Homilies on John, Homily 26

“What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.” [1.] The mysteries that the Only-begotten Son of God has considered us worthy to receive are great—great mysteries that we did not deserve, but that it was fitting for Him to give. For if we consider what we deserve, we were not only unworthy of the gift but also subject to punishment and vengeance. But because He did not focus on this, He not only delivered us from punishment but freely gave us a life far brighter than the first, brought us into another world, and made us a new creation. “If anyone is in Christ,” Paul says, “he is a new creation.” ( 2 Cor. v. 17.) What kind of “new creation”? Hear Christ Himself explain: “Unless someone is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” Paradise was entrusted to us, and we proved unworthy to live even there, yet He has raised us to heaven. We proved unfaithful with the first things, and He has entrusted us with greater ones. We could not keep away from a single tree, and He has provided the delights above for us. We did not keep our place in Paradise, and He has opened the doors of heaven to us. Paul rightly said, “Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” ( Rom. xi. 33.) There is no longer a mother, or birth pains, or sleep, or sexual union and bodily embraces. From now on, the whole fabric of our nature is formed above, from the Holy Spirit and water. Water is used, becoming the Birth for the person being born. What the womb is to the embryo, water is to the believer, for in water he is shaped and formed. At first it was said, “Let the waters bring forth creeping things that have life” ( Gen. i. 20 , LXX.); but from the time the Lord entered the streams of the Jordan, water no longer brings forth the “creeping thing that has life,” but rational, Spirit-bearing souls. And what was said of the sun, that he is “like a bridegroom coming out of his bedroom” ( Ps. xviii. 6 ), we may now say more appropriately of the faithful, for they send out rays far brighter than his. What is formed in the womb takes time; what is formed in water does not. Everything is done in a single moment. Here our life is perishable and begins from the decay of other bodies. What is to be born develops slowly (for that is the nature of bodies: they reach their full development over time), but spiritual things are different. Why? Because what is made is formed complete from the beginning. When Nicodemus was still troubled as he heard these things, see how Christ partly reveals the secret of this mystery to him and makes clear what had been obscure to him for a time. “What is born of the flesh,” He says, “is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.” He leads him away from everything perceived by the senses and does not let him peer uselessly with his bodily eyes into the mysteries being revealed. “We are not speaking of flesh, Nicodemus,” He says, “but of Spirit” (with this word He turns his attention heavenward for a while). “So do not look for anything connected with the senses. The Spirit can never appear to those eyes. Do not think that the Spirit brings forth flesh.” “How, then,” someone might ask, “was the Flesh of the Lord brought forth?” Not from the Spirit alone, but from flesh, as Paul declares when he says, “Made from a woman, made under the Law” ( Gal. iv. 4 ). For the Spirit did not fashion Him out of nothing (what need would there have been for a womb then?), but from the flesh of a Virgin. I cannot explain to you how, yet it happened so that no one might suppose that what was born was foreign to our nature. For if, even though this happened, some people disbelieve in such a birth, what kind of impiety would they have stopped short of if He had not shared in the Virgin’s flesh? “What is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Do you see the dignity of the Spirit? He is shown doing the work of God. For earlier he said of some people that “they were born of God” ( c. i. 13 ,), while here He says that the Spirit gives birth to them. “What is born of the Spirit is spirit.” His meaning is this: “Someone born of the Spirit is spiritual.” For the Birth He speaks of here is not a birth according to essence, but according to honor and grace. Now if the Son is also born in this way, how will He be superior to people born in this way? And how is He Only-begotten? For I too am born of God, though not of His Essence; and if He too is not of His Essence, how does He differ from us in this respect? Indeed, He will then turn out to be inferior to the Spirit, for this kind of birth comes through the grace of the Spirit. Does He then need the Spirit’s help to remain a Son? And how do these ideas differ from Jewish doctrines? So after Christ said, “Someone born of the Spirit is spirit,” and saw him confused again, He turned His discussion to an example drawn from the senses, saying, Ver. 7, 8. “Do not be amazed that I told you, You must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes.” By saying, “Do not be amazed,” He points to the confusion in his soul and leads him to something lighter than a body. He had already led him away from fleshly things by saying, “What is born of the Spirit is spirit.” But when Nicodemus did not understand what “what is born of the Spirit is spirit” meant, He next took him to another image. He did not bring him to the density of bodies, nor did He speak of things entirely without bodies (for if Nicodemus had heard this, he could not have grasped it). Instead, He found something between what has a body and what does not—the movement of the wind—and brought him to that next. And He says of it, “You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes.” Although He says, “It blows where it wishes,” He does not mean that the wind has any power to choose. He is declaring that its natural movement cannot be stopped and is powerful. For Scripture also speaks this way about lifeless things, as when it says, “Creation was subjected to futility, not willingly.” ( Rom. viii. 20.) So the expression “blows where it wishes” is used to show that it cannot be restrained, that it spreads everywhere, and that no one can stop it from passing back and forth. It moves with great force, and no one can turn aside its violence. [2.] “And you hear its voice” (that is, its rustle, its noise), “but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” Here is the conclusion of the whole matter. “If,” He says, “you do not know how to explain the movement or the path of this wind that you perceive through hearing and touch, why are you so anxious about the working of the Divine Spirit, when you do not understand the working of the wind, though you hear its voice?” The expression “blows where it wishes” also serves to establish the power of the Comforter. For if no one can hold back the wind, and it moves where it wishes, much less will the laws of nature, or the limits of bodily generation, or anything of that kind be able to restrain the workings of the Spirit. That the expression “you hear its voice” refers to the wind is clear from this: when speaking with an unbeliever who knew nothing of the Spirit’s work, He would not have said, “You hear its voice.” Just as the wind is invisible, although it makes a sound, so the birth of what is spiritual is invisible to our bodily eyes. Yet the wind is a body, though a very fine one, for everything perceived by the senses is a body. If, then, you do not complain because you cannot see this body, and do not disbelieve on that account, why do you hesitate when you hear of “the Spirit” and demand such precise explanations, although you do not act this way in the case of a body? What, then, does Nicodemus do? He still clings to his low Jewish view, even after such a clear example has been given to him. So when he again asks doubtfully, Ver. 9, 10. “How can these things be?” Christ now speaks to him more reproachfully: “Are you a teacher in Israel, and yet you do not know these things?” Notice how He never accuses the man of wickedness, but only of weakness and lack of understanding. “And what,” someone may ask, “does this birth have in common with Jewish matters?” Tell me instead what it does not have in common with them. For the first-created man, the woman formed from his side, the barren women, and the things accomplished through water—I mean the events involving the spring where Elisha made the iron tool float, the Red Sea that the Jews crossed, the pool that the Angel stirred, and Naaman the Syrian, who was cleansed in the Jordan—all these foretold, through a figure, the Birth and purification that were to come. And the Prophet’s words allude to the manner of this Birth: “A coming generation will be announced to the Lord, and they will announce His righteousness to a people who will be born, whom the Lord has made” ( Ps. xxii. 30; xxx. 31 , LXX.); and, “Your youth will be renewed like an eagle’s” ( Ps. ciii. 5 , LXX.); and, “Shine, Jerusalem; look, Your King is coming!” ( Isa. lx. 1; Zech. ix. 9 ); and, “Blessed are those whose sins are forgiven.” ( Ps. xxxii. 1 , LXX.) Isaac too was a type of this Birth. Tell me, Nicodemus, how was he born? Was it according to the law of nature? Certainly not. The manner of his generation stood midway between the birth we are discussing and natural birth: natural because he was begotten through sexual union, and like the other because he was begotten not of blood (but by the will of God). I will show that these figures foretold not only this birth but also the birth from the Virgin. For because no one would readily have believed that a virgin could bear a child, barren women did so first, and then women who were not only barren but also old. A woman being made from a rib was far more wonderful than a barren woman conceiving. But because that happened in the distant past, another figure, new and fresh, was given—that of the barren women—to prepare the way for belief in the Virgin’s labor in childbirth. To remind him of these things, Jesus said, “Are you a teacher in Israel, and yet you do not know these things?” Ver. 11. “We speak of what We know and testify to what We have seen, and no one accepts Our testimony.” He added this to make His words credible through another argument, adapting His speech to the other man’s weakness. [3.] And what does He mean when He says, “We speak of what We know and testify to what We have seen”? Because sight is the most trustworthy of our senses, when we want someone to believe us, we say that we saw something with our own eyes, rather than that we know it by hearsay. So Christ speaks to him in a more human way, using this means too to gain belief for His words. That this is what He is doing, that He means to establish nothing else, and that He is not referring to bodily sight is clear from this: after saying, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit,” He adds, “We speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen.” Now this (of the Spirit) had not yet been born. How, then, does He say, “what we have seen”? Is it not clear that He is simply speaking of exact knowledge? “And no one accepts our testimony.” He uses the expression “we know,” then, either of Himself and His Father or of Himself alone. And “no one accepts” is the statement of someone declaring a fact, not someone expressing displeasure. For He did not say, “Who could be more senseless than you, who do not accept what we have explained so precisely?” Showing complete gentleness in both His works and His words, He said nothing like this. Mildly and kindly, He foretold what would happen, guiding us too toward complete gentleness and teaching us not to become annoyed or furious when we speak with people and fail to persuade them. For someone who loses his temper cannot accomplish his purpose; he will only make the person he is speaking to even more doubtful. So we must keep away from anger and make our words credible in every way by avoiding not only rage but also loud speech, for loud speech fuels passion. Let us then tie up the horse so that we can subdue the rider. Let us clip the wings of our anger so that this evil can no longer rise high. Anger is a fierce passion—fierce and skilled at stealing our souls. So we must guard against its entrance from every direction. It would be strange if we could tame wild beasts yet neglected our own savage minds. Anger is a raging fire; it devours everything. It harms the body, destroys the soul, and makes a person’s appearance distorted and ugly. If an angry person could see himself while he was angry, he would need no other warning, for nothing is more unpleasant than an angry face. Anger is a kind of drunkenness, or rather, it is more terrible than drunkenness and more pitiable than (possession of) a demon. But if we take care not to speak loudly, we will find this the best path to sober conduct. That is why Paul would remove shouting as well as anger when he says, “Let all anger and shouting be put away from you.” ( Eph. iv. 31.) Let us obey this teacher of all wisdom, and when we are angry with our servants, let us consider our own offenses and feel ashamed in the face of their patience. For when you are insulting and your servant bears your insults in silence, when you behave disgracefully and he behaves like a wise man, take this as a warning in place of any other. Although he is your servant, he is still a man, has an immortal soul, and has been honored with the same gifts as you by your common Lord. And if someone who is our equal in more important and more spiritual things so meekly bears our mistreatment because of some paltry, trivial human advantage we hold over him, what pardon can we deserve? What excuse can we make, when we cannot—or rather, will not—act as wisely out of fear of God as he does out of fear of us? Considering all these things, and remembering our own transgressions and our shared human nature, let us take care to speak gently at all times, so that, being humble in heart, we may find rest for our souls, both now and in the life to come. May we all attain this through the grace and loving kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Glory be to the Father and the Holy Spirit, together with Him, forever and ever. Amen.