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DISCOURSES AND SAYINGS

OF

OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

EXPOSITION I.

THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM.

JOHN iii. 14-21.-And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

INTRODUCTION.

THESE "golden sentences" occur in the narrative of a conversation between our Lord Jesus Christ, and Nicodemus a ruler of the Jews. To understand the record of any conversation aright, it is of great importance to know its occasion— the characters of those engaged in it, and the circumstances in which it took place. These, in the case before us, are but imperfectly known to us; but we shall find that even the very partial notices we have of them, cast much light on what would otherwise be very obscure, if not altogether unintelligible.

VOL. I.

A

Jesus Christ, attended by his five disciples, Peter, and Andrew, and John, and Philip, and Nathaniel,' had come up from Galilee to Jerusalem. His external appearance was that of a Jew of humble rank, and his followers were men belonging to the same class in society as himself. His expulsion of those traffickers who had desecrated the temple by making one of its courts the scene of their secular commerce, and his performance of a number of miracles, had, however, drawn on him a considerable share of public attention; and many had been induced to regard him as a divine messenger or prophet; though the majority of those who had formed this opinion were persons entirely under the influence of the sentiments almost universally prevalent among the Jews respecting the design of the Messiah's mission, and the nature of the kingdom which he was to establish in the world.

4

Among these individuals was Nicodemus, a member of the sect of the Pharisees, which embraced in it the great body of the apparently pious of the Jews; a man of high rank and respectable character; a ruler of the Jews; a "councillor," or member of the Sanhedrim, the highest court of judicature among the Jews; and a "master in Israel," or expositor of the Jewish law. This man-though he appears at this period to have been entirely secular in his opinions and expectations respecting the Messiah, one of those who were looking, not for a spiritual saviour, but for a temporal deliverer; not for a personal salvation from guilt and depravity and endless ruin, but for a national deliverance from the foreign yoke of the Romans-seems to have been a person of an inquisitive and candid mind.

It is not at all likely that he entertained the idea that this worker of miracles was, or even that he might be, the Messiah, the promised deliverer, with regard to whose appearance all men's minds were in a state of excited expectation. He must have looked for the Messiah, not from

John i. 40-49.

2 John ii. 13.

3 John ii. 14-23.

4 John iii. 1.

Nazareth, but from Bethlehem; not in the person of an obscure Galilean stranger, but in an acknowledged descendant of the ancient royal house of David.

But he had come to the conclusion that this young Nazarene was a divinely commissioned messenger, and he wished to have some private conversation with him; no doubt, respecting that "kingdom of God," or "of heaven," which both John the Baptist and Jesus had declared was at hand," just about to be established. Probably from a fear of involving himself in danger, either from his colleagues in the Sanhedrim, or from the Roman government, he seems to have wished that the interview should be as private as possible, and accordingly he "came to Jesus by night."

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He introduced himself by declaring his conviction, founded on the miracles which he had witnessed, that Jesus was a divine messenger:-" Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him."1 Instead of permitting him to unfold the purpose of his visit, Jesus, who "knew what was in man,” and often answered men's thoughts rather than their words, replied in a manner which showed that he was acquainted with what was passing in his visitor's mind. Instead of showing himself flattered by the recognition of his divine mission by a man of such high rank and extensive influence, and endeavouring to secure his assistance in establishing his claims, he in effect states, that Nicodemus was completely mistaken on the subject about which he had come to converse, and that without a complete change in his mode of thinking, and in his mode of feeling too, he could never become a partaker of the privileges of the new order of things to be established by the Messiah, nor even distinctly apprehend their nature. "Except a man," any man, every man, Jew as well as Gentile, undergo a change not less extensive and thorough than that which a heathen

1 John iii. 2.

2 John viii. 7; vi. 26, 35, 64, 65.

does when he becomes a Jew, and which the Jews were accustomed to call a new birth,-" except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 2

1

Nicodemus, if, as is not improbable, he had heard the preaching of John, and even submitted to his baptism, had not complied with the injunction "repent"-change your views and expectations respecting the kingdom of God;-and therefore our Lord thus turns his attention to the nature and necessity of this "repentance," this thorough inward change, under another and still more impressive representation.

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"The kingdom of God"-a phrase derived from a remarkable prediction of the Prophet Daniel,1 a-denotes the order of things to be established by the Messiah, an order of things rich in blessings to his subjects, both in this life, and in that which is to come-both on earth and in heaven.

To "see" the kingdom of heaven, may signify either to apprehend the truth with respect to this order of things, or to enjoy its peculiar privileges. Both ideas may be included, as it is through apprehending the truth respecting the kingdom that men become partakers of its privileges. It is a phrase of similar import as to "see good," to "see death,” to "see God," to "see of the travail of his soul.” 5

To be "born again," is equivalent to the undergoing of a thorough change, beneficial in its character, and the cause of which is not in the individual who undergoes it."

Nicodemus, who thought that the Jews, because descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were to be the subjects of the Messiah, "the children of the kingdom," declared that this statement of Jesus seemed as strange to him as if he had said that a man of mature age must, in the literal

' Dr Campbell's note deserves to be carefully perused. 3 μετάνοια.

? John iii. 3.

Dan. ii. 44.

Ps. xxxiv. 12. John viii. 51. Matth. v. 8. Isa. liii. 11. * Erasmus Cyrilli opinionem sequutus adverbium ay male transtulit "e supernis:" Ambigua est, fateor, illius significatio apud Græcos, sed Christum Hebraicé cum Nicodemo loquutum esse scimus. Porro illic amphibologiæ locus non fuisset, qua deceptus Nicodemus in secunda carnis nativitate pueriliter hesitat. CALVIN in loc. See Note A.

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