The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

water and the Spirit. When he spoke to the former, it was of the Spirit first,
and then of the fire. When he speaks to the latter, it is of water first, and
then of the Spirit; the one class is to be baptized with the Spirit and with
fire, and are lost; the others are baptized with water and with the Spirit, and
will enter the kingdom of God. When John contrasted his Baptism with
that of the Saviour, he meant not this: I baptize with water only, without the
Spirit, and He will baptize with the Spirit only, and not with water; he
meant: I baptize with water; that is all I can do in my own person, but He
who in His divine power works with me now, and baptizes with the
provisional measure of the Holy Spirit, will yet come in His personal
ministry, and then He will attend the Baptism of water, with the full gospel
measure of the Spirit. When our Lord, therefore, taking up, as it were, and
opening still further the thought of John, adopts his two terms in the same
connection in which he had placed them, He meant that Nicodemus
should understand by "water" and the "Spirit" the outward part of
Baptism, and that Divine Agent, who in it, with it, and under it, offers His
regenerating grace to the soul of man.
6. It is not to be forgotten that Nicodemus was asking for a fuller
statement of the doctrine of the new birth. He asked: "How can a man be
born when he is old?" The emphasis is not on the word "can" alone, as if
he meant to express a doubt of the truth of our Saviour's proposition; the
emphasis rests also on the word "how." He meant to say: "A man cannot
be born again in the natural sense and ordinary way. How, then, in what
sense, and by what means, can he be born again?" It is impossible that one
interested in grace itself should not be alive to its means. For our Saviour
not to have made an allusion to any of the divine modes, as well as to the
Divine Agent of the change, would seem to make the reply a very
imperfect one. But if any one of the means of grace is alluded to, the
allusion is certainly in the word "water;" and admitting this, the inference
will hardly be resisted that "Baptism" is meant.
7. The entire chapter, after the discourse with Nicodemus,