Life
The life which qualifies us for the Kingdom of God is “from ABOVE”
John 3:3,5 KJV
³Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again¹), he cannot see the kingdom of God.
⁵Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
¹) The word “again” can also be translated as “above,” and is so given in John 3:31.
John 3:31 KJV
He that cometh from above is above all:
he that is of the earth is earthly,
and speaketh of the earth:
he that cometh from heaven is above all.
Devotional
How foolish and ignorant we should deem an artificer who, having taken a piece of iron, should melt and mould, file and polish it, and then imagine that it has become gold.
It shines, it is true, but is its brilliancy a proof that it is no longer iron?
And does not God require pure and refined gold, that is to say, a perfect righteousness and a perfect holiness!
Tell me, you wise men of this world, shall any metal but that of the sanctuary find value in heaven?
Or shall God mistake what is false for what is genuine?
And shall He confound the hypocritical outward show of human morality with that everlasting life which partakes of His own nature, and which the Holy Spirit alone implants within the soul which He has new created?
Anecdote
A great change
Dr. Lelfchild tells us that he once met a lad twelve years old at a tollgate, who had a Testament in his hand. “Can you read it?” inquired the doctor.
“Be sure I can. I can read to you this, ‘Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'”
“What does that mean, my boy?”
The lad quickly replied. “It means a great change.
To be born again means something here” (laying his hand upon his breast), “and the kingdom of God means something up yonder.”
That boy had got hold of the very core of Bible theology.
But what was so clearly revealed to that lad in his Bible was yet a mystery and a puzzle to the Jewish ruler.
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