Born Again? John 3:1-15
When Bradley Wiggins won his cycling gold medal at the London 2012 Olympics, people were desperate to see him and even touch him. It must have been similar with Jesus. He had performed many miraculous signs in Jerusalem and was the talk of the town.
“Many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and ‘believed’.” John 2:23
But Jesus didn’t trust them. He knew there was a form of superficial belief that was not what God required.
One man, Nicodemus, was clearly keen to understand Jesus at a deeper level. Who is Jesus? What is his message? He longed for a private interview.
Nicodemus himself was no ordinary person. He was a member of the seventy strong Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. He was also the Regius Professor of Theology in Jerusalem. Jesus describes him as ‘the teacher of Israel’. He clearly had a great reputation. Like many Pharisees, he was a highly moral, respected leader of society. Yet he still had important questions he wanted answered by Jesus.
So Nicodemus came to Jesus at night. Presumably this was when the crowds had dispersed. The phrase ‘at night’ was also an allusion to the fact that, in spite of Nicodemus being a moral upright leader of Israel, he was still ‘in the dark’. As a religious Jew, he would have had every qualification outwardly but, in spite of this, Jesus says he was not yet a member of God’s kingdom.
Everyone needs to understand this today. Outward rituals such as being baptised, confirmed, even ordained, do not give a person the right of admission into God’s kingdom, into heaven.
It is interesting that the great Nicodemus calls Jesus ‘Rabbi’, when he had no official right to that title. Indeed Jesus had no formal religious qualifications we know of, but clearly there was something about Jesus that made people sit up and think.
Nicodemus needed to be taught three truths by Jesus, and these same truths are relevant for all of us.
1. THE NECESSITY OF THE NEW BIRTH v. 1-10
“Jesus declared, ‘I tell you the truth, no-one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” John 3:3
Jesus repeats this three times to make the point absolutely clear.
“I tell you the truth, no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.” John 3:5
“You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again’. John 3:7
Notice the emphasis Jesus gives. ‘I tell you the truth’ is a phrase Jesus used when he wanted to emphasise something strongly. ‘Must’ leaves no room for doubt - even good religious people ‘must’ be born again to enter God’s kingdom.
What is this ‘kingdom of God’? It is a phrase commonly used by the writers of the first three gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke but seldom by John. John speaks more of ‘eternal life’. A kingdom speaks of the rule of a king. It is a dynamic relationship. God’s kingdom is entered when we become subjects of King Jesus, but will be complete later when the king returns. Matthew, Mark and Luke look forwards to this fulfilment a lot. John emphasises what God gives to his people now – eternal life.
Here Jesus speaks to Nicodemus in terms of God’s kingdom. If he wants to see the kingdom of God – then he must be born again and accept the king, yes, even a man such as Nicodemus must submit to Christ. The king has arrived, his kingdom has now begun, and he is still not a member of it.
Nicodemus is puzzled even though Jesus is using Old Testament language. In Ezekiel, God describes the new beginning that God will give to his people, and this will involve two features.
“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.” Ezekiel 36:25
Jesus is repeating Ezekiel’s message. When discussing this passage with my grandchildren, I asked what water was used for. They immediately replied, ‘For washing.’ This is what Ezekiel is alluding to. God will cleanse his people from all their sin. This is why baptism occurs at the beginning of a Christians life as it signifies that Christ has washed our sins washed away – all our impurities have been cleansed. The false God’s we have served will be washed away. Without forgiveness of sin no-one can stand before God.
But something else happens when we become Christians. He will give us his Holy Spirit so that we will want to live for God. Ezekiel continues and explains what it means to have a ‘new heart and a new spirit’,
“I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” Ezekiel 36:27
It is not enough to be washed of our sin, we must have a new heart that makes us want to live as our new Lord wants us too. These are the two major features of what happens when a person becomes a Christian.
Paul expanded on this idea,
“You however are not controlled by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.” Romans 8:9
I recently attended a conference of a missionary society. One of its striking features was the way many of these missionaries were so content and satisfied, even though they were working in very tough areas with little or no public recognition. Their ambitions were different to those of many religious people, they really wanted to live for God and not themselves.
A minister asked a young boy in his church this profound question,
“What do you have to do to go to heaven?”
He thought for a moment before replying,
“You’ve got to die.”
How true this reply was. Clearly no-one can experience heaven until we have died physically. However to be admitted to God’s kingdom we have to die to self now. Paul understood this,
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God (Jesus) who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
Nicodemus, for you to be admitted to God’s Kingdom you must die to self and be born again.
It is a popular misconception that if we are pleasant, moral, religious people then God will look favourably on us when the judgment comes. This is not true. Nicodemus had to learn this.
The message of all religions of the world on how people can satisfy God all begin with the same three letters.
M E R . .
The vast majority teach that people are accepted by God because of the good way they live, that is through
M E R I T
Jesus’ message is utterly different. His message is that people can only be accepted by God through
M E R C Y
He says that his mercy is given to everyone who truly trusts in God’s Son, Jesus.
Nicodemus still couldn’t quite understand this. So Jesus used the analogy of a gust of wind.
“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” John 3:8
So it is with the Holy Spirit. We cannot understand everything about God, but we can experience the life-changing effect He has on people. We have all seen this change in some Christians. When I was a student, it was one of the first things that made me interested in Jesus, the effect he has on others. It is God’s spirit that stirs us to be concerned about our relationship with God. We cannot understand it, but the effect is real.
So Nicodemus, great as you are in human terms,
“You must be born again.”
This idea is often mocked today but Jesus taught it emphatically. Each of us must respond individually and allow God’s Spirit to work in us so that we die to self and live a new life for Christ.
Bishop Taylor-Smith was a corpulent Chaplain General to the Forces. One Sunday morning he was preaching in Salisbury Cathedral on this passage. In order to emphasise this necessity of the new birth he said,
“My dear people do not substitute anything for the new birth. You may be a member of a church, but church membership is not new birth. Jesus said, ‘Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God’.”
On his left sat the Archdeacon in his stall. Pointing directly at him the Bishop said,
“You might even be an Archdeacon, like my friend in his stall, and not be born again. Remember, ‘Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God’.”
A day or two later he received a message from the Archdeacon.
“My dear bishop, you have found me out. I have been a clergyman for over thirty years, but I have never known anything of the joy that Christians speak of. I never could understand. Mine has been a hard legal service. I did not know what the matter was with me, but when you pointed directly at me and said,
“You might even be an Archdeacon and not be born again; I knew in a moment what the trouble was. I had never known anything of the new birth.”
Next day the Archdeacon and the bishop met up and they went through the Bible together. Then the Archdeacon knelt before his Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, and took his place as a sinner who desperately needed Christ’s MERCY.
George Whitfield was an eighteenth century evangelist who often preached on this same verse? Someone complained to him,
“Why do you preach on this text so often?”
He answered,
“You must be born again!”
2. THE ORIGIN OF CHRIST’S MESSAGE v. 11-13
Jesus claimed to be the Lord God who had come down from heaven to earth in order to take men from earth to heaven.
“I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.” John 3:11
What Jesus teaches is God’s word or message to us. We cannot pick and choose those bits of the Bible we like and reject those bits we dislike such as judgment and hell.
“You don’t believe me when I have told you about things on this earth, how can you believe if I speak of heavenly things.” John 3:12
Today there are many people who are uncertain whether what the Bible teaches and what Jesus says are really from God. Yet this is exactly what the church has believed since Jesus’ time. John wrote his gospel to convince people that Jesus was indeed God in the flesh. He gave compelling evidence about the life and teaching of Jesus. His aim was that as people investigate the evidence, they should believe in Jesus. This was vital as personal commitment to Jesus Christ results in individuals being given eternal life. John summarised this,
“Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples that are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John 20:30-31
The lesson is clear. If anyone wants to know the way to heaven we must become followers of the one and only person who is ‘the way’ – ‘the one who came from heaven’ (John 3:13).
3. THE IMPORTANCE OF CHRIST’S DEATH v. 14-15
Jesus again uses a story from the Old Testament that Nicodemus would have known well. In Numbers chapter twenty one a frightening incident is described. The Israelites were in the wilderness, hoping to find a way into the Promised Land, just as we hope to gain admission to heaven. The people became impatient, they seemed to be going nowhere and life was far from easy. They started to grumble against both their leader, Moses, and against God. They moaned, complained and as often happens exaggerated their problems – they said they had no bread and no water, yet they were still alive enough to complain!
But God is never to be trifled with. He sent them some poisonous snakes that should have reminded them of what happened to Adam and Eve. Many people died from the snake-bites.
As often happens, problems can bring people to their senses. They learned that it is a fearful thing to oppose God, to moan, disagree and not trust God’s promises.
They said in desperation,
“We have sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you.”
Then the Lord told Moses to make a bronze snake and put it up on a pole so that everyone could see it.
“Anyone who is bitten can look on it and live.” Numbers 21:8
This story, that Jesus refers to, reminds us all that God’s judgment will come to all who rebel against him, but it is also a reminder that he is a merciful God who also provides the way of salvation.
The British Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) uses the picture of the snake on a pole in their regimental badge. They see themselves as the hope for people injured in battle, just as the gospel is the hope for those damaged by sin.
In the Bodleian library in Oxford there is a Medieval Manuscript containing a remarkable picture. This depicts a prominent Moses on the left, looking at the brass snake on the pole. Around him are several people, each signifying a message.
One man is asleep on the ground. He doesn’t think there is much to worry about. The bite of sin is only a little thing. A serpent is even whispering in his ear, probably saying, ‘There is no need to worry’. Yet he is dying.
In the top left a man is fighting ferociously with a serpent. Apparently he thinks that salvation will come through his own antagonism against evil. He has not grasped that the only solution is to look at the brass snake.
Another man is busy dressing the wounds of a friend, but neither are looking at the brass snake. It is as if the artist is saying about him, ‘Surely if I am kind and helpful, I will be cared for by God’. This is not true, the bite of the snake kills all.
Another man is kneeling and looking at Moses. He thinks that his religion will save him. However religion has never saved anybody.
But there is another man behind Moses who has a calm peaceful look on his face. He is looking at the serpent of brass, and not at the snakes, at Moses or at himself. He stands for the man who believes God’s word and lives.
God’s message to all of us is the same. We can react in different ways to the salvation that God offers to all who will look to his Son, who was also ‘lifted up’ on our behalf. Jesus longed for Nicodemus to understand the prophetic meaning of the story of the serpent on the pole.
“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” John 3:14-15
Why did God tell Moses to make a brass serpent, when a serpent represents sin, instead of a lamb representing purity? Surely this is significant. It is to teach that salvation of mankind was to be obtained by someone who would become sin for us.
“God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us.” 2 Corinthians 5:21
As Jesus hung there on that cross, lifted high, he became sin for me. He took my sin on himself. The analogy is precise. Just as the Israelites had to look and trust when the snakes troubled them, so for us to be saved, we must look to and trust in the Lord Jesus who became sin for us. He became our substitute. He is the King, who rules the Kingdom of God, but he came to die to take men and women from earth to heaven.
4. LESSONS JESUS WANTS ALL TO UNDERSTAND
1. I need to be ‘born again’.
Just as the respectable Nicodemus needed to be ‘born again’ so do all of us. Jesus says that this involves accepting two facts.
a. I must trust that Jesus is telling us God’s truths.
“I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.” John 3:11
There is no new birth for those who reject what Jesus teaches.
b. I must commit myself to Jesus
“. . . that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” John 3:14-15
To believe in Jesus means to trust him personally. It is all too easy to have an intellectual believe that is not personal.
A vicar overheard his young son praying one Sunday night at bedtime.
“Lord, please help the faith of daddy to drop a foot”
“What do you mean?” his father inquired.
“Well, we learnt in Sunday School today that God doesn’t just want us to believe in our heads but in our hearts.”
At my preparatory school, if the winter was very cold, the headmaster, Mr. R.J. Mowll, would take us down to the big lake when it was frozen over. First he would walk on the ice, then he would allow the senior boys on and finally, if all was well, he would invite the rest of us all onto the ice. Some went boldly, others timidly. What mattered however was not the confidence or faith of the boys, but the reliability of the object of our faith, in that case the strength of the ice. We all have different personalities, some throw themselves into something new with gusto, others hesitantly, what matters however is that we take that step and have faith.
If any reader is still keeping Jesus at arm’s length, like the Archdeacon, what is there to prevent you taking that step of faith by telling the Lord Jesus that you will trust him from now on? We know that Nicodemus did make that commitment to Christ. After Jesus crucifixion he and Joseph of Arimathea showed their commitment to Christ by publicly collecting Jesus’ body for burial.
2. The New Birth is the most important happening of anyone’s life.
Being ‘born again’, my conversion to Christ, may be a gradual event or we may be able to remember the day when we invited the Lord Jesus into our lives. This acceptance by God is more important than our career decisions, our marriage or any spiritual experiences. We should not chase experiences. The real ‘second blessing’ comes when we die and see Jesus face to face. Till then our conversion is the most important feature of a person’s life.
This teaching of Jesus is wonderful. It means anyone can be ‘born again’ of the Spirit because Jesus died on our behalf. We are ‘born again’ when we accept the lord Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. We look to him, trust him and as a consequence we are given eternal life.
BVP
Aug 2012
