Jesus Speaks to Skeptics: John 3:9-15
Almost everyone knows the difference between a believer and a skeptic, but not everyone knows the difference between an honest skeptic and a dishonest skeptic. An honest skeptic may have doubts about certain truths but who will face up to them when he is presented with evidence; he will alter his life as a result. A dishonest skeptic is one who has doubt about truths or doctrines but who will NOT face up to the evidence. So when he is blasted out of one foxhole of disbelief, he will immediately take refuge in another and after he is blasted out of that one, he will begin to look around for a third. (Taken from “John” by J.M. Boice, p. 214) Nicodemus seems to be such a man.
After Jesus has given several commanding statements to Nicodemus concerning the “ONLY WAY” to enter the Kingdom of God, being born from above, we read in John 3:9-15: “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? 11Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you (pl.) 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.”
A skeptical question and an accusatory response
“How can these things be?” or “How can these things HAPPEN? Here’s how! You’re born with unbelief and sin, and only a birth from above, a birth from God, will produce saving faith, no matter who you are; your power, prestige, education, life experience, nationality, heritage or intellect will not give understanding or entrance to the Kingdom of God. Unbelief COMES easily because you already have it, but it dies hard!
Jesus replies, as He often does, with a pointed but accusatory question: “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” No doubt, Nicodemus was an outstanding, prominent and significant teacher of Israel, since Jesus said “you are THE teacher of Israel.” Certainly Nicodemus would be expected to know the deep things of the God of Israel. Surely Nicodemus knew the promise of new life from Ezekiel 36:26 and 11:19: “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.”
Surely Nicodemus had studied Jeremiah 31:33: “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Did he not know Habakkuk 2:4? "Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by faith,” not by works. He CERTAINLY would have known about Abraham’s faith in God’s promise to save, without ever seeing it for himself. Didn’t he see that from Adam, to Noah to Abraham and certainly in the selection of Israel to be God’s chosen people that the relationship between God and man was ALWAYS initiated by God! (Other Old Testament verses alluded to the new birth as well: Isa. 29:10, Deut. 30:6, Ps. 51: 6, and Ps. 51:10. Psalm 87:4-7.)
“While Christ’s rebuke of Nicodemus was harsh, it is nothing less than a rebuke for a failure to acknowledge the utter helpless condition that ALL of humanity faces outside of Christ. The new birth was just as necessary for people in the Old Testament as it is for all people.” (C. Michael Patton, Credo House)
It is God who brings the heart to receive. It is He alone that draws the person to Himself and it is He that renews and regenerates. In this conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus’ begins His ongoing charges concerning the spiritual deadness of the Pharisees and the overall state of spiritual deadness of Israel, as well any human being apart from a birth from above.
A Dialogue turns to a monologue
In Verse 11, Jesus’ Dialogue with Nicodemus turns into a monologue as Jesus demonstrates that HE truly is the Teacher, saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you,(Amen, Amen, an absolute divine authoritative statement is about to follow!) we (pl) speak of what we (plural) know, and bear witness to what we (plural) have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.”
In John 3:2, Nicodemus came to Jesus and introduced the dialogue with these words: “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.” The “we know” of Nicodemus in verse 3 is corrected or trumped by the “we know” of Jesus’ knowledge of the Heavenly things because of Jesus’ eternal relationship with the Father. The most reliable witness is Jesus Himself because of His divine origin and relationship with the Father from Heaven itself.
That’s why Jesus immediately follows with the words in verse 12: “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? Clearly, Nicodemus has not understood Jesus and clearly Nicodemus has not received a “birth from above”, otherwise he would be in agreement with Jesus’ Words. (Jesus is God’s Word from Heaven in the flesh.) There should be an “AMEN” resounding from the lips of Nicodemus if the Spirit of God had blown into my life and created a new heart of faith and love for God.
The new life comes from above but its effects are experienced in the here and now on earth. But Nicodemus does not “TRUST” or “GIVE ASSENT” to what Jesus has been saying. If Nicodemus had received a new heart of faith from God, THEN Jesus could go on to explain the HEAVENLY, DEEPER things of God. To Jesus, the new birth is basic and in this context it is “earthly”, not of an earthly nature, not sinful or evil, but the spiritual realities are experienced on this side of Heaven as we gain entrance by faith into His Kingdom. The New Birth gives us entrance into the Kingdom of God as inaugurated by Messiah Jesus.
But that’s not the end: “There is a mountain of Christianity beyond “being saved” or “getting saved”. It contains a wealth of information about the True God and includes a WAY OF LIFE as you follow the Savior, a total world-view and enough “meat” and truth to keep theologians and philosophers, AND “Every” BELIEVER occupied for thousands of years. The depths of God’s being and God’s Kingdom have only begun to be plumbed (and understood) by each of us.” (taken from exegesis by G. Boesenecker)
Verse 13 (AND) “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” The literal translation goes like this: “AND NO ONE HAS ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN EXCEPT THE ONE OUT OF HEAVEN HAS DESCENDED THE SON OF MAN THE ONE BEING IN HEAVEN.” The fact that Jesus can speak of “heavenly things” lies in the fact that He is of the heavenly realm which He explains.
Jesus is basically referring to himself from Proverbs 30:4: “Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son’s name? Surely you know!” But Nicodemus did NOT!
“This verse contradicts other religious systems’ claims to special revelation from God. Jesus insisted that no one has ascended to Heaven in such a way as to return and talk about heavenly things.(cf. 2 Cor. 12:1-4) Only he had his permanent abode in heaven prior to his incarnation and, therefore, only he has the true knowledge regarding heavenly wisdom.” (MacArthur Study Note, p. 1541) No mere man has ever gained the heights of Heaven, entering communion with God the Father, except the Son of God who became the“Son of Man” in order to share the Word from the Father, giving light, life, and the way to salvation and Godly Kingdom entrance. This one who existed eternally in the heavenly places WITH God came down in space and time to be with us. Jesus alone has the intuitive knowledge of the things of God and of His Heaven.
Jesus is asserting that HE, the SON OF MAN is the One to whom the heaven was opened and who dwells there at this very moment.
Jesus begins to unveil His Redemptive Purpose
In verses14-15, Jesus begins to unveil His Redemptive Purpose: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,(physically and literally lifted up but also figuratively-“exalted”) 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” Jesus gives a prediction of His purpose for coming from Heaven to Earth in the flesh, namely to die on the cross. The story to which He refers is from Numbers 21:5-9 where the children of Israel were again rebelling against God and against His spokesman, Moses; God sent venomous snakes which bit the people and many were dying because of their sins.
They asked Moses to intercede for them and God told Moses: “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.” (Numbers 21: 8-9) lifted up a bronze snake on a pole so that all who looked upon it might live physically. The Israelites were not healed and saved because they had done anything: Their life was provided by faith in what provision in in Moses’ obedience as God’s Mediator.
Jesus is making a declaration of salvation which will be in Him alone: To the world He would appear to die the death of a felon, but to those who have been given the heart of faith, His humiliation in his death would demonstrate the supreme love and grace of God to save and forgive! When He would be lifted up on the cross, all who look to Christ alone, not trusting in their works, but who continue to believe solely in Him, will live spiritually and eternally. Verse 15 literally says “that everyone BELIEVING in Him may have life eternal.”
The Person of Christ and His Perfect Work, NOT MERELY HIS TEACHING, are the grounds for spiritual life and forgiveness: Believing in Him is the instrumentality. In trusting and believing, the repentant sinner throws himself upon his Lord in loving, self-abandoning faith and trust. (The word for believe is used 8 times in chapter 3.) The act of believing takes the sinner out of himself and makes him one with Christ, placing him IN CHRIST.
John G. Paton, a missionary to cannibals in the 1850’s and 1860’s on islands in the South Pacific found that the natives had no written language and so he began to work on a language and then on a translation of the Bible for them. He soon discovered they had no word for “FAITH”. This was a huge challenge because you can’t complete the translation of the Bible without a word for “faith”. Justification for sinner comes by faith, not by works. One day Paton went on a hunt with one of the natives. They shot a large deer and tying its legs together and supporting it on a pole, they trekked back down the mountain to Paton’s home. Reaching the porch, both men threw the deer down and the native flopped into one of the chairs on the porch and exclaimed: “My, it is good to stretch yourself out here and rest.”Paton immediately jumped to his feet and recorded the phrase. In his final translation of the New Testament this was the word used to convey the idea of trust, faith and belief.” (“John”, Boice, Vol. 1, p.224-225)
If you took that definition of trust, faith, and believing and fit it into Acts 16:31, it would read like this: “Stretch yourself out on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” John 3:14-15 would read: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of man must be lifted up, that everyone who stretches himself out on Him may have eternal life?” “If you turn away from having any faith in yourself and your own works, religion, and self-reformation and look to the cross of Christ on which God dealt with sin and on the basis of which he promises new life to the sinner, then God will heal you. This is the heart of Christianity: God has provided salvation for you in Jesus Christ.” (Boice, p. 225). Are you a believer or a skeptic? Are you an honest skeptic or a dishonest skeptic?
Hebrews 4: 3 says: “For we who have believed enter that rest.” We are stretched out and resting on Jesus alone because He was stretched out on the cross.
1. Jesus gives an accusatory response to a skeptical question. (9-10) (Ref: Ezekiel 36:26, 11:19, Jeremiah 31:33, Habakkuk 2:4, Isa. 29:10, Deut. 30:6, Ps. 51: 6, and Ps. 51:10. Psalm 87:4-7) The relationship between God and man was ALWAYS initiated by God: God brings the heart to receive.
2. Jesus, as Teacher turns a dialogue to a monologue. (11-13) The most reliable witness is Jesus Himself because of His divine origin and relationship with the Father from Heaven
3. Jesus begins to unveil His Redemptive Purpose. (14-15) Jesus is making a declaration of salvation which will be in Him alone. Heb. 4:3, Acts 16:31: “Stretch yourself out” (believe) on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
