Crossing God’s bridge of salvation begins with the believer’s justification. Still, it does not end there, for justification in its twofold aspect deals mainly with our past and carries us only over the borderline into the new sphere. It gives us a new standing before God but does not equip us to live in a state becoming our standing. It paves the way for us into the presence of a holy God, but it cannot make us holy. It opens the door for the establishment of the new order in Christ, but it needs regeneration to furnish the certificate for membership in that order. Justification and regeneration are simultaneous in experience. 

THE RISEN CHRIST — HEAD OF A NEW ORDER

In Christ crucified, God made an end of the old creation and all that pertained to it; in Christ risen, He made the beginning of a new creation. Through His resurrection, Christ Jesus became the Head of a new order of beings, who are to be as heavenly and holy, as pure, and as perfect as He is, the Progenitor of a new race of redeemed men whose ultimate glory through grace is to be complete conformity to His image.

Romans 8:29

“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

But life in the new order requires a wholly new equipment, which Scripture clearly describes. 

THE IMPLANTATION OF A NEW LIFE

The first necessity for fellowship with the living God is life; the first requirement for union with the divine Head is divine life; to live in the sphere of the Spirit, one must have spiritual life. To belong to the new order, one must have the same kind of life as the Head of the order.

But the natural man is “without Christ”; therefore, he is without “life.” By nature, every sinner in Adam, whether rich or poor, literate or illiterate, moral or immoral, religious or irreligious, is spiritually dead. Every child born into this world, whatever his parentage or position in society, enters it entirely destitute of the divine life of God.

The primary need, then, for membership in the new order, for citizenship in the new Kingdom, for sonship in the new family, is life that fits one for his new relationships and environment. To be related to God either as a son in His family or as a subject in His Kingdom necessitates possessing His eternal, divine, spiritual life. But how would a dead man become possessed of this life? The answer to this all-important question our Lord Himself gives in His conversation with Nicodemus is recorded in the third chapter of John’s gospel.

Nicodemus was a man of the Pharisees. So great was his fear of his coreligionists, yet so insistent was his desire for something the Lord Jesus possessed that he came to Him under cover of the night. As a ruler of the Jews, he also occupied an influential position. Yet, despite his religious privileges, his heart was unsatisfied and craved something that Pharisaism could not give him. Nicodemus came to the Lord Jesus without question, driven by a deep sense of need. What, then, did he come for? The answer to this question is important considering what Christ Jesus gave him; it may also help some readers interpret his own greatest need and understand the proper method of approach to the One who alone can meet it. We are not directly told why he came, but John 3:2 suggests a clue.

Nicodemus was himself a teacher, but perhaps he recognized Jesus’ teaching as authoritative and attractive, which were lacking in his own. He was a great religious leader, yet he had no miracle-working power like Jesus. He was a ruler of the Jews, and Jesus was only a humble itinerant preacher, yet God was not with him as He was with Jesus. Did Nicodemus come seeking light upon the secret of such wisdom and power, which, possibly even for unselfish reasons, he craved to possess? Did he come as a teacher to a greater teacher merely to be taught? As a leader to a greater leader, was it simply to be led? Was the deepest need he felt in his life the need of light? Had he who professed to be the physician of others’ soul-sickness failed to diagnose correctly his own? If so, many in similar positions today have made the same mistake.

The following conversation shows that the Great Physician instantly went to the seat of Nicodemus’s trouble. He who “knew what was in man” diagnosed his case aright and saw a much deeper and more imperative need than that of which Nicodemus himself was yet conscious. Nicodemus came for light, but he needed life, and the light he wanted could only come out of the life he needed.

John 1:4

“In Him was life, and that life was the Light of men.”

Nicodemus wanted divine wisdom and spiritual power; these are the fruit of divine, spiritual life. Nicodemus came to Him who said, “I am the light of the world” to receive light, but he had not come to Him who said, “I am the life” to receive life. Nicodemus came only as a teacher to be taught. The Lord Jesus saw that he needed to come as a sinner to a Savior to be saved. So, in His reply, He met not the desire but the need of Nicodemus. He went to the core. He touched the quick of his need.

John 3:3

“Jesus answered and said unto him, “Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

Lord, thank You for knowing every man’s need for Life. What we call “life” is only our physical existence. You came that we may have Life and have it more abundantly.