THE KING’S BUSINESS
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od of working, is through the Word (See Jas. 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:23). (7). Because the'Holy Spirit, like the wind, is Irresistible. What can stand against the wind in the fullness of its mighty power? Great forest trees are swept away like straw, brick buildings are cut off clean as if they were paper, steel bridges are picked up, twisted together and carried away as if they were made of tinsel, men and horses are carried miles through the air. So it is with the Spirit: a man filled with the Holy Spirit is a mighty cyclone, no man can withstand or gainsay the wisdom with which he speaks (Luke 21:15; Acts 6:5, 10). There is, of course, a sense in which the Holy Spirit may be resisted (Acts 7:51), because He wills to permit Himself to be resisted; God will not force the citadel of the will of the being whom in sovereign grace He has created in His own image. “So is every one that is born of the Spirit” : the action of the Holy Spirit on the believer, on the one whom He regenerates (Titus 3 :5),-is like the action of the wind in the material world, invisible, full of mystery, inscrutable, but none the less real, perceptible, certain, mighty, beneficent, invigorating, life-giving. The one who has “heard the voice” of the Spirit shows it by word and deed, by a totally transformed life (2 Cor. 5:17), there is no mistaking it. But the most prominent thought seems to be the Sovereignty of the Holy Spirit in all this, “The wind bloweth where it Will.” Why is one born again and another passed by? “Where He will.” Of course, it is because one listens to “the voice” of the Spirit and another does not (ch. 5:24; 6:44,45; Acts 2:41), but after all is said on that side there remains a learge realm where all we can do is to fall back upon the Sovereignty of the Spirit, the sovereign, unconditioned grace of God.
Vv. 9, 10. “Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master (rather, the teacher) of Israel, and knowest (or, understandest ) not these things?” This was the third and last time that Nicodemus spoke during this conversation. From this moment on he is silent and ceases to be a disputer and becomes a disciple. But here again his first utterance is a “How” (cf. v. 4). Dean Alford says, “The question of Nicodemus is evidently still one of unbelief, though no longer of frivolity.” This is putting it too strong: it could hardly be called a question of “faith” (see v. 11), but it is not “unbelief.” It is rather a question of wonder or bewilderment on the part of one who is just passing out of the thick darkness of unbelief into the dim light of a faith that is just dawning. There is not so much opposition as inquiry. All that our Lord was saying was so utterly different from the mere outward religion of forms and ceremonies in which Nicodemus as a Pharisee had been trained that it was well nigh impossible for him to grasp it, and! yet his heart yearned for these deeper things which he began to dimly see were set forth in the words of Jesus. He was beginning to believe that this wonderful change of which Jesus spoke could be, but “How” could it be? As in the fourth verse, we have not only “how” but "cm.” It seemed impossible to Nicodemus still, and yet he now believed it was possible and he longed to know the philosophy of it. However, we do well to believe what our Lord tells us and leave the philosophy of it to Him. The Greek word translated “be” in this verse means rather “come to be” or “come to pass” ; so what Nicodemus really asks is, How can the New Birth take place, or come to be a fact of one’s own experience? This ap-
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