throw light into the darkened mind of Nicodemus because He knows that He is dealing with a hungry soul. So He tells him the "how" of the new birth.
John 3:8, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit."
John 3:6, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit."
As in justification so in regeneration God takes the initiative and does the work. "By grace ye are saved." The spiritual man is born of the Spirit. The new birth is God's work alone. It is a birth from above.
1 John 3:9, "Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, because his seed abideth in him; and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God."
John 1:12-13, "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
"Born" - "not of blood." Regeneration has no connection with natural descent. Recently I asked a gentleman if he was a Christian. Instantly he replied, "Certainly, I was born a Christian." I have a friend who felt quite sure that her first baby was born a Christian but now she has come to be more sure that not one of her seven could have been born Christians. God says distinctly that the divine, eternal, spiritual life of God is not passed from father to son but is implanted by God, the Holy Spirit, directly in the spirit of man. "Salvation does not run in the blood." Eternal life is not an inheritance from godly parents but it is the gift of God in Christ His Son.
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 3)
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