Again, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, _He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me_, HATH everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment; but is passed from death unto life." (John v. 24.) "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life." (John vi. 47.) "But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, _believing, ye might have life through His name_." (John xx. 31.) All these passages go to prove that the only way in which we can get this new and everlasting life is by simply receiving the record concerning Christ. All who believe that record, _have_ this new, this eternal life. Mark, it is not those who merely _say_ they believe, but those who actually _do believe_, according to the sense of the word in the foregoing passages. There is life-giving power in the Christ whom the Word reveals, and in the Word which reveals Him. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live." And then, lest ignorance should marvel or skepticism sneer at the idea of dead souls hearing, it is added, "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment." (John v. 25, 28, 29.) The Lord Christ can make dead souls, as well as dead bodies, hear His quickening voice. It is by His mighty voice that life can be communicated to either body or soul. If the infidel or the skeptic reasons and objects, it is simply because he makes his own vain mind the standard of what ought to be, and thus entirely shuts out God. This is the climax of folly. But the reader may feel disposed to inquire, What has all this to do with the word "water," in John iii. 5? It has to do with it, inasmuch as it shows that the new birth is produced, the new life communicated, by the voice of Christ,--which is really the word of God, as we read in the first chapter of James, "Of His own will begat He us _with the word of truth_." (ver. 18.) So also in 1 Peter, "_Being born again_, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, _by the word of God_, which liveth and abideth forever." (Pet. i. 23.) In both these passages the Word is expressly set forth as the instrument by which the new birth is produced. James declares that we are begotten "by the Word of truth"; and Peter declares that we are "born again by the word of God." If, then, our Lord speaks of being "born of water," it is obvious that He represents the Word under the significant figure of "water,"--a figure which "a master of Israel" might have understood, had he only studied aright Ezekiel xxxvi. 25-27.