The Fundamentals declared that this power, or right, is not inherent in human nature, is not found in the natural birth, but involves a new birth_“who are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” I t is this new or second birth which produces children of God. The declaration o John (3 :3 ) puts to confusion the very common claim that God is the Father of universal humanity, and makes it absurd to talk of “the Fatherhood of God,” “the Heavenly Father, “the Divine Fatherhood,” and other s u c h phrases with which we are surfeited in these modern days. Nothing is farther from truth, and nothing is more dangerous and seductive than the claim that the children of Adam are, by nature, God s chil dren. It is the basis of much false reasoning with regard to the future state and the continuity of future punishment. I t is said, in words, that, though a father may chastise his soil, for his profit,” yet the relation of fatherhood and sonship forbids the thought that the father can thrust his son into the burning and keep him there forever. No matter what the offense, it can be expiated by suffering, the father heart will certainly relent and the prodigal will turn again and will be received with joy and gladness by the yearning father. Of course, the fallacy of the argument is in the assumption that all men are, by nature, the children of God, a thing ex pressly denied by the Lord Jesus (John 8: 42) who declared to certain ones that they were of their father the devil. The conversation with Nicodemus gives us the condition upon which once-born men may see the kingdom of God, namely, by being twice-born, once of the flesh, and a second time of the Spirit. “Except a man be born again [anothen, from above] he cannot see the kingdom of God.” There must be a birth from heaven before there can be a heavenly inheritance. Nicodemus, though a teacher of Israel, did not understand it. He had read in vain the word through Jeremiah (33: 31) relative to the “new covenant” which involves a new heart. He had failed to discern between the natural man and the
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