The evangelist John adds, “But he spake of the temple of his body.” We have no intimation that Jesus attempted to rectify the error into which they had fallen. And it is difficult to assign any satisfactory reason why he should have left them to ponder his dark saying. Human frailty is often bewildered in the attempt to explicate infinite wisdom. Probably the fame of Jesus had already reached Jerusalem. His wonderful achievement, in thus cleansing the temple, must have excited universal astonishment. Many were inclined to attach themselves to him as a great prophet. There was at that time residing in Jerusalem a man of much moral worth, by the name of Nicodemus. He was rich, was in the highest circles of society, a teacher of the Jewish law, and a member of the Sanhedrim, the supreme council of the nation. He sought an interview with Jesus at night, that he might enjoy uninterrupted conversation, or, as is more probable, because he had not sufficient moral courage to go to him openly. In the following words he announced to Jesus his full conviction of his prophetic character: “Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him.” Jesus did not wait for any questions to be asked. With apparent abruptness, and without any exchange of salutations, he said solemnly, as if rebuking the assumption that he, the Lamb of God, had come to the world merely as a teacher, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus ought to have understood this language. The “new birth” was no new term, framed now for the first time. The proselytes from heathenism, having been received into the Jewish fold by circumcision and baptism, in token of the renewal of their hearts, were said to be “born again.” Jesus, adopting this perfectly intelligible language, informed Nicodemus that it was not by intellectual conviction merely that one became a member of the Messiah’s kingdom, but by such a renovation of soul, that one might be said to be born again,――old things having passed away, and all things having become new. Nicodemus, who perhaps, in pharisaic pride, imagined that he had attained the highest stage of the religious life, was probably a little irritated in being told that he needed this change of heart to gain admission to the kingdom of God; and, in his irritation, allowed himself in a very stupid cavil. “How can a man,” said he, “be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?”