forgiveness of sins. But it had no conception of a moral renovation, a spiritua l birth, as
the initial condition for reformation, far less as that for seeing the Kingdom of God. And
it was because it had no idea of such 'birth from above,' of its reality or even possibility,
that Judaism could not be the Kingdom of God.
15. Notwithstanding the high authority of Professor Westcott, I must still hold that this,
and now 'anew,' is the right rendering. The word ανωθεν has always the meaning 'above'
in the fourth Gospel (ch. iii. 3, 7, 31; xix. 11, 23); and otherwise also St. John always
speaks of 'a birth' from God (St. John i. 13; 1 John ii. 29; iii. 9; iv. 7; v. 1, 4, 18).
16. This is at least implied by Wünsche, and taken for granted by others. But ancient
Jewish tradition and the Talmud do not speak of it. Comp. Yebam. 22 a, 62 a; 97 a and b;
Bekhor 47 a. Proselytes are always spoken of as 'new creatures,' Ber. R. 39, ed. Warsh. p.
72 a; Bemidb. R. 11. In Vayyikra R. 30, Ps. cii. 18, 'the people that shall be created' is
explained: 'For the Holy One, blessed be His Name, will create t hem a new creature.' In
Yalkut on Judg. vi. 1 (vol. ii. p. 10 c , about the middle) this new creation is connected
with the forgiveness of sins, it being maintained that whoever has a miracle done, and
praises God for it, his sins are forgiven, and he is ma de a new creature. This is illustrated
by the history of Israel at the Red Sea, by that of Deborah and Barak, and by that of
David. In Shem. R. 3 (ed. Warsh. ii. p. 11 a) the words Ex. iv. 12, 'teach thee what thou
shalt say,' are explained as equivalent t o 'I will create thee a new creation.'
17. Yebam. 62 a.
18. Yalkut on 1 Sam. xiii.
19. As in Yalkut.
Or, to take another view of it, for Divine truth is many-sided - perhaps some would say,
to make 'Western' application of what was first spoken to the Jew - in one respect
Nicodemus and Jesus had started from the same premiss: The Kingdom of God. But how
different were their conceptions of what constituted that Kingdom, and of what was its
door of entrance! What Nicodemus had seen of Jesus had not only shaken the confidence
which his former views on these subjects had engendered in him, but opened dim
possibilities, the very suggestion of which filled him with uneasiness as to the past, and
vague hopes as to the future. And so it ever is with us also, when, like Nicodemus, we
first arrive at the conviction that Jesus is the Teacher come from God. What He teaches is
so entirely different from what Nicodemus, or any of us could, from any other standpoint
than that of Jesus, have learned or known co ncerning the Kingdom and entrance into it.
The admission, however reached, of the Divine Mission of this Teacher, implies,
unspoken, the grand question about the Kingdom. It is the opening of the door through
which the Grand Presence will enter in. To such a man, as to us in like unspoken
questioning, Jesus ever has but one thing to say: 'Except a man be born from above, he
cannot see the Kingdom of God.' The Kingdom is other, the entrance to it is other, than
you know or think. That which is of the flesh is flesh. Man may rise to high possibilities -
mental, even moral: self-development, self- improvement, self-restraint, submission to a
grand idea or a higher law, refined moral egotism, aesthetic even moral altruism. But to
see the Kingdom of God: to understand what means the absolute rule of God, the one high
calling of our humanity, by which a man becomes a child of God - to perceive this, not as
an improvement upon our present state, but as the submission of heart, mind, and life to
Him as our Divine King, an existence which is, and which means, proclaiming unto the
world the Kingship of God: this can only be learned from Christ, and needs even for its
perception a kinship of spirit - for that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. To see it, needs