Following the Lord Jesus Christ: #12 Nicodemus

The cleansing of the Temple had stirred up the beginnings of a critical disputation between Jesus and the Jewish authorities. Remember that many had believed in Jesus’ name when they saw the signs which he had done. However, as Jesus well knew, believing based on miracles (signs) alone could merely be mental assent, and not necessarily a moving of the heart.

A Man Searching for the Answer

John 2:23-25 [NKJV]:
Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did.
But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men,
and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.

If we put together the last verse of John 2 with the first verse of John 3, we read: “…for he knew what was in man. There was a man….” That man, Nicodemus, a man very learned in the scriptures, had a great yearning to know what this new itinerant teacher, an apparently “unlearned” man, was about. Jesus on his part, did not “commit himself” unto any man, yet he was ready to share an enlightening exposition of God’s saving grace to one man who had humility.

Let’s follow Nicodemus, under the cover of night, to where Jesus was staying and listen in.

John 3:1,2 [NKJV]:
There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
This man came to Jesus by night…

Impressed by the signs Jesus had done, and seeing so many believe in his name, Nicodemus came to Jesus to find out more about this man who he believed had “come from God.” The miraculous can get people’s attention, and they will often want to find out about the power behind it.

Seeing the Signs

Today, you and I may have seen a sign, a wonder, or a miracle that sparked a desire in us to discover Jesus. But we believed from the heart that he is the savior, the Son of God, ultimately because of the Word of God that we heard or read.

John 20:30,31 [NKJV]:
And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book;
but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

We, of course, have the written Word of God readily available to us and we are learning it many years after Jesus had been raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of God. In retrospect, when we read John 1:14, we believe in Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh, because we read it in the written Word of God.

John 1:14 [NKJV]:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

A Teacher Come from God

Nicodemus, in his time, knew only the Old Testament scriptures, and was having some difficulty putting them together with the signs he had witnessed. And so, he went directly to the source, the Word of God made flesh; he went to Jesus to find answers.

John 3:2 [NKJV]:
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 held no cynical view of this man because he was a member of the Sanhedrin, nor did he have any excitement at the prospect of “winning one” for the cause. He made no compromise of the Word, he did not pander to Nicodemus, nor flatter him.

Jesus Answered

Rather, he recognized a searching heart, and he began to answer the unasked question, the question that every true Israelite would have asked: the when, how, and where of the promised coming of the kingdom of God.

John 3:3 [NKJV]:
Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

This startling statement not only sounded impossible to Nicodemus; it also ran contrary to traditional belief at the time. Many of the Sadducees and Pharisees believed that they were born to it, as descendants of Abraham, and so they would naturally inherit the kingdom of God. That is, if they could attain by their own efforts to the righteousness required to enter it (Matthew 3:7-10). This “born again” idea seemed entirely new to Nicodemus. So he asked, and Jesus answered.

John 3:4,5 [NKJV]:
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, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 

To Be Born Again

The gospel’s description of the second answer that Jesus gave, sounded almost identical to the first with only two notable changes.

Verse 3	Verse 5
Jesus answered	Jesus answered
Most assuredly, I say to you	Most assuredly, I say to you
Unless one is born again	Unless one is born of water and the Spirit
He cannot see the kingdom of God	He cannot enter the kingdom of God

To “see” the kingdom of God means to understand what the kingdom of God is. To “enter” the kingdom of God is the how of gaining entrance into it. Both the understanding and the entrance can only be accessed by way of the new birth, to be “born again,” also described as “born of water and the Spirit.” (See Baptism for more on this.)

Here was the answer sought by so many hungry hearts for thousands of years. And the man that we now know as the savior of the world was teaching it to one man under the cover of night. Jesus continued to teach Nicodemus even more.

John 3:6 [NKJV]:
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 

We know that the Jews looked for an earthly kingdom. At this time in history, they could hardly wait for the Messiah to overthrow the heavy-handed rule of the Romans. Yet, as Jesus explained to Nicodemus, the kingdom of God was not a kingdom of the flesh. Nor could the battle be won by men of the flesh, but only by those born of the spirit, true children of God.

John 1:11-13 [NKJV]:
He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 
who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Not of the Flesh, But of the Spirit

Jesus continued to reveal more to this “teacher of Israel.”

John 3:7,8 [NKJV]:
Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
The wind [pneuma = Spirit] blows where it wishes [He wills], and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit [pneuma].”

Just as the wind blows “where it wishes,” so also God, Who is spirit (John 4:24), is not bound to the will of man. All who are born of the flesh can “hear the sound of it,” that is, see or hear the effects of God’s power, as in the signs and wonders effected by it.

But no one merely born of flesh and blood can understand how God, Who is spirit, moves. Those who would know the things concerning the kingdom of God must first be born again. It’s not surprising to me that Nicodemus had another question for Jesus!

John 3:9,10 [NKJV]:
Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”
Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? 

Nicodemus had studied the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. He knew much about the kingdom of God. But how to enter it, if not by one’s own righteousness—this eluded him. Hearing and understanding a Word from God has always required the spiritual connection that Adam had forfeited by his disobedience: holy spirit.

God revealed Himself in the Old Testament to holy men and women by way of His spirit upon them. In this manner, they could receive the Word that God gave them, and then speak it or write it for others to hear and believe.

II Peter 1:20,21 [NKJV]:
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture [the written Word of God] is of any private interpretation, 
for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke [the spoken Word of God] as they were moved by the Holy Spirit [God].

You Do Not Know These Things?

Jesus was telling Nicodemus that, as a teacher of Israel, he could have and perhaps should have had a better understanding of the coming kingdom of God from his knowledge and learning in the Old Testament scriptures. And he did recognize certain signs of a coming king and kingdom–but a new, spiritual birth? Yet there is one section of scripture (among others) in Ezekiel that does come very close to spelling out what Jesus was teaching.

Ezekiel 36:25-28 [NKJV]:
Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
 Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. 

We read here from the Old Testament, of what we now know is the cleansing power of the baptism of repentance in water that John preached, and the new life-giving power of the baptism of Jesus in holy spirit. Jesus continued to instruct Nicodemus.

John 3:11,12 [NKJV]:
Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness.
If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

In Jewish learning and tradition, they had heard the story of the exodus from Egypt. They had read how the people had been supplied with “earthly things” such as the manna from heaven, quails to eat, water to drink from the rock. Did they believe these things came from God? At the time, the people complained about them and actually desired to go back into bondage in Egypt! Most of those in Nicodemus’ circles followed the same pattern of unbelief.

The Son of Man Lifted Up From Death to Life

The next verse is a parenthetical remark from John, the writer of this gospel, at the later time of his writing, to note that Jesus, the Son of Man, had accomplished his mission.

John 3:13 [NKJV]:
 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. 

In his next few words to Nicodemus, Jesus began to associate himself, God’s Son, the Son of Man, with the deliverance from death to life.

John 3:14,15 [NKJV]:
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 
that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

God, the Father in heaven, provided His Son on the earth, beginning as every man does, with a physical mother, Mary. (For more on “came down from heaven,” see Was Jesus in the Beginning?) At the end of his life on earth, he was “lifted up” on the cross for the complete healing of all sinners, bringing eternal life. Then, God fully lifted up Jesus from the dead and raised him to His own right hand. (For more on “lifted up,” see Jesus Christ Brings Healing for All.)

In Romans 10, verse three describes where Nicodemus and most of the other Jewish leaders had been coming from, “seeking to establish their own righteousness” according to “the righteousness which is of the law.” Verse four tells of God’s righteousness to all who believe.

Romans 10:3,4 [NKJV]:
For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Jesus was sharing with Nicodemus the righteousness of faith that would soon come, not by a man’s own efforts at righteousness, but through the savior from sin, Jesus himself, the Christ.

John 3:16-18 [NKJV]:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 

Verses 16-21 are a glorious passage in God’s Word. God may have inspired John to add this to his gospel to explain what Jesus had finally accomplished. John 3:16 is often considered the most popular verse of scripture and it surely does capture the essence of our faith. This is the “how” of entering into the kingdom of God, the way of salvation: believing in God’s only begotten Son.

Back again in Romans 10, we can read the same.

Romans 10:8-11 [NKJV]:
But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach):
that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 
For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” 

The Light of the World

Next comes this beautiful revelation of the light of the world.

John 3:19-21 [NKJV]:
And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 
For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 
But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

The same is true today. Those who have the humility to come to Jesus Christ, the light of the world, will clearly see that they are doing the truth as they believe on the Son of God. Those who prefer to live in spiritual darkness may not be exposed in this life, but their evil deeds will surely be judged in the future. Thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, that we are in the light where there is “now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1; I John 1:7; I John 2:9,10).

This concluded the recorded interview between the two men. We don’t know what Nicodemus thought of this whole conversation as he left that night, but I can tell you that we will hear about him again in the coming days as we travel on. Thank God we have His Word, even to this day, that we can still “see” and “hear” our Lord Jesus Christ, having complete faith and confidence that we have eternal life in him!

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