God says that we are born again with a different kind of life seed. The first was corruptible and we have inherited the decay that is in our being and which ultimately carries man to the grave. Now, says God, the new birth is indeed a new life, but it comes from an incorruptible seed. This is the Word of God. This Word goes into the womb of the heart where faith lays hold upon it. By this contact of faith and the Word there comes forth a new life. It is as real as physical life. It is entirely different from physical life. It is eternal life. It is spiritual life. It is abundant life. By this union of the Word and faith within our hearts we have become sons of God.
In A Guide to the Study of the Christian Religion, a late professor in the University of Chicago wrote this about the need for new birth: "One may say that not supernatural regeneration but natural growth, not divine sanctification but human education, not supernatural grace but natural morality, not the divine expiation of the cross, but the human heroism-or accident?-of the cross ... not Christ the Lord, but the man Jesus who was a child of His time; not God and His providence, but evolution and its process without an absolute goal-that all this, and such as this, is the new turn in the affairs of religion at the tick of the clock."
We read in the book of job, "How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight. How much less man, that is a worm?" (Job 25:4-6).
Man must be brought to realize the truth of the statement of the Lord Jesus, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." (See John 3:6.) What the individual heart needs today is to realize the vast distance that separates us from God and to know that that distance has been bridged only in one place, at the cross of Calvary where the Lord Jesus Christ took our place and paid the price of our redemption that we might have eternal life through His blood.
Here is the place where Nicodemus showed that a flash of spiritual truth had reached his heart, and that he was being awakened by the Spirit of God to true understanding. Thousands of people today, if they were told that they must be born again, would answer, "Well, why must I be born again? What is wrong with me as I am? Did I not come into this world without my consent, and have I not made a pretty good job of my life? Why should God require anything supernatural of me? I have lived a good life. I pay my debts. I am faithful to the duties imposed upon me by family, society and state. Why should a man have to be born again?"
By any man's list, John 3 and John 4, put side by side, are two of the great passages of the Bible. Chapter 3 is about a man, chapter 4 is about a woman. Chapter 3 took place at night, chapter 4 took place at noon. Chapter 3 has to do with a ruler, chapter 4 with a prostitute. The ruler is a Jew, the prostitute is a Samaritan. She believed in Jesus. We have no knowledge whether Nicodemus is in heaven or not. He heard great preaching, but there is no word at all of his immediate reaction to it. It is a tremendous story.
