John 2:13–3:21
The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’
So the Jews said to him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things?’
Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’
The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘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.’
Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’
Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?’
Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which
is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’
Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’
Jesus answered him, ‘Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? 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. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.’ ‘For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgement: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.’[p 30]
Commercializing the way to God
According to Ephesians 2, salvation is a free gift (vv. 4–10), but there is something about the human spirit, whether pride or fear, who knows, that will not have it so, but will insist on trying to earn it or pay for it in one form or another. Some will think it necessary to pay in the currency of good behaviour or merit; others imagine that if they can work up within themselves perfect love of God this will induce God to forgive them; still others will offer God literal currency to buy release from the guilt of their sins. And it is all a tragic mistake, for salvation cannot be purchased.
The idea that it can be bought is in itself a fundamental sin: it assumes that we created beings have some resources that are our own (which would not be true even if we were sinless) and it disguises the true fact that we are morally bankrupt. So it keeps us back from that radical repentance that owns our own complete unworthiness, acknowledges God’s judgment as just, and humbly takes as an unmerited gift the salvation that God through Christ offers for free.
Analyzing the reasons why the majority of the Jews of his day were not saved, Paul attributes it to this false attitude of imagining that they could earn salvation by their merit. ‘Seeking to establish their own [righteousness],’ he says, ‘they did not submit to God’s righteousness’ (Rom 10:3). It was a great pity then that the very priests in the temple had connived at the commercialization of the services and so helped to strengthen in the people this erroneous idea that they could buy, earn or merit salvation.
Loving the symbol but missing the reality
One other sad feature showed itself on this occasion in the temple when Christ cleansed it. When in answer to their request for a sign he said, ‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days’, the Jews did not understand what he meant. They could not be blamed for that. The sad thing however is that they were not even interested to ask what he meant. At this time they were celebrating the Passover, remembering the experience of God’s power that had brought their forefathers out of Egypt. Now in their midst stood one whose action had given strong evidence even to them that he[p 32] was the one of whom Malachi had prophesied when he said, ‘the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple . . . and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver’ (see 3:1, 3). He talked to them, albeit in cryptic language, of more than human power, and of a temple raised in virtue of that power. What experience was this? What new and vigorous worship did it foretell? They were not interested to find out. All they could think of was their temple of stone. In their eyes it was a marvel. It had been in the process of building for forty-six years (the tourists were generally opened mouthed when they were told this); it cost who knows how many millions and still was not finished (at this the flow of tourists’ money into the collection boxes increased noticeably). What could Jesus, or the Messiah himself, offer anyone that was better than this impressive pile of stones, with its magnificent art, its colourful ritual, and the religious bric-a-brac on sale at the door? They were not interested to find out.
And it is not only Jews who need to be saved from this attitude. Writing to Gentiles in Ephesus who had recently been converted from the worship of Diana and the temple that was one of the wonders of the world, Paul confessed that he prayed for them regularly that
the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know . . . what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe . . . that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places . . . and seated us with him . . . (see Eph 1:15–2:7)
This too is, or seems to be, cryptic language: for in what sense has the power of God raised not only Christ from the dead and set him at his own right hand, but the believer as well? But if we want our Christian worship to be more than a formality, we must not be content until our eyes are in fact opened to know what it means.
And so during the feast Christ did many signs of miraculous power in the city to encourage people to enquire and seek God personally and to find the spiritual power that alone can make the worship of God a living reality. There were some of course who were[p 33] impressed by the miracles simply as exciting and sensational religious shows. We are told that Christ did not commit himself to them (John 2:23–25). He was not interested then, any more than he is now, in simply providing people with religious entertainment and emotional excitement. The external acts of power were simply meant as pointers to God’s offer of power at a far deeper, more significant, spiritual level; power that would transform a person’s character, that would give a person the ability to understand the things of God. There were some who realized that the miracles must have some such deeper purpose, and they came to Christ personally to find out what it was. In fact, as we read John’s third chapter we find one such man coming to Jesus by night to talk over the significance of the signs. We must do our best to listen in on the conversation.
A man who came with his questions
To a sensitive academic theologian like Nicodemus the commercialization of religion in the temple must have been extremely repulsive, and Christ’s action in casting it out would have commended itself to his conscience as soon as he heard of it. When there followed a steady stream of reports that this young man Jesus was performing miraculous deeds that were not simply exhibitions of power but seemed to carry weighty spiritual lessons, the urge within Nicodemus to investigate the phenomenon became overpowering. Even so, the decision to seek a personal interview with Christ was not an easy one for him to make. It would raise more than eyebrows if it came to the notice of his colleagues that he had begun to take seriously the claims of Jesus to be the Messiah and had actually gone to have a personal conversation with him. It would raise a question mark over the soundness of his scholarly judgment. Of course, if he had been doing some research on ‘The Growth and Development of the Messianic Idea in the Period of the Early Monarchy’, that would have been regarded as an admirably sound topic for a scholar to devote himself to. But to suppose it was possible that the Messiah had actually come and that he was a carpenter from Galilee without an hour’s training in theology would be automatically regarded as evidence of the worst possible taste in religion, and a sad lapse of true critical judgment.[p 34]
‘But,’ he could hear himself arguing back at his colleagues, ‘what about these signs that Jesus is doing day after day? Is it sound academic practice to refuse to examine evidence and to base one’s conclusions on prejudice of a priori considerations? Suppose he does come from Galilee and suppose he is only a carpenter; wasn’t one of our great prophets, Amos, only a shepherd? And don’t our students nowadays get PhDs for investigating the theology and the social conscience of Amos and so forth?
But it was no use; his arguments would have made no difference. Amos was a figure from the ancient past: it was therefore respectable to investigate him, even if he was only a shepherd. But a carpenter in the present claiming to be the Messiah, to be the Saviour of the nation and of the world, a someone you had to trust in to be saved—there were some things that any sound academic would instinctively know were unworthy of investigation. And at any rate, the assured results of modern biblical study, which all scholars accepted, were that there were no grounds for thinking that any prophet would come out of Galilee (see 7:52). To question this majority view must mean that a man was no scholar; or at least, if he were, that he was very eccentric
No, it was not going to be easy for Nicodemus to take the step of seeking out Christ personally, and general public meetings were so unsatisfactory, in that they raised so many questions that were never answered. What for instance would this young man say about the idea that appealed to a number of scholars that, according to the Old Testament, one might expect two Messiahs—one of the house of Judah and one of the house of Joseph? And what did he make of the interesting new suggestion that the whole Messianic promise needed to be demythologized before one could rightly understand it? For it was a crude literalism to suppose that when the Bible prophesied that Messiah would come riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, it meant that Messiah would come riding into Jerusalem on a donkey! One should rather understand that it meant if all Israel were humble and kept the law for one day, that would constitute the coming of Messiah: not the coming of a person, but the spread of an attitude of humility and truthfulness. Did it not?
He really must seek out this young man and put some of these questions to him. Undeniably the young man was doing some remarkable miracles; but then was his theology intellectually sound? And [p 35] how could you find that out if you did not go and speak with him? Of one thing he was certain: to devote the strength of one’s manhood to the academic study of the Bible and biblical theology, and then when there was evidence to suggest that God was in fact alive and actively working in the world, to refuse even to investigate the evidence was to make a nonsense out of one’s whole professional life. And so, with the indirect courage that some nervous people possess, he set out one night after dark to seek a personal interview with Christ.
The conversation
Nicodemus apparently began the conversation. ‘Rabbi,’ he said; and there was not the slightest trace of condescension in his voice, and certainly none of sarcasm, as he used the title to address the younger, non-academic man. Nicodemus was a scholar, not a narrow- minded professional. ‘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’ (3:2).
But to tell a man that you know he is a teacher is normally the preamble to asking him a question and inviting him to give the answer. What question was Nicodemus planning to ask? Was it perhaps, ‘What, if I may ask, are your views on the Messianic question? You wouldn’t suppose, would you, that all the messianic Scriptures are to be interpreted literally? Or would you?’ Actually, we shall never know what he was planning to ask. There are some approaches to the knowledge of God and salvation that are bound to be sterile; and before he could embark on any such approach, our Lord cut him short. Nicodemus had come stating what he knew: ‘we know that you are a teacher come from God.’ Then he must let the teacher dictate what the first lesson should be. And it turned out to be the most elementary lesson possible: ‘Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God”’ (3:3).
The directness of this approach must have stunned Nicodemus; and it may well stun us, if we pause long enough to realize the implications of it. If one is going to discuss the kingdom of God at all, one can scarcely get a more elementary lesson than that which explains the basic condition to be fulfilled before a person can either enter or[p 36] even see that kingdom. Why was Christ choosing to begin the conversation with this senior theologian by solemnly enunciating this basic and elementary lesson? The answer is simple, but profoundly disquieting: this theologian, for all his learning, was an unregenerate man. He had never been born again.
Accepting substitutes for reality
The revelation once made, however shocking, helps to explain an earlier problem. All that commercialization of religion that had been going on in the temple—where did it all come from? Nicodemus might have disapproved of it, but was he not in part responsible for it? If he had never himself been born again, it is certain that he had never taught the priests that they needed to be born again, nor the people either. And if people have never been born again, even if they try to worship and serve God, they will not, as Christ puts it, be able to ‘see the kingdom of God’. The things of God will be incomprehensible to them (see 1 Cor 2:14); and they will therefore substitute a number of lesser things for spiritual fellowship with God. Some will imagine that the aesthetic experience of listening to a trained choir is a spiritual experience, and they will transform divine service into a sacred concert. Others will imagine that the intellectual stimulus of theoretical theology is a spiritual thing, and they will perhaps become academic theologians. But the masses who have little interest in aesthetics and less still in intellect, will demand something coarser and less sophisticated. Superstition and commerce together will supply it.
Born again
As Nicodemus was recovering from his surprise at Christ’s statement, he asked: ‘How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?’ (John 3:4). It is possible to suppose that Nicodemus really thought Christ meant a literal physical birth, and that he was questioning its possibility. Yet while Nicodemus was an unregenerate man, there is no need to insult his intelligence by making that supposition. Maybe he thought Christ was preaching a solution to humanity’s problems that was impractical, some wild fairy-story of a theology like minor sects are liable to think up every now and again; and perhaps he was politely pooh-poohing[p 37] about being born again had prompted in him the wistful longing that we all may have felt, although we know it is impossible: ‘Oh, if I could only start all over again.’ It is not only that we have done a lot of things that now we wish we had not. It is also that we ourselves are now made up of a tangle of memories, habits and complexes that give our behaviour a constant and perverse twist however hard we try to correct it. How wonderful it would be, we think, if we could go back to the start and be born over again. It is impossible, of course, and much as Nicodemus may have wished that it were possible, he knew it wasn’t.
It was not only impossible: in the sense that Nicodemus was thinking of, it would have been useless, even if it were possible. To be born all over again as a baby with the same kind of life as we had the first time, and the same nature, why, that would simply lead to the same result all over again. Immediately therefore our Lord replied with an amplification of his original statement, which made it clear that by being born again, he did not mean returning to the beginnings of a new unspoiled human life, but being born into a new category of life. ‘Unless one is born of water and the Spirit,’ he said, ‘he cannot enter the kingdom of God.’ Then he added the reason why that is so: ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, “You must be born again”’ (3:5–7).
The first time we were born we were born flesh. Since then, the flesh has, so to speak, got sorely damaged and defiled. Christ’s demand is not for the flesh to be taken back to the innocence of its babyhood. He is demanding another birth of a different kind: a birth that will commence within us a spiritual life, just as our physical birth produced our fleshly life. Of course you cannot see with your eyes a spiritual birth take place. But that does not mean it is not real. It is as real a thing as a physical birth. ‘The wind’, said Christ to Nicodemus, ‘blows where it will; you hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell where it started and where it will end up’ (see v. 8). Yet no one would think of suggesting that the wind is only something that we imagine, or merely a concept. It is as real as things we can see. And so it is with the new life that begins to live within the person who is born again. From that point on there exists within them a life that was not there before.[p 38]
A wrong idea about washing and the new birth
Nicodemus found all this very hard to grasp. ‘How can these things be?’ he said. And not only him. Mediaeval Christendom made basically the same mistake as Nicodemus, and what is more, built it into its theology and rituals.
First it supposed that when our Lord talked of being born of water he was referring to the rite of infant baptism. And then it supposed, in addition, that being born again meant being cleansed from the taint of Adam our forefather’s sin: a baby being born had a nature, a flesh, to use the technical term, tainted by the inherited stain of Adam’s sin, but baptism would wash away that taint and stain and so restore the baby to original purity. Thereafter all that was needed was for the grace of God gradually to perfect nature, which is the very opposite of what our Lord taught. Suppose you could cleanse the flesh from the taint of Adam’s sin, (and, of course, you cannot), it would still be flesh even then. It might be clean flesh, pure flesh, innocent flesh, but it would still be flesh. And what Christ was, and still is, demanding was not an improvement of the flesh, but the birth of an altogether different and higher kind of life: ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’
Water and the Spirit
As we observed in our last chapter, it would be little more than a superstition to suppose that the birth of a spiritual life could be effected within a baby or an adult by means of literal water, however much prayed over and sanctified for the purpose that water was. Nicodemus himself, since he was a Jew, and used to endless washings in literal water in the course of his religious rites, would have (or at least could have) known better than that if he simply recalled his own Jewish Scriptures. Indeed, our Lord gently expressed his surprise that a learned biblical scholar like Nicodemus should not already be conversant with the need for and the meaning of the new birth. ‘Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?’ How many times must Nicodemus have read and studied the famous chapters in the prophecy of Ezekiel that predict the rebirth of Israel! In one of the chapters the prophet records his vision of a valley of dry bones, about which and to which he was commanded to announce the word of the Lord. Presently he saw with astonishment the bones[p 39] assemble themselves into bodies and flesh, and sinews clothe the bony skeletons. And then he was commanded to prophesy.
Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath [or, wind]; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath [or, wind], Thus says the Lord God: ‘Come from the four winds, O breath [or, spirit], and breathe on these slain, that they may live.’ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived . . . (Ezek 37:9–10)
(The Hebrew word for spirit, ruach, can also be translated as either ‘breath’ or ‘wind’.)
Nicodemus must have read it many times; and now here was Christ using the literal wind and its mysterious comings and goings, as an illustration of the power of the Holy Spirit’s action in regeneration, imparting new life where there had been no life before, just as God had done through the prophet. Why did he not understand? Again, in the previous chapter Ezekiel had voiced God’s promise to Israel.
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. (36:25–26)
‘Water and the Spirit’—Nicodemus should have recognized the words at once, and as a teacher of theology he ought long since to have pondered their significance. Here was water mentioned that could cleanse Israel from her filthiness and idolatry. What water? The literal water of some ceremonial bath or baptism? Hardly. Ceremonial washings, ablutions and baptisms in literal water had been instituted by God as part of the symbols of Israel’s religious system from the time of Moses. By Ezekiel’s time there would not have been a person in the whole nation who had not been many times washed and sprinkled. Yet they were abominably filthy: through chapter after chapter of Ezekiel’s prophecy God is heard denouncing their uncleanness, and warning of the terrible consequences that were about to follow. The ceremonial washings had been remarkably ineffective. When[p 40] therefore God announced his promise of the eventual spiritual rebirth of the nation, was he really promising that the literal water of their ceremonial washings and sprinklings, which had failed a million times to remove spiritual defilement, was somehow going to be successful on the million and first occasion? Obviously not. As with all the symbols of Israel’s religion, so with this one: the symbol itself effected nothing. Its sole purpose was to point to the spiritual reality.
Word and the Spirit
Christians likewise may know from their apostles and prophets just what our Lord meant by water when he talked of being born of water and the Spirit. Hear the Apostle Peter on regeneration: ‘you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God’ (1 Pet 1:23). Hear the Apostle John: ‘No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him’ (1 John 3:9).
So Peter and John are both agreed. The new life imparted in regeneration springs from the seed of God, which is conveyed through the word of God. Listen to our Lord further describe that word: ‘The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life’ (John 6:63). That is to say, our Lord’s words did not merely convey information; they were living and creative, they conveyed life, they were life. Now hear Paul as he talks of the cleansing element in that same word: ‘having cleansed her [the church] by the washing of water with the word’ (Eph 5:26). And listen to him again on this same matter of regeneration: ‘he saved us . . . by the washing of regeneration and renewal of [that is, performed by] the Holy Spirit’ (Titus 3:5). Notice particularly what it is that is said to be poured upon us to effect the washing of regeneration. It is not the literal water of baptism, but the Holy Spirit.
But how, someone will say, can water be a term for both the word, as in Ephesians 5, and the Spirit, as in Titus 3? The answer is to be found in the saying of our Lord’s which we have just quoted from John 6:63. The words of Christ are spirit: they are the words of the living God, conceived in the Spirit of God and spoken in the power of the Spirit of God. The words are not thus separable from the Holy Spirit who speaks them.
The Holy Spirit performs many ministries. When he imparts life, terms like seed and word are used; when he effects cleansing, the terms[p 41] water and washing are used; when he burns up evil in judgment, the term fire is used. So John the Baptist prophesied that our Lord would baptize people in the Holy Spirit and in fire (Matt 3:11), while our Lord tells Nicodemus and us all that we must be born of water and the Spirit. Happily enough, Christendom has never got round to turning the baptism ‘in the Spirit and in fire’ into a ceremony in which literal fire is used. It would have saved endless confusion, frustration and disillusionment if Christendom had never tried to turn regeneration into a ceremony in which literal water is used. Nothing could be more important or vital than entry into the kingdom of God. The alternative to entry is unthinkable. On this matter we cannot afford to confuse ourselves or others with empty and misleading symbols. Nothing but the actual reality will do. Let Christ himself tell us, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’
A clear difficulty
For Nicodemus it was all very disconcerting. In the first place he just did not understand what the young prophet was saying. It wasn’t that the words he used were difficult or that his language was intricate and philosophical. Indeed, if it had been Nicodemus would have found it easier: he would have understood it and enjoyed it. More than likely there was nothing he enjoyed more than discussing a really difficult crux of interpretation, where one had to be careful to define one’s terms with the utmost nicety and balance the arguments with judicious care. Of course, in the seminars of the theological school you had to be very bright sometimes even to appreciate the point and subtlety of some of the arguments; and you could easily make yourself look a fool in the eyes of the students if you failed to see the point of your opponent’s position. Not that it worried Nicodemus a lot: he wasn’t the teacher of Israel for nothing.
But in what this young prophet was saying there was nothing you could argue about. ‘You must be born again,’ he asserted, ‘or else you cannot see the kingdom of God.’ It was a shockingly extreme statement and so directly personal. It made you ask yourself, ‘Well, have I been born again? Either I have or I haven’t.’ It was no good replying, ‘In a way I think I may have been.’ And it was getting pretty evident what the young man thought about him.[p 42]
A question of understanding
So the best thing would be to keep the discussion more on the impersonal and objective level. But then that was precisely what it was so difficult to do. If someone asserts that it is wrong to paint pictures on the Sabbath, because painting pictures is work, there you have the makings of a really good discussion. You can first debate what constitutes work. You can then argue whether painting is work or recreation, and so on and so forth. But suppose someone says, ‘There is a drawing on this piece of paper, but you cannot see it and never will unless you look at it under ultraviolet light. I can take you to a source of ultraviolet light and show you the picture, if you will follow me.’ What is there that you can debate about that? You could of course refuse to believe that there is a drawing on the paper, and you could baldly deny that there is such a thing as ultraviolet light. And you could conclude that the man who claims there is a picture there is a trickster or a lunatic. But even that is a difficult thing to do, particularly if you are not quite sure what ultraviolet light is, and if in addition the man in front of you seems in other respects to be a remarkably competent scientist. Really the thing to do is simply to say, ‘All right; take me to this source of ultraviolet light and show me the picture.’ If it turns out that he is a liar, there is nothing lost. However, it would mean trusting the man at least initially to the point of following him down the street to the laboratory. And what a fool you would look if he turned out to be a fraud. Perhaps there is one thing you could do. You could say, ‘I don’t understand how this ultraviolet light you talk of could possibly reveal a picture that is not visible to ordinary eyesight. I can’t see how it works.’ Wouldn’t that be a good enough excuse for not going down to the laboratory to see whether it works or not?
‘I just don’t understand how these things you speak of could possibly come about’, said Nicodemus.
‘True,’ said Christ, ‘you do not understand. But your basic problem is not that you don’t understand. The trouble with you is that you won’t believe. Even things that you can check and know to be true you are not prepared to believe. Truly, truly, I say to you, what we are telling you is something we know about. We are witnessing to something that we have actually seen. And you do not receive our testimony. We are not offering you a thesis to be debated, but making an eyewitness[p 43] statement for you to test. But you will not even admit our testimony; you will not receive it. Some of the things I have told you have been earthly things, like the movements of the wind, that you can know from your own experience. But even those you are not prepared to trust far enough to begin to think that there might be an analogy between the action of the invisible wind in the physical sphere and the movements of the Spirit in the invisible spiritual realm. And if I have told you earthly things and you won’t believe, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things? Nicodemus you are really an unbeliever’ (see John 3:11–12).
The learned rabbi flinched, but he made no protest. The arrow had got in before he had time to erect his defences, and with the sudden dawning of self-knowledge the wound was beginning to smart. An unbeliever? He, Nicodemus, a theologian of many years standing! Where would these allegations stop? First to have it hinted that he was an unregenerate man, and now to be told outright that he was not a believer: he ought surely to protest at the liberties this young man was taking.
A question of trust
Self-knowledge took away any heart he might have had in making a protest. Yes, of course, in a very real sense he was a believer: he believed that there was a God. He believed that the Bible was the word of God—why else had he devoted his whole life to the study of it? But it was true, if he was like many who wrestle with such issues, that there was another sense in which he found it difficult to believe anything far enough to commit himself on it. In the council meetings of the Sanhedrin, for example, even when he felt he had a strong case, he found it impossibly difficult to commit himself to it unreservedly. He would hesitate and hesitate—while some of his colleagues would say the first thing that came into their heads with all the self-confidence in the world. And at length when he did manage to blurt out something he would scarcely get to the end of the second sentence before he could see another possible point of view, and his statement would go trailing off into inarticulate silence. (You can see an actual instance of this in 7:45–52). That is why he enjoyed discussions and debates so much, so long as he did not have to commit himself to any one view and act upon it. Why could you not qualify for entry into God’s kingdom by knowing your theology well? He himself knew[p 44] every system of theology there was, and could argue the strong and weak points of them all.
Why must you commit yourself by believing firmly in some one of them, as this young man seemed to say? And anyway who was this young man to talk to him like this? He seemed so confident, so dogmatic. There he goes again: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you.’ That was the third time he had used the phrase in the conversation so far. It was one thing to admit, as Nicodemus had done, that he was a teacher come from God. But then all the other teachers he had ever known in the theological schools (and he had known some very famous teachers) always spoke so very humbly, and rarely said anything for which they could not cite the authority of some earlier rabbi. Here was this young man, and he had not quoted a rabbinical authority yet. Instead, this constant and confident, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you.’ Had he, Nicodemus, a learned rabbi and senior professor in the college, got to believe this young man, whatever he said simply because he said it?
‘Yes, that’s exactly how you will have to believe,’ said Christ, ‘if ever you are to know about heavenly things. For no man has ascended into heaven, except he that descended out of heaven, even the Son of Man. He alone therefore can tell you about heavenly things, and the only way you will ever get to know about them is by trusting him’ (see John 3:12–13).
And this must be so. Theology, when all is said and done, professes to be the study of God. But God is not a philosophical or theological proposition to be debated; he is a person to be trusted. Indeed, there is no way of getting to know a person in the fullest sense of the term without trusting that person. And the heart of the human predicament is not that we do not know enough, but that we do not trust God. Eve started it all—being deceived into ceasing to trust God’s word and God himself (Gen 3). And we have all gone astray down the same byroad, and got ourselves lost. If ever we are to be saved, it will not be primarily by solving some theological problem to our intellectual satisfaction; it will be by being brought to believe God and trust him. Nor is it a question of one theologian dogmatically asserting his theological view over against other views. It is a question of God himself ‘coming down’ from heaven as Son of Man to speak with men and women and so lead them to faith in himself. Not to believe him is not a sign of a broad tolerant mind, nor of a sophisticated intellect; it is the prime sin against intellect, since it is a[p 45] fundamental sin against the God who made the intellect. And as for calling it tolerance, you might as well praise a man for tolerance for not trusting his wife too much or loving her too unreservedly. Not believing God is the basic and most virulent poison that has ever attacked the human personality, and has eaten the life out of it.
Look and live
‘Nicodemus,’ said Christ, ‘do you recall the incident in the wilderness when Moses was commanded by God to make a serpent of copper and put it on a pole; then to erect the pole in a central position and bid everyone look at the serpent?’ Yes, he remembered it well, for it is recorded in the book of Numbers.
It was one of those occasions in the wilderness when Israel had got lost. Not geographically lost: they still knew that if they made their way back in a south-westerly direction they would arrive back in Egypt. And similarly if they continued forward in a roughly northerly direction they would come to Canaan. But they were lost all the same, for they had begun the journey across the desert under the impression that it was not just a geographical journey. Thousands of tribes in those days migrated from place to place somewhat aimlessly, just pushed on by other tribes coming behind or drawn by the hope of new and better pastures. Israel had dared to believe their journey was not just a wandering; it was a journey led by God to the land that God had promised them.
But on the way they came to doubt God, to doubt his love, to question his wisdom, and in the end his very existence, which meant that the whole nature of their journey was now called into question. Was it a God-directed pilgrimage to a divinely appointed goal? Or was it simply a wandering through the wilderness? Why had they ever left Egypt to come on this crazy expedition anyway? In this situation doubt and unbelief were not clever variations on alternative theological schemes; they were a poison that was infecting the whole nation, sapping its morale and leading to disaster. They must be made to realize the seriousness of it. Suiting the punishment to the crime, God sent fiery serpents among them; and bitten by their poisoned fangs many died. If they could not be restored to faith, disaster faced the whole nation. It was then that God gave his strange[p 46] command and a serpent of copper was erected on a pole. The cry went out throughout the camp that the people were simply to look to the serpent, and those who looked recovered and lived (Num 21).
The journey of life
The story about the fiery serpents is interesting because in a sense life for all of us is a journey. The question is, what kind of a journey? The Bible says that there is a promised land ahead; but multitudes have lost all faith in there being any promised land because they have lost or never had any personal faith in the God of the promised land. They have become cynical over life—just get the best grass you can in this sparse desert, and when the end comes, well, that’s that.
But Nicodemus was listening, fascinated. The young prophet knew his Scriptures, but what was he implying now? Yes, it was a part of the inspired record that their forefathers, a long time ago, had sinned and come perilously near to perishing completely in the wilderness and never getting into the promised land at all. Was he suggesting that he, Nicodemus, was such a sinner that he was likewise in danger of never getting into the kingdom of God? Surely not! He was a sinner of course—everybody was; but not such a sinner surely, as to raise serious doubts as to whether he would ever get into the kingdom of God at all. Yes, Jesus had said earlier, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ But did he mean it in the absolute sense?
‘Look here,’ says Nicodemus to himself, ‘I know I cannot say that I have at any time been born again, as he puts it. But surely that doesn’t mean that I am in process of perishing, as he seems to suggest?’
Nicodemus had never thought of it before. He had always taken his theology seriously; but somehow being a professional theologian had hidden from him how immeasurably important true theology is. Being a theologian had somehow managed to make him feel that, if not perfect, he was well set for anything there might be in the way of heaven and the kingdom of God, or whatever you call it. As though being a doctor and knowing about medicine somehow meant that you could not possibly be ill or die. How difficult this young prophet had suddenly made it all appear. Unregenerate, unbeliever, and now a sinner in process of perishing, it was all too much. He had always done his best: how could he fairly be expected to do anything more?[p 47]
‘Nicodemus,’ said Christ, ‘isn’t that story remarkable for the way in which God saved the people from perishing? It was not much that he asked them to do, was it? They could not have done very much anyway. Raging fever and incipient paralysis had reduced them to helplessness—they only had to look to the serpent of copper lifted up on the pole. They did not even have to understand just how that would help them or how the process worked—all they had to do was to look. And some in their sheer desperation did look, and were immediately healed and started to live again. Nicodemus, that story is a prophecy, as well as being a bit of ancient history. If you are to be saved, you too must be brought to believe. The problem is how. You can’t make yourself believe, but believe you must, or you will perish.
‘And therefore God has begun to do something about your desperate need. The Son of Man has already come down from heaven. Soon he must be lifted up as that serpent was, so that whoever believes may in him have eternal life. He will take the vast problem of the world’s sin and unbelief and suffer its penalties and consequences to the full until there is no poison left, so to speak—any more than there was any poison in that serpent of copper after it had been through the fire. All who believe will be given new life in him, they will share the new life that he has made possible—and believing is not the hard thing that you think it is. You will find it simply a matter of taking your eyes off yourself, your efforts and attainments, and looking solely to the Son of Man as he is lifted up. Do as you are told, Nicodemus. Look to the Son of Man lifted up for you; and as you look you will find faith rising in your heart’ (see John 3:14–15).
New birth and new sight
Soon after that the conversation ended, though exactly where it stops in the text it is not now possible to be sure. In 3:16–21 John has been led to add a number of explanations. Some of them Christ may well have used during his conversation with Nicodemus. Some of them were added for our sake (in the light of Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension) to clarify some of the expressions that Nicodemus could not have fully understood before the cross, but which he came to understand immediately after that event.[p 48]
For he did come to faith: the distinguished theologian was eventually born again. That much at least we can gather from what he did after Christ was crucified, along with Joseph of Arimathea, who likewise was a member of the Sanhedrin. Joseph had not consented to their deed, but when he saw Christ crucified, then he plucked up courage and took his stand and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus (Luke 23:50–52). Together, he and Nicodemus prepared and buried Christ’s body (John 19:38–42).
What a theologian he must have become after his new birth! His basic difficulty before had been that his theology had been nothing more than theology: it had been simply a philosophy for the head, not an introduction to a God who loved him personally and was seeking him and wanted him to trust him in a personal way. God in those days had been so remote, more like a series of propositions, or a mathematical formula. But then came the day when he saw the Son of Man lifted up on the cross, and he had looked. Suddenly the realization of what it all meant must have struck him. That real, living person on that cross was the Son of God, and he did not deserve to die like that. Nicodemus knew enough about him by that time to believe he was utterly innocent. Then why was he there? Was it that God just did not care? And then it dawned on him with overwhelming light and illumination. No! He was on that cross because God did care. He was writhing in pain under the penalty of Nicodemus’ sin, the very sin that had poisoned Nicodemus’ mind and destroyed what faith he had in God up to that point. He was on that cross but loving Nicodemus still, and suffering to bring him to faith. And the realization must have swept Nicodemus off his feet and drawn his heart out to Christ. He did not even have to try to believe. He believed; for beyond doubt this was God at work. God who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (3:16).
He thought back to that first night and to his conversation with Christ. How wrong some of his impressions had been. As Christ had implied that he was an unregenerate man, and told him he was an unbeliever, and finally warned him that he was perishing, it had seemed that Christ was doing nothing but criticizing him at every turn and pessimistically condemning him. He was not, of course; any more than a doctor who diagnoses that a man has cancer is criticizing the man. It was only the first necessary and loving step in the process[p 49] of exposing the trouble so that it might be cured. It was obvious now as he looked at his cross. Clearly God had not sent his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him should be saved (3:17). This was wonderful. To think that he, Nicodemus, would never now be condemned, and that he could be sure of it, beyond any doubt.
It was all so logical. How strange to think that, when Christ had at first kept insisting on belief and faith, it had seemed to Nicodemus that faith was arbitrary: something you had to make yourself do, even flying in the face of reason and understanding in order to do it. But now, when he saw what God was like and what God’s love had done for him in Christ, he did not find it difficult to believe, any more than a child finds it difficult to trust the mother who holds her in her arms. Of course he was saved! God loved him; Christ had died for him to bear his sin and condemnation. Would that same Christ turn round one day and condemn him after all? It was absurd even to contemplate the possibility. Or if he did, one look again at the Christ on the cross would be enough to dispel any lingering doubt. ‘Whoever believes in him is not condemned’ (3:18).
The corollary is equally logical. At the time, he had thought Christ severe for saying that unbelievers were perishing; but how could it be otherwise? He had come to realize that Christ is the only begotten Son of God and not just a rabbi. Nicodemus may have thought, ‘And just to think that’s what I called him when we first met!’ But he is not just a teacher come to prepare us to sit our final examinations on the day of judgment. Christ is himself the final examination; beyond him there are no other exams to be faced. He is God incarnate. Trust him and his love, and you have passed. Refuse to trust him, and, whatever else you go on to do, you have failed. ‘Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God’ (3:18).
The problems still to be faced
There was a problem. What about all his colleagues in the theological schools? A decent bunch they were, and sincere most of them, as he had been himself. Moreover, they worked hard at their theology and he knew that some of them quietly gave quite a bit of money to the[p 50] poor and did other excellent deeds. Did all these good works count utterly for nothing? And what about all the thousands of people who had not yet heard of Christ? Yes, there was a problem there. But there was an answer too. God’s judgment is this: ‘the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil’ (3:19).
That is not to say that every person would be like this. Those who hear of Christ and then refuse to come to him, show by that refusal the real nature of their works, whatever their outward appearance may be. Their works are evil, done in unbelief and independence of God. Christ is God incarnate, and when those whose works are done genuinely to please God hear of Christ, they will come to him and trust him. He is the touchstone.
God of course knows the attitude of heart of every person who has never seen or heard of Christ. It was not necessary for Christ to come into the world in order for God to know that, but it was necessary for another reason. It was necessary if we humans were going to be able to have the final criterion available for our own use so that we could know where we stand long before the day of judgment. And the final criterion is what we do with Christ who is the light.
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed [or, reproved]. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. (vv. 20–21)
Yes, there were problems. Faith had not done away with the need for theologians: men and women who could think through what God had done in Christ and what the Holy Spirit was saying about it. Nicodemus would not be out of a job. But thinking about a God you know personally, and pondering the statements of a God you are sure loves you—and all the world—well, it was altogether a different kind of theology from what he had tried to do before. He was in the kingdom of God now, and he could see it. And it is always easier to study something that you can see.
English (US) · 