everything which Jesus did and taught is related in Holy Scripture. St.John writes thus at the end of his Gospel (21, 15): ‘‘There are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written!” Christian revelation is, therefore, only partly contained in Holy Scripture.
In His Discourse with Nicodemus our Lord has revealed to us the chief truths of the Christian religion.
1. The Holy Trinity. The words of our Lord imply that there are three Persons in God: God the Father, who gave His only-begotten Son, and the Holy Ghost, of whom man must be born again.
2. The Incarnation. The only-begotten Son of God, who came into the world, is also the Son of Man, the divine and human natures being in Him united in one Person.
3. The Sufferings of Christ. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” Jesus therefore knew definitely from the beginning that He would die on the Cross; and His bitter Passion and Death were ever before Him! To offer Himself on the Cross was the object of His Incarnation!
4. The Object of His Passion and Death is also clearly stated in the words: “that the world may be saved by Him”, and “that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting”. He willed to suffer and die in order to save man from eternal loss, and obtain happiness for him. He died for all men, and is therefore the Redeemer of the whole world.
5. The infinite Love of God. Why was it the will of the Son of God to redeem us? What was the motive of His Incarnation and Death? It was, in a word, His infinite and divine love for man. “God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son!” What! God, the Most Holy, loved the world, laden with sin and a curse! He loved the men who had offended Him and turned against Him millions of times. And He loved them so much as to give for them all that was greatest and dearest, even His only-begotten Son, to suffer for them humility, poverty, persecution, and even a miserable death upon the Cross! O, unfathomable and inconceivable love of God!
6. The necessity of Baptism. Only he who is born again of water and of the Holy Ghost has any part in the kingdom of God. By Baptism man becomes a member of God’s kingdom upon earth, i. e. the Church of Jesus Christ, and an heir of God’s kingdom in heaven. Thus Baptism is absolutely necessary to salvation.
7. Original sin. The words of our Lord testify to the existence of original sin. They suppose that by our natural birth we have not that spiritual divine life in our soul which was given to our first parents in Paradise, and consequently that we have lost the principle of that
