Miscellaneous
Writings Vol. One
4. NEW BIRTH - WHAT IS IT?
There has doubtless been so much said of late with regard
to new birth and eternal life that many will wish that controversy as to these
could stop; and many will think that all has been said that can be said about
them. One can surely sympathise with those who think so, and what is said may
be the briefer on that account: still these subjects are so central in their
importance in relation to Christian truth, and the novel doctrines concerning
them have so central a place also in connection with the system which we are
reviewing, that it would be impossible to treat this in any satisfactory way
without looking at what is in question here. So far also as we are individually
concerned, whatever might be the purpose of God with regard to us, and whatever
the blessed work upon the basis of which that purpose can alone be justified
and take effect, yet where it begins to take effect is in new birth. Thus our
review may well begin here, although as to the system before us it is rather in
this case a blank than a doctrine - a denial than an affirmation. Yet a denial
may have all the importance of an affirmation, and the meeting it be absolutely
necessary in order to laying securely the foundations of truth. If we do not
know what new birth is, we cannot rightly know what eternal life is either, and
much else will become uncertain as the result of this. Amid this uncertainty
many suppositions may assume the character of truth and be accepted for it
which will for ever prevent the truth being received. If Scripture can clear up
this cloud-land for us, it will not only be in itself a gain, but it may prove
a way made clear to further progress. Let us inquire at least.
Not
merely has the confession been made, "I cannot tell you what new birth is, but
it has been openly challenged that no one has any better ability. This is the
ignorance of the agnostic, which requires more knowledge than anything that
knowledge would pretend to. For in this case one has to be sure that the level
of one's own capacity is at least as high as any other whatever can possibly
be; and with such knowledge as this, every humble mind would readily concede
the palm of superiority to its happy possessor.
Such an one will
naturally teach, or at least tell his thoughts; and safely, where no one has
better knowledge. Thus it is not thought that there is in new birth a
communication of anything, but simply an effect produced. It is the man that is
born again: whatever may be the extent of it; it is I myself, the
individuality. That is how Scripture speaks of new birth. It is a human idea
that something is imparted, but Scripture says, I am born again. Then the Lord
puts it more abstractly -"That which is born of the flesh is flesh," for it
would go too far to say, "he who is born of the Spirit is spirit": it would
make me spirit and nothing else. Yet if the wick of a lamp may represent the
individual, it is as though a thread of another description were introduced
into the texture of the wick! The result is a collapse of the man,- of all that
makes him a man of the world, of all his self-importance. Then there is a cry,
a very feeble cry! the first sign of life in a babe is a cry of want or pain;
yet Scripture does not apply the term "life" to such a state!
One feels
so often as if one needed to make apology for such statements, and as if it
must certainly be thought that there is some misrepresentation here; but while
the putting together is indeed my own, every statement made is an actual
quotation. New birth makes a man appear alive, but he is not alive. In it there
is no communication of anything at all, but only an introduction of something;
with very important consequences, no doubt; but still there is as yet no link
in the soul with God.
I am not responsible for the contradiction that
appears in these things, either among themselves or with scripture. Scripture
says,- yea, the Lord Jesus Himself,- that that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit; and to say that here nevertheless there is no link with God, seems as
near a direct denial of the divine word as could be uttered, if we are not to
assert that it is that. And again there is a similar thing when the Lord speaks
of the man as being born again, and we are assured notwithstanding that he is
not alive! What kind of birth are we to call it, when although the "renewing of
the mind is the outcome" of it, yet there is no life! one is born of God and
yet not His; yea, has no link with Him as yet at all!
Is it necessary
to go further in the examination of these statements! There should be no need.
But let us look at the Lord's words themselves, and see if they leave us so
much in the dark as is supposed, as to what new birth is. There is nothing
imparted, says this teaching; because it is I who am born again. Scripture
says, we are born again, not of "corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the
word of God which liveth and abideth" (i Pet. i. 23); and it adds, "and this is
the word which in the gospel is preached unto you." The word of the gospel
then, brought home by the power of the Spirit of God, is that by which the man
is born again.
But here again the truth as Scripture gives it to us
comes right up against the theories; which as usual also clash with each other.
For we have already seen that it is denied the Scripture is of any use to souls
away from God, without the voice of the living preacher. It is conceded indeed
that God is sovereign, and may be pleased to use it, in the same way that He
could by an exceptional miracle make use of the speech of Balaam's ass. It is
useless to send Bibles to the heathen, because this is so very exceptional.
God's way is undoubtedly by preaching! And yet, strangely enough (if anything
is strange here) in connection with this theme of new birth we are informed
that the work of the evangelist is to enlighten the new born soul. When by the
power of God's Spirit a man has been born again, the next thing is that the
soul has to be enlightened.
Thus here again we seem to be in a dilemma.
It is of no use to send Bibles to the heathen: God's way is undoubtedly by
preaching. And yet the preachers' work is only to enlighten those already new
born! Scripture however declares that men are born again by the incorruptible
seed of the word of God in the gospel, and that the Scriptures are able to make
one wise unto salvation; while the preacher is God's great instrumentality for
getting the saving truth before unwilling men. There is here no semblance of
contradiction, the word of God being in all cases that by which new birth is
effected in the soul,- whether it be in the page of the inspired Word or by the
mouth of the evangelist. In either case the Spirit of God must act: as the Lord
puts it in His pregnant figure, "water" and "Spirit" must go together.
The incorruptible seed is thus imparted. The seed is not the mere word, but as
nature itself teaches, the word wit/i the life in it. Every fruitful seed
carries in it that mystery of life, which we may be little able to analyse, but
which we cannot reason away: it is there, reason as we will; and without it
there would be no growth or good whatever. Thus there is that which is born of
the Spirit, and what is born is "spirit." Will any one say that that does not
convey the thought of a new nature, akin to that from which it has originated?
And "the Spirit is life" (Rom. viii. ro); everything here speaks of the
communication of life; look through Scripture as you will, there is no dead
spirit anywhere. "The Spirit quickeneth" (2 Cor. iii. 6): "the spirit is life;"
dead spirit, dead spiritual birth, dead child of God, or new born child with
yet no link with Him,- these are all thoughts so foreign to Scripture, so
contrary to it, that nothing but the exigency of an untenable theory could ever
suggest them to one even tolerably acquainted with it. As for the argument that
the man being born again is in contradiction to the idea of something being
imparted in this, the answer has been given by the one who uses it. "The
Scripture teaches that I am born again, whatever may be the extent of it."
There is the whole difficulty, such as it is; and it is no very great one. The
man is born again, and yet he is not new in all that he is. His body does not
partake in this transformation; and he has yet the old nature - the flesh in
that sense. The moment you say, The man is born again, whatever may be the
extent of it, you state the difficulty, and admit it to be one that you must
recognize, as well as the person you are arguing with. But it is no more a
difficulty than abundance of fully admitted things. The man is born again; and
yet, when you come to define more closely, you speak of "that which is born
again," and could not say of the man what you say of this. You can say, "That
which is born of the Spirit is spirit," while you cannot say, "The man who is
born of the Spirit is spirit." It argues nothing whatever in the way desired.
Let us only change the figure, as Scripture itself enables us, so as now to
take into consideration what was before omitted, that this is a yet incomplete
change in a moral being, the figure of grafting furnishes you with the needed
means of tracing in, as before you could not, all the facts. The tree which is
grafted yet retains enough of its old nature to need care lest, by allowing
shoots from below the graft, it should become practically wild again. Yet we
speak of it rightly enough as a grafted tree. In a figure taken from the human
sphere, which alone fits with the Lord's application for Nicodemus, one cannot
find what will fit all round; no unusual thing in figures constantly made use
of. The Lord's purpose does not contemplate the old nature,- that is all; and
therefore the figure of birth, in other respects so perfect, is thoroughly
suited.
But the man is born again; and the thought of a new life
imparted is inherent in this. This life, moreover, is all that counts for life
before God. The man was dead previously; now he lives; there is but one death
in this sense, and but one coming to life; and if a man is no longer dead, lie
is alive: there is no intermediate state between the two, and therefore no
interval. The one born of God is a child of God, and He has no dead children.
Spirit from the Spirit is the nature of that which is born; the child partakes
of the father's nature. If life is communicated, as despite all protests it
most surely is, then the life so derived is necessarily eternal life. Whether
or not you allow that it is what Scripture designates under that term, (and as
to this we shall have to inquire directly,) yet it is impossible to deny that
life attaching to a spiritual nature originating in a new birth of the Spirit
must be in the fullest sense eternal life.
How important then, in
connection with questions that lie before us, is this doctrine of new birth!
and how significant that the system which is sought to be imposed upon us as
the truth of God has to begin with a confession of blank ignorance, which is
really a denial of Scripture testimony upon so important a matter! According to
the system, to be born of God is somewhat that involves neither life, nature,
nor relationship,- no link in the soul with God at all! It is no wonder, but a
necessity of this, that those born of Him should be denied to be His children.
Thus it is asked, "Is it so that 'children 'speaks of descent" And the answer
is,-"I do not think that is quite just. It is not the scriptural thought of
children. The Spirit bears witness with our spirit: it is by the Spirit we
understand that we are children. . . . You ought not to take that place, except
as born of God; but the place is given you of the Father "!-an argument quite
as inconsequent as anything we have listened to on the same side. Naturally,
eternal life is something far beyond, and although you are born of God, if that
is all, you have yet to pass from death unto life!
Thus I repeat it, the
doctrine is that one that is simply born of God is not a child of God, has not
life, nature, nor relationship. To put it in the dreariest form of the negation
made, he has no link in his soul with God at all!
5. LIFE AND
ETERNAL LIFE.
IN considering the subject which is now before us,
there are two questions which lie at the foundation: first, is there any
spiritual life which is not eternal life? And then what is eternal life? I
shall as usual state the view from which I dissent, and then give as clearly as
possible the reason for my dissent.
Is there any life for the Christian
which is not eternal life?
As to this we are told: In Romans you see life,
but not eternal life. The two and a half tribes typically had life; they
stopped this side of Jordan, but they had life. Everybody who has the Spirit
has life, because the Spirit is life. In Rom. viii. life is the consequence of
the presence of the Spirit in a believer; that is, "The body is dead on account
of sin, but the Spirit is life on account of righteousness." But that is
connected with the wilderness and practice, and is connected with your pathway,
which will come to an end. You can very well understand that the experience of
Romans viii. comes to an end. It is not eternal life, and yet life is there;
life comes out morally, in view of righteousness; the evidence of life in the
Christian is that he does righteousness; he proves that he is born of God. The
Spirit takes that place in the Christian till he is quickened. You are not said
to be quickened in Romans; but in our state down here the Spirit displaces the
flesh, and takes the place of life in the Christian, in order that practical
righteousness should be accomplished. In Colossians and Ephesians we get a step
further, and that is, "you hath He quickened," but you must understand that in
a limited, not in an absolute way. It is at the coming of Christ we are
quickened; only it is anticipated in Colossians and Ephesians in a limited way
as the work of God fitting us for the assembly. At the coming of the Lord we
shall be quickened and raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. (?) In that chapter it is viewed as
anticipated.
2. What then is eternal life?
The answer given
is: It involves a state of blessing consequent on the setting aside of death.
"Life for evermore" (Ps. cxxxiii.), in regard to Israel is in the public
setting aside of death. We come to that on resurrection ground, that makes the
difference between us and Israel: they don't come into resurrection, we do. A
person cannot say that he has actually eternal life, unless lie is clear of
death. If he is going to die, how can he say he has actually got eternal life?
For us, eternal life is the heavenly condition and blessedness in which in the
Son man is now placed, and lives before the Father. It is a sphere and order of
blessing. It is to live in the blessed consciousness of the love of God, in the
out-of-the-world, heavenly condition in which Christ lives.
I believe
persons have made great mistakes with regard to eternal life in viewing it as a
something substantive which is communicated to us. I can understand life in
God, because God is eternal; He lives, He is. But I live, and so does every
saint, simply by the quickening power of God. I am made alive now in my soul
together with Christ, after His order, and eventually I shall be made alive in
body after His order. People have looked at it as if it were a kind of material
thing given to a person. People think they have life in themselves instead of
in Christ. It is life in Christ Jesus, yet the Spirit being in me, it is
practically my life.
It used to be commonly said, I know that I have
got eternal life. Why? Because the scripture says, "he that believeth hath
everlasting life." I say that you have thus the faith of eternal life, but that
does not prove that you have the thing itself. Many a person has had a promise,
but not the thing promised; that was the case largely with the Old Testament
saints. It is the mind of God for every Christian, and God has put it there in
His Son, and the whole question is as to reaching the Son. In the last chap-ter
of John's epistle it says, "that ye may know that ye have eternal life";
because you are come to it; you are conscious of it, but not as a possession.
If I talk about having the Son, the Son is not a possession, and yet I am said
to have the Son, I have appropriated Him; affection has really reached Him: you
cannot make the word "have" always mean possession. In scripture eternal life
is not a subjective thought as a possession, but it is placed in the Son, and
the whole point is reaching the Son.
This will probably be sufficient
for quotation, at least for the present; we can see that there is an
ap-parently careful grading and measurement of the spiritual life, supported by
a few texts which, if we can overlook others, and accept the positiveness of an
assertion as proof of its reliability, may be held for a success. Let us
examine it, however, and see what may be the effect of introducing some omitted
texts.
Is there a spiritual life which is not eternal life? Scripture
emphatically denies this. The passages have been so often quoted, that one may
fairly ask why they are not considered; especially as they used to be quite
familiar texts, and face us in very familiar parts of Scripture. Here is one
that will bear every effort that can be made to induce it to speak the doctrine
that is being commended to us as truth, and will not do it,- one that is
sufficient in itself to destroy the whole system down to the roots :-" Except
ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in
you; whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life" (Jno. V~.
53, 54).
Notice how many things fundamental to the views we have been
listening to are swept away for ever by words so plain as these. First, we have
either no life or eternal life; if you eat not you have no life; if you eat,
you have eternal life. Is there any possible middle ground between these
alternatives? If there be, why not let us know it; if there be not, why not be
candid enough to own that there is not.
But again, look at the
alternatives: "ye have no life in you "; ''hath eternal life." If eternal life
is not really in you, then you may eat His flesh and drink His blood, and have
no life in you still! Otherwise there is no antithesis, as is most plainly
in-tended: whether you eat or do not eat, it is one and the same thing! Who can
accredit the words with such absolute want of meaning?
Still again, it
is the flesh and blood of the Son of man, of which the Lord speaks: if you eat
the flesh of the Son of man, you have eternal life; but in what we have been
looking at a distinction is made between apprehension of the Son of man, and
reaching the Son (of God); and it is only this last that gives eternal life.
The Lord speaks quite differently here. What remains of these subtle theories,
if the words of the Lord are allowed any real force? John supplements them with
the remark, simple as it is, that "ye know that no murderer hath eternal life
abiding in him" (m John iii. is); a strange sentence, acccording to this
system, with all its self-evidence! For why speak of eternal life in this
connection, when "many a good Christian" even has not eternal life? Would you
not expect the apostle rather to say simply that he has not life? or, still
better, that he is not born again? How strange a thing to associate a murderer,
even by a negative, with the thought of eternal life, if this be an advanced
condition, even for a Christian! What would you think if I asserted of a
murderer, that he was not completely sanctified? But again, he "hath not
eternal life abiding in him !" Did not John know that there is not so much as a
single Christian who has eternal life abiding in him? Did he not knowthat
eternal life is a "sphere," of which you could not speak in such a way? If he
did, how could he pen such an unmeaning sentence?
Once more :- it is
the Lord who says, and in His strongest style of affirmation, "Verily, verily,
I say unto you, he that heareth My words, and believeth on Him that sent Me,
hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from
death unto life" (John v. 24). These words are actually used in the interests
of the system we are reviewing, to show that it is the Christian that has to
pass from death unto life, which here as elsewhere is not distinguished from
eternal life! The Lord, we are told, is here speaking as the Son of God, and it
is an advanced attainment to hear the words of the Son of God, and to believe
on the Father as having sent His Son! Consequently a large number of Christians
are dead and not alive. They may be born again, have the Spirit, have learned
deliverance, and yet not have passed from death unto life. And this too
although in having the Spirit, you have life "practically," because the Spirit
is life! Yet this life is in Christ, and not in you, things which even seem to
be considered in opposition to one another. But this we must look at
elsewhere.
Now Scripture does indeed say that, "if Christ be in you,
the body is dead because of sin ;" and it never speaks of the body being
quickened before the Lord comes. It speaks also of the believer being dead with
Christ to sin: a very different thing, of course, from that of which we are now
speaking; but I am not aware that it ever speaks of the Christian being "dead"
in any other sense. Most certainly, it never puts forward such a contradiction
as that a man can be "practically" alive without being really so, nor makes in
this way the blessed influence of the Spirit of God in such to be an effect
produced upon a dead man - a life which does not make alive! Here it is no
wonder if the things said should be in apparent conflict with one another, when
practical life is yet taught not to be life, and he who is working
righteousness in the power of the Spirit of God may yet, as we are assured, be
waiting to be quickened!
Here is an argument we must not pass over: "It
used to be commonly said, I know that I have got eternal life. Why? Because the
scripture says, He that believeth hath everlasting life." Well; is not that a
straightforward conclusion, for one who knows himself to be a true believer? It
seems not: we are to be taught a new logic, as all else. "I say that you have
thus the faith of eternal life; but that does not prove that you have the thing
itself. Many a person has had a promise, but not the thing promised." Truly! I
suppose we shall all at once acquiesce in that; the misfortune is that it does
not apply. The Lord's statement here is not a promise, but a direct assurance
of the simplest kind. The believer has eternal life; I am a believer; I
therefore have eternal life. If the premises are sure, how can the conclusion
fail? If that may be doubted, how can any assurance be given, which
cannot?
The argument fails so badly, that it is no wonder if another
has to reinforce it. So we are told "have" does not always mean possession; "if
I talk about having the Son, the Son is not a possession"(!) That is not
argued, it is supposed not to need it; but is it the truth? Is not the Son ours
in any sense now? Who will say so? Is having the Son a promise that we shall
have Him? Clearly not. But it says, "He that hath the Son hath life;" does that
mean, "He that bath the Son is going to have life ?" True, the Son is not ours
now in all the fulness of what eternity will give to this; and life too is not
ours in such fulness either; for the body is still a mortal body, and will be
quickened then. But there is a present "having" in both cases.
A false
definition of eternal life is at the bottom of much of the confusion. Rightly
enough connected with the Old Testament "life for evermore," it is forgotten
that life and incorruption are brought to light through the gospel (2 Tim. i.
io), and that therefore we must not expect their definition to be gained from
the Old Testament scriptures. New birth is not found in doctrinal statement in
the Old Testament; and it is in new birth that we shall find what underlies the
New Testament doctrine. One born of God is a child of God; the child derives
its life from its father, and partakes of its father's nature. "That which is
born of the Spirit is spirit;" and the life given is eternal life. Here is the
fulness found of this expression: it is a life which not only has no end, but
had no beginning either, being divine life. It is eternal in the full meaning
of eternal, though in us, of course, beginning. This has been dismissed with
the strange, curt remark, that "the life of divine Persons is themselves;" they
cannot, therefore, it is meant, communicate themselves! But the statement and
the reasoning are as crude as elsewhere, and are confuted at once by those
facts of nature which God has given us as parables of spiritual things. The
parents' life and nature in the child are not the parents; they have a power of
communicating life which, mystery as it is, is undeniable; and God has adopted
our human language, based upon the facts of creation which He Himself has
created, to give us at least such thoughts as we are capable of in regard to
all these things, which the strange sys-tem before us rudely cuts across. It
gives us birth without life, children who are not such by descent, a practical
life in those that are still dead, and similar absurdities, against which
nature protests absolutely, and Scripture no less.
In life, we are
assured, nothing substantive is communicated; that there is nothing material,
will not be disputed; nor that when we speak of life, we may be unable to
define it. Infidel scientists have mocked at a vital principle on this account,
and told us that we might as well talk of "aquosity" as the principle of water.
Yet we believe in a vital force, as well as in vital phenomena. Spiritual life
will be naturally still more difficult to define, but that is no reason for
denying it to be more than phenomenal, and certainly not for defining it as a
sphere, etc. Personality it is not; it is not a ''self"; yet there is that
which is born of the Spirit, which is spirit, and which gives character to the
new-born soul. There is that which is communicated to us, and abides in us, an
incorruptible seed that abides in us, and be-cause of this, "whosoever is born
of God doth not commit," or better, ''practise," ''sin" (i Jno. iii. 9). The
phenomenal life is just the display of this in its activities; in other words,
there is a life by which we live, as well as a life we live: without the former
there cannot be the latter. So Scripture, in harmony with nature, speaks; and
in both ways of eternal life. That in eternal life,.according to its very
nature, there is the setting aside of death, is too plain to be denied: yet
here also, strange mistakes are possible; though to any one who has grasp of
the doctrine they should not be possible. First, we are told, and rightly,-" I
am made alive now in my soul together with Christ, after His order, and
eventually I shall be made alive in body after His order." And yet with the
most entire forgetfulness of this limitation, we are told elsewhere: "A person
cannot say that he has actually eternal life, unless he is clear of death. If
he is going to die, how can he say that he has actually got eternal life?" And
this is made the ground for saying that while in Rom. viii. life is the
consequence of the Spirit in the believer, yet the experience of Rom. viii.
comes to an did. "It is not eternal life, and yet life is there!" and much
doctrine is built upon this ;-a mere and extraordinary piece of forgetfulness:
for the experience is not the life, but the result of the life in the present
circumstances. The death of the body brings this to an end, and the life is
transferred to another sphere; but how does this prove that the life so
transferred is not eternal life? Yet he must not say, it seems, that he has
actually got eternal life (in his soul), because he has not yet got it in his
body! A pebble indeed, to turn one from the path of truth!
Let us
remember the words of Him who said, in the consciousness of what He is for men
as the Resurrection and the Life, "He that believeth in Me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live; and he that liveth and believeth in Me, shall never
die" (Jno. Xi. 25, 26). Against the life, then, that He gives, which is eternal
life, death has no claim,- over it no sovereignty. The body still awaits its
change and its redemption; none the less is it true for the present partaker of
His resurrection life, that death is behind, and not before him. For him,
Christ has abolished death, and brought life and incorruption to light through
the gospel.
Chapter Six - Standing and
Acceptance with Christ
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