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

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verse: "So is every one that is born of the SPIRIT." No sound interpreter of<br />

any school, so far as we know, disputes that the word "Spirit," in these<br />

passages, means the Holy Spirit as a person; <strong>and</strong> nothing is more obvious<br />

than that the word in the 5th verse means just what it does in the following<br />

ones. But if "water" is figurative, then the phrase water <strong>and</strong> Spirit means, in<br />

one of the figurative interpretations, "spiritual water;" that is, the<br />

substantive Spirit is used as an adjective, <strong>and</strong> not as the name of a person.<br />

This false interpretation makes the phrase mean "spiritual water," <strong>and</strong><br />

Baptism <strong>and</strong> the Holy Spirit both vanish before it. In its anxiety to read<br />

Baptism out of the text, it has read the Holy Spirit out of it, too.<br />

3. Another figurative interpretation turns the words the other way, as<br />

if our Saviour had said: "Born of the Spirit <strong>and</strong> water," <strong>and</strong> now it means<br />

not that we are to be born again of "spiritual water," but that we are to be<br />

born again of the "aqueous or water-like Spirit." But not only does such a<br />

meaning seem poor <strong>and</strong> ambiguous, but it supposes the one term, “Spirit,"<br />

to be literal, <strong>and</strong> the other, "water," to be figurative; but as they are<br />

governed by the same verb <strong>and</strong> preposition, this would seem incredible,<br />

even apart from the other cogent reasons against it. In common life, a<br />

phrase in which such a combination was made, would be regarded as<br />

absurd.<br />

4. <strong>The</strong> term "to be born of" leads us necessarily to the same result.<br />

a. <strong>The</strong> phrase is employed in speaking of natural birth, as in Matt. i.<br />

16: "<strong>Mary</strong> of whom was born Jesus."<br />

Luke i. 35: “That holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall, be<br />

called the Son of God." So in this chapter, "that which is born of the<br />

flesh." b. It is employed to designate spiritual birth. Thus John i. 13: "(the<br />

sons of God) were born not of the blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of<br />

the will of man, but of God." Here no symbolical title is used, but the<br />

literal name of the Author of the new birth. So in this chapter, v. 8: "So is<br />

every one that is born of the Spirit." John, in his gospel <strong>and</strong> epistles, uses<br />

the phrase "to be born of" fifteen times. In fourteen of

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