(Based on and edited from a message preached at First Baptist Church, Chamois, MO on 12-18-22. This is not an exact transcription.)
Introduction: There is no greater expression of love, anywhere, when we think about how Jesus left Heaven to come to this earth, to be born like us, live with us, die for us, and come back to life to bring us salvation. The text isn’t really a Christmas theme, but you can’t help but find love in nearly every verse of it. Let’s read together:
Text: John 3:1-18, NASB: 1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; 2 this man came to Jesus at night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus responded and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a person be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born, can he?”5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which has been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which has been born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be amazed 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 you do not know where it is coming from and where it is going; so is everyone who has been born of the Spirit.”
9 Nicodemus responded and said to Him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered and said to him, “You are 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 testify of what we have seen, and you people do not accept our testimony. 12 If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13No one has ascended into heaven, except He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes will have eternal life in Him.
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him. 18 The one who believes in Him is not judged; the one who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
<prayer>
I mentioned this isn’t a passage most people think of at Christmas time, but it does lead into the greatest gift anyone could give or receive—and that’s God’s gift of salvation. In a word, it’s love, and there is no greater love than what God has for us.
The text has two divisions, we could say: first, the conversation and then the explanation. Let’s take a look at the conversation first:
We first meet with a very well-known, well-educated, well-respected leader of the Jews, name Nicodemus. John tells us in the first few verses that he came to Jesus by night—but he never gave the location. In fact, it could have been anywhere between Cana of Galilee, mentioned in John 2, and Jerusalem itself. I kind of doubt Nicodemus would have gone very far away from Jerusalem, especially at night, unless he had a really strong reason to do so!
And this, to him, was a very strong reason indeed. He found Jesus, wherever He was, and expressed his own statement: “Rabbi, we know You came from God as a teacher (part and parcel of what a rabbi did, apparently) and nobody can do these signs that You’re doing unless God is with Him.” Now, there’s something that has left me puzzled for a long time, and that’s what things Nicodemus might have seen! The only recorded miracle in John’s gospel, to this point, was the changing of water to wine in John 2—but were there others? John did say in the last verses of his gospel that the whole world couldn’t contain all that Jesus did!
Or, had Nicodemus seen Jesus cleanse the temple, also in John 2? That would be a sign, and I haven’t read of anybody, anywhere, who did anything even close to what Jesus did here.
But no matter what Nicodemus had seen or witnessed, there was something that stayed with him and he expressed his speech, or opinion,—I don’t know what else to call it—to Jesus Himself. Now he’s probably wondering what Jesus might say in return.
He probably didn’t know what to think when Jesus told him, “Truly, truly (verily, verily, KJV) I tell you, nobody can see the kingdom of God unless he’s born again.” First, Nicodemus may have been puzzled by what Jesus meant when He said, “born again” because, as some of the other commentators wrote, this meant a non-Jewish person decided to become a follower of Judaism. Most of these were called proselytes, like Nicolas of Antioch in the book of Acts. But since Nicodemus was already Jewish, that probably didn’t make much sense to him.
There’s another thing that Nicodemus didn’t understand, and that was the phrase “see the kingdom of God”. One of the beautiful and yet frustrating things about the original language is that there were several words translated “see”. One meant, Oh, look, there’s something over there; another, I wonder how I can find this or figure it out; and the one Jesus used here meant to experience something first hand.
Let me try to illustrate this. Coach John is now training a group of kids in archery, right (note: he nodded his head in agreement)? So, you could look and find targets, bows, arrows, and the kind of things used in archery—but that doesn’t mean you’re part of the team. You haven’t really “seen” archery until you shoot an arrow at a target.
Do you, “see”?
Nicodemus apparently didn’t. We may never know, these many years after the fact, just what the scholars and leaders expected when they considered the “kingdom of God”. We do get a hint of this, some years later, when Jesus entered Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, fulfilling prophecy but just a few days later the King was crucified and buried! In the same way, Nicodemus may have “seen” or read the Scriptures and, most likely, other works too but had no idea what Jesus meant when He replied “nobody will see the Kingdom of God unless he’s born again”.
This leads us to the second part of the conversation. Nicodemus had come with a statement, maybe even a word of admiration (and why not?) but now he’s confused. He asks Jesus one of the oddest questions ever when he said, “How can anyone be born when he’s old?” It’s a fact of biology that women pass a certain age when they can no longer bear children (excepting miracles, such as Sarah and Abraham, many years before). It’s also possible the mother of Nicodemus was already dead and—that would make giving birth rather impossible, huh? In a word, he’s thinking in the literal sense: he had been born, just as Jesus Himself and every person except Adam and Eve and knew what it meant. But he had no idea how to literally be born, physically, a second time. He just didn’t get what Jesus was explaining.
As bewildered (now that’s a word you don’t hear much these days) as Nicodemus was before, I can almost imagine his face as Jesus now makes His reply. First Jesus, lovingly, I think, explains that unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, He cannot enter the kingdom of God. There are any number of explanations or ideas what Jesus meant but we can agree on this—He’s not talking about natural, physical birth like Nicodemus was. Jesus made a further distinction when He said what was born of flesh is flesh (naturally) and what was born of the Spirit is spirit.
And Jesus went on from there. Nicodemus must have been absolutely confused when Jesus told him (and I understand in the original, this is pretty strong language), “Don’t even think about being amazed when I told you, ‘You must be born again’”. The idea is that Nicodemus wasn’t amazed, but there was a possibility he would be, and Jesus told him to not even let that happen.
Then Jesus changed the figure of speech a little. He gave an illustration, something along the lines of how everyone knows about the wind, and you can hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where it came from or where it’s going. Sometimes a wind can be a gentle breeze and sometimes it’s gale or hurricane force!—but there’s not much any of us can do about it. Jesus closed that illustration by saying everyone who has been born of the Spirit was like that.
Now if Nicodemus was baffled, and yet commanded not to be amazed, he still could and did ask out of whatever he was feeling. He said, to enter part 3 of this conversation, “How can these things be?” I’ve wondered just what he meant—did he still have a hang-up about being born a second time? Was he curious about how wind functioned? Or was he stalling, not really wanting to experience more truth but rather using an “I don’t know what this means” approach. Some talk show hosts use this “gambit” to avoid discussing things that might be uncomfortable, no?
It didn’t matter to Jesus, though, just what Nicodemus was thinking because Jesus, as so often, told it like it was. Note how He first reminded Nicodemus about his own standing—“you’re the teacher of Israel, and you don’t get it?” This proves that people can read the Scriptures, memorize them, define each word, and even teach—seminaries are proof of this—and still just not understand the Scriptures themselves.
Jesus went on. He then said that “you people”, including not only Nicodemus but any number of others, don’t accept our testimony. I mean, Nicodemus had already admitted (confessed?) that Jesus was a teacher from God because of what he had seen. But that wasn’t enough.
Now Jesus gave one of the clearest pictures ever as to what His own future would be. He first said that no one had ascended into Heaven except He Who had come down from Heaven. Some object to this, asking about Enoch and Elijah, but neither of those men ascended. Enoch walked with God and “God took him (Genesis 5:24)” and Elijah received the ride of his life when he went to Heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:11)!
And then Jesus proceeded to one of the most graphic examples of God’s grace in the entire Old Testament. He told Nicodemus, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” The background for this incident is striking: Israel had left bondage in Egypt several years before but sinned and were sentenced to wander in the wilderness for 40 years (Numbers 13-14). As many times before, they absolutely grumbled against God and God sent fiery serpents among them.
Many Israelites died from snakebite. Moses prayed and God gave the answer: make a serpent of brass and put it on a pole. Everyone who looks at it will live!” God didn’t have to do any of this but He loved Israel so much that He gave a free antidote to the poison and the serpents themselves. There’s an old hymn which has “Look and live! My brother, live! Look and live!” and it’s based on that passage.
Jesus, then, was telling Nicodemus, “I have to be lifted up (another word for crucified, here) so that anyone who believes will have eternal life.” Did Nicodemus understand anything now, more than he already knew? Did he go away, as Martin Luther said of someone who questioned him about his believes, “pensive and dazed?” We’ll never know down here when Nicodemus finally figured it out, but he did, and how he treated Jesus in the future is proof of that.
The conversation closed somewhere between verses 15 or 16 and 21 but no matter where it did close, that leaves us to look at the explanation found in verse 16, especially. Many people know this verse, many people love this verse and many have taken this verse to heart—and believed. In fact, that’s one of the reasons Jesus spoke these words. Think about it:
--God so loved the world: and there was no real reason for Him to do so, was there? I mean, one of the things we humans do well is sin, and we’ve all done our share, haven’t we. The longer we live, the more we’ll sin, and that’s life. God had no demand to provide salvation or everlasting life for anybody, but He did, because He so loved the world. That doesn’t mean just the planet, by the way, but everyone who has ever lived. That’s you and me, folks!
--That He gave His only (begotten, KJV) Son: This is the first reason or proof of God’s love for us. Those of us who have children know that we’d do just about anything for them. We’d do whatever it took to get them food, clothes, school supplies, you name it, and we’d do it. But I dare say, that even though some of us would be willing to die for our children, not many of us would be willing to see our children die for anyone else. I have two sons and would rather die many times over than see either one of them taken and slain for anyone else. The same goes for my daughter and all my grandchildren.
But God sent His only begotten Son into this world. That Son is Jesus. He came to be born like us, clearly; to live with and among us, physically; to teach us the ways of God, clearly; but most of all to die for us and come back to life. Sure, in Christmas time, we rejoice how Jesus came to this world, and how He did so much for so many but there’s one thing we tend to forget.
Even though He came as a baby Boy, Jesus came to DIE.
But it doesn’t stop there. No, Jesus didn’t stay in a grave when He died. He came back to life on a spring morning and when He arose, He made salvation and everlasting life complete!
If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.
--That everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life: We’re getting ready to close now, but remember this: “perish” here doesn’t mean simply “to die”. Unless the Lord returns, every one of us is on a journey to the grave. What Jesus meant here was something worse, much worse, than simply dying, as bad as that was. He meant being separated from God forever. Sure, there’s a place called Heaven for those who believe the message but there’s a place called Hell, too, for those who don’t.
Make that right choice to day! Choose life, everlasting life!
Choose the indescribable love God has for you. You don’t have to figure it out, like Nicodemus tried—and failed—to do, just take the gift! God’s Love is the greatest present anybody could receive on Christmas Day or any day!
Why not take it, even now?
Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Version of the Bible (NASB).
