[Sidenote: Necessity of Regeneration.] “But must every one have this entire change of heart before he can be saved?”
“Yes, dearest, it is a doctrine many don’t like to believe, or to hear about, because they think it makes the way to heaven too strait and narrow; but do you remember anything Jesus said about it, when He was speaking to inquiring Nicodemus?”
[Sidenote: What Jesus says of it.] “Oh, yes,” said Emma, “you have put me in mind of the verse now—‘Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’”
“You are quite correct,” replied the old lady. “That same blessed Saviour never spoke an unkind word, and He would never have uttered this, unless it was a solemn truth, ‘Marvel not that I said unto you, Ye _must_ be _born again_.’”
“But if the sinner,” asked Emma, “is justified in the sight of God, and God calls him ‘_not guilty_,’ and _pardons_ him, and says of him there is _no condemnation_, what more does he require, in order to be saved?”
[Sidenote: A Change of State and a Change of Heart must go together.] “A great deal more,” replied her grandmother. “Let me ask you,” said she to Emma, “two questions, which may help to explain the matter to you. If a king pardoned a rebel, and if that rebel still hated his sovereign, and sought to kill him, would it be safe for the king to receive the ungrateful rebel into his palace?”
“Or, if a father received back a prodigal son; but if that son _continued_ prodigal as ever, breaking, with fresh sin, his poor old father’s heart, and corrupting his other brothers, could that father permit him to live in his house?”
“Well, dearest, what would require to be done to make it safe for the king to keep company with the rebel he had pardoned; and the father to take the son to live with him in his own household?”
“If they had changed and better hearts,” said Emma.
“You have just given again the answer I wanted,” said her grandmother. “I want you to see it is the same with the sinner. God the _King_ has pardoned the _sinner‐rebel_. God the _Father_ has adopted the _sinner‐prodigal_; but He never could receive him into His glorious palace of heaven, unless what?”
[Sidenote: Change of Heart in Regeneration needed for Heaven.] “Oh, unless his heart is _changed_,” exclaimed Emma. “I understand it now. He must have a _holy_ heart,—a heart to love God and hate sin. I see quite well he could not get into heaven with an unchanged heart!”