02. The gift of eternal life (Joh_3:3; Joh_3:5; Joh_3:8; Joh_3:14-16)

(2) The gift of eternal life (John 3:3;John 3:5;John 3:8;John 3:14-16) The Lord Jesus receives at night the visit of Nicodemus, a ruler and a doctor in the law, and He reveals to him the fundamental truth that to see the kingdom of God (John 3:3) and to enter therein (John 3:5), any man must be born again. To see the kingdom, the eyes of the understanding must be enlightened (Ephesians 1:18), while to enter the kingdom, the door must be opened, and Christ is the door (John 10:7; John 10:9). The new birth must be (spiritually speaking) by the water (emblem of the Word of God) and by the Holy Spirit. This necessary condition, thanks be to God, is all sufficient; nothing more is required. Likewise, the Lord Jesus says of Himself that He must die, the Son of Man must be lifted up. Again, this necessary condition - the death of our Lord - is all sufficient for our salvation by faith (). The first truth (the new birth) refers to God’s work within the believer, while the second truth (the Lord’s death) refers to Christ’s work for the believer, in favour of him. This distinction is fundamental; the Scriptures distinguish always between propitiation and substitution. Salvation is offered "unto all" men, because of the allsufficiency of Christ’s work, but imputed in righteousness only "upon all them that believe" (Romans 3:22). The Lord refers here to declarations of the Old Testament which Nicodemus should have known (John 3:10). Ezekiel had prophesied to Israel on behalf of God: "I will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean...A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put in you" (Ezekiel 36:24-26). Thus, the same instruments (the Word of God and His Spirit) will be at work on earth in the future to bring the people of Israel into a moral state in which God will bless them. But here, the Lord’s words reveal a more fundamental truth, the eternal salvation of soul. And further, the promised blessings, "heavenly things" (John 3:12) are not for the earth, but now in relation with heaven, the eternal dwelling place of our beloved Saviour. The new birth implies the communication of a new nature, not the improvement of the old one: that which is born of the flesh (the adamic nature in any man) remains flesh, whereas that which is born of the Spirit is and remains eternally spirit. That new nature is the gift of eternal life which has been promised before the world began, or before the ages of time (Titus 1:2; 2 Timothy 1:9). The truth of the new birth by the Word of God and His Spirit is later confirmed by the apostles: First, by Paul: "He saved us by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost" (Titus 3:5); Then, by James: "Of his (God’s) own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures" (James 1:18); Finally, by Peter: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever" (1 Peter 1:23).

Eternal life is God’s gift, the highest expression of God’s love towards a lost world, the ruined mankind. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16). God gave His only Son, "the Son of man which is in heaven" (John 3:13) who came down on earth to die on the cross, so that whosoever (not only Jews, but any man from the nations) now believes in Him has eternal life. Such is the most simple and powerful message of the Gospel.