THAT one must be born anew before he can appreciate the true idea of Church is self-evident. Christ Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born again before he could see the kingdom of God. This seemed strange to Nicodemus, who had little apprehension of spiritual rebirth although he recognized that Jesus' works were beyond human ability.
Jesus made a distinction between material and spiritual birth and illustrated this by saying (John 3:8), "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit."
The new birth comes as one beholds man, made in the image and likeness of God, who is incorporeal and self-existent Life, Mind, and Love. This rebirth is an awakening from the mortal dream of life in matter, wherein man is supposed to have been born materially, subject to the false beliefs of sin, sickness, and death. Man reflects only good from his heavenly Father, and anything else which seems to enter into his experience is but the evidence of the material senses, which must be denied on the basis of its unreality.
