ST. JOHN III. 5 155
baptism with water was of course symbolical; that is to say, the water itself exercised no spiritual influence, but merely represented to the eye what was invisibly done in the heart. But that which it symbolized was not the life-giving influence of the Holy Spirit, but the washing away of sin from the souL Assur- ance of pardon John was empowered to give. Those who humbly submitted to his baptism with confession of their sins went from it forgiven and cleansed. But more than that was needed to make them new men — and yet, more he could not give. For that which would fill them with new life they must go to a Greater than he, who alone could bestow the Holy Ghost.
These, then, are the two great incidents of the second birth — the pardon of sin, which is preparatory, and which cuts our connection with the past; the communication of life by the Spirit of God, which fits us for the future. Both of these are represented by Christian baptism because in Christ we have both ; but those who were baptized by John's baptism were only •prepared for receiving Christ's Spirit by receiving the forgiveness of their sins.
^ This passage brings out the deep truth of which Baptism was afterwards made an outward and visible exponent. Here we are shown the need of an external acceptance of promise and position, and of these being sealed on us, and still further the need of the Spirit dwelling in our hearts to make this outward confession a reality, and give us power for practising it. And so, be it ever remembered, the mere form of baptism, unless the Holy Spirit be actually in the heart, can avail nothing. It is \ but, as it were, a husk, and can be no more, but the gift of the . Holy Spirit is open to all ; and as we read this passage, and are perhaps for the moment tempted to think it excludes some, or even ourselves, from the Kingdom, we should put beside it that other glorious passage of promise : " If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him ?" (Luke xi. 13).i
^ Imagine not infants, but crowds of grown-up persons already changed in heart and feelings; their "life hidden with Christ in God," losing their personal consciousness in the laver of regeneration; rising again from its depths into the light of heaven, in communion with God and nature ; met as they rose
1 J. H. Rogers, The " Veriltj, Veri/ys" 0/ Christ, 28.
156 A NEW BEGINNING
from the bath with the white raiment, which is " the righteousness of the saints," and ever after looking back on that moment as the instant of their new birth, of the putting off of the old man, and the putting on of Christ. Baptism was to them the figure of death, burial, and resurrection all in one, the most apt expression of the greatest change that can pass upon man, like the sudden change into another life when we leave the body.^
7. We now see what our Lord demanded of Nicodemus. It was that he should enter into an entirely new relationship to God. There were two classes of people, "the righteous" and "the sinners." The difference between them was due to their attitude to the Law. The righteous "knew" the Law, and so counted themselves right with God ; the sinners did not " know " it ; and the judgment which the righteous pronounced on them was, " This people who knoweth not the law are cursed."
Now when Nicodemus came to Jesus, instead of being confirmed in his righteousness, or perhaps told what omissions he had to make good in order that his obedience to the Law might be perfect, he was informed that the whole framework of his life was wrong. His relation had been to the Law, not to the Person of God. He had obeyed God as a servant ; he had not loved Him as a son. The whole structure of righteousness which he had built up laboriously, by rigid observance of the precepts of the Law, had therefore to be taken down. He had to begin at the beginning again ; or, to use the inimitable figure of our Lord, he had to be " born anew."
The New Birth, then, is the entrance on a new attitude towards God, the attitude of a loving son to a Father instead of that of an obedient servant to a lawgiver. This new attitude is entered upon by repentance on the part of the sinner (however ■• righteous " the sinner may have thought himself to be), and the gift of the Spirit on God's part. It thus involves three things — first and chiefly a new attitude to God ; next, and as belonging to that, a new attitude to the past, or Kepentance; and, last, a new attitude to the future, or Spiritual Life.
Tl I doubt if there is a doctrine of Jesus which modern men so thoroughly disbelieve as that which staggered Nicodemus nineteen centuries ago. I know just how men roast it over the
1 B. Jowett. The Epistles of St. Paul, i. 291.