WHEN JESUS MEETS RELIGION: NICODEMUS

John’s story about the Pharisee Nicodemus meeting Jesus by night is extremely interesting and instructive. Among other things it offers a template of how a believer is to evangelize an unbeliever, especially one that is religious. The story is found in John 3:1-21. Nicodemus, described as ‘the teacher of Israel’ comes to Jesus by night. The fact that he comes under the cover of darkness suggests that the Pharisee didn’t want his peers to see him asking questions of a uneducated Rabbi. But Nicodemus couldn’t deny the signs that Jesus had done. The events of the wedding feast at Cana were legendary. Nicodemus though confused, recognized that no one could do what jesus had done unless God has something to do with it. We find this stated in verse 2. His rabbinical curiosity drove him to get answers. But there is another reason he came by night. John, always the word-player, uses the ideas of darkness and night throughout his epistle as a picture of spiritual death. In chapter 13 verse 30 he makes it clear that Judas, wanting to betray Jesus on the night of the Passover, exited the upper room while ‘it was night.’ Both men, Nicodemus and Judas, were immersed in spiritual darkness. That Nicodemus was in darkness is presently revealed when he reacts to Jesus’ assertion that man must be born again. His response is very naturalistic; clueless as to its spiritual import. He asks blindly, ‘how can a man be born when is is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb?’ Nothing reveals a man’s spiritual condition more than his natural understanding of spiritual concepts. Paul says the natural man is unable to receive the things of the Spirit of God for ‘they are foolishness to him.’ Sounds just like Nicodemus. So the man who came to Jesus for answers would find none; not because Jesus had no answers to give but because Nicodemus had no capacity to grasp them. Jesus then presses his argument knowing fully that he is dealing with a man dead in spiritual darkness. ‘In order to know God you must be born of Spirit and water,’ Jesus says. Now anyone knows that birth is a passive experience. No one births themselves. They are born by external forces for which they have no control. In other words, Jesus is telling Nicodemus, a great teacher with all learning and religion, that he has no ability to know God in himself. This new birth must happen outside the man, which Jesus describes as Spirit and water. Well much ink has been spilt over the meaning of Spirit and water. Its meaning is not all that difficult. Let me explain. Jesus is merely using imagery of rebirth taken from the Old Testament, a book Nicodemus knew inside out. The point Jesus is trying to make is simple. The Spirit of God must first work upon the soul of a man before a man can escape the darkness and come to the light. The work of the Spirit spills all over the pages of the Old Testament and that work is generally connected to rebirth, regeneration, revivification, the creation of new life. And the Spirit’s work of rebirth is often connected to water. Consider these verses.

‘The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of waters’ (Gen 1:2).

The initial rebirth of the created order is effected by the Spirit of God over the waters. Consider this verse next;

‘For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and floods on the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit on your descendants, and My blessing on your offspring; they will spring up among the grass like willows by the watercourses’ (Isaiah 44:3-4).

The prophet is heralding a future day when the Israel of God will be fully restored to life. Perhaps the passage that Jesus was alluding in John 3 is found in the 36th chapter of Ezekiel where God is promising to Israel a new age of revival after their captivity.

‘For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them’ (Ezek 36: 24-27).

In these texts the work of the Spirit is like the work of water, a divine substance that generates and sustains life. This combination of Spirit with water to connote one idea is a linguistic device known as hendiadys. In English we say things like salt and pepper; nuts and bolts, and raining cats and dogs, to give one idea. So here. The words Spirit and water combine to explain the Hebrew idea of rebirth (in creation, in Israel, in the human soul). Many assert that Jesus speaks of water because He is referring to baptism. But this is illogical. Jesus would not mention a rite that had not yet been introduced, an approach that would only further confuse a hopeless sinner. No, Jesus is not trying to confuse Nicodemus by speaking of something Nicodemus would not know, but He pulls out imagery from the Old Testament to explain rebirth, imagery Nicodemus would be well acquainted with.

If this is not convincing then we only need turn to the same book where the same concepts are used together. We find this as Jesus stands up on that last great day of the feast and cries out,

‘“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified’ (John 7:37-39).

Here Jesus clearly connects the work of the Spirit with water. Any Jew, including Nicodemus, would understand the idea that Spirit and water symbolizes the idea of new birth. Such was also on the mind of Paul when he writes Titus.

‘But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life’ (Titus 3:4-7).

Washing and renewing are concepts of rebirth and Paul explains it by using the Old Testament combination of water and the Spirit.

Of course Nicodemus understands none of what Jesus is saying. Jesus’ message to this point is that no one can understand anything about God unless they Spirit first gives them light. In other words, Nicodemus is blind and there is nothing he can do about it. So this is the end of the meeting? Is there anything more to say? Well, Jesus is not finished. He keeps at it because the message is not yet complete. His goal was to first drive this poor Pharisee to absolute despair before giving him a message of hope. But before He does that, Jesus must first explain the nature of this new birth. He does so by giving another earthly illustration of the wind (vs 8).

Rebirth like the wind cannot be controlled. Who has ever changed the course of the wind? It is always capricious and unpredictable. And though the wind cannot be seen it can be felt. We all know that wind exists because we feel the cold chill on our face. But we can’t see it. So it is with the rebirth of the human soul. No one can control the Spirit, but the effects of His work can be clearly seen. But how can the work of the Spirit come to me? How can I coax the wind?

Nicodemus gets the point. He cries out in frustration, ‘how can these things be?’ This is always the response of a sinner without hope. In the infinite wisdom of God, when one knows he is without hope he is at that moment not far from the Kingdom of God. Yes, Jesus has Nicodemus right where He wants him.

Jesus first proceeds to tell Nicodemus that the reason the Pharisee cannot understand is that he and Jesus come from two different worlds. Nicodemus was born in this world and thus knows only worldly things. Jesus began in heaven and He speaks a heavenly language. He says it this way, ‘no one except me is able to tell you about spiritual things because I alone have come down from heaven. “We speak what we know.'“ Everyone else, including religious big shots, begin with the things of earth and therefore know only earthly things.’ Jesus is saying that He is the only trustworthy witness of things spiritual. All other witnesses fall short. He says, ‘no one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man’ (vs 13).

At this point is looks like there is nothing more to be done. Nicodemus is blind to spiritual things and He cannot remedy that situation himself. He and Jesus speak different languages and there and communication seems impossible. But this hopeless situation only sets the stage for Jesus’ declaration of the gospel. To illustrate the gospel He appeals to Numbers chapter 21 verses 4-9. This event that happened to Israel in their desert wanderings and is one of the clearest picture of the gospel found anywhere in Holy Writ. The Israelites are being bitten by fiery serpents and are dying. No medicine can cure them; they are doomed to die. But God in His mercy tells Moses to lift up an image of a serpent on a pole and lift is high so all can see it. God then promises to heal anyone who looks at the pole. Yes, we said it right, anyone who LOOKS at the pole. And then Jesus makes the shocking announcement that He is the fulfillment of this Old Testament story. He says there will soon come a day when He, the Son of Man, will be lifted up on a pole, a Roman cross. And all who look at Him dying on that cross with a believing heart will be saved instantly.

This is the bombshell of the gospel. In the midst of a hopeless situation, Jesus comes rushing to bring hope to Nicodemus. Soon Nicodemus would believe. But notice where Jesus began. He stripped the religious man every ounce of his self-confidence. He made it clear that only the sovereign work of the Spirit of God could regenerate a man’s heart. And He further announced that no man can control the ways of the Spirit. And it is then, when Nicodemus is out of hope that gospel comes and announces to dead, hopeless sinners that all they need to do is look to the dying Lamb, the serpent lifted up on the pole, and they shall live. In the gospel, the impossible is made possible. What can’t possibly be done, is made possible by looking. This, then, was Jesus’ evangelistic method. As Luther would later notice, Jesus was merely using the biblical principle of law and gospel. Law tells the sinner what he must do what he can’t do. But the law must be kept; there are not exception clauses. Thus, anything man does, even man’s disciplined religion, cannot save him. Human effort is useless to change a heart. Yet the law is ‘holy just and good’. It demands perfect obedience. And its requirements are never relaxed. Those who try to save themselves by keeping it only push themselves farther from the truth. And just as everything seems so hopeless, the free offer of the gospel comes and brings with it full salvation. And what must man do? Only look in faith. ‘He who believes in Him should have eternal life.’

Jesus then gives the most poignant summary of the Christian faith ever contained in one verse. It is John 3:16. Notice that God’s motivation to save people is His love for them. And to prove His love to humanity, He sent His Son into the world to die as a lowly felon, lifted up before the eyes of a hateful world. But in lifting up His Son, the Father was inviting all the world to come back home. ‘I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to myself.’

So that is Jesus the perfect evangelist. In dealing with the world we must take away hope and then restore hope in the gospel. The two work together like a hand in a glove. So our message to sinners is, ‘you can’t do it’ but ‘whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’ That is the way of Jesus. Listen to Him.