still have been very immature, but in time the true meaning of the Son
of God breaks through more and more clearly.

The declaration of Jesus to Nicodemus, "Ye must be born anew," is a
remarkable one--remarkable, because the Brahmans from the earliest times
make use of the same expression, and call themselves the reborn, the twice
born (Dvija), and both no doubt attributed the same meaning to the second
birth, namely, the recognition of the true nature of man, the Brahmans as
one with Brahman, that is, the Word; the Christians as one with the Word,
or the Son of God. And why should this belief in the Son give everlasting
life (ii. 16)? Because Jesus has through his own sonship in God declared
to us ours also. This knowledge gives us eternal life through the
conviction that we too have something divine and eternal within us,
namely, the word of God, the Son, whom He hath sent (v. 38). Jesus
himself, however, is the only begotten Son, the light of the world. He
first fulfilled and illumined the divine idea which lies darkly in all men
(see John viii. 12, xii. 35, 46), and made it possible for all men to
become actually what they have always been potentially--sons of God.

Further reading in the Fourth Gospel will of course show us many things
that are only indirectly connected with this, which I believe to be the
supreme truth of Christianity. To the woman of Samaria Jesus only declares
that God is a spirit, and that he must be worshipped in spirit, bound
neither to Jerusalem nor to Samaria. She knows only that the Messiah will
come, she was scarcely ready for the idea of a son of God, but like the
Pharisees (v. 18) would have considered this only as blasphemy (x. 33).
But again and again the keynote of the new teaching breaks through. When
Jesus speaks of his works, he calls them the works of his Father (v. 19);
even the resurrection from the dead is explained by him, as clearly as
possible, to be an awakening through the Word, "He that heareth my word,
and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life" (v. 14), which
means that he is immortal. He, however, who did not recognise the Word and
his divine nature, as Jesus taught it, does not yet possess that eternal
life, for which he is destined, but which must first be gained through
insight, or belief in Jesus. Can anything be clearer than the words (John
xvii. 3), "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou