Introduction: One of my favourite stories is of a new pastor was asked to teach a boys class in the absence of their regular Sunday School teacher. He decided at the outset to see what the boys knew and so he asked little Johnny during Bible class who broke down the walls of Jericho. Little Johnny said, "I don’t know, but I’ll tell you this, it wasn’t me!" The pastor, taken aback by this lack of basic Bible knowledge, went to the Sunday School superintendent and related the whole incident. The superintendent said, "Look, I know little Johnny and his entire family very well and can vouch for them. If he said that he didn’t do it, then I believe that it is the truth." Even more appalled with the superintendent’s lack of Bible knowledge, the pastor went to the Board of Deacons and related the whole story. After listening to the his story, one of the deacons stood up and said, "I can see this is greatly bothering you pastor, but to be honest I can’t see why you are making such a big deal out of it; let’s just get three quotations and we’ll get the wall fixed."
Have you ever had a moment like that; a moment of embarrassing ignorance? That’s what we discover in this evening’s text. Here Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, and in the throes of this conversation there appears a yawning gap in Nicodemus’ knowledge on spiritual matters. This would not have been so bad, was it not for the fact that Nicodemus was a Bible teacher by profession! How difficult it must have been for him, when Jesus, having taught on the new birth, looked him in the eye and said, “Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?”
When I was ministering in Dublin, I remember very well, a public debate between an evangelical minister and a prominent priest who was the Roman Catholic Church’s ‘cult slayer” and would often say outrageous things about born again believers. The subject matter of the debate was “Are born again Christians a cult?” I will never forget when the priest came to the platform to make his opening address. Virtually the first words out of his mouth were, “I have not come here to debate the Bible, for I am quite sure that many of you sitting before me know a lot more about the Bible than I do.” And so it proved, for the people on the floor, mostly ordinary Christians, not pastors or preachers, were appalled at his lack of basic Bible knowledge. “Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?”
Well let’s take a look at this man Nicodemus and his difficulty, and the first thing I want you to see is;
I. His Great Privilege
A. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and the Pharisees were mainly members of ancient Israel’s middle class.
1. They were the businessmen, merchants and the tradesmen of their day.
2. That said, the average Pharisee had no formal education in the interpretation of the law and accordingly resorted to the professional scholar, the scribe, thus we often read of these two together, the scribes and Pharisees.
3. The scribes had a great deal to do with Jewish education.
4. The scribes were scholars and teachers who had the responsibility of copying and interpreting the Law.
5. It is quite possible Nicodemus was a scribe, seeing Jesus described him as a master (teacher) of Israel.
6. The Pharisees, with the special help of those who were scribes, were the chief scholars of the first century and were in charge of the houses of study and Jewish education in general.
a. From the time of Christ, they were the leaders of education and study.
b. Some of them such as Hillel achieved great status as teachers, as did also Gamaliel who had eighty students, one of whom was the Apostle Paul (Acts 22:3).
7. Now Nicodemus benefited from such an education.
8. As we look at the key stages of Jewish education we find that;
a. The study of Scripture began at the age of five when children were taught first from the Book of Leviticus how to approach God by sacrifice and then from the Book of Psalms concerning the nature of God, before they went on to other things.
b. At the age of ten one was fit for the study of the words of the Oral Law,
c. By thirteen one was considered old enough and informed enough to be responsible to fulfill the commandments.
d. At the age of fifteen one was ready to study under the great teachers.
e. By the age of twenty, a student was deemed ready to pursue a vocation, and could train for the priesthood.
f. At age forty-one a man reached a place where he had understanding,
g. And at age of fifty the individual was worthy to counsel others. In all likelihood Nicodemus was older than fifty when he approached Jesus, which is really remarkable, given that Jesus was in his thirties… no wonder Nicodemus came ny night, he would have been embarrassed to as an elder of Israel to be taught by one so young in the full gaze of the public!
B. Sometimes we give the Pharisees a bad press.
1. Most times they deserve that, because they were terribly hypocritical.
2. But we must also remember that many of them were very earnest men, as was Nicodemus, who had a real heart to know God and a love for His Word.
a. In fact, one of the things they used to do to get children into their Bible was place honey upon the tablets of the law, so that when the kids left school having handles the Scripture their fingers tasted sweet leaving impressionable young minds with the notion that God’s Word was sweet.
b. You see, there is no new thing under the sun, we give out treats in children’s ministries today to boys and girls whop bring their Bibles and learn their verses, but the Pharisees were doing it long before us!
3. Unfortunately for them their zeal was not according to knowledge, in other words though they knew the facts of Scripture, their zealous misapplication of the Law caused them to focus upon the letter of the Law rather than the spirit of it, and their religion became repressive and hypocritical instead of liberating and honest.
4. But there is no doubt that Nicodemus had enjotyed a measure of privilege in his upbringing and education.
5. Consider also;
II. His Pre-eminence
A. Notice John describes him as “a ruler of Israel”.
1. The intimation here is that he was a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of seventy who oversaw all aspects of Israel’s religious life.
2. The Sanhedrin was the supreme theocratic court of the Jews consisting of three professional groups composed the council: high priests (the acting high priest and former high priests) and members of the chief-priestly families; elders (tribal and family heads of the people and the priesthood); and scribes (legal professionals).
The council was the highest court of appeal, and the Sanhedrin’s authority was broad and far-reaching, involving legislation, administration, and justice.
3. They met daily, except on Sabbath and feast days, in a session room adjoining the temple. In extraordinary cases, as with the arrest of Jesus they met at the house of the high priest.
4. Now one of the responsibilities of the Sanhedrin was the identification, and confirmation of the Messiah.
a. That explains in part why the Pharisees are always seen questioning Jesus.
b. To begin with many of their questions were genuine, although later they become much more mischievous.
c. It also explains why Nicodemus came to Jesus saying, “Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.”
(i) It was his duty as a member of the Sanhedrin to identify the Messiah, and clearly Nicodemus had Jesus on the radar as a real possibility.
(ii) He recognised that there was something very different about this claimant to the Messianic role.
5. So this man had privilege and pre-eminence, but notice now;
III. His Predicament
A. Nicodemus suspected that Jesus was the Messiah, but he still had some questions.
1. It is interesting that when he approaches the Lord, that Jesus goes right to the heart of his problem and speaks to him about the new birth.
2. It is also interesting that Nicodemus was embarrassingly ignorant of the new birth.
a. Look at his questions:
(i) “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?” (vs 4)
(ii) “How can these things be?” (vs 9)
b. It was to this second response that Jesus asks, and I sense with some incredulity, “Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?”
a. As one writer put it, “The religious ignorance of some people is a misfortune, this man’s ignorance was a crime.”
c. He should have known these things. He was a teacher of Israel, a scribe, a Pharisee, a judge in matters of religion, yet he clearly did not understand the ABC’s of salvation!
B. He didn’t understand the REALITY of salvation.
1. That is why Jesus said to him, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God… Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God… Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” (vss 3, 5 & 7)
2. Nicodemus knew all about regulation, laws and by-laws, but nothing about regeneration; the need for the inner man with his dead spirit to be reconciled to God and brought alive.
3. He needed to see that religion, however noble and well meaning, just wasn’t going to do it, it wasn’t going to pass the test, it is ill equipped to bring dead men into a relationship with a living God.
4. Only the reality of the new birth can do that.
C. He didn’t understand the MYSTERY of salvation – vs 8
1. Of course we have a better understanding of the laws that govern the winds today, but even yet there is still a measure of mystery to their course.
2. And the point that Jesus was making was that salvation comes by a move of the Spirit, regeneration is a work of God, a sovereign act. In some ways it is a mysterious act, and certainly it is a mighty act, a powerful moving of God in the heart of a man that brings about new life and profound change.
D. He didn’t understand the PERSONALITY of salvation – vs 11-13
1. Nicodemus was standing face to face with God’s Man, and man’s God.
2. Only Jesus could claim to be on earth and in heaven at the same time.
3. Look at these verses, look at what they teach:
a. The eternality of Christ… “He that came down from heaven”… He who is from everlasting; who had prior existence; who was in the bosom of the Father and has come down.
b. Here is the condescension of Christ… He left His Father’s glory to dwell among men.
c. Here is the Omnipresence of Christ.
d. It was a lot for Nicodemus to get his head around, and it is hardly surprising that from this point on he utters not ine word; no longer the master of Israel, he is a disciple sitting at the real master’s feet.
E. He didn’t understand the INCLUSIVITY of salvation – vss 14-15
1. I am sure for the moment at least the teaching on Moses’ rod was lost on Nicodemus… it would not be until he sees the cross that it sinks in.
2. I am equally sure he never saw the breadth involved in the word “whosoever.”
a. For Pharisees salvation was of the Jews and largely FOR the Jews, but Jesus had been given to the world – vs 16.
b. Whoever believes on him Jew or Gentile will not perish but have everlasting life.
Conclusion: All of this Nicodemus should have known… but he didn’t, and in that much he is not alone. There are many like him. Some of them are ministers, men charged with teaching the Bible just as he was, and yet they are totally ignorant of its central theme. How many there are who are depending on the words of such men to see them through Heaven’s gate. “But my minister/pastor/ priest says…” Regardless of what they say, “Ye must be born again.”
The thing is ignorance is no excuse. You may not be a master of Israel, a preacher or Bible teacher, but every man knows he is by nature a sinner, and all men sense a God’s shaped void in their lives, and it is self evident that no amount of religion or human effort can fill it. We need Jesus, and we need to be saved, and that is precisely why Christ came into the world. And it just maybe, this evening that’s it you who should know these things. That you need Jesus, and it’s you who need to be saved. Let’s pray.
