MUST HAVE A NEW BIRTH by L. A. R.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 12, 1916

FromSigns of the Times, December 12, 1916

MUST HAVE A NEW BIRTH

By L. A. R.

The man wise in the wisdom of this world needs to learn one fundamental lesson before he can ever be really wise. When one of the most learned men of the Jewish nation came to Christ, he was confronted squarely with this great, essential truth: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3. If without this birth he cannot see the kingdom of God, certainly, without this birth he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Verse 5.

Here are the two great fundamental principles of life. Here are the two great principles of Christian education, first things to know. Without a spiritual birth, a man cannot enter God’s kingdom; and more than that, he will not personally recognize such a kingdom. He cannot see it.

This moral density cannot be removed by culture, any more than a bramble bush can be turned into a La France rose by pruning it, digging about its roots, fertilizing it,—in short, cultivating it. Cultivation brings out the nature already existing; it does not change nature.

The lesson of Christ to Nicodemus is, that man must be changed in nature before he can develop Godward. Yet God has promised to make a man more precious than the gold of Ophir, more precious than the costliest gems; but mind you, the promise is, to make him so, for of himself he is not so. This change of nature is not something entirely new in the world in which we live. All about us are examples of the same definite necessity. L. A. R.