John 3:1-15--You Must Be Born Again

John 3:1-15
English Standard Version
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You Must Be Born Again
3 Now 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 him, “Truly, truly, 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, “Truly, truly, 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 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.”

9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? 11 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. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

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This is probably one of those very familiar passages that we could be tempted to speedread through, but let's try and go a bit slower today and see what Jesus is saying in like of the "big ideas" we've been talking about.  We already pointed out yesterday that John is going to put this story up against the story of The Woman at the Well in John 4.  We talked about what was the same and what was different.  Since you're probably fairly familiar with both of these stories, I'd like you to try to read this story through those lenses today as well today.  What is so different about these two encounters that makes Jesus talk to these two people so differently?  What is it that makes their reactions to what Jesus says so different?

We immediately start to feel some tension as Nicodemus is identified as a man of the Pharisees.  Those of us with even a passing familiarity with the Pharisees from the Bible know that they were the intersection of religion an politics and they used the religious system to maintain political control over the people.  They started off with good intentions during and after the Exile to Babylon to figure out what went wrong and why God judges the nation, as they knew that God said His sending them into captivity in a foreign land was the "last straw" (the end of a downward spiral of judgment).  They had ignored all the warnings that He had given and so the Pharisees wanted the people to never have to experience that situation again.  They correct deciphered that the issue was to do with the people's disobedience and rebellion, but their solution was incorrect.  They thought that if they could have forced external obedience to the Law, that would be enough, so they rules upon rules to change that which was supposed to be measuring rod to show us that we could never measure up to God's holiness and instead try to make it a stand that the truly pious person could mostly live up to--they started comparing themselves to everyone else around them instead of to God Himself.  This made for a lot of conflict as Jesus came in and tried to establish the original intent of the Law and pointed to these leaders as hypocrites and "blind guides" that were leading the people in such a way that was going to cause them to fall into a ditch.

Jesus is not the only one who had conflict with the Pharisees.  We've already seen in the book of John that John the Baptist was being investigated by them and that he had nothing good to say to them when they showed up, for he knew they were not coming to seek the baptism of repentance.  Jesus had the advantage of knowing what was in their hearts and minds as well since He was the Son of God.  We'll see some of this here.  I love that this conversation was one that Nicodemus meant to keep a secret coming to Jesus by night, and, yet, this conversation is probably one of the best-known conversations of all time.  What was said and done in the darkness has been brought into the light.

The issue of "signs" immediately comes up in the conversation.  Nicodemus also seems to possibly be sent as an official envoy from the entire group of Pharisees to investigate Jesus because he uses the plural when he says, "We know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one could do these signs if God is not with him."  That sounds all well and good, but Nicodemus is saying, "Jesus, we understand that you're just like us.  You're so holy and righteous in your works that God favors you and lets you do these great works."  Wrong, Nicodemus!  It's not that God is "with" a man who is just a "good teacher" or "a prophet," Jesus is God in the Flesh.  The correct assessment here is that "No one would have the authority to say or do these things unless He were God Himself."  This is the primary conflict for the Pharisees.  They could not believe in the incarnation and therefore could not believe Jesus to be anything other than a man.  To them God was Spirt and no one could see Him and He would never take on the corruptible form of human flesh. We can even see where that assumption would come from studying the Old Testament, yet they did not understand the promise that the Messiah would come and be called Emmanuel (God with Us).

Jesus understands Nicodemus's flattery for what it was and completely dodges it and hits back hard.  Remember, Nicodemus is trying to puff Jesus up while puffing himself up to say, "We're both pretty good guys, right, Jesus?"  Jesus replies with, "Unless you are born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."  Whoa!  Hold on there, Jesus!  Did I just hear you say that I Nicodemus, the "Teacher of Teachers" was NOT going to heaven?--That's probably what Nicodemus was thinking, and the shock and outrage was probably written all over Nicodemus's face at this point.  There was probably also a feeling of "How rude....don't you understand that I just paid you compliment, and you neither said "Thank you" nor repaid it back?"

Nicodemus was very kind and polite though and seems to think that possibly he misunderstood Jesus' words or intent, so he answers Jesus' question back with a question (the Socratic method) to ask Jesus what the meaning of "born again" is.  Surely Jesus isn't talking about physical birth where an old man like Nicodemus is to somehow go back into his mother's uterus and be physically born again.  That would be absurd!  (And he was right to say this).  However, I think there's a conversation beginning here below the surface where Nicodemus understands more than he's letting on and he's carefully responding to the surface-level.  I think he completely gets it that Jesus is talking about Nicodemus needing a new nature and Nicodemus's response is as much one of, "You expect an old person like me to change his ways and become new?  Jesus, you do know old people are pretty stubborn and set in their ways, right?"

Jesus seems to "play along" for the moment and let Nicodemus play ignorant, but then turns that ignorance against him to imply that Nicodemus is either unqualified to be a teacher of the people if he doesn't understand this or that he is being willfully ignorant and sees clearly, but doesn't want it to be true and he's in an even worse spot where he's intentionally misleading the people.

So, what is this part about being born of both water and Spirit?  I've talked about this a bit with those of you in my small group before, but Jesus is appealing to something from the Old Testament that Nicodemus should have latched onto being one who was supposed to teach the Old Testament to the people.  Jesus is trying to use this phrase as a "hook" or "anchor" to draw Nicodemus to a particular portion of Scripture and bring it to memory.


Ezekiel 36:25-27
English Standard Version
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Nicodemus should have picked up on this language of regeneration and the new covenant that Jesus was alluding to (and this is not the only place in the Old Testament that talks about God cleansing us with washing, which Ephesians 5:26 makes clear to us is our being "washed" by the Word of God.  This is neither about natural birth nor baptism (for baptism would not proceed the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and it seems clear that this answer is meant to be something that together explains what "born again" means)..  (For more on this, see this article from The Gospel Coalition).

Again, it seems Jesus expected Nicodemus to understand this reference, maybe even knowing that he did understand, but had a hard heart and didn't let the seed sink in and take root to bear fruit.  Jesus makes it clear that our flesh is born for the kingdom of this world, and we have to be born of of the Spirt to be prepared for the spiritual kingdom, the New Heaven and the New Earth.  Jesus makes it clear that there are only two options, "flesh" and "Sprit."  There are those who are "in Adam" and those who are "in Christ" as we will see in the book of Romans.  Through our flesh if we are "in Adam," all die, but through the Spirt, those who are "in Christ" have abundant, eternal life.

Nicodemus asks "how can these things be?" as a sign of just how bind (and probably willfully so) that he is.  Jesus has spelled it out for him pretty clearly and now Jesus is going to tell him that he should not be teaching people if he himself does not understand these basic truths of the Old Testament Scriptures.  I find it interesting that Jesus starts to speak in the plural here to say "We speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen"  Unless Jesus had His disciples with Him and He was referring to them, I think that Jesus is referring to the Father, Son, and Spirit.  We will see in other places in the New Testament where people accuse Jesus of testifying about Himself without any corroborating witnesses.  Jesus would say that Scripture corroborates as does the testimony of the Father and the Spirit at His baptism, and of course there was the testimony of John the Baptist to whom they didn't listen, and we know that there was the testimony of the angels as well.  In fact, we will see many people in the book of John testify to the fact that he is the Son of God.

Jesus said that if Nicodemus could not understand the earthly analogies, there was no way that he was going to understand the spiritual principles that Jesus was trying to teach with those analogies.  For this reason, we will see that the parables that Jesus would teach in during portions of His ministry were meant to conceal the truth from some and reveal the truth to others, depending on the condition of their heart.

In case Nicodemus missed what Jesus was saying when He said, "we," Jesus makes it clear that He is the one who has come down from heaven. and that He will again ascend to heaven and take His place on His throne at the right hand of the Father.  Then Jesus goes one step further and points Nicodemus to the cross by using imagery from the Old Testeament of the rebellious Israelites wandering in the wilderness and dying both physical death and a spiritual death as a result of their sin and rebellion.  God took that symbol of sin (the bronze serpent), wrapped it around the staff of Moses which was the symbol of Moses' leadership, protection and the power of God that was with Him, and anyone who looked upon the bronze serpent on the pole in faith was healed and did not die.  Jesus said it would be just like that when the Son of Man (Jesus' favorite title for Himself) was "lifted up" on the cross, but the life He would give those who looked on Him in faith would be eternal.

It seems apparent that by that time these words sunk in and took root with Nicodemus, because he helped remove Jesus from the cross and prepare Him for burial, risking being ceremonially unclean for the Passover--a very big deal, especially for a Pharisee.  Let's not look at this story and write off Nicodemus.  Sometimes seeds take root and produce fruit immediately because the Spirit has already been working (we'll see an example of that in John 4), but sometimes it just takes time and effort, like Jesus' disciples who were around Him day and night for three years, and they still didn't get it many times.  We'll see some frustration on the part of Jesus at this, especially as He gets close to the end of His life and He knows His time is almost up and they are not seeing what He needs them to see.  Thank God that He sent us the Holy Spirit to indwell us and lead us in all truth, because, otherwise, we wouldn't see it either.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about the next section which probably contains the most popular verse in the Bible.  It's my opinion that passage is commentary by John on the conversation that Jesus just had with Nicodemus and not a longer answer that Jesus was giving to Nicodemus, as we don't see any "long answers" anywhere in the conversation--in fact the conversation seems to follow the Socratic method where they simply take turns asking each other questions and couching their answer to the question in the next question.  John just comes out and makes some clear statements that are not in the form of a question.  The passage is true either way, whether the words of Christ or the words of the Spirit penned by John, but it may change how you think about and read that passage.