Video Teaching
Verse-by-Verse Commentary
Full Transcript
Video Teaching
Verse-by-Verse Commentary
3 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.
- Profile of Nicodemus
- “A Pharisee”- Nicodemus was a Pharisee, part of a Jewish group that was known for zealous, legalistic teaching of God’s law, often missing its true meaning.
- “A member of the Jewish ruling council”- He was a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. There were traditionally only 71 scholars in the Sanhedrin, so his influence and power were exceptional.
- “Nicodemus”- His name is Greek, not Hebrew. Jews with Greek names in this timeframe were influenced from the Greek culture that spread throughout the region during Alexander the Great’s reign. Jews that spoke Greek were disproportionately likely to be from urban centers, have access to wealth and travel, and have had access to quality education.
- Given these details, Nicodemos was someone who likely thought he knew everything! He had a good education on how to think incorrectly. It’s very likely that he was arrogant, given how many worldly accolades he had.
2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
- Despite his background and influence, something compelled Nicodemus to seek Jesus. There was something about this “Jesus” teacher that evaded him, and he had to know what it was.
- He met Jesus at night, indicating a desire for secrecy to protect his reputation.
- He addressed Jesus as “Rabbi,” a title he also held, approaching the meeting as a peer-to-peer discussion (“teacher to teacher”) to explore “finer points of religious philosophy.”
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
- In response to Nicodemus’s formal introduction, Jesus immediately and authoritatively declares, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they’re born again.”
- “Truly, truly” (amen amen) is a doubled emphatic in Greek—an exclamation, not filler. Jesus isn’t theorizing! He’s making a serious, decisive statement.
- Jesus’s directness is tailored to Nicodemus’s arrogant, know-it-all demeanor. He wants to shake him out of his stupor!
- “Take away whatsoever seemeth thee good, reputation, fortune, friends, health, only give me this, to be born of the Spirit, to be received among the children of God!” -John Wesley
4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
- Nicodemus’s question isn’t sincere. Metaphor long before Jesus’s time. To ask this question in a way that implies that Jesus is literally demanding someone to go back into their mother’s womb is intentionally obtuse, misunderstanding on purpose to suggest that Jesus is being absurd.
5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.
- Many interpreters assume that Jesus is referring to baptism, but Nicodemus wouldn’t have understood what Jesus meant if that was the intended analogy since Christian baptism doesn’t exist yet. Jesus’s words needed to be comprehensible, and they would have been to someone who knew Scripture as well as Nicodemos. Water and the Spirit are both well-established symbolically throughout Scripture.
- Water: Symbolizes repentance and cleansing (Psalm 51:7: “Wash me and I will be whiter than snow”; Ezekiel 36:25: “I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean”).
- The Spirit: Represents God’s creative power at work in the world and in people (Genesis 1: Spirit hovering over the waters; Judges 6:34: Spirit coming upon Gideon; 2 Samuel 23:2: Spirit speaking through David).
6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 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.”
- Jesus compares the Spirit’s work to the wind: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.”
- This illustrates that one can experience and feel the effects of God’s Spirit without fully grasping the “finer points” of doctrine.
9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
- This particular verse is an elemental part of the Christian faith. It’s the most commonly-known verse in the entire Bible. Rather than approach it with the assumption that we know it, it’s good to think through it slowly. Having come so far, do we still align with the very basics that we set out with?
- “For God”: In a world like ours, it is a bold claim to know something true about God. Who can say what is true or false about God? But the core of Christianity is to know who God is… and who he isn’t.
- “so loved”: God’s primary motive is love, not anger or sadness.
- “the world”: God’s love extends to all creation—plants, animals, and people—not just humanity.
- Dostoyevsky discussed true love for the world beautifully in his novel, The Brothers Karamazov: “Love all God’s creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day, and you will come at last to love the world with an all-embracing love…. Treasure this ecstasy, however absurd people may think it.” -Dostoyevsky
- “that he gave”: God has not begun this relationship with us by demanding anything, but by freely giving to us grace upon grace.
- “His one and only son”: his most precious possession.
- “that whoever”: A universal invitation open to anyone from a beggar in India to a bureaucrat in China and everyone in between
- “believes in Him”: Belief means full, trusting surrender of one’s life to Jesus, not just intellectual assent.
- “shall not perish”: God intervenes to save us from the perishing caused by our own sin.
- “but have eternal life”: New life that begins now, not only after death.
- “Men who love much will give much, and you may usually measure the truth of love by its self-denials and sacrifices. That love which spares nothing, but spends itself to help and bless its object, is love indeed, and not the mere name of it. Little love forgets to bring water for the feet, but great love breaks its box of alabaster and lavishes its precious ointment. Consider, then, what this gift was that God gave.” -Charles Spurgeon
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
- It can be uncomfortable to acknowledge that God openly condemns those who don’t believe in his Son, but we need to address this uncomfortable reality. If we don’t acknowledge that we’re condemned without Jesus, how can he be a savior? What is he saving us from?
- Some people say God is stingy for not giving us multiple ways to be saved. That isn’t reasonable.
- Imagine a person $5 million in debt who complains that a blank check from a benefactor requires them to walk a block to the bank.
- Or imagine a person falling off a cliff who criticizes their rescuer for offering a hand instead of a rope or a helicopter.
- In both cases, the one needing salvation is entitled; the savior is not stingy.
19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
- Evil-doers “hate the light” and avoid exposure. US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” in reference to the simple fact that corruption grows where there is no visibility and accountability.
- Belief must be embodied in deeds; evidence of new birth should be visible.
Full Transcript
All right, so here we are back in the book of John, and we are picking up chapter 3, beginning in verse 1. This section has quite a bit. Jesus is going to talk about what it means to be born again, and we have the famous John 3:16, possibly the most succinct explanation of what Christianity is all about. Let’s just dive right in.
So verse 1: “Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.” Right here, we get a surprising amount of information in just this one little verse. We understand quite a bit about Nicodemus just from this.
First off, he’s a Pharisee. This is the same Jewish sect that constantly causes Jesus trouble throughout the Gospels. They are zealous for God’s law. They are teachers of God’s law. They are very legalistic. They know a lot of Scripture, but they don’t really understand any of it. Not only is this man a Pharisee, but he sits on the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin. That’s big. He’s a big deal. He makes decisions that affect all of Israel. This guy is not just some random Pharisee. He is a guy who makes things happen.
And if we look at his name, Nicodemus, that’s not a Hebrew name; that’s a Greek name. Nicodemus comes from Greek. The Greeks had invaded Israel not that long before the Romans, in the grand scheme of things, and they took over for a while until the Israelites rose up and kicked them out. But people who had some level of Greek influence and were still in Israel—there were certain things that you could know about them. For example, they were more likely to be from urban centers. They were more likely to be wealthy, and they were more likely to be educated and well-traveled. So hopefully that gives you a little taste of the kind of guy Nicodemus was. Were he around today, he would probably have multiple degrees. He would have honors stacked up. He would be the kind of guy who thinks he knows everything. He would probably be a little arrogant. But truth be told, we’ve all met people like this. They have a fancy education, but they don’t really know what they’re talking about. That’s the thing about education: a good education based on wrong truths is worse than no education at all. That’s what Nicodemus has. He’s an expert in wrong thinking.
But for all of that, there is some good news. Clearly, there’s something about Nicodemus that makes him want to talk to Jesus. Something within him says, “This guy knows something. Go talk to him.” And he has—he’s gone to Jesus.
Verse 2 tells us that he went to Jesus at night. He wants to talk to Jesus, but not where he could actually be seen doing it. He doesn’t want to get caught in the temple in broad daylight talking to Jesus. Think of his reputation. But he has snuck out to see Jesus at night, and Jesus has been gracious enough to grant this audience.
He says:
“Rabbi! We know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
A polite, formal introduction, showing, “I know you’re doing miracles. It’s very impressive. Clearly you know something.”
But notice how he talks to Jesus. How does he address him? Rabbi. As a Pharisee, Nicodemus is also a rabbi. He’s also a teacher. He sees this as a meeting of the minds. He has come, teacher to teacher, to talk to Jesus. “Look, you know something that I don’t know. I’m a little interested. Let us discuss the finer points of religious philosophy. I’m interested. You’ve got my attention.”
How does Jesus respond? “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” That’s an intense response. Notice, “Very truly I tell you.” Jesus says this throughout. You might be tempted to think it’s just one of those transitional phrases we work into everyday conversation, something like “well” or “now that I think about it,” just buying a little time as you talk. That’s not what this is. This is an exclamation point. Jesus is being decisive. He is absolutely saying this. If you look at the Greek, a very literal translation would be, “Truly, truly I tell you.” They repeat it for emphasis. It’s there twice so you know it’s extra serious.
Jesus isn’t wasting time. Nicodemus has come to have this polite conversation. Jesus comes in directly. He’s saying what he’s all about. He’s drawing a line. “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” That’s the thing about Jesus: He addresses people differently depending on who they are and what they need. When he’s with someone who is wounded, he’s gentle. When he’s with an outcast, he’s friendly. When he’s talking to a hypocrite, he doesn’t put up with nonsense. And when he’s speaking to someone who thinks they know it all, who’s pretty arrogant, Jesus is not afraid to tell him like it is, to try to shake him out of his stupor and say, “I’m serious.”
Nicodemus kind of rebuffs him here. He responds:
“How can someone be born when they’re old? Surely they cannot enter into their mother’s womb to be born again.”
Now, some people think Nicodemus is truly baffled here. If he had just said, “What do you mean by ‘born again’?” that would show curiosity. But he follows it up with, “Surely you cannot crawl back into your mother’s womb to be born a second time.” Obviously Jesus was not talking about that. Jesus did not invent metaphor. Nicodemus can clearly tell that’s not what Jesus is talking about, but he’s being intentionally obtuse. He is deliberately presenting what Jesus said as though it’s absurd. Jesus is trying to bring something life-changing, and Nicodemus says, “No, that’s ridiculous.”
I think it can be easy to be like Nicodemus in that way. Sometimes we come to Jesus wanting something convenient and easy—just something to think about on the way to work, something to calm us for the day, something small to mull over, but sometimes Jesus isn’t going to give you a small thing. Sometimes he’s going to give you something life-changing, and we can’t shy away from that.
We can’t say, “I opened Scripture today, and what Jesus said is a little intense for my taste. Time to turn to something more comfortable.” We miss out when we try to escape intense Jesus. Sometimes he wants to change our lives.
Jesus answers Nicodemus again. You see it again: “Very truly I tell you.”
“No one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 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.”
So first off, look at this beginning. He says, “You must be born by water and the Spirit.” Very commonly people say, “Well, that’s baptism. Jesus is talking about baptism here.” And I don’t think that’s wrong. I think that’s a good answer. It’s a very good answer. Water and the Spirit are the two elements most prominent in baptism, right? Fair enough. But I don’t know if that’s what Jesus was necessarily saying when he was talking to Nicodemus. That’s us reading backwards, and I think that’s good. You can learn deeper dimensions within Scripture and find things that are certainly true—ways that Jesus was telling truth that people at the time may not have fully understood. But Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, an expert in the Old Testament, and Jesus has not baptized anyone yet. Why would he be referring to things that haven’t happened yet? That would be impossible to understand. But he suggests that Nicodemus should understand.
So I think what Jesus meant is comprehensible without referring necessarily to baptism that came afterward. Look at the symbolic elements of what Jesus is talking about. He says you must be born by water and the Spirit. Water is prominent throughout the Old Testament. For repentance, the symbolic dimension of water is that you come dirty and you are washed and made clean. Just a few examples of that: Psalm 51:7, “Wash me and I will be whiter than snow,” or Ezekiel 36:25, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean.” This is not obscure. I’ve just plucked these two out—they’re random examples—but you can find many. Water commonly represents repentance throughout Scripture.
And the Spirit—the Holy Spirit—is certainly understood better in the New Testament. There are dimensions we might not have understood before then, but the Spirit makes quite a few appearances in the Old Testament too. While Nicodemus might not have understood the fullness of the Holy Spirit, he certainly would have been able to understand some of it. Just look at these—these are prominent passages in the Old Testament.
How about Genesis? Genesis chapter 1: the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Throughout the book of Judges, whenever a new judge is in charge, it says that the Spirit of the Lord comes on them. For example, Judges 6:34, “The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon.” Or 2 Samuel, at the end of King David’s life—the most prominent king of Israel—2 Samuel 23:2: “The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me.” Those are some of the last words King David says.
Repeatedly we see that the Spirit is comprehensible. It’s in the Old Testament, and it shows the different ways that God is active in the world. It shows God being active in creation. It shows God being active in a person’s life, God’s wisdom being bestowed on someone, God’s power being bestowed on someone. Consistently, that is what the Spirit of God is. It is God’s creative power at work in this world.
So all that to say, Nicodemus totally has all the elements necessary to understand what’s going on here. He has them laid out for him, but he doesn’t understand. Jesus doesn’t expect him to know all of it, but he expects him to understand the basics. He even says, “Look, it’s like the wind. Do you know where the wind’s from? Do you know where the wind is going? No. You don’t understand the finer points of the wind, but you feel it.” That’s what the Spirit’s like. You can feel the Spirit of God in the world, even if you don’t know the finer points of every piece of that doctrine.
Nicodemus, however, does not seem to be catching on. Here we see Nicodemus again: “How can this be?” Why does he say that? Is he baffled because he’s confused, or because those Pharisaical teachings he had in his head are now at war with the words that Jesus is saying, and he doesn’t know where his heart is at? Who can say? But we know he’s not picking up what Jesus is laying down.
Jesus responds: “You are Israel’s teacher, and you do not understand these things. Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.”
Who’s “we”? Jesus is talking about everyone who has given testimony on behalf of God—all these people. Nicodemus is supposed to be an expert, but he has not accepted any of their testimony: not the prophets, not those who have lived this life of the Spirit and been changed by the Holy Spirit.
“I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe. How then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?”
“No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
This is an obscure reference to the book of Numbers, chapter 21. There’s a story in which the people of Israel start saying nasty things, and God sends venomous snakes to bite them. The way they are saved is that God tells Moses, “Make a snake out of bronze, put it on a pole, and lift it up.” Everyone who looks upon that bronze snake will be healed. Look at the thing that wounded you, and when you look at it, you will be healed of it.
Why would Jesus want to be compared to a snake, though? Snakes are no good. Throughout the Bible, snakes are bad. A snake got us into this whole predicament to begin with. But remember what Jesus became on the cross. Jesus took on the sins of the world. He who did no sin became sin for us, as the Scriptures say. On that cross, Jesus took on that which hurt us—sin. And so as we look up at him on that cross, in the same way that people looked upon snakes to be healed from snakes, we look upon the burden of sin to be freed from it.
And now we are at that famous passage: John 3:16. Whenever you get to one of those big passages, you have to slow down a little bit. You can go into cruise control and zip right by it without thinking. You’ve heard it a million times, so you assume you’ve got it—but then you miss it. Usually, these well-known passages are well known for a reason. They’re big. They have depth you can explore and live in. What I like to do is stop and go word by word so that nothing sneaks by me.
Let’s break this down piece by piece. John 3:16: “For God.” First off, we start with “For.” This is an explanation. What is this an explanation for? Everything.
“For God.” To speak of God, to have God as the subject of a sentence—there are people who think that’s absurd. They think you can’t possibly know anything about God. There are too many differing beliefs. Surely not all of them are right, so you shouldn’t even bother talking about God. No one can really know anything—don’t be so bold as to claim that knowledge. But that’s what John 3:16 does right from the beginning. It claims to know something about God.
“For God so loved…” the motive of God. Why has God done something? Not because he’s an angry, nasty God sitting around seething, wanting to zap people. Not because he’s a sad, weepy God who can’t go on any longer. He loves. He loves the world. And it doesn’t just say people. Sometimes we imagine it says people, but it says the world—all of it. Every leaf, every blade of grass, plants, animals, people, even in their sin. Everything.
“For God so loved the world that he gave…” This God has already given us life, food, air—everything—and yet he gives again. That’s just the kind of God he is. He gives his most prized possession, his one and only Son. You cannot imagine something of higher value than that.
“That whoever…” That is the widest welcome imaginable. Whoever—you, me, a beggar in India, a bureaucrat in China—everyone. Everyone is included in that “whoever.”
And what do they need to do? “Believe in him.” Belief in Christ is not just intellectual assent. It’s not just wanting miracles. It is fully trusting him, fully giving our lives over to him.
“Shall not perish…” That’s where we were already headed. That was our doing. We were already on the path to that through our sin. God has intervened so that we do not perish.
“But have eternal life.” Eternal life—heaven, and eternal life now. It doesn’t say you have to die to begin it. It starts now: eternal joy, eternal hope.
That’s just me breaking down this verse. You should do it yourself. Walk through John 3:16 slowly and see what you uncover.
Verse 17: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already.”
There’s a lot of use of the word “condemned” here, especially next to a passage about God’s love. Some people want to remove those uncomfortable elements—references to judgment or hell—but you can’t really get rid of them. Even philosophically, if you say, “There is no hell, I don’t like it,” then what did Jesus save us from? Remove the negative, and Jesus is no longer a Savior. Uncomfortable though it may be, it’s essential to understanding.
We also see consistently: salvation is through Jesus Christ alone. That’s uncomfortable for some people. I remember a friend who said, “God has infinite power. Why only one path? That sounds stingy.” But think about it. Imagine someone is $5 million in debt, with nothing. A wealthy person gives them a signed blank check and says, “Go to the bank and write whatever you need.” And the person responds, “This is inconsiderate. I didn’t want to walk to the bank. Why not cash? Why not a card?” Or imagine someone hanging off a cliff, about to fall, and a hand reaches down to save them. And they say, “I don’t know where your hand has been. You should have brought a rope. Or a helicopter.” Does that make the rescuer stingy, or the person in need entitled?
“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” It doesn’t say they were confused. It says they loved the darkness.
“Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into it for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so it may be seen that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”
Notice here at the end: we’ve talked a lot about belief, but now we see deeds—how you live. Belief is not just theoretical. It should be expressed in your life.
So as we come to the end of this passage—new birth, God’s love, genuine belief—we should ask: What kind of deeds have we done? What kind of life have we lived? Is there evidence that we are living out what Jesus is talking about? Have we truly experienced that new birth? Can people see it? If not, why not? Why is our belief still theory and not practice? Real belief changes our lives, not just some inner portion of our minds.
I just want to say a quick prayer. Let’s pray together. If you are recognizing that you are not living into that new birth, that your life is not lining up with what you say you believe, I’m going to leave some silence and ask you to ask God for help. That’s what Jesus came to do. That’s what the Holy Spirit is for: to live by water and the Spirit, to repent and live by the Spirit’s power. Jesus came to enable that in our world. Just ask him for help. He’ll give it.
Classic Theology 