John 3: 1 - 21
Nic At Night
1 There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 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.” 3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 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?” 5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, 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.” 9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? 11 Most assuredly, I say to you, we speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 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. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 “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. 19 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. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member to the ruling council which was called the Sanhedrin. Most Pharisees were intensely jealous of Jesus because He undermined their authority and challenged their views. But Nicodemus was one who continued to search for more knowledge, and he believed that Jesus had some answers to questions he did not know. The lesson learned from this is that no matter how intelligent and well educated you are, you must co9me to Jesus with an open mind and heart so He can teach you the truth about God.
1 There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
Although Nicodemus was a high official in the Jewish nation He came to Jesus personally. He wanted to see and speak with Jesus one on one. Here is a good lesson for all people in that we must examine Jesus for ourselves. No one can do this for us.
2 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.”
Nicodemus acknowledged that Jesus was a teacher ‘come from God’ and that ‘God was with Him’ because he was impressed by the ‘signs’ that He had done. In other words while not being a recognized teacher of the schools Jesus had in Nicodemus’ eyes satisfactorily demonstrated that He was in the prophetic mould. But Nicodemus had not rightly interpreted the signs, for he had come short of recognizing that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God. Furthermore the good opinion of his fellow associates was so important to him that he ‘came by night’. All in all we can see that he was still in darkness here both spiritual and physical.
This man who was in darkness did not know that he was approaching the light of the world. We will find out later because of God’s Great Mercy and Nicodemus’s searching he found the ‘Light’.
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus knew that the god’s Kingdom would rule the entire world. Being born a Jew he felt that this was the only way to be part of God’s future kingdom. The Lord tripped him up when He told him that he had to be born again. This was a revolutionary concept: the kingdom is personal, not national or ethnic, and its entrance requirements are repentance and spiritual rebirth.
The phrase ‘the kingdom of God, mentioned only here in John, needs to be understood. In Jesus’ day a kingdom was not a piece of land with boundaries, but a sphere over which a king ruled, a place where he exercised his kingship. Where there were people who came under his rule there was his kingdom, even though the boundaries kept changing. So God’s kingdom is composed of those who admit and acknowledge His rule wherever they are. As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ once we believe in Him we are then citizens of His Kingdom even though we are scattered about on this earth.
4 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?”
Nicodemus takes what Jesus says to mean born again physically, and speaks as though he confuses this with natural birth. He does not understand what Jesus means so Nicodemus asks,‘How can an old man enter his mother’s womb a second time?’
5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Jesus replies that He is speaking about a birth “of water and Spirit” without which entry under the reign of God is impossible. The connection of water with Spirit may possibly, but not certainly, look back to John’s baptism in the writer’s mind, but it is not strictly of baptism that Jesus is thinking. He is thinking of the Old Testament prophecies about the coming of the Spirit like the rain. Baptism is but the symbol. The need is for a work of the Spirit, as symbolized by John’s baptism, the Spirit being poured out ‘from above’ like rain on the dry ground.
Like most Jews Nicodemus was looking forward to the coming of Almighty God’s Kingdom, which the Jews saw as a time when God’s king would rule over the world and bring a time of plenty and prosperity. But Jesus stresses that coming under God’s rule requires a work of the Spirit, for it must be spiritually appreciated. Human birth will only bring human understanding; a spiritual relationship with God requires spiritual birth.
So when Jesus speaks of being born of water, born from above, He has every reason to think that Nicodemus will understand Him, and to chide him for failing to do so.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Here we can refer back to John 1.12-13 where John had distinguished natural birth from being ‘born of God’. Being born a Jew, or in Christendom, or in a Christian family is not sufficient - Just as being baptized is not enough. New life received from the Spirit is what is required. This comparison of flesh and Spirit arises, of course, from Nicodemus’ earlier question. Having made clear that He is referring to the Spirit under the picture of life-giving water Jesus has now connected it up with what Nicodemus has asked.
In short but magnificent emphasis the Lord Jesus tells Nicodemus and us that a human goes through natural birth from his or her mom. The Lord Jesus adds that to be a member of His kingdom one must be born a second time. I love the statement ‘born once die twice. Born twice die once.’
7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, 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.”
At this stage The Lord Jesus can see that Nicodemus is still puzzled. ‘Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born anew’, He says, ‘the wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it but cannot tell from where it is coming or where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.
You can see however its effects after the fact. If we have a wind storm you can see the damage all around you. Once a person is ‘born again’ and the Holy Spirit comes upon a person you can also see the effect He has on a person.
9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”
Nicodemus still does not understand. ‘How can these things be?’, he asks. What is clear to many a Christian child is a total mystery to the learned scholar? We must, however, remember that he has long cherished views. To him water is for outward purifying, and his religious agenda is found in seeking to keep God’s laws assiduously and totally in order to be true to the covenant with God and achieve eternal life in the future. The thought of the freedom and new life that comes through the Spirit of God is foreign to him. He is totally baffled.
10 Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? 11 Most assuredly, I say to you, we speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness
Jesus words are a gentle rebuke. ‘Do you claim to be a teacher of Israel and yet do not understand this?’ Many Pharisees were seen as ‘teachers of Israel’, and Nicodemus was particularly highly respected. They thought that it was from their teachers that men must find the secrets of God. So Jesus wants him to know that He considers that he should understand it because he has seen the Holy Spirit in action in Himself and John the Baptist. There are ‘earthly things’ witnessed on earth through the successes of John the Baptist and the successes of His own ministry. Nicodemus really ought to have understood but there are none as blind as those who are too certain that they are themselves right.
The ‘We’ is Jesus and John the Baptist. ‘You’ (plural) are Nicodemus and his co-religionists. Already such things have happened in the ministry of Jesus that they should have convinced the world. Many lives have been transformed; many men have become more dedicated to God. Wonderful things are happening on earth. And they should have not only observed them but know what was happening.
Then he adds, ‘but you (plural) do not receive our testimony’. Here Jesus links Nicodemus with his co-leaders. The authorities had come to observe and to criticize, but they were not spiritually perceptive enough to recognize what was happening, that the promises of the prophets about the Spirit being poured down were being fulfilled.
12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
His point having been made he adds that even if He tells them even more wonderful things, He doubts if they will accept them, for they are deliberately closing their eyes. ‘If I have told you earthly things, and you believe not, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?’ Those who will not accept the evidence of God’s activity before their eyes on earth cannot hope to appreciate the deeper facts which His coming has brought into play. The things that are happening have far deeper roots than what is obvious on the surface, but if they are to be appreciated they require a total rethink.
13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
In Proverbs 34.4 the question is asked, “Who has ascended up into heaven and descended?” and the expected answer is ‘nobody’. For as Jesus brings out here, the only One Who can ascend into Heaven is One Who has first descended. Only such a one can ascend to control the ‘ruach’ (Spirit, wind) and the rain. Thus the ‘ascending’ refers to Jesus exercising His power over things above.
As a well respected scholar of the Scripture Nicodemus should have been very familiar with what the prophet Daniel said in chapter 7 of his prophecy. He should have seen the similar conditions happening in front of him as to what Daniel prophesied. See, if you can pick out what Nicodemus was missing, “9 “I watched till thrones were put in place, and the Ancient of Days was seated; His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, its wheels a burning fire; 10 A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him. A thousand thousands ministered to Him; Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The court was seated, and the books were opened. 11 “I watched then because of the sound of the pompous words which the horn was speaking; I watched till the beast was slain, and its body destroyed and given to the burning flame. 12 As for the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. 13 “I was watching in the night visions, and behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him. 14 Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed.”
So, what did you notice in what Daniel said to what our Lord Jesus Is proclaiming. Who Is The Ancient of Days? He Is Father God – Adoni Yahweh. Who Is The Son of Man referencing? Our Lord Jesus just said this was referring to Him - 13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. What is the term ‘coming with the clouds of heaven referring to? This is referring to our Lord Jesus ascending back to heaven. Do you think Nicodemus should have picked up on this revelation?
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
Back in the book of Numbers chapter 21 we see a very unique addition our Holy God applied to the people of Israel. In their disobedience the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people. Many were bitten and died. They cried out to the Lord and as we read you see what He instructed Moses to do. “4 Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way. 5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.” 6 So the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. 7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.”
You see it took obedience to be healed. If you were stubborn and disobedient and would not take the advice of God to look at the bronze snake on the pole, you would die. If you were obedient and obeyed then you were healed. So, our Lord Jesus states ‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life’. Thus too the Son of Man must be ‘lifted up’ and looked to for salvation. Isn’t is awesome how our Great God puts this all together?
So the Son of Man, who is a citizen of heaven, has come down from heaven so that He might be “lifted up”, in order that those who believe in Him might have ‘eternal life’
The Pharisees also had hopes of eternal life, but they hoped to achieve it by obedience to the covenant revealed in their punctilious observance of the Law, and especially of their own interpretations of it. But as the Bible makes clear that way could only lead to hopelessness, for the more they strove the more they failed. In the end the Law they loved so much could only condemn them. So Jesus now tells Nicodemus that what he is hopelessly striving for can be his as a gift if only he responds fully to Him.
16 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.
The message is now expanded. The reason that Jesus has come is because “God[The Ancient of Days] loved the world so much that He gave His only Son”. This is the amazing new revelation that surpasses all that has gone before, that God was such that He had not only seen man’s need but has met it in the only way possible at greatest cost to Himself. ‘In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us, and gave His Son to be a propitiation for ours sins’ (1 John 4.10).
A further interesting fact is that it is ‘the world’ that is in view. His love is reaching out to the world. Jesus is not just a Messiah for the Jews, He is the Christ for the world, the world that is in darkness (1.10). He has come to be a light to every man.
The point is that there was no other way by which salvation and deliverance could come to mankind, only by God’s giving of His only Son to die on the cross, as the prophet Isaiah in chapter 53 teach es us, ‘wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities --- the Lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all.’
17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
God’s purpose in sending His Son was to save. He wanted to give men eternal life. He wanted to save them from ‘perishing’. And there was only one way to do so, by taking their deserved suffering on Himself. Notice the stress on the fact that Jesus is ‘God-sent’. His sending by the Father is a theme of the Gospel.
Thus God’s purpose towards the world is one of love. But this must not lead us into presumption. If we reject that offer of love and refuse to come to His light so that our sins might be revealed, because we love our sins too much, then we face the awful alternative of condemnation.
18 “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.
Our Holy Lord Jesus stresses that it is not God Who condemns men, rather they condemn themselves. When they see God’s supreme Word, Jesus, revealing His glory and the glory of God, their very refusal to acknowledge Him condemns them. They are showing what they really are -For had their hearts been open and true they would immediately have believed in Him and received Him gladly. And their sin is made worse by the fact that that they are rejecting ‘the only Son of God’.
This point our Lord Jesus points out should be memorized by all of us. ‘He who believes in Him is not condemned’. What an incredible truth. For the one whose full trust is in Jesus Christ there can be no condemnation (Romans 5.1), for, because the Eternal Judge is also their Savior, He makes intercession for them and points to His death on the cross on their behalf as proof that their sin has been atoned for. There is thus no one to lay a charge against one of God’s chosen ones (Romans 8.33-34).
But note that there is a stipulation and that is it is that such a person turns from evil as our Lord points out in verses 19-21. For in true repentance there must be not only conviction of sin, but contrition and godly sorrow for it, sorrow according to God. This is what we call repentance.
19 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. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
God bases His condemnation on the fact that Jesus has come as ‘the light’ into the world (John 1.4-5, 9; 8.12), and by His life and teaching has offered the light of life and revealed the light of truth. But men turn from Him because they love their sins and His light therefore shines on them and condemns them. They do not want to give up their lives which ‘come short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3.23), the glory revealed by Jesus, and so they reject Jesus and even say evil things against Him, and thus are in danger of the unforgivable sin, final rejection of the clear testimony of the Spirit (Mark 3.22 with 28, 29). If we refuse to open our lives to the light of Jesus we have no one to blame but ourselves when we are finally condemned.
The truth is that men naturally ‘hate the light’. They do not want to be exposed as what they are. They do not want to know the truth about themselves and will do anything to hide from it. Nor do they want to be ‘reproved’ or condemned. So they hide in the darkness where they are satisfied that their sins cannot be seen. But in Jesus light had come, and it was shining through His life and teaching and they must therefore now respond one way or the other. What they must never forget is that one day a light will shine on their lives from which they cannot hide. And then judgment will be passed and they will ‘perish’.
On the other hand those who do what is right have no fear of the truth about their lives coming out. They gladly come to Jesus and listen eagerly to His words and to the word of God and let Him examine them, for they know that His words will help them get rid of sin and that when He examines them He will help them rid themselves of what is spoiling their lives. They want their lives to be open to examination and be put under the spotlight of God, so that what they really are can be seen, that they are true children of God.
Such a man’s conscience is totally clear. He does not mind that his life is brought into the light, for he knows that anything he had of which he should be ashamed has been dealt with by the blood of Christ, and that now he is so living that there is nothing to be ashamed of. Thus he is happy for anyone to see the light shining from him. As Jesus said elsewhere, ‘let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in Heaven’. (Matthew 5.16). But in the end, more importantly, he is happy for God to see what he does so that God will be pleased with what he has done. These individuals have God’s full approval as wrought by one who is truly His. They are the results of his close walk with God.
