A national magazine recently ran a contest to see who could come up with the best real-life quotes resembling the cartoon “Dilbert.” If you are not familiar with Dilbert, he is a character caught in a bizarre office situation where bureaucracy rules and common sense is uncommon — a workplace not too unlike yours, perhaps. The winning quote came from an employee at Sun Microsystems who shared this memo which had come down from the top: “As of tomorrow, employees will be able to access the building only by using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday, and employees will receive their cards in two weeks.” Another one, which almost won, stated: “We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees.” But the one I liked was the memorandum which said, “This project is so important, we can’t let things that are more important interfere with it.”
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were stuck in a bureaucratic religious system that made the system more important than the cause for which it was founded — not too unlike many religious denominations in our country today. The institution became so important that they refused to let more important things interfere with it. But in the mind and heart of one of these religious leaders, named Nicodemus, there were gnawing questions about this peculiar man who performed miracles and claimed to be the Son of God. He knew that the religious scholars believed that Jesus’ claims were a sham. Some of them even believed he was a threat to their religious institution. (How right they were!) Others saw him as dangerous, because they believed that the Romans, who occupied Israel, would see him as a leader of a new revolution and destroy the nation. But Nicodemus began to question how they could not see the possibility that he was from God. After all, how else could they account for the miracles? How could they account for his staggering insight into the Scriptures and his understanding of the things of God? So Nicodemus decided to find out more, but he was ashamed to be seen talking to Jesus, so he came at night. I wonder if he was stung by Jesus’ words when he said, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).
The whole story of Nicodemus is about how a person becomes right with God. Nicodemus had his ideas, but, as we will see, they were only the traditions which had been handed down to him. Jesus was about to bring his understanding to a whole new level. However, it was not without difficulty, for Nicodemus had been fully indoctrinated in the thinking of his day. What does the story of Nicodemus say to us? First of all, the story of Nicodemus tells us: A right standing with God does not come through correct beliefs. Now this is a shock to some people who have been led to believe that if you just believe in God everything will be all right in the end. Other people think that it takes more than this — you have to believe in the Bible; you have to believe in Jesus Christ, or the creeds of the church. Doctrine becomes all important. Correct thinking on specific issues in the Christian faith become the benchmark of whether a person is truly a Christian or not.
But what about Nicodemus? Did he believe in these things? Oh yes! Nicodemus absolutely believed in the Scriptures. He believed every word and had even memorized most of the books of Scripture. Nicodemus believed in God. God was on his mind a lot. Nicodemus was what we would call a “conservative” believer. He was a part of a group known as the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the spiritual descendants of the Hasidean movement. The group’s name came from the Old Testament concept of the Hasidim, meaning “the faithful,” or “the saints.” They were the ones who revolted before the time of Christ when the Greeks tried to destroy the Jews and force them to deny their faith. By the time of Christ, the Pharisees, whose name meant “to separate,” was an established religious movement within Israel. They were pious people with strong beliefs. They believed in angels, the immortality of the soul, a coming day of judgment, and the resurrection of the dead. You could not get any more orthodox than the Pharisees, and Nicodemus was one of their leaders. There is no question about the fact that he believed the right things. In fact, he even believed in Jesus — as much as he understood about him. He believed that Jesus came from God. Hear him say again, “We know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him” (John 3:2). It is interesting that the last verses of the previous chapter say, “Now while [Jesus] was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. He did not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man” (John 2:23-25). Nicodemus had seen the miraculous signs and believed in Jesus, but something was wrong on the inside of him.
In spite of all of Nicodemus’ belief in God, his belief in Jesus, and the Scriptures, Jesus recognized what was wrong inside Nicodemus, even though Nicodemus did not. Jesus seemed to bluntly change the subject on Nicodemus when he said, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (John 3:3). Jesus immediately set the mind of Nicodemus swimming. Nicodemus must have wondered: “What does this have to do with what I said? What is he talking about?” Nicodemus probably thought that Jesus would recognize his position among the religious community and show him respect, but Jesus seemed to imply that Nicodemus may not see the kingdom of God. What more could be required of Nicodemus? Didn’t Jesus recognize his life of faithfulness?
Nicodemus was offended. His response to Jesus was sarcastic: “How can a man be born when he is old? Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born” (John 3:4). Nicodemus was full of spiritual pride. He was arrogant and tried to show his intellectual superiority by making fun of what Jesus had said. He interpreted his words in the most literal sense, taking them to the ridiculous extreme. But Jesus said to him: “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:5-7). Jesus informed Nicodemus that he was talking about another kind of birth — not a physical birth, but a spiritual birth. By being born of water, Jesus was referring to the birth water — our physical birth. By being born of the Spirit, he is referring to a spiritual birth that must also take place after our physical birth. The phrase “born again” can also be translated “born from above.” Our physical birth is from here, below heaven, our spiritual birth is from above. It is a work of God that is not of our doing. It is mysterious and unexplainable. Jesus said the Spirit is like the wind: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).
But even if Nicodemus believed everything Jesus was saying, it would not have been enough, because being right with God is not a matter of having all the right beliefs. But the second point is also important. The story of Nicodemus tells us: A right standing with God does not come through correct moral conduct. Some here may be saying, “Now wait a minute! I thought you became a Christian by becoming a good person and believing the right things.” That is exactly what Nicodemus thought. He was not only a man who believed all the right things, he did all the right things. The Pharisees had a very strict moral code. If the Scripture said to pay a tithe to God, they even gave God a tenth of the herbs from their garden. If the Scripture said not to work on the Sabbath, they would not even pluck a few heads of grain to eat as they walked by a wheat field. They tied a small box, called a phylactery, containing written passages of Scripture, to their forehead and another to their left arm so they would not forget the law of God. Another small box with Scripture in it, called a mezuza, was on the door frame of their homes. They would touch the box every time they would enter or leave the house. They meticulously kept the law and its moral code, but this alone did not bring them closer to God.
In fact, Jesus reserved some of his harshest words for the Pharisees. Read the 23rd chapter of Matthew and hear him say things about the Pharisees like: “Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues. . . . Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. . . . Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. . . .You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”
Why was Jesus so harsh? Because these people majored on the minors and minored on the majors. They majored on the externals and forgot about the internal matters of the heart. He was hard on them because they thought they could be their own savior. They thought they did not need another Savior, because they were saving themselves by their good deeds. They thought they did not need to ask for God’s forgiveness. They believed they had won God’s approval and earned heaven on their own merit. And in their spiritual pride, they judged everyone according to an impossible standard which, if they had been honest, would have admitted that they could not live up to themselves. They were blind guides and hypocrites. They failed to come to God in humility, admitting their failure and their need of God. You cannot earn your salvation, for the Bible says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). All of us are broken and must lean on the grace of God. The Bible says, “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). Reformation will not do it — there must be a transformation.
You cannot save yourself by believing the right things or doing the right things. That is not what it is all about. How then does a person become right with God? The third point answers that question: A right standing with God comes only through an ongoing relationship with God. A right standing with God does not come through having the right beliefs or the right behavior. It is not the result of scholasticism or moralism. A right standing with God comes when we realize that we don’t know it all and are willing to see our great need of God. When Jesus said, “You must be born again” — born from above, born of the Spirit — he was saying that the Christian life is not a set of beliefs or a moral code, it is an experience. The experience consists of confessing my sin and need of God, feeling God’s cleansing of my heart and life, so that I am filled with his love and Spirit. God does not want your faith or your obedience as much as God wants you. He wants to have a relationship with you, and if you have missed having this relationship you have missed everything. Of course, it is important to obey God, but only in the sense that your obedience is the evidence and result of your love for God. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:15). Of course, it is important to believe in God and have faith in him. Nicodemus had faith in Jesus. He believed he was sent from God. But that is far different from the kind of faith Jesus spoke about when he said, “Whoever believes in [me] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (John 3:18). The kind of belief that Jesus was after was not a belief that accepts a fact, but the kind of belief that places your whole trust in Christ. You believe that he is, “the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). Your whole life is centered in that reality. Your complete trust is in Christ so that your life is given completely to him. You live in an ongoing relationship with him.
Which is easier, to believe in the right things, or to have a relationship with God? Which is easier, to follow a moral code of rules and duty, or live each day loving God? Which is easier, to come to church and hear about God, or to have him in your life? It is amazing what we will settle for. Many people will come to church their whole lives without ever having taken the trouble to know God in a personal way. That is what Nicodemus had done. However, it seems that Nicodemus had a change in his life. We read about him speaking up for Jesus in the Sanhedrin (John 7:50), and he went with another believing Pharisee, Joseph of Arimathea, to retrieve the body of Jesus after his crucifixion (John 19:39). Something must have gotten through to move Nicodemus from a religious person to a person who had a living, personal relationship with God. The change in him could only be described as being born again.
Roy Roberts tells his story of how he moved out of religion into a relationship with God. He writes, “My ship, the West Virginia, docked at Pearl Harbor on the evening of December 6, 1941. A couple of the fellows and I left the ship that night and attended a Bible study. About fifteen sailors sat in a circle on the floor. The leader asked us to each recite our favorite Scripture verse. In turn each sailor shared a verse and briefly commented on it. I sat there in terror. I grew up in a Christian home, went to church three times a week, but I sat there terrified. I couldn’t recall a single verse. Finally, I remembered one verse—John 3:16. I silently rehearsed it in my mind. The spotlight of attention grew closer as each sailor took his turn. It was up to the fellow next to me. He recited John 3:16. He took my verse! As he commented on it I sat there in stunned humiliation. In a few moments everyone would know that I could not recall from memory even a single verse. Later that night I went to bed thinking, ‘Robertson, you’re a fake.’ At 7:55 the next morning I was awakened by the ship alarm ordering us to battle stations. Three hundred and sixty planes of the Japanese Imperial Fleet were attacking our ship and the other military installations. My crew and I raced to our machine gun emplacement, but all we had was practice ammunition. So for the first fifteen minutes of the two hour battle, we only fired blanks hoping to scare the Japanese air planes. As I stood there firing fake ammunition I thought, ‘Robertson, this is how your whole life has been — firing blanks for Christ.’ I made up my mind as Japanese bullets slammed into our ship, ‘If I escape with my life, I will get serious about following Jesus.’” Roy Robertson went on to help Dawson Trotman found the Navigators — a Christian group which ministered to military personnel. God used his life in a powerful way when he moved from religion to relationship.
What about you? Are you depending on your religion to get you into heaven? Are you counting on your belief in God and the Bible to get you there? Are you trusting that being a good person will get you in? Are you faking it — pretending to be something you are not? Do you have a relationship with Christ? Is he living in you? Today is your day to make it real.
Rodney J. Buchanan
July 15, 2001
Mulberry St. UMC
Mt. Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
