When, therefore, our Lord tells Nicodemus that only those who were born again, or born from above (there is a justification for each rendering--ἄνωθεν, perhaps, unites the force of both), can see the kingdom of God, He tells him that the vision of the true state of man,--of that order which is intended for men,--is only given to those who receive the Light which lighteneth all men. Theirs is the nobler, better birth--the divine birth; and theirs is the power of perceiving that kingdom which surrounds all men, to which all are subject, but which, being the kingdom of God, and not the kingdom of the Cæsar, does not act upon men through material armies, and tax-gatherers at the receipt of custom,--does not manifest its power and majesty to the outward eye. This kingdom is over the man himself, not over his accidents and circumstances; he must be a man, not a creature of these accidents and circumstances, in order to see it; and that capacity of being a man he must derive not from flesh and blood, but from the Father of his spirit. This conversation by night must have been remembered and recorded by Nicodemus himself. As he repeated it to St. John,--probably long after that day when he came with spices to anoint the body of Jesus in the tomb,--the words which had been spoken to him, and the words which he had spoken, must have come fresh to his memory; the meaning of the one, the deep ignorance of the other, seen by the light that fell upon them from the experiences and the revelations of after years. As he was an honest man, he did not suppress or soften his own answer to the '_Verily, verily_,' of Christ. '_How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born?_' In truth, he had no cause to be ashamed of himself for having stated his difficulty in that rough way. To veil it under seemly phrases would have been no evidence of enlightenment.