concerning the corruptio n of our whole nature by sin, and hence the need of God-

teaching, if we are to receive the Christ, or understand His doctrine. That which is born

of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit; wherefore, 'marvel not that I

said, Ye must be born again.' That had been Christ's initial teaching to Nicodemus, and

it became, with growing emphasis, His final teaching to the teachers of Israel. It is not

St. Paul who first sets forth the doctrine of our entire moral ruin: he had learned it from

the Christ. It forms the very basis of Christianity; it is the ultimate reason of the need of

a Redeemer, and the rationale of the work which Christ came to do. The Priesthood and

the Sacrificial Work of Christ, as well as the higher aspect of His Prophetic Office, and

the true meaning of His Kingship, as not of this world, are based upon it. Very markedly,

it constitutes the starting -point in the fundamental divergence between the leaders of

the Synagogue and Christ - we might say, to all time between Chr istians and non-

Christians. The teachers of Israel knew not, nor believed in the total corruption of man -

Jew as well as Gentile - and, therefore, felt not the need of a Saviour. They could not

understand it - how 'Except a man' - at least a Jew - were 'born again,' and, 'from

above,' he could not enter, nor even see, the Kingdom of God. They understood not

their own Bible: the story of the Fall - not Moses and the Prophets; and how could they

understand Christ? they believed not them, and how could they b elieve Him? And yet,

from this point of view, but only from this, does all seem clear: the Incarnation, the

History of the Temptation and Victory in the Wilderness, and even the Cross. Only he

who has, in some measure, himself felt the agony of the first g arden, can understand

that of the second garden. Had they understood, by that personal experience which we

must all have of it, the Proto -Evangel of the great contest, and of the great conquest by

suffering, they would have followed its lines to their fina l goal in the Christ as the

fulfilment of all. And so, here also, were the words of Christ true, that it needed heavenly

teaching, and kinship to the Divine, to understand His doctrine.

This underlies, and is the main object of these Discourses of Christ . As a corollary He

would teach, that Satan was not a merely malicious, impish being, working outward

destruction, but that there was a moral power of evil which held us all - not the Gentile

world only, but even the most favoured, learned, and exalted among the Jews. Of this

power Satan was the concentration and impersonation; the prince of the power of

'darkness.' This opens up the reasoning of Christ, alike as expressed and implied. He

presented Himself to them as the Messiah, and hence as the Light of the World. It

resulted, that only in following Him would a man 'not walk in the darkness,'26 but have

the light - and that, be it marked, not the light of knowledge, but of life.27 On the other

hand, it also followed, that all, who were not within this light, were in darkness and in

It was an appeal to the moral in His hearers. The Pharisees sought to turn it aside by an

appeal to the external and visible. They asked for some witness, or palpable evidence,

of what they called His testimony about Himself,28 well knowing that such could only be

through some external, visible, miraculous manifestation, just as they had formerly

asked for a sign from heaven. The Bible, and especially the Evangelic history, is full of