These people refused Jesus because He didn’t belong to their set.  In their utterly selfish prejudice and wilful ignorance, these leaders shut Him out from the circles they controlled.  But with great graciousness He received into His circle any, of any circle, high or low, who would receive Him into their hearts.  To as many as received Him into their hearts He opened the door into His own family.  He gave them the technical right of becoming children of His Father.

Their part of the thing is put very simply in two ways.  They believed.  They were told, they listened and thought, they accepted as true, they risked what they counted most precious, they loved.  So they believed.  And so they received. The door opened, the inner door, the heart door.  He went in.  That settled things for them.  When He graciously entered their hearts, the inner citadel of their lives, that settled their place in this oldest family of all.

How We Don’t Get In, and How We Do.

It is of intensest interest in our day to have John go on to tell, in his own simple taking way, just how we get into this God-family.  First of all, he tells us how we don’t get in.  Listen:  “not of blood,” that is, not by our natural generation; “nor of the will of the flesh,” that is, not by anything we can do of ourselves, though this has a place, a distinctly secondary place; “nor of the will of man,” that is, not by what somebody else can do for us, though this too has its place.

These are the three “nots”; the three ways we are not saved.  And it becomes of intensest interest to notice that these are the very three ways that the crowd is emphasizing to-day, some this, others that, as the way of being saved.  The three modern words we commonly use for these three “nots” of John are, family, culture, and influence.

Some of us seem to be fully expecting to walk into the presence of God, and to get all there is to be gotten there, because of the family we belong to.  This is probably stronger in some of us than we are conscious of.  It’s a matter of blood with us, our blood, our natural generation.  We take greatest pride in showing what blood it is that runs in our veins.  We trace the line far back to those whose names are well known.  And this sort of thing has overpowering influence in our human affairs down here.

His gracious majesty King George is King of England, because he is the child of Edward and Alexandra.  His one and only claim to the English throne is that at the time of accession he was their oldest living son.  But that won’t figure a farthing’s worth when he comes up to the hearthfire of God’s family.  And I think he understands this full well.  I’m expecting to see him there; not as King of England, but as a brother.

It is not a matter of blood.  It’s a blessed thing to be well-born.  It makes a tremendous difference to have the blood of an old noble family in one’s veins, if it is good clean blood.  But it’ll never save us.  Salvation is not by lineal descent, not by family line.  It is “not of blood.”  John clears that ground.