Homilies on the Gospel of John — Homily 25

St. John Chrysostom

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3

Little children who go daily to their teachers receive their lessons, and repeat them, and never cease from this kind of acquisition, but sometimes employ nights as well as days, and this they are compelled to do for perishable and transient things. Now we do not ask of you who have come to age such toil as you require of your children; for not every day, but two days only in the week do we exhort you to hearken to our words, and only for a short portion of the day, that your task may be an easy one. For the same reason also we divide to you in small portions what is written in Scripture, that you may be able easily to receive and lay them up in the storehouses of your minds, and take such pains to remember them all, as to be able exactly to repeat them to others yourselves, unless any one be sleepy, and dull, and more idle than a little child.

Let us now attend to the sequel of what has been before said. When Nicodemus fell into error and wrested the words of Christ to the earthly birth, and said that it was not possible for an old man to be born again, observe how Christ in answer more clearly reveals the manner of the Birth, which even thus had difficulty for the carnal enquirer, yet still was able to raise the hearer from his low opinion of it. What says He? Verily I say unto you, Unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. What He declares is this: You say that it is impossible, I say that it is so absolutely possible as to be necessary, and that it is not even possible otherwise to be saved. For necessary things God has made exceedingly easy also. The earthly birth which is according to the flesh, is of the dust, and therefore heaven is walled against it, for what has earth in common with heaven? But that other, which is of the Spirit, easily unfolds to us the arches above. Hear, you as many as are unilluminated, shudder, groan, fearful is the threat, fearful the sentence. It is not (possible), He says, for one not born of water and the Spirit, to enter into the Kingdom of heaven; because he wears the raiment of death, of cursing, of perdition, he has not yet received his Lord's token, he is a stranger and an alien, he has not the royal watchword. Except, He says, a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven.

Yet even thus Nicodemus did not understand. Nothing is worse than to commit spiritual things to argument; it was this that would not allow him to suppose anything sublime and great. This is why we are called faithful, that having left the weakness of human reasonings below, we may ascend to the height of faith, and commit most of our blessings to her teaching; and if Nicodemus had done this, the thing would not have been thought by him impossible. What then does Christ? To lead him away from his groveling imagination, and to show that He speaks not of the earthly birth, He says, Unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into th