THE KING’S BUSINESS
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our Lord just as great occasion to be surprised at the blindness and ignorance of the Scriptures on the part of many who occupy the position of authoritative Christian teachers today? There are many “great scholars” to-day, great theological scholars at that, who do not understand the very truth that Jesus was seeking to teach Nicodemus here. Some one has well said, “If modern Nicodemusses ceased attempting to teach until they themselves were taught, how many desks would be vacant!” Many a man has taught theology all his life without finding out some of the most elementary truths of the Bible. Nicodemus might well have understood the things our Lord was spying ffe him; for there were passages in Old Testament, of which he wSs s u ^ posed to be a teacher, which set forth with much clearness this truth of the New Birth (Ezek. 36:25-27; Jer. 31: 33). Though Nicodemus had been ignorant of the things which the Lord taught before they were mentioned by Him, he certainly should have recognized the teaching as true when he heard it from Him. But instead of this he sat in open-mouthed wonder, and kept crying, “How can these things be?” How like Nicodemus is to ourselves!
pears at first sight the question of v. 4, repeated in another form, but in reality there is a much deeper earnestness in it now than there was then. Nicodemus is not cavilling now, but really wants to know. In point of fact our Lord had really answered his question already in verses 5-8, but Nicodemus had not grasped it. Jesus dealt very tenderly with him, just as He does with our dullness and denseness, and in verses 14 and 15 tells him the exact method of the New Birth. Before explaining to Nicodemus the method of the New Birth the Lord gently, but very searchingly reproves Nicodemus for his unnecessary and inexcusable ignorance. Nicodemus exercised the office of a religious “teacher,” and a teacher of Israel at that; indeed he was in the forefront of teachers, “the teacher.” He had assumed to approach Jesus as the representative of his class (v. 2), and yet he did not understand something so elementary and earthly as the New Birth. So Jesus says to him, “Art thou the teacher of Israel, and under- standest not these things?” Nicodemus had expressed wonder at the teaching of Jesus, and now Jesus expresses wonder at the spiritual dullness and blindness of Nicodemus, and at his ignorance of the Scriptures which he assumed to teach. Has not
“ Go, Reaper” S e o sam h M a ç C a t h m h a o il
Labor is hard, But it endures Like love: The land is yours: Go reap the life It gives yo*u now, O sunbrowned master Of the plough!
Go, reaper, Speed and reap, Go take the harvest Of the plough: The wheat is standing Broad and deep, The barley glumes Are golden now.
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