Jesus answered and said to him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except any one be born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Nicodemus says to him, How can a man be born being old? can he enter a second time into the womb of his mother and be born?
Nicodemus was a respected teacher among the Jews. Jesus had just told him that no one can see the kingdom of God without a new birth, and his reply shows he could picture only a second physical birth.
His reply is itself evidence of what the Lord's words meant. If Jesus had only said "born from above," the thought of returning to the womb would never have come to him.
His question proves that "born from above" is not at all the true meaning of the verse. If the Lord had led Nicodemus to understand it that way, he could never have asked such a question. No; He meant born afresh, born from the very start. It appears to be the strongest possible expression of this; at any rate, I do not know a stronger one in Scripture.
He reasons as anyone would, measuring a new statement by the only birth he has ever known.
Nicodemus reasons as a natural man, and he shows that human thoughts are limited to human experience. Left to himself, man cannot understand spiritual and heavenly things.
There is a strange split in him. He has already granted that Jesus comes from God, yet the first thing Jesus says leaves him unable to go on.
Scripture presents Nicodemus as an honest man. He values the Lord's miracles rightly and admits that they confirm His divine mission. Nicodemus was "ruler of the Jews," one of the religious authorities of that day. Yet the very first thing he hears leaves him baffled. The veil was on his heart. He hesitates to accept a teaching that silenced his understanding, even though it comes from One he himself calls "a teacher come from God." Such is the curious inconsistency of man. So a man may accept the mission of Jesus, backed by glorious, undeniable proofs, and still be unable to accept the teaching without the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. Only the one who is born again can see and believe that the same Person is both the teacher and the teaching.
Suppose the impossible could happen. The outcome would be the man he already is.
A second natural birth would gain no more than the first. A natural man could enter his mother's womb ten thousand times and be born, and he would still be nothing but a natural man; for "that which is born of the flesh is flesh." Do what you will with flesh — with nature — and you cannot alter or improve it. Nothing could change flesh into spirit. You may raise it to the rank of Pharisee, ruler of the Jews, master of Israel. You could hardly raise it higher. It will be flesh all the same.
If repeating birth is the wrong idea, what is the right one? Everything turns on where the new life comes from.
Suppose the old tale of an old man made young again could be true. Suppose even that the strange case the astonished Pharisee imagines could be made fact by a miracle. It would still fail to meet what the kingdom of God requires. For it would be human nature still, whether renewed in its youth or repeated in its birth ever so far or so often. A clean thing cannot come out of an unclean; and such is man's nature since the fall. God's way of renewal is not that at all. He gives a nature wholly fresh from its source, for the believer is born of God, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, by the living and abiding word of God.
Notice what Jesus does not do. He does not argue about whether it can happen. He tells Nicodemus how it happens.
Taken strictly, this question means: How is it possible for a man to be born again? But our Lord's answer does not deal with it in that form. He shows the way a man is born again: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God."
- Again — his question proves the Lord meant born afresh, from the very start, not just born from above.
- Blocked — the natural mind reasons only from what it has lived through, so the new birth sounds impossible.
- Split — a man may honestly own Jesus as a teacher sent from God and still stall at the first thing He teaches.
- Repeat — a second natural birth would only produce the same nature again. Flesh cannot be improved into spirit, however high the religious rank.
- Fresh — God does not patch up the old nature. He gives one wholly fresh from its source, and Christ answers the "how" instead of debating the "whether."
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except any one be born of water and of Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.