Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 398
Delivered on Sunday Morning, June the 30th, 1861, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for over. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.”—1 Peter 1:23-25.
PETER HAD earnestly exhorted the scattered saints to love each other “with a pure heart fervently,” and he wised fetches his argument, not from the law, nor from nature, nor from philosophy, but from that high and divine nature which God hath implanted in his people. Love each other with a pure heart fervently, for ye have been born again, not with corruptible seed, but with incorruptible. I might compare Peter to some judicious tutor of the princes of the blood, who labors to beget and foster a kingly spirit in the king’s sons. From their position and descent he brings argument for a dignified behavior: “Do not act foolishly, it would be unseemly in a king; speak not so, ribald language would be unbecoming to a prince; indulge not in these vanities, such folk would be degrading to the illustrious of the earth.” So looking upon God’s people, as being heirs of glory, princes of the blood royal, descendants of the King of kings, earth’s true and only real aristocracy, Peter saith to them, “See that ye love one another, because of your noble birth, being born of incorruptible seed; because of your pedigree, being descended from God, the Creator of all things; and because of your immortal destiny, for you shall never pass away, though the glory of flesh shall fade, and even its very existence shall cease. I think it would be well, my brethren, if in a spirit of humility, you and I recognized the free dignity of our regenerated nature, and lived up to it. Oh! what is a Christian? If you compare him with a king, he adds priestly sanctity to royal dignity. The king’s royalty often lieth only in his crown, but with a Christian it is infused into his very nature. Compare him with a senator, with a mighty warrior, or a master of wisdom, and he far excelleth them all. He is of another race than those who are only born of woman. He is as much above his fellows through his new birth, as man is above the beast that perisheth. As humanity towers in dignity high above the grovelling brute, so doth the regenerate man o’ertop the best of human once-born mortals. Surely he ought to bear himself, and act as one who is not of the multitude, one who has been chosen out of the world, distinguished by sovereign grace, written among “the peculiar people,” and who therefore cannot grovel as others grovel, nor own think as others think. Let the dignity of your nature, and the brightness of your prospects, O believers in Christ, make you cleave to holiness, and hate the very appearance of evil.
In the text there are three points which, I think, will well repay our very serious attention. The apostle evidently speaks of two lives, the one, the life which is natural, born, matured, and perfected only by the flesh; the other, the life which is spiritual, born of the spirit, in antagonism with the flesh, surviving it and triumphantly rising to celestial glory. Now, in speaking of these two lives, the apostle brings out, first of all, a comparison and a contrast between the two births, for each life hath its own birth. Then he brings out a contrast between the manifest existence of the two lives; and then lastly, between the glory of the two lives, for each life hath its glory, but the glory of the spiritual life far excelleth the glory of the natural.
I. First, then, the apostle Peter draws A COMPARISON AND CONTRAST BETWEEN THE TWO BIRTHS WHICH ARE THE DOORWAYS OF THE TWO LIVES.
First, we have said that every life is prefaced by rib birth. It is so naturally—we are born; it is so spiritually—we are born again. Except a man be born he cannot enter into the kingdom of nature; except a man be born again he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. Birth is the lowly gateway by which we enter into life, and the lofty portal by which we are admitted into the kingdom of heaven.
Now there is a comparison between the two births; in both there is a solemn mystery. I have read, I have even heard sermons, in which the minister seemed to me rather to play the part of a physician than of a divine, exposing and explaining the mysteries of our natural birth, across which both God in nature and the good man in delicacy must ever throw a veil. It is a hallowed thing to be born, as surely as it is a solemnity to die. Birthdays and deathdays are days of awe. Birth is very frequently used in Scripture as one of the most graphic pictures of solemn mystery. Into this, no man may idly pry, and Science herself, when she has dared to look within the veil, has turned back awestricken, from those “lower parts of the earth” in which David declares us to be “curiously wrought.” Greater still is the mystery of the new birth. That we are born again we know, but how, we cannot tell. How the Spirit of God openeth upon the mind, how it is that he renews the faculties and imparts fresh desires by which those faculties shout be guided, how it is that he enlightens the understanding, subdues the will, purifies the intellect, reverses the desire, lifts up the hope, and puts the fear in its right channel, we cannot tell, we must leave this among the secret things which belong unto God. The Holy Ghost worketh, but the manner of his operation is not to be comprehended. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but thou canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” Oh! my hearers, have you felt this mystery? Explain it you cannot, nor can I, nor ought we to attempt an explanation, for where God is silent it is perhaps profanity, and certainly impertinence for us to speak. The two births then are alike in their solemn mystery.