Born Of The Flesh And Born Of The Spirit
BORN OF THE FLESH AND BORN OF THE SPIRIT
“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.”—S. John 3:6, 7.
God is every man’s Father, but it does not follow that every man who is God’s offspring is therefore a son of God. The Fatherhood is often interpreted as if it involved the sonship, but it does not. Even among men, the mere fact of physical parentage is but a small element in the relation expressed by the words father and son. The real meaning signifies a bond of affection and reverence, which is not of physical origin. It is possible to be lineally akin and spiritually alien. Parentage may transmit nothing beyond the essential elements of life, every mental and moral quality being in direct antagonism to those of the parent. There are parents that are not parents, and sons that are not sons. Every feature of the relationship is missing except the physical incident of birth.
The Christ who reveals the Universal Fatherhood of God denies the universal sonship of men. “As many as received Him to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His Name.” It was a right bestowed, not a right recognised. Sonship, therefore, is conditioned upon receiving Christ. We are sons of God in virtue of our reception of Him: sons by the adoption of grace not of law. In the Sermon on the Mount men are exhorted to cultivate certain moral qualities to this end, “that ye may be sons of your Father which is in Heaven.” God is their Father, yet they need to become His sons. Thus again, sonship is conditioned upon moral and spiritual correspondence. To the Jews, Jesus bluntly denied the claim of sonship. They said, “We have one Father, even God.” He replied in the startling words, “Ye are of your father the Devil.” It is evident, therefore, that although everything involved in Fatherhood is completely realised in God, the conditions of sonship are not universally realised in man. Just as in human kinship natural relations may be repudiated and natural instincts extinguished, so in our Divine relationship, sonship may become a dead letter by sinful repudiation and spiritual alienation.
Consistently with this teaching, the New Testament sharply divides all men into two classes, the children of God and the children of the Devil. These are variously described, but the classification never varies. There is no intermediate class. The twofold classification is all-inclusive. Every man is sheep or goat, converted or unconverted, saved or lost, a child of light or a child of darkness, quickened into life or dead in sin, a son of God or a child of the Devil. Division so sharp and uncompromising jars upon the susceptibilities of the easy toleration of our times. It lacks accommodation, flexibility, and discrimination. Besides, it creates embarrassments. Men of moral definiteness may be sharply divided, but there are many who can scarcely be ranked with either the distinctly good or the definitely bad. Are not men after all a mixture of good and bad? Many of the irreligious are personally attractive, while some religious people are decidedly repulsive. Unspiritual men are often scrupulously moral, while others zealous in religion are unscrupulously lax in morality. Yet the Lord never wavers in His judgement. He judges by the heart, and at heart every man is of the flesh or of the Spirit.
I. This distinction Christ attributes to the operation of the fundamental and universal law: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.”
All living things come into being by birth. Life cannot be manufactured. The processes of fusion and adaptation can accomplish much, but they cannot produce life. Everything short of life can be attained. The elements of life can be analysed and copied, the forms of life can be imitated so perfectly that the most microscopic examination reveals no difference, but there is no life. The protoplasmic germ can be made up so perfectly that it is impossible to distinguish the natural from the artificial, but out of the one comes life, whilst in the other there is no life. The mysterious element eludes and baffles all human skill. There is no life but by communication from a living parent. Nothing lives that does not come by the gateway of birth.
Parentage determines nature. The propagation of every form of life is limited to its own kind. Life carries its seed within itself; the seed it yields is after its own kind; to each seed is given a body of its own. In the sphere of Nature every seed brings forth after its own kind and no other. This law is never transgressed. The creatures of the sea bring forth after their kind, and every winged fowl after its kind. That which is born of the animal is animal; that which is born of vegetable is vegetable; that which is born of man is man.
Upon this universal law Jesus bases the universal necessity of the New Birth. The spiritual kingdom demands a quality of being not possessed by the natural man. Here again we touch a fundamental principle. Every kingdom demands as a condition of citizenship correspondence with its own quality of life. The realms of music and art are impossible to all who are destitute of musical and artistic gifts. Mathematics are forbidden ground to men who have no capacity for figures and no power of calculation. The man born blind is not more destitute of the sense of light and colour than is the man utterly without conception of the things for which he has no mental faculty. If any man would enter the kingdom of harmony he must be musical; if he would enter the kingdom of art he must have the soul of an artist; if he would enter the kingdom of pure reason he must have the gift of sequence, order, and relation. No kingdom is accessible without affinity for its own peculiar nature and order of life and service. Therefore the first demand of a spiritual kingdom is a spiritual nature. Since “that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” Jesus says, “Marvel not, that I said unto thee, Ye must be born anew.” The new birth is the inevitable necessity of universal law.
II. The natural man is disqualified for a spiritual kingdom
Man is born of the flesh and needs to be born again of the Spirit. The term flesh is variously used in the New Testament:
1. Of all living creatures. 1 Cor. 15:39.
2. The substance of the living body. Col. 2:1; 2 Cor. 4:11; Gal. 4:13.
3. The life lived in the body. Gal. 2:20; Heb. 5:7.
4. Natural generation. Rom. 9:3, 5.
5. The animal nature of man without suggestion of depravity. S. John 1:13.
6. The whole of man’s human nature. Rom. 8:3; 1 John 4:2; 1 Tim. 3:16.
7. Ethically of life lived in the power and dominion of the flesh.
In its ethical sense it—
(a) Is the avenue of evil. S. Matt. 26:41.
(b) Incites to sin. Rom. 7:18; 13:14; Gal. 5:16–21; Jude 23.
(c) Makes captive to sin. Rom. 7:14–23; 8:6–8.
(d) Brings forth death. Rom. 7:5; Gal. 6:8.
When flesh is used as opposed to spirit, it denotes the earthly nature of man apart from Divine influence, and corresponds to S. Paul’s expression, the natural man. It signifies the entire man, sense and reason, without the Holy Spirit. This flesh-born humanity cannot enter the kingdom of God. Its disqualifications are Intellectual, Emotional, and Volitional.
Christ’s condemnation of the flesh is threefold:
1. It cannot see the kingdom of God.
2. It cannot enter the kingdom of God.
3. It chooses evil and darkness rather than goodness and light.
This is confirmed in the teaching of S. Paul. “The natural man,” he says, “receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them because they are spiritually judged.” That is the intellectual disqualification; they cannot see the kingdom of God.
Again, “They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh—for the mind of the flesh is death—because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be: and they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” That is the emotional disqualification; they have neither desire nor appreciation of the things of the Spirit. They cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Then again, writing to the Ephesians of their unregenerate life, he says: “Wherein aforetime ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience; among whom we also once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as the rest.” That is the volitional disqualification. The will enslaved to the lusts of the flesh, captive to the Prince of the power of the air, the unregenerate choose to live according to the course of this world. Children of the flesh are the children of wrath. The passage does not refer to the wrath of God, although that also may be implied. It does not mean that every child comes into the world the subject of Divine displeasure. God is not mentioned in the whole passage. The phrase must be interpreted as similar expressions are interpreted. Children of light, children of darkness, and children of disobedience, are descriptive of the manner and quality of life. So the “children of wrath” sums up in a phrase the characteristics of the life of men dead in trespasses and sins. They are the children of impulse, lust, and passion, following the desires of the flesh and of the mind. All the features of the life of the flesh are gathered up in another Ephesians passage. Writing of the Gentiles who walk in the vanity of their mind, he says, “Being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart; who being past feeling gave themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.” Their minds darkened, their souls alienated from God the only source of true life, their hearts hardened, they choose to live according to the passions and lusts of the flesh.
These then are the marks of the flesh. It cannot see the things of the Spirit; it has no love for God or the things of His kingdom; it does not desire either Him or His; it chooses to live for the things of the flesh according to the course of this world; it is enslaved and captive to the god of this world. The derangement of man’s nature by sin has darkened his understanding, depraved his affections, and enslaved his will. In face of these things who can wonder that the first demand of the kingdom of God is that man must be born again? The mind must be enlightened, the heart renewed, and the will emancipated before we can enter the kingdom of Heaven.
The need of this New Birth is universal. If any man might have claimed exemption it was Nicodemus. He was a man of great intellectual refinement, deep religious sensibility, and unimpeachable character, yet it was to him Jesus said, “Marvel not, that I said unto thee, Ye must be born anew.” Culture can never supersede conversion, nor can education dispense with the need of regeneration. To the “scientific mind” this also is foolishness. It resents limitation, and ridicules the idea that it cannot discover things revealed unto babes. But faculties missing at birth cannot be afterwards supplied. Imperfect organs may be remedied or developed, but the sense itself must be born. In the birth “of the flesh” the spiritual is potentially present, but comes to birth only by the operation of the Spirit. A sense missing at birth cannot be supplied by extra cultivation of others. Touch may become wonderfully sensitive, but it cannot give sight. Hearing may be developed to the utmost acuteness, but it cannot give the sense of taste or smell. Neither is it possible to develop a spiritual faculty out of natural endowments. Nature may be educated to the utmost limits of its own powers, but it cannot be educated into something of a totally different nature. There is no process by which a man can be developed out of a horse, or a beast out of a bird. So between the natural and the spiritual there is a great gulf fixed. Even Timothy who from a child had known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make men wise unto salvation, is Paul’s son in the Gospel, having been begotten of him in the Spirit. It is a hard saying for men of great natural attainments, refined sensibilities, and a native consciousness of self-sufficiency, that Regeneration is as necessary for them as for the ignorant and degraded, but it is the simple truth. All are born of the flesh and need to be born again of the Spirit. The necessity is fundamental, therefore universal.
III. What is it to be born of the Spirit?
God has thrown an impenetrable veil over the beginnings and processes of life. That we live we know, but how we live no man can tell. Life is evident to the consciousness, manifest to the senses, but mysterious in its process. So it is with the life that is born of the Spirit. “The wind bloweth where it listeth,” there is the fact; “and thou hearest the voice thereof,” there is the evidence of the fact; “but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth,” there is the mysterious process of the fact. We know that we have entered into a new life, but how the Spirit of God operates upon the soul, enlightening the mind, renewing the heart, subduing the will, creating a new nature, belongs to the hidden things of God. The fact we know, the results are manifest, the method is a solemn mystery.
There are, however, some instructive negative, and one or two positive truths revealed concerning even the process. The children of God are born we are told, “Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” The negatives are, that no man can become a child of God by natural descent, “it is not of bloods”; or by any refinement, cultivation, development, of the natural man, it is not “of the will of the flesh”; or by any aspiration, resolution, or effort of the soul, it is not “of the will of man.” Ancestry, education, determination, avail not to make a man a child of God. The positive truths are, that it is a birth; by the direct operation of the Spirit of God, through the agency of truth. It is a birth, not a development. It is the beginning of a new life, not the introduction of the old life into new conditions. It is an act of creation by which the man is born again, a new creature in Christ Jesus. The life is begotten in the soul by the Holy Spirit and the vehicle of communication is the Word of God. “Except a man be born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” The water refers not to Baptism but to the truth of which Baptism is the sign. The cleansing is “by the washing of water with the Word.” Regeneration is both a washing and a renewal. The soul is purified by obedience to the truth, “having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the Word of God.”
The nature of the change wrought in man is indicated by its contrast with the flesh. A birth is an emancipation and an enlargement of capacity and opportunity. By spiritual birth man escapes from his imprisonment within the limitations of the fleshly life, and enters a new kingdom with new interests and activities. The intellectual, emotional, and volitional disqualifications disappear. Born of God he begins to know God and to receive the things of the Spirit. His hatred and dread of God give place to love and fellowship. His affections, desires, and feelings are changed from the things of the flesh to the things of God. His will is emancipated. He finds his freedom in surrender to the will of God, and his delight in obedience to that will. His derangement having ceased, his delusions disappear, and order being restored, his whole life moves with the spontaneity of a second nature in the spiritual kingdom. Born of the Spirit he lives in the Spirit, walks not after the flesh but after the Spirit, prays in the Spirit, lives, moves, and has his being in the realm of the Spirit. The new life fills up the lack of the natural man, endues every faculty with its utmost possibility, secures order and harmony throughout the whole being, and restores life to its true relation with God and the universe. By it man becomes a child of God and a citizen of Heaven, which is as far above the life of the flesh, as the life of man is above that of the brute.
The marks of sonship are correspondence and co-operation
“If ye were Abraham’s children ye would do the works of Abraham … ye do the works of your father … ye are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do.” Jesus appealed constantly to His works as the proof of His Sonship. “The works that I do in My Father’s name, these bear witness of Me.” “If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if I do them, though ye believe not Me, believe the works: that ye may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” To Philip He said, “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? the words that I say unto you I speak not from Myself: but the Father abiding in Me doeth His works.”
They that are of the flesh do the works of the flesh. They that are of the Spirit bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. Oneness of nature manifests itself in fellowship of sympathy, correspondence of character, and co-operation in service. The sons of God are God-like, and the children of the Devil bear the marks of their father. Every man’s pedigree is declared in his conduct. “In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the Devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.” The child of God purifies himself as He is pure, is holy for He is holy, and dwells in love for God is love. He is born of God, dwells in God, belongs to God, works with God, and is like God. He has become the son of the Father which is in Heaven.
The experiences which accompany regeneration are no essential part of the process, and vary with conditions of temperament and education but the fundamental necessity and the supreme privilege of every man are, that he should be born anew of the Spirit, and by faith in Christ become a child of God.