Jesus and Nicodemus: Fourth of Four Illustrations

Being reborn is like turning the lights on in a darkened room.
4) light and darkness: Just as, in Genesis, God’s word divided the light from the darkness, so now Jesus, the Light of the world, came into the world and divided those who love the Light from those who embrace the darkness.

It isn’t really intellectual issues with complicated concepts that keep people from trusting in the Lord Jesus. According to this passage, the real problem is moral and spiritual blindness that keep people loving the darkness and hating the light.

Nobody really likes being shown to be wrong. That’s why it can be so hard to change. What have you been defending, and resisting changing with every last ounce of your strength? The light of God’s truth exposes what’s wrong within you and me and that truth presents a dilemma. Acknowledge we’ve been embracing sin, or change.

Verse 21 is the key

Whoever does the truth comes to the light so that it can be seen that their actions were done in God. (John 3:21)

In other words, if you are willing to begin obeying the truth, even when that means that sin will be exposed in your life, then change will take place.

This is called repentance.

When you acknowledge that something is wrong, and it has to change. This process begins with a recognition, a conviction deep inside, that something is not right in your life and you want it to be right. There is only one person Who can make it right. The Lord Jesus Christ.

In order to love the light you will have to hate the darkness

You can’t love what’s wrong and love God at the same time. You can’t love Jesus and your own sin.

The bottom line is that you and I have to pick, and what we pick carries immediate and eternal implications. To pick Jesus means coming into the light, knowing that God’s light will expose the sin in your life. There will be some painful times involved in that, in fact, the Bible describes it as being like dying. But what will really happen is that you will be freed from corruption and death, and you will have, starting now, eternal life.

Where might you be habitually choosing to scoot away from the light of God’s truth because it’s uncomfortable, and you don’t want to change? To reject Jesus means to stay in the darkness, stay under the condemnation of God’s judgement against sin, and to remain under the wrath of God, which will deal with all sin, ultimately.

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment by clicking on the word "comments" below, and join the conversation

Jesus and Nicodemus: Shocking Revelation

Here was Nicodemus’ next shocker,

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Pharisees despised all Gentiles, and held a very low view of most Jews. In fact the only people Pharisees really respected was each other. But God loves not just Jews, children of the promise. God loves the world, Gentiles included.

In fact, think about it. --> Everyone starts out in life as spiritually dead. But God sees the awfulness of sin. His wrath is poised to cleanse all of creation from sin, and He wants to rescue people because He loves people.

The rescue was going to be costly. It cost God pain, separation, being beaten and mocked, descent into darkness when the Lord Jesus, God the Son, was made sin for us in our place. It cost death. And He did all that so that people would not be corrupted by sin anymore, which would end in death, but could be cleaned, healed and have eternal life.

“Have” is immediate. Eternal life doesn’t just describe the duration, forever, but the quality of life, having the same spiritual life as God Himself.

The next verse gives you and me crucial insight into how we should be approaching people with the good news about Jesus

God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:17)

The Pharisees were expecting the Messiah to come as judge, to condemn all evildoers (the Gentiles and bad Jews) and destroy them, and restore Israel to its full glory.

How many people see God as mean and distant judge, never satisfied, not approachable? One of the main criticisms nonChristians have about Christians is judgmentalism, this constant sense of being disapproved of by Christians, being uncomfortable in church settings because of this pressure to look and act a certain way.

This isn’t God’s way at all. His way is love and compassion and understanding. Jesus did not come to condemn, or to point His finger at people and tell them what terrible sinners they are. Instead Jesus’ way with even blatant sinners was always sensing their hurt and their need, and their shame and loneliness.

This doesn’t mean that the Lord Jesus was indifferent to sin. He knows we can’t be free until the sin issue has been solved in our lives. Jesus came to free us from the bondage of sin.

This is God’s gift, given in love, but His gift still requires a response

Whoever believes in him isn’t judged; whoever doesn’t believe in him is already judged, because they don’t believe in the name of God’s only Son.(John 3:18)

The Bible takes the position that humankind is living under the wrath of God all the time. He sees the evil that mars His creation and destroys the people He loves, and God intends to get rid of it. God’s wrath consumes evil and wickedness not as the opposite of His love, but as the expression of His love. God will protect and set free the object of His affection.

It’s not people God seeks to destroy but the sin that destroys His people. In that sense God’s wrath is far more a cure than it is a punishment. It’s primary purpose is not to hurt us but to heal us.

But that’s not to say that God’s wrath doesn’t ultimately consume people as well. His wrath has been described as a refiner’s fire that purifies. But sometimes God’s presence also brought the end to people’s lives when He was dealing with their sin. God’s wrath, as it consumes sin will also consume people who have become so ensared by sin that they are no longer interested in reaching out to God’s mercy.

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment by clicking on the word "comments" below, and join the conversation

Jesus and Nicodemus: Third of Four Illustrations

Jesus had given Nicodemus two real life, earthly illustrations. Now they were going to move into theology. Since Nicodemus was a devoted teacher of the Bible Jesus moved to scripture by first identifying Himself as the Son of Man, a phrase that clearly indicated Jesus was the Messiah, and then giving Nicodemus his third illustration,

No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. (John 3:13-15)

3) Snake: This story is found in Numbers 21:4-9

The Israelites had to go around the territory of Edom, so when they left Mount Hor, they headed south toward the Red Sea. But along the way, the people became so impatient that they complained against God and said to Moses, "Did you bring us out of Egypt, just to let us die in the desert? There's no water out here, and we can't stand this awful food!"

Then the LORD sent poisonous snakes that bit and killed many of them.

Some of the people went to Moses and admitted, "It was wrong of us to insult you and the LORD. Now please ask him to make these snakes go away."

Moses prayed, and the LORD answered, "Make a snake out of bronze and place it on top of a pole. Anyone who gets bitten can look at the snake and won't die."

Moses obeyed the LORD. And all of those who looked at the bronze snake lived, even though they had been bitten by the poisonous snakes.

Lifted up had a dual meaning.
--> The first was Jesus being lifted up on the cross. The people had sinned, and they were under the condemnation of God because of it.

The snakes were their judgment. There were too many serpents, and they were too deadly to try and kill them. There was no known antidote They couldn’t just pretend they weren’t there -- like we try denial today, ignore a problem, maybe it will go away. Passing anti-serpent laws wouldn’t change anything. There was nowhere they could go, nowhere they could hide. They were unable to rescue themselves, and everyone would have died.

The bronze snake, nailed to a pole, was their only hope of rescue. It was the image of their sin of not trusting God, and calling His provision for them detestable. They had to look to that symbol of sin and judgement, and believe God’s promise in order to literally be saved from dying.

Jesus was saying “When Moses lifted that serpent in the wilderness, he was displaying a symbol of Me. I will be made sin for the sake of saving the people from eternal death.”

--> Jesus also made an allusion to the other time He would be lifted up off the earth, when He would rise from the dead and ascend into heaven, where He would be raised to all authority, and currently rules as the king in the kingdom of God. Believing in the cross and the resurrection is the same as believing in the snake in the desert.

One day Nicodemus would remember all this when Jesus really was nailed to the pole of a cross and lifted up to die.

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment by clicking on the word "comments" below, and join the conversation

Jesus and Nicodemus: Second of Four Illustrations

In order to help Nicodemus understand the concept of being born of water (God's word) and the Spirit (of God), Jesus gave His second illustration, concerning the Spirit,

2) Wind:

"God’s Spirit blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going.” (John 3:8, first half)

The word “wind” in both Hebrew and Greek is the same word for “spirit.” As Nicodemus felt the wind brush against him, and saw the leaves fluttering in the trees Jesus explained that like the wind the Holy Spirit is invisible but powerful, and you can’t predict, explain or control the movements of the wind.

"It’s the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8, second half)

Regeneration is partly a mystery, it’s all internal, you can’t fully explain it, and there are no physical steps you can take to make it happen, God does it, but you and I can see the evidence of it.
Nicodemus could hardly take it all in. “How could this be?”

But Jesus wouldn’t let him off the hook. If Nicodemus was the teacher of Israel, then he had all he needed in the scriptures themselves to know what Jesus was talking about. He should know that
Isaiah spoke of new life from God;
Jeremiah had predicted a new creation that would be given;
Ezekiel had said God would take out the old heart of stone and replace it with a new heart and His own Spirit.

How often do you and I study the Bible with a preconceived idea of what the answer is, rather than really reading what it says? What have you been trying to understand using your own intellect, without God’s guidance and the help of His Spirit?

To enter the kingdom of God, you must be born again

What spiritual issues have you been trying to solve with earthly solutions? In our natural state people can’t understand spiritual truth, or comprehend the kingdom of God. So often you and I get hung up on behavior before we start talking about the gospel. You have to be born again to even understand how behavior relates to the inner person.

The Pharisees spent all of their energy on the externals. Good behavior was the important thing to them, not what was going on in their hearts. It made me think about my own parenting.

Think how discouraging that is to require good behavior from someone who isn’t good – how often have you and I done that to ourselves, to our children, to others in our lives, setting an impossible standard of good behavior without addressing the need for a changed heart, filled with the goodness of God?

Good behavior doesn’t make you or me a good person. Only being born again can accomplish that by receiving God’s goodness within, in new life.

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment by clicking on the word "comments" below, and join the conversation

Jesus and Nicodemus: First of Four Illustrations

Jesus gave Nicodemus four different ways to think about this radical new concept,
1) Birth:

“I assure you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom." (John 3:5)

Rabbis of Jesus day were actually familiar with this idea but to them it was completely external. It meant making vows and going through a purification ritual in order to enter into a new order, like the Pharisees, or even to become a Jew. Jesus added a profound new dimension

We often talk about a Christian being someone who gives one's life to God, but first we need to describe a Christian as someone who gets one's life from God.

The same way people enter into the physical world by being born physically, people enter into the spiritual kingdom of God being born spiritually.

"Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit." (John 3:6)

One can’t adapt to the new kingdom. You have to be born again, born from above. You need to be a whole new person, born into the kingdom.

Rebirth is that act by which the Holy Spirit puts His eternal life into a person who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. "Rebirth" in theological terms is referred to as regeneration. Regeneration takes what was once dead spiritually and causes it to be born again in newness of life.

The Holy Spirit recreates the human heart, putting into your heart, and mine, an inclination towards God and a desire for the things of God. Just as the child inherits the nature of her parents, so does the child of God. The born again person has God’s nature within.

Just as there are two parents for physical birth, there are two parents for spiritual birth: water, which in the Bible often symbolizes the Word of God, which refreshes and purifies, and the Spirit of God Who enlivens. When put together, believing God’s word and being enlivened by the Holy Spirit, new life begins.

This news rocked Nicodemus to the core. He was a Jew, born of Abraham, child of the covenant, circumcised and keeper of the law. But inwardly he was spiritually dead, as the Bible describes everyone to be. The reason people fail to do what is right is because there is something wrong with who we are. Who we are needs to change, not just what we do.

The Lord Jesus must have seen the shock on Nicodemus face because He said “Don’t look at me like that!”

"Don’t be surprised that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’"(John 3:7)

and He gave Nicodemus a second illustration...


If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment by clicking on the word "comments" below, and join the conversation

Jesus and Nicodemus: Be Born Again

Nicodemus was a powerful man in Jerusalem society. He was a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews. He was a member of the Sanhedrin, the council of seventy men who ran the religious affairs of the nation and who had religious authority over every Jew anywhere in the world.

The Pharisees originated in around 135 to 105 B.C. These were devout and courageous men who had stood firm against Greek idolatry and the fierce religious persecution of their day. Each man had taken a vow before three witnesses that he would devote every moment of his entire life to obeying God’s Law.

A group formed within the Pharisees called the scribes who studied the Law and worked out how to apply it to ever aspect of life. They compiled their work into a book called the Mishnah - which was considered more binding than scripture - and a commentary on the Mishnah called the Talmud.

Pharisees considered themselves as spiritually and morally superior to all other people and they were right on many points of doctrine: they believed in the resurrection of dead, the existence of spirits, and rewards and punishments in the future life.

But they also believed in an externalized religion - that if you were a Jew, strict observance of the law and the oral traditions was enough to please God and guaranteed entry to heaven. Nicodemus was a man of high moral character, deep religious hunger, but he had profound spiritual blindness and he didn’t even know it.

Imagine Nicodemus making his way through the Jerusalem streets after nightfall. The wind in the desert always picks up when the sun goes down, so it was blowing through the trees and between the houses. People typically had their living rooms up on the roofs of their houses to enjoy these cool breezy evenings, so there was always a staircase leading up the side of the house to the roof. This is probably where Nicodemus came that night, to meet with Jesus.

Maybe he was being careful not to get in trouble with the Sanhedrin, but maybe he wanted a private audience, too. His approach was cautious and respectful, calling Jesus “Rabbi,” even though Jesus was not an official rabbi, and had no diploma or credentials except for these miraculous signs

“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could do these miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.” (John 3:2)

That’s an insight. Nicodemus, and evidently some other members of the Sanhedrin, thought they saw something in Jesus. So Jesus answered

“I assure you, unless someone is born anew, it’s not possible to see God’s kingdom.” (John 3:3)

“See” means to understand, or to know in an experiential way. “Born again” carried three meanings with it:
(1) to be born a second time
(2) to be born in a radically and totally new way and
(3) to be born from above, from God.

This went completely against everything Nicodemus had ever been taught, and that he himself had taught. He knew what Jesus was saying, but what Jesus was saying sounded it impossible.

“How can I make myself get born again?”

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment by clicking on the word "comments" below, and join the conversation

Jesus and Nicodemus: Only A Few Truly Believe

Even though many people believed in Jesus as a prophet, and maybe even as Messiah, they did not surrender their hearts, and so Jesus did not entrust Himself to them.

Jesus’ insight reminds me of an article I read las year about an English chef who’s trying to get people to eat healthier by teaching them to cook with fresh ingredients rather than eat fast food, fried food and packaged food. Everybody believes he’s right. But they’re not changing their lifestyle, and here’s why, I quote:

“What’s really happening is about more than old habits dying hard or the love of frying. The reason the world is still waiting for the Messiah is that most people don’t actually want one, no matter how many fresh fruits and vegetables he’s carrying.”

In the same way, the people enjoyed Jesus’ miracles of healing, but they didn’t really want a Messiah, not the Jesus kind. So the Lord Jesus would only entrust Himself to those few who would follow Him and commit their hearts to Him, to those who would listen to Him and get to know Him.

Jesus will entrust Himself to you only when you entrust yourself to Him

What has Jesus been showing you about Himself in this passage?
* Is He showing you His graciousness, as someone you can trust, someone who is deeply interested in what is going on in your life?
* Or is He showing you that He is intolerant of sin, that if you don’t confess to Him now and repent, the time is coming when He will do something about that sin Himself?
* Or is He showing you He has authority over all of life, including yours? That you will need to bow to His authority or you’re going to break in your current circumstances?

Entrusting yourself to Jesus is more than being part of a religious system. Take some time to think about what a superficial faith is like.
--> A superficial faith reduces Christianity to a philosophy, a formula, a system of rituals.
--> A superficial faith keeps worship on Sunday and has real life on the other six days.
--> It says that religion is something private, a matter of opinion, a sidebar to the things of life.

Entrusting yourself to Jesus is not about being religious, or following a formula, or subscribing to a particular philosophy of life. Entrusting yourself to Jesus means
+ Believing He is Who He says He is.
+ Being in a relationship with Him, a real relationship, an every day relationship.

This is what following Jesus really means, and what His disciples were beginning to understand, and Nicodemus was beginning to suspect.

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment by clicking on the word "comments" below, and join the conversation

Jesus and Nicodemus: Jesus' Authority Not Realized

If the miracle of changing water into wine displayed the Lord Jesus’ power of creation by a mere spoken word, then this sign of fulfilling Malachi’s prophecy and cleansing His Father’s house displayed Jesus’ authority. God is sovereign over everything in the universe

1) God determines the outcome of all things according to His wise purposes. Because God is sovereign, what happens in our lives is due, ultimately, to what God has ordained, in accordance with His wise purpose. Jesus was fulfilling a prophecy that had been made hundreds of years before.

God intended that Messiah would be recognized by this very act. Knowing God is in control gives meaning, comfort and security during difficulties and temptations.

3) God's decree governs history. God does not adjust His plan according to the events of human history. In fact, God knew all along how the temple ministry would become corrupted, and He prepared for Messiah to cleanse the temple as a sign of what Messiah would ultimately do for each person -- cleansing them of sin, and restoring them to be pleasing to God.

3) God is in control of His universe, nothing is outside the scope of His rule. God controls and guides all events for His glory and for the good of believers.

But if God is sovereign, a person might ask, then how come God's desires are not always realized, such as the salvation of all people [I Timothy 2:4], even though it would please Him?

People who have been born again have God’s Holy Spirit and know what pleases God. God, in fact, has given every believer the ability to please Him, and yet so often, we don't. God talks about being grieved over sin and death, taking no pleasure in it, yet everybody dies. Does that make Him less than sovereign?

If God is sovereign, then, how come God's Word is not always obeyed, even though God commanded it? Clearly, the religious leaders were not honoring God's intent for the use of the temple, for the temple tax and for the inspection of sacrifices. Even more so, they were not even obeying God's actual Law about not burdening the poor, not stealing and so on. Did the religious rulers view God as sovereign over them?

God's laws, whether written in Scripture, or written on our hearts, is binding and we have no authority to rebel against it. But God has allowed us the power, or the ability, to defy His declared will.

God is not surprised by evil, God does not approve of evil. But God has sovereignly decreed that people exercise their ability to make moral choices – choosing between good and evil. Sin is proof that God doesn't control people the way you and I would control a puppet.

God is all-knowing and all-powerful. God gives real choices and works out His will within them. He is able to work in, around and through people to insure the outworking of His purposes. If God were any less sovereign He wouldn't be able to give people moral freedom because He would not be able to guarantee that His will would be done.

After this Jesus performed many miracles, and we see here that

While Jesus was in Jerusalem for the Passover Festival, many believed in his name because they saw the miraculous signs that he did. (John 2:23)

These were all signs pointing to Jesus’ authority, but the religious leaders missed it. They had asked for a sign, and though they didn’t deserve it, Jesus gave them many.

Only one member of the religious ruling body was willing to accept what those signs really meant.

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment by clicking on the word "comments" below, and join the conversation

Jesus and Nicodemus: Answering the religious leaders

As upset as they were, the religious leaders did not try to get Jesus arrested, or even try to publicly rebuke Him. Instead, as Jesus stood there with His whip of cords, and the vendors were scrambling to pick up the pieces,

The Jews asked him, “By what authority are you doing these things? What miraculous sign will you show us?” (John 2:18)

Remember that these were the Bible experts, the religious leaders. Right before their very eyes Malachi’s prophecy had been fulfilled. If the disciples thought of Psalm 69, you can bet many others, including the priest and Pharisees, could have thought of it too. Besides, everyone by now had heard John’s testimony concerning Jesus.

What they were really doing was creating a situation where they could push guilt onto Jesus so that they would not have to admit to their own guilt.

Jesus answered with a mashal, veiled remark in the form of a riddle, a very classical Jewish way of teaching and something rabbis used all the time. But the religious leaders decided to take it literally in order to avoid allowing the true meaning of Jesus’ mashal to come out – remember all the people crowding around them, listening in. They refused to admit their guilt.

What Jesus’ mashal meant was: “You leaders, through your unbelief, and your rebellion and wickedness, you are in the process of destroying the Messiah, the true sanctuary of God, and in that process you will also bring about the destruction of this actual temple and your entire religious system.

"However, in three days, I will raise up My body, and as a result I will establish a new temple, made of living people, and My church will worship Me in spirit and in truth, and not in this complicated religious system you’ve devised.”

Standing there with his fellow Pharisees, and a prominent member of the Sanhedrin, stood Nicodemus. Apparently, Jesus' words were penetrating his mind and heart, and he couldn't stop thinking about the implications of Jesus' mashal.

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment by clicking on the word "comments" below, and join the conversation

Blended Gospels: Jesus and Nicodemus

Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him."

Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."

Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?"

Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

"Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?"

Jesus answered him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.

"If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

"Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

"And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."

[John 2:23-3:21, ESV]

If this post got you to thinking, please leave a comment by clicking on the word "comments" below, and join the conversation