One of the most exciting and frightening tasks that a pastor can have as part of his calling is preaching. Each and every Sunday, a pastor is given the responsibility of “showing what he knows.” He spends all week wrestling with a particular text in order to deliver a concise, accurate interpretation of God’s Word; giving some insight, understanding, and application. My hope is that you would agree that I succeed most weeks in doing just that. This privilege, however, becomes increasingly amplified in its difficulty on days like today. If you happen to have one of those Bibles that record the words of Jesus in red letters, then you will quickly understand why today’s text is so intimidating. When the task-at-hand becomes to directly decipher what Jesus meant exactly, then the job becomes a little more difficult. In fact, brilliant theologian John Calvin, who wrote commentaries on almost every book of the Bible, wrote commentaries that cover the entirety of the gospel accounts except for the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ great sermon. So you see, the task of dealing with the very words of Jesus Christ can intimidate even the most astute pastor, and can humble him very quickly.
Now I tell you all of that to say that there is so much here in chapter 3 of John’s gospel, that if I were to undertake the task of handling every detail in its entirety, then we would be in John 3 for much longer than we want to be, and we may never make it through the entire gospel of John. That being said, what we have for us in the first 13 verses of John 3 is a conversation between Jesus and a man named Nicodemus. Now, Nicodemus is a figure that appears at various times throughout John’s gospel. Yes, we’re told that Nicodemus was a Pharisee, but he was much more than that. The brief title of “a ruler of the Jews” indicates that he was a member of the Sanhedrin, a group akin to being a present-day U.S. senator if we think of the Pharisees in a general sense as being politicians. The members of the Sanhedrin were the highest ranking officials in the Pharisees. Not only is he a member of the Sanhedrin, but he was also a gifted thinker and theologian. As a matter of fact, during Jesus’ response to Nicodemus he refers to him as “the teacher of Israel.” So as we turn our attention to this conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, keep in mind that this man named Nicodemus is much more than the common man of the day. This guy is as highly educated and as bright of a mind as you would find during this time.
So, Nicodemus goes to Jesus at night to speak to him and the first words out of his mouth to Jesus are, “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.” Think about this for a second. Nicodemus is a Pharisee, a member of the group that seems to do nothing during Jesus’ earthly ministry other than seek to destroy him and his witness. There are those who think that Nicodemus’ going to Jesus at night is a sign that he was trying to go to him in secrecy; others say that he was simply too busy for Jesus during the day. Regardless of why he went to him at night, when Nicodemus gets to Jesus his first statement to him refers to him a Rabbi; a title that would have carried with it great respect. Even the rest of the words spoken to Jesus seem to carry with them a sense of reverence. Now, as we will see later on, Nicodemus does believe Jesus to be the Messiah; as to whether or not he believes now or whether his words here are sincere or sarcastic we don’t know, but that isn’t the point. The point is found in Jesus’ response to this statement. Where we might except to find some type of agreement or affirmation of Nicodemus’ statement we find this, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Now, when we have the words “truly, truly” like we do here, it means that we are to pay special attention to what follows. Any time we see a double word in Scripture it carries significance. It’s almost like a verbal highlighter if you will. The words that follow this repetition of the same word are something that Jesus is stressing with absolute certainty, and what Jesus is talking about is rebirth and being born again. The word “unless” when it’s used in the New Testament signals a necessary condition or action that must be done in order to obtain a desired condition. In this particular case, being born again, or as some of your Bible’s might say “born from above” must happen for someone to see the kingdom of God, or heaven.
Now this term, born again Christian, is something that is common place within our society. Chuck Colson, an advisor for President Nixon, was caught up in the Watergate scandal as one of the Watergate 7 and often referred to as Nixon’s “hatchet man”. In the 1973, Colson gave his life to Christ and began to change the direction of his life. In 1976, while in prison he started what would later become Prison Fellowship, the largest ministry network to prison inmates in this nation. That same year, Colson also wrote a book about his journey entitled Born Again. The book was wildly successful and sold millions of copies. Only a few years later, President Jimmy Carter revealed that he too was a “born again Christian.” The popularity of Colson’s book in addition to President Carter’s proclamation made the term born again Christian a common phrase. What’s funny about all of this is that it really is kind of an ignorant statement. Because you see, all Christians are born again. As we just said, that’s a requirement for our being considered Christians and children of God. And that confuses us, because we want to think of born again Christians being those like Colson, the prodigal son, or others who have strayed, but have come back home. We don’t think of every Christian, even those such as myself, who cannot remember a time in which they weren’t part of the church, as being born again.
Then, something that I just find great about this exchange between these two men is found in Nicodemus’ response to Jesus’ statement: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” I mean, we’ve already said that Nicodemus was one of the brightest minds and astute theologians of his time, and yet he seems completely dumbfounded by Jesus’ words here. Nicodemus, despite being one of the most intelligent men of his time, has to admit complete ignorance and humble himself before Christ and ask him what he’s talking about.
Jesus then takes over the conversation, but notice that he doesn’t really even give Nicodemus’ attempt at humor a second thought; he simply continues on the path he has already begun. He continues to speak about this rebirth being needed to enter into heaven, but this time he adds some mention of water and the Spirit to his original comments. He also changes “seeing” the kingdom to “entering” it. Now, let’s don’t get too caught up in this phrasing and the importance of the terms “water” and “Spirit”, Jesus is just saying that we have to be consumed by God, hence the reference to the Spirit. Notice, if you will, the contrast that exists within verse 6, “That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” No one is born a Christian; they just aren’t. In fact, we can take from these words that at the time of our birth that heaven is closed to us as we are born into sin. So many Christians today are similar to the Jews of Jesus’ day; thinking that just because you are born into a morally decent family or into a particular group that you must be granted access into heaven. They act as if it is their right to enter into heaven at their time of judgment. As far as being a Christian is concerned, you can be born of Christian parents, raised in a Christian home, attend Christian daycares, schools, and colleges, but none of those things make you a Christian. All that we are born into is the flesh. All that we deserve is the condemnation that goes with our being born into the flesh. It isn’t until the Holy Spirit works in our hearts and changes all that we are that we are born of God and born of the Spirit, thus allowing us to enter into the kingdom.
You can tell at this point that Nicodemus must have still had a blank look on his face because Jesus has to verbally slap him by telling him to stop dwelling on this notion of being reborn and what it looks like. Jesus then begins to speak to him about the wind and how it blows about. This may seem like an odd statement to us today, but it is actually a clever play on words. You see, in both the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament, the words for spirit can also mean breath or wind. He’s saying to Nicodemus, “Ok, look; you can’t see the wind right? But you know that it has blown sometimes by the power that it has and the changes that it causes in the landscape of things around you? We don’t know exactly where it has come from or exactly where it is going; we have an idea, but we never know with complete certainty. This is similar to the Spirit. Being born of the Spirit is a work of God. Nicodemus stop thinking in terms of what you have to do, but what God does through you in order that you may be born of the Spirit and the gates of heaven opened up to you.”
Nicodemus still doesn’t get it; he asks, “How can these things be?” It’s at this point that Jesus has to be getting at least a little annoyed with the constant doubt of Nicodemus. He asks, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things.” In other words, how can you be considered by yourself and others to be such a great mind when you understand nothing? Obviously your studies in Scripture (i.e. Old Testament) have been misguided. You see, this isn’t some new, mystery religion that Jesus is speaking about here; this is the same God-worshiping religion that has existed since the time of creation. The only thing that is changing is that it is progressing further along its plan. The time has now come for Christ to come and fulfill the Old Testament and to atone for the sins of the people.
Look at the final 3 verses of our text today, “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. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” Jesus knows what he’s talking about; he knows the truth. He’s speaking from a position of authority because he is the one who has come down and descended from heaven. Nicodemus is questioning what Jesus has to say, but he’s talking to the ultimate truth. He’s talking to the Living Word.
So many things in the Christian life are hard. Even just trying to understand what it means to be a Christian can be a difficult task. I’m currently reading C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. In this brilliant work, Lewis speaks to the skeptic about the Christian faith. He begins at the most elementary level of knowledge and step-by-step builds up to an undeniable case for God, Jesus Christ as our Savior, and the Christian faith. It is truly a marvelous work and a great book for Christians as well as non-Christians. One of his early arguments in the book states that there is a great deal of mystery and unknown in some of our understanding as to how Christ’s death works. There are numerous theories about how it accomplishes its task, but that isn’t what’s important. “It’s not about how Christ’s death works” says Lewis, “but that it does indeed work.” And Jesus is in essence speaking much along the same lines here to Nicodemus. It’s not about what being reborn looks like or how it works, but it’s about the fact that it does happen.
Friends, there is something different about the Christian that for many is hard to explain. Are Christians happier people? Not necessarily, but they might be. Christians are surely more joyful in the sense that they have a never-ending source of joy. We’ve mentioned this before. There is a space within each and every person that only God can fill. For those seeking to fill it with money, power, fame, lust, or any other worldly virtue, their efforts are in vain. I hope that you will join me next week as we look a little more at what this never-ending joy is and why we Christians claim it as our own. But let’s remember this from today, that each and every one of us who clings to Christ and bears the name Christian; we have been reborn. There is a change that has taken place within us at the most fundamental level that isn’t a result of our doing, but came about because of the working of Holy Spirit in our hearts. Glory be to God; in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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