Ye Must Be Born Again by D. W. Dimock

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 23, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 24.

“Ye Must Be Born Again”

By D. W. Dimock

By D. W. Dimock

NICODEMUS, a ruler of the Jews, came to Jesus, and said to Him, “We know that Thou art a teacher come from God.” Jesus answered him by saying, “Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God.”

There is a vast difference between what we know and what we are. There is a great difference between such things as our attainments, education, talents, knowledge, and culture, and the matter of our condition before God. To merely know a fact falls far short of living and obeying the truth.

Nicodemus was an inquiring man who had been convinced by external evidence that Christ was a divine teacher, and his conscience was now seeking after something deeper and more satisfactory. He comes with a profession of knowledge: “Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God.”

Jesus, out of the treasures of His divine tact and knowledge, answered the need rather than the words of Nicodemus, and showed that all the inquirer’s knowledge, merely as such, never would save him or any other man—“Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God.”

More than Mere Knowledge

No matter how well instructed Nicodemus might be, he could never, by mere knowledge, see God’s kingdom. A mere knowledge of doctrine, however true, never introduced a son of Adam into the kingdom of God.

Men may think they have learned what are justification and sanctification; and to distinguish minutely between all creeds, isms, and heresies; they may be theoretically orthodox, able to judge preacher and sermon, ready freely to criticize the greater part of what they hear; and further, in this Christian age, they may know considerable about even the new birth, its necessity,

and divine origin: but notwithstanding all this they may be unchanged in nature. The greatest amount of theological education alone never yet saved a man. Creed or the mere belief in a certain amount of doctrine has made Christendom, but never made a Christian. “Ye must be born again.”

Nicodemus, wondering at Christ’s words, said, “How can a man be born when he is old?” The Saviour’s answer was so deep and comprehensive that the voice comes down through the ages even until now. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” John 3: 6. In nature we speak of the animal kingdom and the vegetable kingdom. There is a deep gulf between these two that can be crossed only by the creative power of God. If we take a rose, which belongs to the vegetable kingdom, and cultivate it, and train it, and by various arts make it produce all its varieties, we never by these means could bring it into the animal kingdom.

Or again, if I take a thistle from the roadside, and bring it into my garden or hot-house, watch over it, dress, water, and warm it, I may produce beautiful thistles, but I could never get figs from it. That which is produced from the thistle is thistle. We can never gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles.

“Can the fig-tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs?” James 3:12. Man by nature is in the kingdom of the first Adam. No amount of reformation, amelioration, cultivation, civilization, or mere religionism, can bring a man into the kingdom of God. Before I can become a part of God’s kingdom I must have a new nature, a nature consistent with that kingdom.

The Important Question

The question, therefore, of the most importance to you and me, is not alone, Do you know doctrine? Are you familiar with Christ’s teachings? Are you acquainted with your Bible? These are well enough, but the question goes farther. The question calls for a mighty transformation—a change of nature. The question is: Are you born again? Are you a partaker of the divine nature? Are you standing now in Christ or in Adam? Are you a child of God, an heir of the kingdom?

Before we can see the kingdom of God, we must have the new nature implanted in us, the nature that belongs to the heavenly kingdom. Let us stop to think. Ask yourself, Am I born again? Have I a new life? Have I the life that is communicated by the Spirit of God through the truth? Have I been begotten by the incorruptible seed, the word of God, which lives and abides forever? 1 Peter 1:23.

“Ye must be born again.”