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HOUSMAIL HM021 7 March 1999 ENTERING THE KINGDOM - BORN AGAIN "Unless one is born anew, he cannot SEE
the kingdom of God ..... unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he
cannot ENTER the kingdom of God." (John
3:3,5) Nicodemus
came to Jesus a puzzled man. As a "teacher in Israel" he must have
known all those Old Testament prophecies about the Kingdom. He knew that the
prophecies foretold the miracles that he saw Jesus performing. And he
certainly knew that the teaching he heard from Jesus could only be from God.
He was on the threshold of believing. But he had not yet understood the most
important element of all. Of
course, we MUST know about the prophecies. We need those in order to truly
believe that Jesus is who he claims to be. And we MUST know what Jesus taught
in the four Gospels. Otherwise, we will not know what to believe in order to
be saved. But it is not enough to merely hear and pay lip service to the
words. It is not enough to see the miracles. And it was certainly not enough,
Jesus told Nicodemus, to be born physically as a Jew. There
is no real Good News about the Kingdom Of God for any of us, until it becomes
an individual personal HOPE. And that hope can become a reality only AFTER we
are "BORN AGAIN". "Born
again" describes a SPIRITUAL experience. It tells us that we must leave
our old life behind and begin a NEW LIFE. In another place it is described as
a spiritual "death" to an old way of life and a spiritual
"resurrection" to a new life. In another, it is described as a
"new creation". And in yet another, it is described as a
"translation" from one kingdom to another. It is even described as
having "Eternal Life". Paul
goes so far as to say that "The ONLY thing that counts is new
creation!" (Galatians 6:15 NEB) Of
course, all of that is encompassed in the meaning of the first and most
important word in the Gospel ..... REPENT! Without
repentance the news is all bad! Repentance is the element of the message of
the Kingdom, which turns it from BAD NEWS to GOOD NEWS, and offers hope for
the future. However,
this remarkable statement by Jesus contains TWO other key words, the meaning
of which is inevitably missed by those who neither SEE nor HEAR! We are not
talking now about the words "born again"! We are talking about
something that becomes possible only AFTER a person is born again. The
other two important words are "SEE" and "ENTER". When
we repent of our sins and are born again of water and spirit (both are
essential elements of the new birth) our eyes are opened to SEE the Kingdom
Of God. We can begin to "see" past the material world, into a new
spiritual dimension where God is at work in ways which are neither seen nor
understood by carnal men with carnal minds and carnal appetites. And
when we can thus "SEE" the Kingdom, we are also enabled to ENTER
now, and LIVE now, in that new spiritual dimension where Jesus has been made
Lord of all. THAT is what gives reality to our hope of a future inheritance
in the Kingdom Of God on Earth. Have
we truly SEEN? Do we know beyond question, without presumption, but in
meekness and humility, with a broken spirit and a contrite heart, that we
have ENTERED? How
wonderful is the GOOD NEWS which offers us the means of both SEEING and
ENTERING the Kingdom of God. Allon |