Now, what did these men--these and a hundred thousand more--see in the
strange, mysterious words that Jesus spoke to the aged ruler twenty
centuries ago? That is the question, and the question is not a difficult
one to answer.
_A new birth!_ To be _born again_! What can it mean? It can only mean
one thing. 'I wish,' somebody has sung----
I wish that there were some wonderful place
Called the Land of Beginning Again,
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches
And all of our poor, selfish grief
Could be dropped, like a shabby old coat, at the door,
And never put on any more.
The words, if they mean anything, mean that there _is_ such a place. A
man _may_ have a fresh start. In describing the greatest change that
took place in his life--the greatest change that can take place in any
man's life--Frank Bullen says: 'I love that description of conversion as
the "_new birth_." No other definition touches the truth of the process
at all. So helpless, so utterly knowledgeless, possessing nothing but
the vague consciousness of life just begun!' Dr. Blund was thinking of
the babes whose first breath he had seen drawn. So innocent; so
pastless! Oh, to begin where they were beginning! Oh, to be _born
again_!'
Dr. Blund cannot begin where they were beginning. He cannot enjoy
again--at any rate in this world--the opportunities of growth and
development that were theirs. But he can be _born again_! He can start
afresh! Dr. Blund made that discovery on his deathbed, and, in talking
of the dead doctor's experience, the young minister made the same
discovery a day or two later. He felt his need; he turned in an agony of
supplication to the Saviour whom he had so often preached; and he, too,
entered into the new life.
'He made the great discovery,' Harold Begbie says. 'It had happened; the
longed-for event had come; he stood by himself, all by himself,
conscious now of the heart; no longer satisfied either with his own
intellect or the traditions of a church. The miracle had happened. He
had discovered the helplessness of humanity. He had discovered the need
of the soul. He had begun at last to see into the heart of things.' He
had been _born again_!
There are two kinds of progress. There is the progress that moves away
from infancy towards youth, towards maturity, towards age and
decrepitude. And there is a higher progress, a progress that moves
towards infancy. 'Except ye be converted and become as little children,'
Jesus said, 'ye shall not enter into the kingdom of God.' And the only
way of becoming a little child once more is by being _born again_. It is
the glory of the gospel that it offers a man that chance.