20 - John 3:3

’Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ -John 3:3. The kingdom of God is that in which God is sovereign. His will is the will of all. His subjects are his children; of like moral nature with him; loving what he loves, shunning what he disapproves, seeking what he indicates. They are identified with him in interest: his glory is theirs; of him, through him, and to him are all things in their apprehension. He reigns over them by reigning in them; and his reign in them is the reign of infinite love. They are for him; and he is for them; and all things are for them.

Very different is the kingdom existing among men. They know, more or less, the will of God, but it is not congenial to them. Their will runs counter to his law. They find their pleasure in that which he forbids, and the things commanded are exceedingly distasteful to them. They have not the remotest conception of the truth that his requirements are the essential conditions of all happiness. Their trust is in themselves, not in him; their deference is to their own inclinations, not to his; their powers are consecrated to the doing of their own will. Their wills conflict with each other, and they accommodate them as best they can by sharing with each other the obligation of self-restraint; but as regards God and the individual, it is not the former but the latter that is on the throne. The prayer of the natural heart is, My kingdom come, my will be done on earth and in heaven. And the man is angry when the course of nature, the course of providence, negatives his will. Is this an exaggerated statement? It is the sober truth. We say not that the will of every man is set upon all that is bad; but we say that every unconverted man is bent upon having his own way, and that he cannot say from the heart, Thy will be done, thy kingdom come, thy name be hallowed. We say not that he is bent upon stealing, defrauding, stabbing, and the like; but that the law of his being is not the searching out and doing of the will of his heavenly Father. To determine this matter, all you have to do is to hear what every man says of his neighbours; he will tell you plainly enough that they are not in the kingdom of God, their wills are not the will of God. But men are not only alienated from God, they are blinded. They have become a law unto themselves; have set up a standard of their own; have lost the faculty of rightly judging which pertains exclusively to the reign of truth in the mind; and so they are not able to see the kingdom of heaven. This incompetency is not perhaps greatest in those who are most intellectual, but it is most striking in them. We are above all struck with it when we see it displayed by men who stand forward as counsellors and guides of the Christian world.

Some who claim to be in the van of modern thought wish us to regard God’s kingdom as co-extensive with this world, and all nations and tribes as working out his will; and this, not in the sense recognised by all, that God has a plan which he is gradually introducing and imposing upon men, but in the sense that whatever is, in the moral and religious as in the physical world, is a part of his plan. They have sufficient ingenuity to discover in the various idolatries that have been and are, so many means of education, some more, some less elementary; and they concede to Christianity (as they understand it) simply the distinction of being the highest, and that which is adapted to the most cultivated condition of society. Christianity would cry out in agony against this misconception of her nature; but they gag her with criticism.

Others recognise that the race is fallen; apostate; domineered by sin and error; hopeless without the Gospel. But this Gospel has not entered their hearts regeneratively; they speak of the Church, and of the necessity of being gathered into her bosom as into the ark; but some find her here, some there. The Church history of the one is the very opposite to that of the other. But need we wonder? is it not the easiest thing in the world for men to mistake in this matter? "they only who are born again can see the kingdom of God." Unless that kingdom is within us we cannot know it. They who by faith are enabled to discern the inheritance which is kept for Christ’s people in the skies are able to recognise those for whom it is kept.

Many examples have been furnished, even in our own days, of persons who gave what was regarded by all as satisfactory evidence of their being true Christians, and who were afterwards the subjects of a change that they described as that of the new birth. Chalmers was in the ministry for years before he had this experience; and was at that time regarded by those around him as a rather unusually earnest minister. Doubtless there are many such as he was; they have taken up the standard which they found existing around them; they have a religious sentiment, and value the Gospel as they understand it; but they little know what a film there is upon their eyes, and into what a new world a change like that which Chalmers underwent would introduce them. The late Lord Haddo was for many years held in high regard as a Christian man, and displayed, we are told, "every feature of the Christian character, as generally understood," when, in his thirty-second year, on a certain occasion he was suddenly impressed with the solemnity of eternity as he had never before been. He was arrested; brought to a complete halt; the powers of the world to come took hold upon him; the great facts of responsibility, sin, future judgment, closed in upon his spirit, and convinced him of his absolute need of a Divine deliverer. This immediately became the one need of his life. "Salvation now must be sought and attained, though the path to it lay through fire and water; no hardships were worth a moment’s consideration in comparison of so great a price." Some may look at this as simply marking a transition to a higher life; but it was not a higher Christian life that he was seeking; it was salvation. He was ready to give up his wealth and title, and go to the end of the world as a poor and unknown man; and seriously thought of doing it, and would have done it, doubtless, if he had not been led to see that his wealth and title could by the grace of God be kept from hindering him in the heavenward race. He consecrated himself, his rank, wealth, influence to the cause of Christ, and soon enjoyed the testimony of the Spirit, witnessing with his spirit, that he was a child of God.

Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews; a religious ruler, a member of the Sanhedrim. "Art thou a master of Israel?" said Christ to him. The word in the original is teacher, the same that Nicodemus addresses to Christ himself in verse 2. And our Lord doubtless sees thousands of Nicodemuses among the modern masters in Israel who need to be born again that they may see the kingdom of God, and be able to show it to others.