See (ideiv). The things of God’s kingdom are not apparent to the natural vision. A new power of sight is required, which attaches only to the new man. Compare 1 Cor. ii. 14.
Kingdom of God. See on Luke vi. 20. 4. When he is old (yépwv av). Lit., beeng an old man.
Can he (7) Svvatras). The interrogative particle anticipates a negative answer. Surely he cannot.
Second time. Nicodemus looks at the subject merely from the physical side. His second time is not the same as Jesus’ anew. As Godet remarks, “ he does not understand the differ- ence between a second beginning and a different beginning.”
5. Born of water and the Spirit. The exposition of this much controverted passage does not fall within the scope of this work. We may observe, 1. That Jesus here lays down the preliminary conditions of entrance into His kingdom, expanding and explaining His statement in ver. 3. 2. That this condition is here stated as complex, including two distinct factors, water and the Spirit. 3. That the former of these two factors is not to be merged in the latter; that the speritual element is not to exclude or obliterate the external and ritual element. We are not to understand with Calvin, the Holy Spirit as the purifying water in the spiritual sense: “ water which is the Spirit.” 4. That water points definitely to the rite of baptism, and that with a twofold reference—to the past and to the future. Water naturally suggested to Nicodemus the baptism of John, which was then awakening such profound and general interest ; and, with this, the symbolical purifications of the Jews, and the Old Testament use of washing as the figure of purifying from sin (Ps. li. 2,7; Ezek. xxxvi. 25; Zech. xiii. 1). Jesus’ words opened to Nicodemus a new and more spiritual significance in both the ceremonial purifications and the baptism of John which the Pharisees had rejected (Luke vii. 30). John’s rite had a real and legitimate relation to the kingdom of God which Nicodemus must accept. 5. That while Jesus asserted