“Yes, dearest, it is a doctrine many don’t like to believe, or to hear about, because they think it makes the way to heaven too strait and narrow; but do you remember anything Jesus said about it, when He was speaking to inquiring Nicodemus?”
|What Jesus says of it.| “Oh, yes,” said Emma, “you have put me in mind of the verse now—‘Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’”
“You are quite correct,” replied the old lady. “That same blessed Saviour never spoke an unkind word, and He would never have uttered this, unless it was a solemn truth, ‘Marvel not that I said unto you, Ye must be born again.’”
“But if the sinner,” asked Emma, “is justified in the sight of God, and God calls him ‘not guilty,’ and pardons him, and says of him there is no condemnation, what more does he require, in order to be saved?”
|A Change of State and a Change of Heart must go together.| “A great deal more,” replied her grandmother. “Let me ask you,” said she to Emma, “two questions, which may help to explain the matter to you. If a king pardoned a rebel, and if that rebel still hated his sovereign, and sought to kill him, would it be safe for the king to receive the ungrateful rebel into his palace?”
“No!” replied Emma.
“Or, if a father received back a prodigal son; but if that son continued prodigal as ever, breaking, with fresh sin, his poor old father’s heart, and corrupting his other brothers, could that father permit him to live in his house?”
“No, surely,” still replied Emma.
“Well, dearest, what would require to be done to make it safe for the king to keep company with the rebel he had pardoned; and the father to take the son to live with him in his own household?”
“If they had changed and better hearts,” said Emma.