Gospel of John (Study 8 of 24, Chap 3 Cont) — G.W. North

The New Birth Removes Sin and Produces Holiness

In chapter 3 you do understand of course that the reason for the new birth is to take sin out of you and put holiness, the holiness of God inside you. You understand that? Now when John wrote the first chapter he said that the Lamb of God had come to take away the sin of the world.

Now just supposing for a moment and a horrible thought. But I put this down as a test question for you. What is the sin of the world? The sin, do you think it's a meaning great pile of sins of everybody that has ever sinned in the universe or the world.

What do you think it is? Have a thought. What is the sin of the world? Well I suggest to you that I might be looking for this answer if I set it as a question. Disobedience through unbelief. That was the sin for which Adam and Eve were turned out of the garden.

Everything rises from that. Once you are born again of God all sin will multiply. Not every practice of it or every conceivable angle of it. But all sin will be in your life if you do not disobey. If you do not obey God from the moment of new birth and on through your life through unbelief.

That's the sin. All things are possible to him. That believeth doesn't say if you don't commit adultery or something or if you don't murder someone. This is the big thing. You know of course that sin started in heaven.

This is why God's been very lenient to us on earth. Very wonderful. There were a host of heavenly beings before a human being ever breathed air. You understand that the rebellious nature. It's always your nature always your nature that is at stake.

For instance if I'm not talking to you as from my nature I might as well have stopped the time I would have done you harm. You don't suddenly put on a preacher's coat and go out preaching. You know what I mean.

People think you care. You can't you never preach if you don't preach out of the bowels of Christ. Never, never bother. We were talking a little at home before I left. When I say home I mean home in the north at least where I stay.

Mostly when I'm up north. I was talking about Marianne M 'Cheyne. Have I told you about this before. It's often on my lips. Marianne M 'Cheyne wrote that men return again and again to the man that preaches as though he's hanging from the nails of the cross.

You should write that down. You won't find many many quotes of that hanging from the nails of the cross. That's what it cost God to get rid of the sin that started in heaven transferred to earth by the fallen angel.

We would never have known anything about it beloved never have known anything about it. Would we, wouldn't have been born on this earth. But God's, God loves us. He's acquainted us with some knowledge necessary in His sight to our well-being our blessing.

And if you like our ministries, all these kinds of things we wouldn't have known how glorious it is then then that we can be born of God's own spirit and not be subject to the spirits that come upon us through father, mother or any other.

You know that though you rub shoulders with bodies you meet up with spirits when you see me you've met a spirit son. You understand clothed in flesh. Of course Wesley always has it right. He always has that phrase veiled in flesh.

That was the Godhead seal in the Christmas hymn. But beloved you. And I have to see that that's what's got to happen to us. Not so perfectly in flesh as He was without blemish or spot formed within Mary by the Holy Ghost.

Not by her own powers but by God's power. You understand what this is about beloved. I'm a spirit talking to you. And if my spirit isn't talking to you either you're dead or I am. Or we both may be. Do you understand that?

That's it, isn't a pretty face or handsome mug. I was going to say it doesn't matter. It's whether or not you and I are beautiful in the sight of God. All His children are born perfect or else He's not the father of them.

I mean the spirit. If you aren't born again of God you are born a new pure spirit unless He's never forgotten you. How then are you and I going to keep this spirit in all its pristine glory and purity.

That's what all the advice or commands or whatever it is in the Bible are about in the epistles and so on to show us how to keep that new spirit pure and holy. He wants to present His church to him a glorious church without a spot or a wrinkle or any such thing.

You say that will be a miracle. I'll say it's a miracle. But that's the proposition. Just as when He made Eve and Adam Adam and Eve perfect. In the beginning they spoiled it all. Don't you spoil it. Don't you spoil it.

God wants us to be in this wonderful realm. I would like to remind you that the book says now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden. That's right. And that garden was planted with new pristine wonderful seed.

His name was the Jesus seed. Just keep that in mind. You didn't think there was a garden called Calvary. Did you? Don't tell you it was a cross or a Golgotha. It says in the place where He was crucified though He may have had an ugly cross on one side and an ugly cross on another.

And soldiers waiting to plunge a spear into His dead body and blood and stench and awfulness and betrayal and cruelty. I won't go on to magnify the adjectives all around Him. There was a garden. Well we know all about this garden.

But it wasn't called a garden except in one gospel. Now it's very wonderful. That's the mustard seed that a man planted in his garden to take the place of the fig tree. God wants us to see this marvelous thing.

People are hanging on a fig tree. Maybe a fig mint. I don't know. But you have to see the truth and what it's about and understand not just the words of scripture but the spirit of Christ. That's what we have to understand.

You talk about the garden of Gethsemane but not the garden of Golgotha. I'll guarantee I hope not in the future. Here's the thing to see. God was full of hope when He planted His seed in the garden. Within three days it started to bear fruit.

You try that on a mustard seed and see whether you can produce it in three days. But here's the glory, beloved that God wants us to enter into. There's a little talk about that in verse 14 of this chapter.

But we won't run ahead of ourselves. Oh I guess this hope of mine to get through this chapter in one lecture has almost gone out of the window. Perhaps we can gallop the last few verses. Nicodemus, let me go back.

Nicodemus answered and said unto him just the thing that Mary said to the angel. How can these things be. That's the how that's connected with birth. Jesus was being born. And you're to be born as a seed if I may say so with limited thought thought as a seed of Jesus another son.

Not like the son. Of course not that was unique. But everybody asks the same question. How can these things be that you're talking about. Well just simply put a seed in its right setting, right ground, it will grow alright.

Jesus’ Teaching on Heavenly Birth and Divine Witness

Verse 10. Jesus answered and said unto him art thou the teacher, master of Israel. And knowest not these things. Verily, verily I say unto thee we speak that we do know or that we do know to put the emphasis and testify that we have seen ye receive not our witness.

Who's the we. Who is the we. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He was commonly I should think though it wasn't often recorded speaking in the plural sense as we thought before. It doesn't mean that speaking to you.

It's my Father. That's speaking to you. In this context he's bringing us into a consciousness of impossibility. Really in the human level because you cannot stand before anybody and say we say this. And we say that I say this.

I say that it's the truth. So far as human beings are concerned we speak. He was aware of of being one of shall we say a team Father, Son and Spirit. He was there. He was the mouthpiece of his Father and of the Holy Ghost.

Need I explain that anymore. You can't be consciousness. We, body, soul and spirit. That's all me. I'm we. I'm body. See it's my body. Can you hear my soul. And do you catch my spirit. We wouldn't talk such nonsense as we do sometimes if we were aware that we are a triune being here then is the thing for us to understand.

So he's passing on. I must have confused poor old Nicodemus out of this world. He didn't quite. No, he couldn't have caught it in his mind. He knew all about Moses. He knew all about the seed of Israel nation.

The seed of Israel's nation. Oh yes. Surely that he was the man named Isaac who in faith Father Abraham received as it were from the grave from the dead from the altar. Yeah. He knew all about that. He knew there was a trinity in the beginning Abraham Isaac and Jacob.

But he got no clue of connecting the same principle with Christ. Jesus was the representative of God. I want to be like that. You don't know all these things. Nicodemus you started by asking me a question.

But he didn't say that. He didn't condescend. He could have said you don't know anything. You're not really alive. You've only had your human curiosity based upon knowledge of the Old Testament probing.

Thank God he got through. I'm actually sure of that there's a good way to begin. Verily verily verse 11. I say unto thee we speak that we do know and testify that we have seen you receive but not our witness.

Now here's another word which way you can read the verse. We speak that is you're a human being. I'm a human being. We're all human beings and we all say what we think what we see what we. That's what we do.

I have preferred to put the spiritual emphasis upon it. You're all students. You all say what you think what you know. I'm a student. God's kept me a student of this book for many decades. And of him too.

You've got to see what it's about beloved. I'd rather ransack these early chapters of John than get through the book so that you'll know what it's all about. This is the way to read your Bible. Everyone.

I'm telling you this is the way to do it. So I've learned. Go right on. If I've told you earthly things and you believe not. How shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things. Did you know that new birth is an earthly thing.

You've got to be born again while you're on this earth. This is while you're on this earth. Nicodemus you've got to have another birth. It's an earthly thing. I come down to earth. I was born in a magical la la la.

I'm going to hang on a cross. I'm going to shed my blood all on this earth. Not that the love had its origins on this earth. I tell you what you've got. Brains. Think think. What does that mean. What does he really say.

That's what you've got to do. If you've got a Holy Ghost living in you he will lead you to the truth that he inspired in the beginning. Just keep at it. Just keep at it. Don't waste your time on these other things.

And he says this verse 13. No man has ascended to heaven. But he that came down to heaven. Even the son of man which is in heaven. And you would have said that the son of man was on earth in an upper room in Jerusalem in the middle of the night talking to an inquirer.

That's what you may have said it that way. But he said I'm in heaven. How can you be in heaven and on earth at the same time. Don't ask me how. I'm only telling you that that's the mystery. God is in heaven.

He's here. I hope he's by my side while I'm saying this daring to say it to you. That's the thing you will live in a twofold sphere beloved once you're really born of God. Make your conscious visitations to heaven more frequent and more wonderful than your visitations to the lecture room.

Learn what this is about. And then people can say where's he coming from. Where's she coming from. Lots of people have said that about me. I'm not boasting. I'm just telling you where's he coming from.

That's a modern term. You it's all there for everybody to read and say. Well you're an old man of 83. Well yes I am. I'm not expecting all of you what I'm expecting of myself in that sense. But it was almost as though Jesus was saying to Nicodemus I'm expecting something of you Nicodemus.

You're the teacher of Israel. And he had got his curiosity quickened within him to come to Jesus. Where's you coming from. Who, well we know you're a teacher sent from God. He was. But he almost denigrated him by saying it.

He might have known that it was God himself talking to him. And Jesus gave him the hint we speak what we do know. I guess that bear sat up with his head wrapped in brown paper and vinegar all night to try and puzzle out what he could not know till he was baptising the spirit on the day of Pentecost.

You say how do you know Nicodemus. Well I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. Let's go on. Shall we beloved to see what this truth now. Well perhaps I ought to make this one comment poor Nicodemus.

He must not have known when his head was on his shoulders or what was happening to him. Talking to the Lord Jesus Christ or the Lord talking to him. Now away goes the Lord back in the history that this man knew as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

The Serpent in the Wilderness and the Meaning of John 3:16

You will know that that word perish there does not refer to death. It refers to what every man unborn of God is doing every day of his life. That's the actual meaning in the Greek. You and I except by God's grace could all be perishing sitting here.

That's the kind of perishing he's talking about. It doesn't mean death. It means except the death of the spirit of course and of the soul within you. That's what he's referring to. And it's a big thing.

He's not talking about going to hell. He's talking about perishing moment by moment while you're breathing on this earth. Or quite the opposite living every moment every breath while you're on this earth.

Hell isn't eternal death. It's the place where eternal death has its way out with all human beings. Heaven is not the great place of eternal life. It is the place where those eternally live will live.

Let's not talk about destinations. He's talking about spiritual condition. God values your every breath your every moment. Now you're his. He wants you to live as he lives in his life by his spirit or in ratio to his.

We can't talk about it. He originated that life but he's come to share it with us. That's what he means. He wants to save money full of you. He wants to save it. He wants you to live it to the full in the spirit.

That's what it's about. Eternal life or eternal death have nothing more to do with relations with you. Then you arriving in London and getting off at the terminal of Victoria as you're on the train. That's what it means.

It's you you. Alright that's why that's very wonderful now. It's also wonderful that the next verse says. For God loved he so loved you. That's why you know the famous verse probably the most famous verse in the Bible John 3 ,16.

But have you noticed this. If you haven't you'd better write this down or contain it in your memory. God grants you a memory like he gave me although it's fading a bit these days you you will see this.

Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. Alright that was the last great miracle that God did before they exited the wilderness. The last miracle. That's what you will find in the Old Testament.

They ended their wilderness wanderings and death when Moses put up the brazen serpent upon a pole in the midst of the camp that whosoever looked toward it could live. That's it. It was in a place called Oboth.

And it's the the thing to do with spiritualism. They were wicked spirits symbolized or embodied in the serpents. The fiery serpents that bit people and they died. That's right. They would all have died in the wilderness.

All a lot of them the fiery serpents were going to the camp. It was look and live. Or refuse to look and die. Wonderful isn't it. And then right next to that comes the verse God so loved the world. He doesn't want you to die on the borders of getting out and never getting over.

And you can go like that to a church get a little more belief. Well I think I'm believing. Am I believing more. I'm believing more and die before you get in to the kingdom of God. So virtually they were all born again in a day.

You know Israel was constantly having this. You know that. Don't you. Really I don't want to start on all these subjects. But it's so true they sheltered under the blood if you like in the room. But they were as it were.

The nation was born in a day when they went through the Red Sea and everybody else died in the sea. Pharaoh his captains. They were born in a day redeemed and three days afterwards because it was Easter Sunday they were as it were born upon the other side of the Red Sea.

Luke calls this sorry. Paul calls this being baptised unto Moses. Baptised Moses. Of course you knew this. I suppose where he said Israel were all under the cloud. They were all baptised unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

Baptised into Moses. Same word unto and into the same word in the Greek baptised had to be unto Moses because they couldn't all get in Moses. But here's the truth. Baptised into Jesus Christ. Bible's only got one message.

Really. And so here then is the truth. They were baptised then once and they were as it were baptised unto them. They all were going to die. They couldn't have stopped the fiery serpents. Except one way.

Look at Jesus Christ on the cross. That's what it says. Really in the figure. Make a model of a serpent. Well you're only a brazen serpent. Here's God wants to get through the truth into you. The truth through into you.

That's right. I made my son to die for you. You Jews. There are lots of people now other than Jews. You think he's nothing more. Body crucified him same truth. Look at him. Look at him. And if Nicodemus only knew it he was giving Nicodemus an opportunity to look at Christ.

But he was saying something more which cohabits with the truth of Israel. They were virtually looking at their heaven on earth the promised land. They were on the borders of the promised land into it into everything.

That's what it's all about the Bible in here. It's coordinated. There's one truth running through it. All all the other things. It doesn't matter about David. All the other they said some nice things wrote some nice psalms and marvelous prophecy of Isaiah.

Somebody else did something. You can learn lessons from everything in life. You can look at a bee and learn lessons. Thank God those which he inspired being kept for us to see. But the Old Testament is only a book of parables to you.

You will see the truth there lived it out in this nation. Now what does it say to you. You've read this piece about Oboth. What has it meant to you before. Except that they were being punished for sinning and so on and so on.

And they look you know the usual stuff. I was brought up on it. The evangelical line on it. Thank God for the evangel. But army. Have we got it right. Have we got it right. Have we understood. You'll never understand everything.

But it would be good for you to understand that. And then the Bible will lift you. You'll want to spend your life preaching it to people. That's what you'll want to do. And God is so marvelous. Thus Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.

Even so must the sun be lifted up. The serpent was dead. A brassy horrible thing. Do you believe this. That the serpent is death in the natural. It's got it somewhere behind his teeth a little sack of poison.

So you see beloved God has wonderful ways with us. This marvelous love of God. And you wonder now because God has displayed it so fully why men love darkness rather than light. The old testament was meant to throw light.

Christ as the Light Who Reveals God and Human Sin

That's why one of the reasons anyway why John Baptist stood on the wilderness side of Jordan introduce them to their promised land. And that's why Jesus went as far as Jordan out that way. He may say I'm taking on from John Baptist.

Now he's representing the old. And he took on leaving the light of the world while he was in it he came again as we go back. This is why I'm taking you carefully studiously through these open chapters of the truth.

Don't mutter about anything else to do with it. You got to see this beloved that it says in him was light. And the light was the light of men. Ok so wonderful. What did he come for. Be it what, be it the light of the world.

But listen a light's business is to attract you to it itself in the darkness. Of course. But do you know the chief thing about the light of Jesus Christ supposing I was to put this down as a test. You'll be very glad I don't.

And you were expecting. Alright talk about Jesus Christ as light in your own words. Give to me a page on it. What would you write. Do you know the first thing that God that Jesus threw light on was you must be born of the spirit.

And he didn't say a word. He was born of the spirit into the world. But we could go on. We could go on about all kinds of things. But the real reason he came into the world was to throw light on God as well as on me.

God didn't need a light to see by. But you did. You needed to see God. That was his first purpose God. There was an airy fairy about God them as they are now in the world. Throw light on God. I'm not like this.

I'm not like that. And I'm not like you and all these thousand things. This is me. Throw light on God. And of course throw light on you and on the world and on sin on you and our inward state which just to be would be a murderer.

For that's what our representatives did to Jesus away with him. That's the natural thing of sin. He came to throw light on God. So he's going to say God. I know him I've seen him I've handled him I've heard him.

This is John in his first epistle. That's what it's about to knowing how to prepare a sermon or anything else that could be helpful. This thing. It is then. So we better read it. God didn't send his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved from its ultimate end.

He that believeth on him is not condemned. But he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God and believed in his name. Leave alone him.

The Jews didn't believe in his name. You know that the name means saviour. They didn't believe he was the saviour. Strangely enough. God turned their ignorance deliberate ignorance wickedness and sin into our saviour.

Saving God turned it. You've got to remember this is primarily dealing with the state of the Jews. You understand that John Baptist came to the Jews and so on and so on. But he's developed. God so loved the world that at last John has put in something which the Jews would have thought was terrible saying well we are the chosen nation.

Don't you understand. Do you know I met over in Germany a place that a Jewish lady says she's born again says there's no need to preach to the Jews. They're going to be saved anyway. Do you believe that.

I tell you they base it upon a false interpretation of so all Israel shall be saved. Find a scripture for it. You have to be changed to get your thinking right. We don't think right. I'm meaning in the overall how God ministered so mercifully.

You're condemned already if you don't believe in the name just the name of the only begotten son of God. And this is the condemnation that light has come into the world. And men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

Everyone that doeth evil hated the light. Neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved. Your life and your belief don't match up after these things. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest.

Now listen to this phrase that they are wrought in God. Do you know what Jesus did in all the works he did. He wrought what he saw wrought in God. We shall read it before we go through. I can only do what my father shows me to do.

He said so fancy that but don't fancy that. It's real wrought in God. You mean God wrought in humanity and brought his son into it. Yes. But Jesus says that's the son that God the father wrought in Mary and through Mary.

He's saying this. We're thinking in polemics. We're understanding truth because we understand the principle of truth is God and what God has done and what God has said. And it turns all the thinking of thinking people upside down.

The philosophers of the philosophies of the philosophers for which you can get a doctorate in a university. How marvelous it is for us to understand what it's all about. Well I'm going to gallop through these last verses.

Oh no I can't gallop. Possibly you'll have to permit me to come on to it again. But we'll go on a little further because it's ten to one. And you're hungry. Aren't you. After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judea and there he tarried with them and baptised.

Water Baptism, the Holy Spirit, and the Sermon on the Mount

Now let me say here that Jesus was not baptising it tell you in the next chapter four. Verse two. Check it out that he did not do any water baptising. His disciples did it. Chapter four verse two. Let's see this.

Do you know why he didn't baptise in water. Water indicated that sins were forgiven. Isn't that marvelous. Isn't it. No. He'd come for greater things than that. Hallelujah. He'd come to baptise in the spirit.

He did not want to get you confused in your thinking. Dear old John who wrote this book. Oh he's so great. I love old John. You know I'll have a great time when I meet him. Sometimes I think I've met him when I read it beloved.

You understand. This is Bible. It's only about a meeting in spirit. Don't you son daughter anybody for you to meet God in his spirit. That's what it's about. Oh it's about the cross. Oh yeah. But that was all endured and then all the results of it.

So that the Holy Ghost should come and you meet him. That's what it was for. And he'll show you Jesus. You really meet the Lord Jesus when you meet the Holy Ghost really meet him. It says here too John was baptising in the inner near the Salem because there was much water there.

And they came and were baptised. For John was not yet cast into prison. Now it's important for you to get this. You check this out in Matthew chapter 4 but not now. Make a note of it in your mind. John was not yet cast into prison.

So new birth comes before the Sermon on the Mount. Because the Sermon on the Mount begins in Matthew 5 the Sermon on the Mount is only intended for those that are the Lord's. It's no good this world trying to bring.

We call it communism or socialism or what. John was still extant. John was still public. John was still carrying on his baptism. Water baptism. He was not yet cast into prison. Then this isn't a sort of a in a way just inserted.

It's great truth for you to get hold of. Don't time teach people the Sermon on the Mount before you teach taught them and brought them into new birth. That's what the Bible is telling us. So we're learning of God.

Alright there arose a question but between some of John's disciples and the law and the Jews about purifying. And they came unto John and said unto him Rabbi he that was with thee beyond Jordan to whom thou barest witness.

Behold he the same baptised. It all will come to him. Jesus, John asked and said a man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness. And I said I am not the Christ but I am sent before him.

He that hath the bride is the bridegroom. For the friend of the bridegroom which standeth and heareth him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled. Isn't that wonderful.

Christ the Bridegroom and the Believer’s Heavenly Identity

Don't you think that's wonderful. Jesus came into the world more than to be a light in chat. He is coming. And his light bearing I hope has borne clear testimony and given you light to see that he's come to seek a bride.

Has that ever dawned on you this hearken. Each one of you answer this. You needn't do it out loud but do it inside. Have you married Christ in your heart. You can. Only you must understand this. The heavenly Christ can only have a heavenly bride.

Do you understand that if you will insist in being earthly and earthly minded and all that business do you understand. Are you beginning to see. And you know who gives the bride away. Don't you the father of the bride.

So you make sure you're born of God. He's going to give you to Christ in the ultimate in the consummation. I'm going to be there now. I'm looking forward to that. But we'll be able to discuss that a little bit more tomorrow.

But here's the wonder of it. It seems to me that John has compressed all the vital things we need to know in the first three chapters. There are things of good and right. Very powerful meaningful. This is it the whole meaning of it.

Christ was lifted up in the wilderness looked like the serpent because he wanted to win a bride. Because he loved her. Well he loved the world. Yes. Well he's not posh in this sense. Give them all a chance.

Where were you born. I know we're a heterogeneous lot. I suppose I don't know. But here we are beloved. It doesn't matter scrap where you were born. You might have been born in a funny place called Ireland.

But the whole belief is this beloved. Don't you see. That doesn't matter to who's to God. And until you first of all learn to disclaim your earthly birth and refuse to be an Irishman or an Englishman or a Scotsman or a Welshman or wherever you've come from and be God entirely because you'll be queer.

Everybody will see. You're queer. So you have to pay your taxes. Don't you be a realist. That's what they think is real. This is reality. You renounce your first birth utterly. If God tells you to leave all your relatives behind and go and live in China.

You go and live in China and take the Chinese for your relatives. Nobody here from China. I mean I'm not wanting to throw any aspersions upon being Chinese. They're probably better than all the English that have ever lived.

Except those who were worthy to die for the Lord and did do at the stake and things like that. Don't you understand God's chosen you. You should forsake everybody for that if necessary. But don't let a deep down thing inside.

Say oh I'm English I'll bring... You're not a queer lot anyway. Don't want to be an Englishman or woman and ever grasp and ever enter into you what it's about a God's soul who loved the world. And it means this not just that he gave his son.

The giving is in the end as a bridegroom to new people. If you won't be new I don't know. It's got to renew your thinking. You've got to be new in your attitude. You may have to be new in your habits.

If God said go and live out at Samoa or somewhere you understand you might have to pay different taxes or none at all. You be satisfied where you are in Christ. I must finish. Because that clock beats me very reluctantly.

God bless you. And I hope by God's grace to see you tomorrow.