The necessity of being born again or from above, or, as it is commonly expressed, of regeneration, is well understood and most surely allowed among the saints. But is there not a more simple and distinct character in the new birth than is generally apprehended ? I judge there is. For the doctrine commonly raises in the mind a sense of something strange and indefinite. But this need not be.

Nicodemus had come as a pupil to Jesus. "We know that Thou art a teacher come from God," he says ; upon which the Lord tells him at once that he must be born again. But He does not end His words with him till He directs him to the brazen serpent, teaching him that it is there he must go in order, as it were, to gather up the seed of this needed new life.

In what character, then, must he take his place there, and look at the Son of Man lifted up on the cross ? Simply as a sinner, a conscious sinner, carrying, like the bitten Israelite, the sentence of death in himself. Such an one Nicodemus had still to know himself to be, for as such an one he had not now come to Jesus ; and therefore he must begin his journey afresh, he "must be born again," he must reach Jesus by a new path, and in a new character. He judged himself to be a pupil, and Jesus a teacher come from God ; but himself as a dead sinner, or as a man bitten by the old Serpent, and the Son of God as a quickening Spirit, a justifying Redeemer, he did not yet understand ; and so the ground of his heart had never yet received the seed of life.

The character of this life, this eternal life, this divine nature in us, is thus as simply defined as its necessity. The secret of it lies in learning Jesus the Son of God as a Saviour, in coming to Him as a poor convicted sinner, looking at Him in that virtue which the brazen serpent carried for the bitten Israelite. And, as suggested by other parts of this Gospel, it is very sweet to trace the onward path of Nicodemus from this stage of it. He had, as we have seen, hitherto mistaken his road; but though that may give him a longer journey, it proves in the end, from the direction which Jesus here gives him, a right and a safe one. For in the next stage of it we see him standing for Jesus in the presence of the council, and meeting something of the reproach of the rejected Galilean (chap. 7:). And at the close he stands where the Lord at this outset directed him, at the place of this brazen serpent. He looks at the Son of Man lifted upon the cross. He goes to Jesus, not as a pupil to a teacher; but he goes to Him, and owns Him, and honors Him, no longer by night, nor in the presence of the council merely, but in the broad daylight, and in the presence of the world, as the wounded, smitten and bruised Lamb of God (chap. 19:). He was slow-hearted, perhaps. But the serpent is still on the pole even for such. It hangs there still, waiting to be gracious.

Thus we discern the character as simply as we learn the need of this new life. We find out the seed that produces it. The divine power, the Holy Ghost, who presides over all this in His own energy, works after a manner beyond our thoughts. Whether the wind or the Spirit, we know not the path thereof. But the nature of the seed He uses, and of the soil in which He casts it, are thus made known to us. The one is the word of salvation; the other, the soul of a poor convicted sinner.

And this life which flows through the family of God is spirit-because Jesus, the Second Man, the head of it, is "a quickening Spirit; " and "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," as our Lord here teaches. This is our new life. It is eternal, infallible life; standing, whether in the head or members of the body where it moves, in victory over all the power of death. And our divine Teacher further says, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." There is no entrance there for any but new-born ones, and such new-born ones, as we have seen, sinners quickened and justified by the word of salvation. There are no righteous ones, no wise or rich ones, in that kingdom-none who stand in such-like confidence in the flesh. This truth is thus established. Blessedly, for our joy and stability of heart. For while this is very decisive, it is very comforting. It is very comforting to see that the Word, which says, "Except ye be born again ye cannot see the kingdom," thereby clearly lets us know that if we be born again we shall see it-no fraud or force of men or devils shall prevail to keep us outside of it:If we will take (drawn, doubtless, by the drawing of the Father, in the secret power of the Holy Ghost) the place of poor convicted sinners, and receive the word of salvation from the Son of God,-if we but look as the bitten Israelites to the uplifted serpent,-then the kingdom is already entered, life is now enjoyed, and glory shall be. The song that we then sing is but echoed" through the eternity of heaven. The sight that we then get of Jesus and His salvation is but enlarged in the sphere of coming glory. We have eternal life, and the principles of heaven in us.

But to return for another moment to Nicodemus, I may say that, when the Lord had thus disclosed the seed of this new life to him, He seeks to sow it in him, to sow it (where it ever must be sowed, if unto fruit) in the conscience; for Nicodemus had come to the Lord by night, as though his deeds could not bear the light; and the Lord, aiming, as it would seem, to reach his conscience, just on their parting, says, "Everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved."

Thus our Lord teaches the need of the new birth, through the word of salvation. Without it, man cannot be trusted of God; and without it the kingdom of God could not, as our Lord here further teaches us, be either seen or entered. What association, for instance, had the elder brother with that which was the characteristic joy of the father's house ? None! He never had so much as a kid to make merry with his friends :none but a returned prodigal could draw forth the ring, the best robe, and the fatted calf. And so the kingdom is such a kingdom as none but redeemed sinners can apprehend its joys, or have any place in it. All there are "new creatures," persons of an order not found in the first creation. Adam was made upright; but all in the kingdom are blood-bought sinners. Everything in it is reconciled by blood; as it is written-"And having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether things on earth, or things in heaven." J. G. Bellett