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The Spirit of Prophecy Volume 2
Nothing less than a practical acceptance and application of divine
truth opens the kingdom of God to man. Only a pure and lowly heart,
obedient and loving, firm in the faith and service of the Most High,
can enter there. Jesus also declares that as “Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
The serpent in the wilderness was lifted upon a pole before the people,
that all who had been stung unto death by the fiery serpent might look
upon this brazen serpent, a symbol of Christ, and be instantly healed.
But they must look in faith, or it would be of no avail. Just so must men
look upon the Son of Man as their Saviour unto eternal life. Man had
separated himself from God by sin. Christ brought his divinity to earth,
veiled by humanity, in order to rescue man from his lost condition.
Human nature is vile, and man’s character must be changed before it
can harmonize with the pure and holy in God’s immortal kingdom.
This transformation is the new birth.
If man by faith takes hold of the divine love of God, he becomes
a new creature through Christ Jesus. The world is overcome, human
nature is subdued, and Satan is vanquished. In this important sermon to
Nicodemus, Jesus unfolded before this noble Pharisee the whole plan
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of salvation, and his mission to the world. In none of his subsequent
discourses did the Saviour explain so thoroughly, step by step, the
work necessary to be done in the human heart, if it would inherit the
kingdom of Heaven. He traced man’s salvation directly to the love of
the Father, which led him to give his Son unto death that man might
be saved.
Jesus was acquainted with the soil into which he cast the seeds of
truth. For three years there was little apparent fruit. Nicodemus was
never an enemy to Jesus, but he did not publicly acknowledge him.
He was weighing matters with an exactitude that accorded with his
nature. He watched the life-work of Jesus with intense interest. He
pondered over his teachings and beheld his mighty works. The raising
of Lazarus from the dead was an evidence of his Messiahship that
could not be dised in the mind of the learned Jew.
Once, when the Sanhedrim council was planning the most effec-
tual way of bringing about the condemnation and death of Jesus, his
authoritative voice was heard in protest, “Doth our law judge any man,
before it hear him, and know what he doeth?” This brought a sharp