New Thoughts (1/2/05-1/6/04)
There is sufficient material in these few verses of John’s to keep one busy and full for weeks! The amount of solid theology that is to be found here is simply astounding. How John is able to put so much into so small a space is just bewildering. The passage hits me like few others as being one in which the full understanding of every word is imperative. Usually, this is a reaction I have to Paul’s writing, where he is laying out a carefully plotted logical argument for his chosen point. Here, it’s just that John is seeking to describe the indescribable wonder that is God Incarnate, and the Holy Spirit flows through him in words that at once convey the utmost wonder and declare incredible truths about His Person and His Office.
I think, as a first step, I’m going to have to consider each verse in its turn, and really dwell upon what it has to tell us. There is simply so much that can be expanded upon in these statements, and the notes I have on things that caught my attention don’t really seem to indicate any particular direction for development beyond what John provides.
Verse 9
There was the real and genuine Light, the eternal, pure Reason of God, and He was coming into the world to provide spiritual instruction to every man.
See what we are told about Jesus already! He is real. He is genuine. He is no fiction, imagination, or counterfeit. This is critical to our understanding. Many had come with claims of being Messiah, but the claims had been false. They were counterfeits. Many were troubling the Church with declarations of God’s Word that had nothing to do with God’s Word. They were speaking nothing but their own vain imaginations. Just about any religion was replete with their full complement of myths to entertain and instruct the initiate, but these were just fictions. What the Gospel declared then, and declares now is no myth, no clever tale, but the verifiably accurate presentation of real history. What they describe is no pretender, but the genuine article, the Son of God made flesh. What John declares about this One with this opening word is that there was nothing about Him that was not as it seemed. Some claimed He was not really a man of flesh and blood. John says that he was a genuine man among men, a point he will develop shortly.
More critical to his audience, though, is that Jesus was not only genuinely a man among men, not only the real fulfillment of Jewish Messianic hopes and prophecies, He was and is the real answer to the great questions of philosophy. The Greek culture recognized in philosophy the highest of intellectual pursuits. Sciences were certainly of intellectual worth, and their benefits tangible, but the harder task of the intellect was to understand the inscrutable, to reach an understanding of the causes and purposes of human existence. Many great theorists had arisen in Greece and elsewhere. Many fine systems of thought had been expounded, seeking to explain the point of it all, but even at its height, these attempts to explain had been no more than the presentation of man’s opinions. When Paul declared to Athens that it was in God that we live, move, and have being, he was telling Athens exactly what John is declaring here: The answers that the philosophers sought to provide were all to be found in this One, in Jesus. He is the true knowledge, the genuine, perfect Intelligence of God Himself.
Now, comes an even more amazing truth. The very Truth of God, His own Intelligence, the Thoughts of Him Who is so very far beyond the best of men, had come into the world not to shame the thoughts of man, but to inform the thoughts of man. The incomprehensible had determined to speak in a fashion that could be comprehended. The Ineffable Light had so presented Himself as to be understood by all. Every man – not just the giants of philosophy, but the dockworker and the slave – could lay hold of the Truth that was being spoken in Christ Jesus. He was not for the elites. He was not only for the commoner. He was for every man. He still is!
There is one other factor to recognize in this opening statement. If indeed, He fashioned His message to be understood by all, if His presentation was such that it not only made enlightenment possible for one and all, but actually enlightened them, then there can be no excuse. Be very aware of this distinction! It does not say He gave us the power to understand. It does not say He made it possible that we might understand. It says He enlightens. He sheds the light of Truth into the heart and mind of every man. This is not a matter of being invited into the thoughts. It is an invasion! The Light entered the darkness of mankind’s thinking, and the darkness could not stop it!
Wow! This is not where I thought that paragraph was going! But, this is so important to understand. We have this view of God being a gentleman, who will never force us to His will, and we are so very wrong! Thanks be to God that we are! For, if God were the gentleman we make Him out to be, we would still be lost in our sins. The Scriptures are clear on this: He loved us before we loved Him, He saved us when we were still His enemies! He stormed the gates of hell to save us from our own darkened minds. The True Light did far more than make the light of divine knowledge available to those who chose to look for it. He insists that the mind of every man have that knowledge.
There will be no claim of ignorance before His throne on the day of judgment, because He has enlightened the mind of every man. Every man has sufficient divine knowledge from His very hand that they will be without excuse who have not sought this King and His offer of salvation. There can be no claim of not being aware of a God who was worthy to be adored. There can only be outright rebellion against the Son of God. He enlightens every man, yet we are keenly aware that not every man bows willingly before Him. So great is our fall from grace that even with the knowledge of the Truth injected into the very fiber of thought within us we reject that Truth and prefer the lie.
God, Your mercy is astounding in this. How can You put up with us? How can You accept our insistence on wandering from Your pathways when You have gone so very far to point us to the proper course? How the ungodly cry out, in the face of recent events! How they decry Your existence, and claim that there can be no belief in a good God that allows such things to occur. I say, behold the infinite mercy of my God and King that He has left any alive on this sorry planet! Indeed, how great is Your mercy towards me. How You have labored to make Your point with me in the last several months, and still, I know I have not fully apprehended Your message to me. I know there are things that remain to be done, that I have barely taken the first step in the path of obedience that You are calling me to.
Yet, You are patient with me, and by Your example You call me to be patient with those around me. Shall I really insist on that from others which I fail to perform myself? Far be it from me, Lord! Teach me to walk in the righteousness I would see in others. Teach me the obedience I would require of others. Let me walk out the example of Your desire before I would desire Your example of those walking beside me. This I cannot do, except You continue to invade my life. This I cannot do except You continue to will and to work within me. I do not, for a minute, believe You really need my permission to do this, yet my permission I freely give. Find in me a heart of cooperation with Your plan and purpose, my Lord, though the flesh be weak.
Verse 10
He was in the world. He had entered the creation that He made, for every created thing receives its existence through His power. Yet, the world did not esteem Him as worthy of intimacy.
What a sad judgment upon mankind. The animals might be forgiven their lack of comprehension, but in man, God had wrought after His own image. He had fashioned man with the power of thought and reason, a being with whom He could fellowship, and this which He had created for fellowship did not consider Him worthy of its fellowship. Man could not be bothered to draw close to his creator.
I can make note here of an article that passed before my eyes recently. This was a missive written in regard to the recent earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean, and it reached the conclusion that these events were proof that God was either not good, or He was not God. Given this synopsis of the article, there was not any great need to read the whole thing, for the argument is old, and the new evidence upon which the argument intended to base its claims remained as faulty as ever. It was, in essence, just another case of man finding a reason not to become intimate with his creator. Furthermore, it displays the most fundamental of reasons for this rejection, as it tends to play out today. Man has set himself up as god. We draw ourselves up in our proud understanding and declare that we would know better than any god what is truly good. We deem ourselves able to judge what is inherently greater than ourselves. Thus professing ourselves ever so wise, we once more prove ourselves utter fools.
This is nothing to be shocked about, though, for from the outset, mankind has insisted on this course. From the moment of Adam’s fall, there has been a constant struggle on the part of man to show himself greater than the One who created him. There has been a constant war on the part of man to declare himself free of any concern for God. If one looks at the gods of Greek and Roman culture, one finds gods fashioned in the image of man, only amplified; amplified in power, and amplified in their foibles and failures. The gods were shown to be no more, and generally less, moral than those who would worship them. They were powerful, yes, so they must be appeased, but they were really no better than men.
This God that was worshiped in Israel was something altogether different. He wouldn’t play by the rules of man. He would not restrict Himself to a particular terrain, as some of the local deities did. He would not be tied to a particular country, like most of the Canaanite gods; not even when Israel tried to make Him theirs alone. Even His own chosen people sought to give God a makeover. They wanted Him to look like the other gods around them so that they could be accepted, but He would not have it so. Unlike all these others, He was the real thing. He alone stood as the Creator of all things, even the Canaanites, even the devils they called gods were the work of His hands.
How it is that God, being good, and having not the least trace of evil in His being could create what is evil and yet be good is perhaps a mystery that will not be resolved in our lifetime. He remains, in spite of all He has done, the Eternal One, a being far beyond our own much vaunted development, and He will ever be beyond our greatest advances. As the Ultimate Source, as the very essence of Goodness, it is His to determine what is good. As the Perfect Judge, it is His to determine when and if the courts of heaven will show mercy, and when the full penalty of the Law shall fall upon the rebels of the earth.
The world was made through Him and for Him. Creation finds its purpose in the mind of the Creator, and no other place. We have the axiom that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We are told that the artist loses ownership over the meaning of his art as soon as it is put before the eyes of another. The poet’s intended meaning is not considered important when the reader finds his own meaning in the poem. All of these ideas tend to give the creation an existence greater than the creator. In attributing this greater worth to the works of man, we reflect an innate opinion of man with regard to his Creator. We seek to declare that our meaning is greater than God’s, that our purpose and point is no longer His to determine once He has had done with creating us. We are free to be what we will. But, this is a lie, and in the end demeans us.
The epitome of artistry in man is that art in which the intended meaning of the artist is so clearly expressed that even long centuries later, his point is not missed. Art is art which stands the test of time. Art is art whose beauty remains unchanged by the winds of time and culture. The classic works of music, of literature, of paint and sculpture, even of the more mundane sciences, stand up to the test of time because they are well crafted from the outset. They display an essence beyond the whims of opinion. They express a Truth that will not bend to the latest trend. Their original purpose remains unchanged from that which their creators intended, and that purpose remains plainly evident long years later, to a populace that is utterly foreign to the milieu from which the artist sprang.
It is so with man, the ultimate artistic expression of God. He was created in God’s own image, created for God’s own purpose. However much man has tried to stand apart from that truth, the Truth has remained. No matter how much man has tried to reinterpret his own image, tried to declare his own purpose, the image and the purpose remain. However hard we may fight against that reality, reality will not bend for us. We were created for intimacy with our Maker, for fellowship and communion with God Himself! What greater honor could we ask? And yet, we deemed Him not worthy of our attention. We determined to go our own way, to ignore our purpose, and seek our answers elsewhere.
The painting insisted on meaning what it would. Indeed, the painting had decided that neither its painter nor its viewer had any right determining its meaning. The painting would be what it would be, and let anybody who disagreed be as naught. Let the whole of society tell the painting it had a wrong opinion of itself, and all society must be wrong. Let the painter seek to correct his work, touch up the painting so that his point came across more clearly, and the painting would not suffer his touch any longer.
Today, it is playing out more clearly than ever. Every man wishes to be a law unto himself, and yet every man wishes to impose his law on those around him. It must be so, for every man’s law concerns those with whom he makes contact. He cannot have his law if those around him will not abide by it, so conflict becomes inevitable. This one will insist that his law allows him to pierce his body, to mutilate himself to whatever extent he desires. He will declare himself beautiful in his mutilation. He will also insist that those who look upon him deem him beautiful as well. In this, his law has exceeded the bounds of his own person. It must impinge upon the law of any who look upon him and deem him mutilated and hideous.
The legislative branches that seek to govern a populace of self-ruled people largely bow to the nonsense that results. They seek to find ways to force us to agree with whatever rules others might have declared for themselves. If the mutilated one has declared himself beautiful, we must agree with him. If one’s behavior has made him hateful, and a bane to the continued existence of mankind, no matter. We must accept him for what he is. Indeed, should we have the audacity to point out the problem in that one, it will now be labeled a hate crime, and we shall feel the long arm of the law upon us for daring to speak out. Truly, we get the government we deserve!
Yet, God remains good. We get the government we deserve for the very simple reason that He remains in control. Every earthly authority remains an authority by His decree, or the remain not. Why does He allow such tyrants as the world has seen to sit in the seats of power? Why does He allow such incredible atrocities to occur as repeatedly occur on this wonderful planet? I cannot pretend to have the answers to this, but I can look to the history of mankind, to see what has resulted from previous examples. I see a history of evil men being used to good purpose. I see the cruelest of kings coming to mete out punishment upon those whom God loved. I see them used as the tools of correction, used to awaken those upon whom God was showing His mercy to the real situation.
One could not look upon the ways of Assyria and Babylon and find them good. They were not. But, they were turned to a good purpose, whether they willed it to be so, or not. One can not look upon the death camps in Germany and find them good. One can, perhaps, find the good that came of them. One can find the examples of men of real faith standing strong in their faith. One can find the strong urge to do what is right that suddenly welled up in the nations. The corruption of the flesh is such that we often will not see the evil around us until it stands out stark and plain. Until that point, it seems just more of the same. We have many examples in the news even now. The attempted genocides of recent years seem to have taught us nothing, and we look on as Sudan destroys its people. We are unimpressed by an Iraqi leader who attempts to wipe out entire populations within his own borders. It’s not our business. It’s not sufficiently evil to move us.
We cannot look at the loss of life that has come from the earthquakes and tsunamis and deem that destruction good. It is not. Yet, it has brought an end to hostilities in a region notorious for hostilities. Can it be that these things have come as punishment upon the longstanding evils of the peoples of that region? Can it be that God is not willing to stand idle as His people are attacked? Perhaps. I cannot speak for God. I can only confess the Truth I have seen proven in my own life repeatedly: God works all things for the good of those who are working in His purpose. The martyrs of the faith have always understood this. Even in their own death, they found God continued to work to their good, and they stood by Him. They insisted on allowing the Creator right over His creation, and were pleased to serve His purpose as intended.
Verse 11
He come from His own abode to be with those who were His own and no other’s. However, though He was familiar with them, they would not become intimate with Him. They would not accept Him into their thoughts.
This verse appears to stand as a parallel to the previous after the fashion of Hebrew poetic expression. He was in the world. He came to His own. He made the world. They were His possession. The world did not know Him. His own did not receive Him. It is the same sequence of thought, with all the same implications.
There is, however, a building of John’s case that crosses the boundary between the two verses. In verse 10, he culminates with the charge that man, the height of creation, refused to consider God worthy of intimacy. It was still a matter of thought and opinion. In verse 11 the issue becomes a matter of actions. They would not accept the intimacy He offered. They would not take Him into fellowship. They would not fulfill their purpose. To our shame, this analysis still holds true today. Jesus has been seeking that intimacy with His creation for centuries, and still, even the people called by His name refuse Him that intimacy. Even those who profess themselves Christians are not keen to come into that place of intimacy with Him, because it will require revealing the darkness that remains within them.
Intimacy with Christ will require change in us, will force change in us. We cannot be intimate with a holy God and remain practicing sinners. We cannot draw close to the Light and expect to retain our dark nature. For some, this will present an obstacle. Unwilling to change, they will remain on the fringes of Christianity. They will claim the name, but refuse the implications of that claim. They will eventually go out from us because they were not truly of us. In the course of time, they will either give proof of their claim to the name of Christ Jesus, or they will be proven without a claim.
Verse 12
The news is not all bad, though. There are those who receive Him, who take Him up on that offer of intimacy. They will allow His Light to penetrate their darkness and make it light. They will allow His Holy Presence to burn away all that is sinful in them. They lay hold of Him, take and eat of Him, and see that He is good. To such as will receive Him, He brings the legal writ of adoption into the family of God. They are made children of God. They are born to the Father of Lights. Jesus brings not only the legal right to claim the title, He brings also the power. In Jesus, we are empowered to truly become children of God. We are given the power to lay hold of that legal claim.
Both the legal authority and the power to obtain it come from Christ Jesus. There is no other way in which one can make the claim. There is no other way into the family of God. Those who seek God on a different path may say that they are His children, but He does not say so. There is no legal basis for their claims. They cannot bring proof of His paternity. They are powerless to enforce any claim upon the Father, because they have not received Him, they have not drawn into the intimate relationship He offers and requires.
Here, too, John is building his case. In verse 11, he noted that though Jesus came to the very people He created for His own enjoyment, they would not come into intimacy with Him. They refused Him. Those who chose intimacy with Him were the exception, the remnant. Here in verse 12, John explains who had received Him, and how. Those who received Him, those who drew Him close and became intimate with Him, were those who believed in His name. They recognized His office. They saw His character, His holiness, and they wanted Him near. They understood that He was the Son of God, that He was God. They had no doubts about Him. They recognized that He stood before them as a man, and yet remained God of God. They laid hold of all that He stood for, all that He is, and they loved all that He is.
Verse 13
Now John moves swiftly against a potential misunderstanding. It sounded as though those who believed had done something. They had indeed been saved by their own works in that they believed in Jesus. It was their belief, was it not? But, John makes this very clear. No act of man’s will, no inclination or desire in the heart of man brought about this birth into the family of God. Further, it truly was a birth, not just an adoption. Those who believed, who received Him, were born. They were children born to the Father. The term used for ‘children’ in verse 12 is a word with reference to the fact of birth. We are children of God because we were born to Him. Here, it is explained to us how we came to be born, and in particular, who our father is. The word for ‘born’ here speaks of the father’s role in procreation. Who’s your daddy? It’s not you. It’s not your father. The birth that has taken place cannot be traced back to one’s lineage, cannot be chased back down the physical path at all. Neither can we claim it as an act of our will, nor of any other man’s will. The birth by which the Father has made us His sons came solely by His own will, solely for His own pleasure. There is no other reason to be found for it. It was not our desire for Him that led Him to make us sons, it was His making us sons that led to our desire for Him. We love Him because He first loved us. Ever and always, He is first. While we were yet His enemies, while we were busy rejecting His offer, He came to us in His love, and gave us birth as His sons!
Verse 14
The essential knowledge of God, the Divine Expression of real intelligence became flesh, a man among men. He established His dwelling place among us, and we had opportunity to really dwell on the divine nature in all its excellence as we contemplated Him who stood with us. That glory that was His, that absolute perfection of godhood, was as magnificent as ought be expected of God’s sole Heir. Indeed, in Him was found the perfection of grace and truth.
Now, John reaches the climax of his thought. He shifts from the image of the all-penetrating Light of God to that of the Word made flesh. The image has changed, but the thought being expressed really hasn’t. The thought remains that this Jesus who came in the flesh to mankind was the personal manifestation of God’s own wisdom and power. He was the essence of God expressed in the flesh of a man. He was the Divine Expression. In Him the True Wisdom of God, the full understanding of the Godhead was expressed in a fashion comprehensible to man. In Him was the answer to the question of the ages. Here was the cause and purpose of life for which the philosophers sought. From whence is our life? Here before you is He who breathed life into man. How is it that we are able to move, that great evidence of life within us? It is because He moves us. Why is it we have been given life? To what end does He so move us? We live for His pleasure, to please Him and to be pleased in Him. We are moved to suit and serve His purposes.
That word logos may yet prove worth a bit of a side study. There is simply so much to comprehend in John’s use of that term, so much cultural meaning is wrapped up in that one word that it would probably be beneficial to better grasp what thoughts it brought to the minds of his readers. Just from the lexical entries one begins to sense how much was packed into the word. It expressed the orderly expression of thought in words. In the case of Jesus, it tells us that His life was an expression of God’s thoughts. His teaching, which encompassed not only what He said but also His actions, gave us an orderly expression of God’s viewpoint. He expressed what it was God intended in the creation of man, and made evident that it was possible to live as intended.
Logos is used of skilled speech, of instruction and doctrinal statements. I fully expect, if one were to dig into Greek usage, one would find it used of rhetoric in its better sense. Jesus is the rhetoric of God, communicating God’s will in a fashion to persuade man. Proper rhetoric presents a fundamentally logical argument for its point. The persuasion it brings is not a playing with the emotions, it is not the use of sound bytes that has become common in modern debate. It is the presenting of sound arguments in an orderly fashion so as to be comprehended by those who hear.
Jesus is the Light of God, the power of perfect reason. Jesus is the Word of God, expressing the perfect reason that is His in terms we can understand. The reason He expresses is the essence of God, the Truth of God. Thus, the Word of God is the revealing of God’s essence to mankind. Jesus is the Thought of God made tangible. The philosopher’s logos stopped at the concept of thought. It was an idea and nothing more. The Logos of God, however, is God’s Thought made a being amongst beings. In Jesus, the Logos is found to be a person. In Him, the God’s Essential Thoughts and Truth were put before us in a fashion we could lay hold of, could handle and experience with all the senses.
This is the glory that John saw and contemplated well. He walked with the Expression of God’s Thoughts for three years or so, talking with Him, eating with Him, listening to Him, experiencing Him in every aspect of His existence here. He saw Him at His best and at His worst, and in it all what he found was glory: the “absolute perfection of the deity” expressing “all which is excellent in the divine nature.” In Jesus, God’s essence was expressed perfectly. Nothing was lacking. There was not some way in which He might have improved on His presentation. There was no sin to mar the perfection of His goodness.
This is the Jesus John presents us with. Against every misrepresentation made of Him, John presents the real thing. Was He a great teacher, as some would have Him understood? To be sure, He was the greatest of teachers, for His knowledge was the perfect knowledge of God. But, He was far more than a great teacher. He was not just telling us what God thought, He was God’s Thought. Was He another case of the gods becoming visible to man? Indeed, He was quite visible, and most certainly He was wholly God. But, He was far more than God made visible. He was God with us. He was the Creator taking on His own creation. He was, while wholly God, also wholly man – more wholly man than any man ever was or shall be in this life. For He lived the life that man was intended to live, free of sin and devoted to God’s will and desire. He found His every joy in God, and in God the fulfillment of every desire. From birth to death He walked in the righteousness of God, the righteousness intended for man. He expressed to us not only God’s Thought, but our own purpose.
He showed us what was ours by birthright. He showed us what it meant to be sons of God, as we were created to be. He showed us what was our legal right, and then He presented us with the power to lay claim to that right. It is one thing, after all, to know we have legal recourse to some end. Yet, that legal recourse may lay beyond our power to obtain it. We may not have the necessary access to the courts, or perhaps we cannot afford the legal fees required to gain what is rightfully ours. It is one thing to have the right, it is another thing to have the power to claim that right! Jesus brought both – the right and the power. Because of Him, we have the right to be born of God. Because of Him, we have the power of will to desire that birth which comes of God alone. Because of Him, we are empowered to walk in the way He walked, to join Him in expressing God’s thoughts.
This is rather an amazing thing, and hard for us to keep in proper perspective. Jesus has brought about our adoption into God’s family. He has given us legal claim upon the Father. He has also provided the power to lay hold of our claim. How is that? The key is back in verse 13. The birth by which we enter God’s family does not come from our own power, our birth comes solely by God’s will. It remains sola gratia, by God’s grace alone that we are reborn. It remains sola fide, for the gift of adoption is given only to those who believe, who have faith in the name of Jesus. Only if we trust absolutely in His claims as the unique Son of God, only if we accept fully His office of Messiah, God’s Anointed Redeemer are we given that gift. But, we must remember that even the faith by which we believe in His name is ours by the grace of God! The power to claim our rights of God is the power of God Himself. How incredible is that!? By His own power and will, He has issued the papers of adoption. By His own power and will, He has moved us (for in Him we move) to accept those papers. By His own power and will, He has approached Himself and appropriated unto us the seed of rebirth, that we might step into the position He has granted us!
Surely, with all He has done on our behalf, we are without excuse if we reject Him. What possible defense could we hope to offer before the throne of Almighty God when we stand before Him? He has done everything that was necessary to bring about our pardon, to satisfy the demands of justice as regards our sins, and to make us fit for the kingdom of glory. If we have insisted on remaining in the mire of our sins in the face of all that, there can be no excuse. There will be no claims of ignorance before Him, for He made His thoughts manifestly evident. There has been no lack of instruction given to us. There has been no misunderstanding of what it was He expected. It has been made crystal clear. If, then, we have insisted on continuing our own way, there can be nobody to blame but ourselves when the verdict comes in, and we are condemned.
The message is painfully clear. If we have failed to understand it is only because we have refused to understand. We have heard the logos of God, and He has expressed Himself perfectly. What has He said to us? He has declared unequivocally that Jesus alone is the way to the Father. “I am the way, the truth, the life. There is no other path to the Father but Me” (Jn 14:6). If we seek to bypass the Son, then we succeed only in bypassing heaven altogether. He has also promised that we will know the Truth, and it is the Truth that will free us (Jn 8:32). He is the Truth. As well say, then, that we will know Jesus, and Jesus will set us free. What are we freed from? We are freed from the sins that enslave us as we labor under the Law. The Truth, the Son, has taken us out from under the Law for He paid the due penalty of our sins. He has set us under grace, for we surely did not deserve what He has done. Therefore, because of His efforts on our behalf, sin is no longer our master (Ro 6:14). We have known the Truth, and the Truth has set us free! We heard the Truth when He declared that truly, He is King. He testified to this fact throughout His life. This was the Logos proclaimed, but only those who are of the Truth understand Him when He speaks of this (Jn 18:37).
Who are they who are ‘of the Truth’? They are those who have been born of the Father, born both of water and of Spirit. Scripture tells us that it is appointed to each man to die but once (Heb 9:27). Yet, the possibility is held out that we may be born twice. Every man will experience the birth of water. This is the birth of the flesh, fathered upon woman. What is born of the flesh must die of the flesh, and it is this death to which the author of Hebrews alludes. However, every man is given the opportunity of a second birth, a birth of the Spirit, a birth fathered by God the Father. No man of flesh can bring it about. No will of the heart can bring it about. No effort of man can bring it about, but only the Father’s will. This is the birth by which real life comes, the Light of Life.
For us, these two births must ever be separate events. The birth of the Spirit ever and always follows after the birth of the flesh. Jesus alone among men was born both of water and of Spirit from the first. In Him was a miraculous birth, a birth defying the natural order of things as God sovereignly interrupted the processes He Himself established. In Jesus alone, the two births coincided, for though He was fathered on a woman just as any other child of man, He was fathered upon her by the Father. No man of flesh was involved in His birth. It was because of this that He could be held sinless from birth. Of any other man, David’s declaration regarding himself would hold true: “I was born in sin, and in sin was I conceived.” Any other man would require the cleansing waters of repentance and a second birth to save his body of death. Jesus alone among men had no need of this. He came to the waters of repentance, but not out of need for cleansing. He came because He would not require of His own anything He would not undergo Himself. He came because it was His purpose to endure every weakness and every experience of mankind, and to triumph through them all. It was His purpose, and He fulfilled His purpose as He expressed His essence: perfectly.
God, what an incredible doxology this makes. How wonderful are Your ways. How beautiful Your Son. You have moved upon me, given me ears to hear You with understanding, a heart to long for the intimacy You offer. You have given me so much, and sometimes it seems my gratitude is so small. But, right now, Father, my heart’s cry is that You would give to those I love that same understanding, that same heart. You know the ones of whom I speak. You know every hair on their heads. You know them better than I know myself. Father, would You draw them to You? Would You give them ears to hear, eyes to see? Would You plant them in Your Truth that they, too, might be freed from their sins? God, it is my cry that You would save them. If You can use me to that end, then use me. Whatever it takes, Lord, make them Yours. You have shown Yourself to me in ways I cannot deny. You approached me in a fashion by which I could understand. There is nothing that prevents You from doing so on their behalf. Oh, that it might be Your desire, too! Oh, that You would desire them, for then, surely You will indeed draw them close to Yourself. Oh! That we might be one in You!
