Jesus, the God/Man, the Gospel
of John chapter 3. We're gonna do verses 1 to 16 today. We're always keeping our
eye on three main ideas that John is weaving into a single narrative. I
continue to mention this, very important. Today's lesson in chapter 3 where
Jesus has an encounter with Nicodemus; Nicodemus an elder and a teacher of the
nation of Israel and we're going to see in their exchange that John is allowing
Jesus, the God/Man, to allow us to see Him teaching with authority and
revealing what only God could reveal to someone who is seeking. So Jesus
reveals His divinity through miracles but also through teaching and
we wonder, 'How does He do that through teaching?' Well, by teaching things that
only God could teach, by revealing things that only God could reveal. So we're
going to see that in John chapter 3. so the essence of their dialogue is about
change, the change that's necessary to enter into the kingdom of heaven.
We often hear the expression, 'saved by faith,' and it's true, of course, saved
by faith, but the reason that we are saved by faith is that faith changes us,
that's why we're saved by faith, because our faith has the power to change us and
the change that is wrought in us, that is created in us, by faith, we go
from death to life, that's why faith saves us. Without faith
we're dead spiritually. With faith we come to life spiritually, so that's
really the meaning of that idea 'saved by faith.' So I want you to keep these ideas
in mind as we study about Nicodemus meeting with Jesus. Chapter 3 in your Bibles.
I'll throw these up on the board. Chapter 3
beginning verse 1 and 2, read along with me. "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 have come from God as a teacher; for no
one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.' And Jesus
answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again
he cannot see the kingdom of God.'" So notice Nicodemus, he comes after dark,
he's in fear for his position, wants to hang on to his position; he's a leader,
public person. He was a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling religious body made
up of 70 priests, scribes, elders. He himself was a Pharisee. Interesting about
the Pharisees, the Pharisees were a party or a sect of scribes who were extremely
conservative and zealous for the law and Jewish tradition. So they were scribes,
all Pharisees were scribes, not all scribes were Pharisees. You understand what I'm saying? So like all politicians are politicians, but some are
Democrats and some are Republicans and some are something else. So a certain
number of scribes belonged to the party of the Pharisees.
So Nicodemus at least believed that Jesus was a prophet and a teacher. His
miracles were a manifestation of God's power and authority and he
thought well you've got to be some sort of Prophet because prophets in the Old
Testament, they did miracles. Elijah did miracles, so he was stepping up to
believing you know that there was something special about Jesus.
Wasn't quite sure what it was, but he was at least ready to acknowledge
that He was some kind of prophet, the miracles that He did were a
sign of that. So Nicodemus has expressed his limited faith in coming to Jesus,
admitting what he does believe about Him which is good. So Jesus in response to
this begins to explain to him the principle of regeneration for which he
uses the term 'born again.' So the Lord says that "unless one is born again." in
other words, unless somebody has changed, unless someone is regenerated, he can't
see the kingdom of God. Now in other lessons in the past I've
explained that the kingdom of God has created and present when the
will of God is being completed, when God's will is being acknowledged
and fulfilled, the kingdom of God exists in that place; it's not a geographical
place, it's where God's will is being done. Now in the Old Testament period the
Jews perceived the kingdom of God as a glorious earthly kingdom where God
would guarantee His people prosperity, protection, power in this world; this was
their notion of heaven. The kingdom of God, Solomon's period,
a regeneration of Solomon's period where they had a golden time of power and
prosperity under King Solomon, they saw it as this, this is what was going to
happen. Now with the revelation of the New Testament we've come to understand
that the kingdom of God, as I say, is God's will being pursued and carried out
in whatever place. Now it perfectly exists in heaven and it partially exists
here on earth in the form of the church. The church is the kingdom of heaven
because in the church God's will is being is being done; Jesus Christ is
being recognized as the Son of God, Jesus Christ is being recognized as the
Messiah; that's God's will that we believe in Christ, so His will is being
done in the church, therefore the kingdom of God exists wherever the church exists.
Now the promise of Christ is that the earthly kingdom of God in the form of
the church will one day be perfected when Jesus returns and we'll join the
heavenly kingdom. So the heavenly kingdom of God and the earthly kingdom of God
will join together as one when Jesus returns. Paul talks about this in
First Corinthians 15 verse 28, he says, "When all things are subjected to
Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all
things to Him, so that God may be all in all." So everything comes back together again. Harmony in the heavens, harmony on earth;
both kingdoms joined with God as Lord and ruler of all. No rebellion. No
rebellion. There's a rebellion going on, and it's here, it started in heaven
and came to earth in the form of a fallen angel, Lucifer, it came to earth being played out here. Now the point here is that
Nicodemus was told that in order to enter into this heaven or into this
kingdom he had an understanding as a Jew, he had to be reborn, changed, regenerated.
This was difficult for him to grasp because the Jews in general believed
that because they had been chosen by God, did they need to change? Well, no. The
thing that makes us already in heaven, already in the
kingdom, is that God chose us. He chose Abraham and I'm a descendant of
Abraham and I can prove I'm a descendant of Abraham, I can go through the
tribes, I'm of this tribe or that tribe I can prove culturally,
genealogically, I can prove I'm a Jew and that's it, because I'm a Jew I'm in. I'm
in. Now think for a second. No change is necessary and for a person who was a
scholar, an elder, a leader, like Nicodemus, the thinking was that this type. these
guys, were guaranteed. Are you kidding me? I mean there was just, you
couldn't do any more. So Jesus says to Nicodemus unless he's reborn he cannot
enter in. All the power and position and training and tradition, all of
this counts for nothing. So all of this training and tradition
what it should be, it should lead you to understand that you need to be reborn,
but that's not the understanding that Nicodemus had. We look at him and we go, 'Wow.' But what if
it happened to you? What if someone said to you, 'All the
religious training you've had has not done the trick'? That happened
to me as a Catholic. I mean I was born in Quebec, born as a Catholic,
served as an altar boy, went to seminary, taught Catholic school, baptized as a
little baby, I mean are you kidding me? I was not only Catholic,
I was Italian Catholic, French Catholic, you can't get more Catholic. When I was little anyways I was a good Catholic. I went to Mass,
Good Friday all the time, went to confession, in the summertime we'd go to
the monastery and we do what they call apostolic work, which was really cleaning
out the seminary so the seminarians could go on vacation, but still we were there. I remember staying in just a little room
where the priests in training would stage during the school year and then in
the summertime we would go there and work in the fields and clean, and at night we would stay there, and get up at 6:00 a.m. and have
mass and it was exciting, I was a young person and then to
be 30 years old and to be told, 'You were sincere, but you were mistaken.' And
at first I was insulted, I mean I was insulted. I would say,
'Wait a minute. You guys, you with this dinky little building here, you're
telling me with the big Cathedral 300 of them in Quebec, you're telling me I'm
wrong?' And the answer to that was, 'Just read your Bible, that's all. Just
read your Bible.' And that's what I did. I just read the Bible and I began to see,
'Well, yeah that's not what I was taught, that's not what I was taught.' So
Nicodemus, imagine this Jew, elder, leader, scholar is told by this young Rabbi, 'You
have to be born again. You have to be changed.' Same thing I was told to me. 'Yeah,
you were sincere and a lot of the things you learned were correct; yes, there's
only one God and yes, Jesus is the Son of God, yes, you learned that and that was good,
but how you respond to God, you didn't learn that correctly. Just look at the
Bible.' Actually the thing that was most convincing to me as my teacher,
Jim Medder, said, 'All I want you to do is compare your experience honestly to
what the Bible teaches about that experience, that's all I want you to do,
and if they match, don't change anything, if they don't match then the change you
have to make is according to what the Scripture says not according to what
you've been taught,' and that was the deal we made at the beginning when I started
studying the Bible and I mean, yeah, and it made sense to me. And so in verse 4,
"Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a
second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?'" So Nicodemus acknowledges
that it's impossible to repeat natural birth. So what's Jesus talking about?
And he understood that a change was necessary, but he couldn't grasp what
kind of change and how could this change be accomplished. So I want you to
look at Nicodemus' attitude. Even though he was older and he was in a
better social position than Jesus, Jesus was just this Rabbi from
nowhere Nazareth, He didn't count for anything in this social scale
of anything. He wanted to know the truth and so he humbled himself in order to
find it. He came by night to this young Rabbi because there was something about
this young Rabbi, something He was doing in something He was teaching which rang
true and he wanted to know what that was and so this teaches us a very important
lesson: we cannot go forward in spiritual knowledge and understanding unless we
humble ourselves. In James 4:6, James says, "But He gives greater grace.
Therefore it says, 'God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.'" The
grace that He gives to the humble is the ability to understand His word, that's the grace. How many times have I said to myself,
'Thank you God for allowing me to understand what Your word says. Had I not
been able to do that I would have been lost. Thank you for bringing Jim and
others into my life to gently say to me you're sincere Michael, you're looking
for God Michael, and you've got part of the story right Michael, but this part
over here is not correct. Look at the Bible and have the humility to obey
simply what the Bible says rather than your tradition,' and that was that was
tough and it's tough for anybody. I mean I've studied with a lot of people
from different backgrounds, different faiths. It's always a difficult thing. So
I think the story of Nicodemus really kind of zeroes in this idea
about someone who has a preconceived notion of what religion is all about
being told, 'You're going to have to change,' and I was 30, I was a still a young man, but Nicodemus is not a young man, he's an
older man, he's a man whose ways have been set for many, many,
many years. Sure, go ahead. I'm sorry. Yes, yes. Apollos,
not only a mature man, but Apollos in the book of Acts was a great speaker.
He was a man who was known for his ability and his power of
the scriptures. It took a lot of humility for him to be taught by Aquila and
Priscilla, by two tentmakers, blue-collar workers were teaching this
scholar a little more perfectly about the gospel. Yeah, good point Don,
thanks. And so to go forward means, you know when we say go forward? Go forward
means leaving some things behind. You can't go forward unless you leave
something. To get to the other shore you have to leave this shore. So
change requires that we re-examine what we have learned, what we
think, what we believe and we leave behind those things which are
false or shallow or inaccurate or sinful; that's what going forward is, that's what
growing in knowledge is. That's why we have these Bible classes. It's not just
punching in, it's hopefully by the end of a Bible class you walk away
whether it's one lesson or a whole series, you walk away with some knowledge
that replaces some old knowledge and hopefully there are changes that have to
be made. So verse five, we got to move ahead. "Jesus answered, 'Truly, truly, I say
to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom
of God.'" So Nicodemus humbles himself and Jesus gives him more information
concerning the change. Nicodemus could have said, 'Nah, nah.
This is no good I don't get it. I'll see you some
other time,' but no, he says, 'Well, how does this happen? This change?' He
humbles himself to be able to say to this young Rabbi to say, 'I don't understand.' This
great man says. 'I don't understand. You have to teach me.' So the change occurs,
not by being a Jew Jesus explains, or a Pharisee or a teacher; you don't enter
the kingdom this way, you enter the kingdom by water and the Spirit. So in
this short explanation Jesus gives Nicodemus two insights. Insight number
one, the power of regeneration, in other words, the One who makes the change
happen is the Holy Spirit of God, not your culture, not your studying, not your
position, not your tradition; that's not what changes, the Holy Spirit of God.
Insight number two, the place of regeneration is baptism. It doesn't
happen in your mother's womb, it happens in the waters of baptism.
So now Nicodemus would have been familiar with these two
concepts. As a scholar and a Pharisee he knew and believed that the Spirit gave
power; in the Old Testament to the judges and the kings and the
prophets in order to transform their lives and service. Isaiah 61 verse 1, what does Isaiah say? 'The Spirit of God
is upon me." So the Pharisees believed in angels, life after death, the
power of the Holy Spirit to empower someone to do something or to change and
as a contemporary of Jesus, Nicodemus also knew that John the Baptist, as well
as Jesus, preached that all should repent and be baptized in order to prepare
for the kingdom to come, that was the connection between the Spirit and the
water. So in His reply to Nicodemus requests for more info Jesus simply puts
these two ideas together for him.The message to the leader of the nation was
no different than the message to the common people: repent and be baptized for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He just goes in we get an up-close and personal
view of Jesus teaching John's message. So when the Bible talks about John the
Baptist, they only say, 'and John went about preaching repentance and
baptism for the forgiveness of sins.' In this little image story we
get how Jesus breaks this apart in order to explain it, but it's the same thing. So
let's go to verse 6. Verse 6 says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh,
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." So Jesus continues to repeat the
idea that the power source for change, the change necessary to enter the
kingdom, comes from God, doesn't come from man. Whatever comes from the flesh cannot
be transformed into something spiritual and vice versa.
Whatever comes from God is spiritual and it remains that way. In other words, man
cannot by himself change himself and avoid condemnation in some way; not by
doing good, not by keeping spiritual laws, not by keeping religious
traditions; this is not how you enter into the kingdom of God.
Only God can change man, 10,000 years of human history have
taught us that. So in verse seven and eight Jesus continues, He says, "Do not be amazed that I said to you, 'You
must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it,
but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is
born of the Spirit." So He continues to repeat this idea and Nicodemus is amazed. I mean he's amazed that he needs to
change, he thought he was OK and he's amazed that he can't do it by himself. He
thought he had achieved righteousness through the law. My tradition tells me
I'm OK and my spirit tells me I'm OK, because I keep all the rules of my
religion. So Jesus replies that not only is the Spirit doing the work but you
can't see the Spirit working to affect the change in you, but the change is
there nevertheless, and He compares the work of the Spirit to the wind. You don't
see the wind, you just see its effects. You don't see the Spirit, but you see the
results of the spirit: faith in Christ, love of others, hatred and remorse for
sin, that I do not want to repeat the sins of my past, that is
not me who doesn't want to do that, that's the Spirit in me that doesn't
want to do that. The flesh in me, if you offend me or hurt my feelings,
the flesh in me it wants to get even, that's my flesh. I want to get even.
I want revenge. I want to hurt you back. You hurt me, I'm gonna hurt you back.
That's the flesh, but the Spirit takes over and says, 'Turn the other cheek.' The
Spirit takes over and says, 'Forgive your enemies.' The Spirit takes over and says
to be long-suffering and there's a Proverb that says, 'It is to a man's glory
to overlook an offense.' That's the Spirit that's in me talking. So Nicodemus in
verse 9 says, "How can then these things be?" He's incredulous. How does the Spirit do this? He wants more details. Not enough
that the Spirit does what He does. How does He do it? So we don't hear from
Nicodemus again until a lot later, but for now we see Jesus giving him more
answers, more insights into the process of regeneration. In other words, that
short little message by John the Baptist, 'Repent, the kingdom is at hand,'
Jesus here breaks down, gives us the almost the whole sermon, if you wish,
almost the whole lesson. Verse 10 and 11. "Jesus answered and said to Nicodemus,
'Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I
say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and
you do not accept our testimony." So Jesus points out that it isn't
intelligence that's lacking in Nicodemus, it's faith. Jesus tells him that what He
is teaching him, He does so from personal knowledge and experience, not like the
Jewish rabbis who debated each other on the strength of what rabbis wrote.
In other words, when rabbis would debate, rabbi A would say, 'Well,
according to rabbi D and E this is his opinion on this matter,' and rabbi
B would say, 'Well, according to rabbi F and G this is the opinion,' and this is
how they would do, they would bookmark end notes, they would quote
other rabbis to build their case, but Jesus isn't doing it, He's not quoting any
other rabbi, He speaks from personal experience of what heaven is like
because He comes from heaven. He tells Nicodemus, 'This is what you have to do in
order to enter into heaven. How do I know? I've been there, I come from there.'
His miracles were proof that what He said was indeed the truth. And so the
problem that Nicodemus was facing was that he believed the miracles, but he was
having a little bit of trouble believing in the One who did the
miracles and that was Jesus. So Jesus brings to Nicodemus the core
of his problem of not being able to perceive the truth. It begins with
this belief in Jesus, it starts there. There's no understanding of spiritual
things without first believing in Jesus, He's the key that opens up all of the
knowledge, He's the key that explains all the parables. And so in verse 12 and 13
Jesus continues, "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will
you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven,
but He who descended from heaven; the Son of Man." So there's what I
was saying, 'I'm not speaking quoting anybody, I'm telling
you how to get into heaven because I come from heaven.' So the Lord explains to
Nicodemus the necessity of faith for understanding spiritual things. He says,
'I'm explaining things that I have actually seen and experienced and you
don't believe me. If you don't believe me concerning things which can be explained
using earthly examples like the wind and the waves, how will you ever understand
when I speak to you of heavenly things which I have seen, such as glorified
bodies and angels? How will you understand when I start talking to you
about what heaven is like if you don't even understand when I talk to
you using earthly examples? Because when I start talking to you about heavenly
things that are in heaven for which there are no earthly equivalents, things
that require faith to understand, not mere intelligence, how will you
understand?' Only by faith. How did God create something from
nothing? Is there some sort of physical, scientific way to explain that? In other
words, is there an earthly way to explain that? Well, no. That's something we accept
by faith because it's the only way we can understand it. Why? Because it's a
heavenly thing. How God a pure spirit created a material world out of nothing,
I don't know. There's no math equation for that. They're searching for it.
They're searching for a math equation that will explain everything.
They'll never find it. Why? Because they're not searching for it with the
eyes of faith. Now in saying this, Jesus gives Nicodemus a
third piece of information, the fact that the power of the Spirit to change a
person and thus save him is ignited by faith; not intelligence, not position, not
power. Salvation is possible because there is a change and a change is
possible because there is faith. So in the last section of this passage Jesus
reveals the last point upon which all the process of change and rebirth and
regeneration rests and that is the only faith that will move the Spirit to
change us is faith in the Savior Jesus Christ. You can have faith in a rock,
faith in the moon, faith in Allah, faith in Muhammad, faith in Vishnu,
you have faith in all those things, it'll change your lifestyle, but it won't
change your spirit. So to illustrate this point Jesus uses a powerful image
from the Old Testament. He says, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him
will have eternal life." So we need a little bit of background. I think most of
you are familiar with the story in the Old Testament. Jesus makes a parallel
between this incident that happened while the Jews wandered in the desert
with Moses and He compares His death on the cross, which is in the
future at the moment, to what happened in the desert with the
Jews and He shows how faith connects these two incidents. So in the Old
Testament, Numbers 21 verse 9, the Bible tells the story of the people in the
desert. They're tired, they're fed up, and they rebel against Moses and God
and God sends poisonous snakes among them as punishment to quell the
rebellion. Now a lot of people were dying so they went to Moses for help and Moses
prays to God and God tells him, 'Here's what you're going to do. You're
going to fashion a bronze serpent, place it on a pole or a standard,
and put it in the camp; and whoever comes and looks at it will be healed. And we
continue to read in Numbers that all those who came to look at the snake on
the pole were healed. Now the key element for Nicodemus to understand was that it
wasn't the snake that saved the people, it was looking at the snake that saved
the people. In other words, it was the faith that they displayed in
obeying God that healed them. I mean God could have said, 'Put a
porcupine up there,' or, 'Put a cat up there,' or, 'Put a piece of bread up
there,' anything; the key was not the snake, the snake was symbolic. What saved them
was they obeyed God in faith. He said, 'If you do that, then this will happen, you'll
be healed.' So in the same way the death of Christ on the cross, in other
words, He was put on a pole too, if you wish, He was lifted up in the camp or outside
the camp; the death of Christ on the cross all by itself doesn't heal men of
their sins because if it did what would happen? Well everybody in the world
would be saved. If the thing that regenerated you, that forgave your sins,
was simply the death of Christ every man that ever was born; man, woman, and child
would have their sins forgiven. Well, no that's not the gospel. The idea is that
His offering and payment for sin, the cross, looked upon with faith by those
who are infected by sin, this is what moves God to forgive men and empower
them through the Spirit to change and thereby save them. That's the parallel. In
the desert they looked at the snake and that obedience of faith healed them. In the
New Testament we look upon the cross (and I'll explain in a minute how we do
that), we look upon the cross and that obedience of faith saves us. There's
the parallel that Jesus makes. And so Jesus puts all these ideas
together in that golden verse, John chapter 3 verse 16. "For God so loved the
world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not
perish, but have eternal life." So there is the motivation. God loved the world.
The method, He gave, His only begotten Son, the cross. The method, the obedience of
faith that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have what? The reward
regeneration, eternal life. So if you were the one who had gone instead of
Nicodemus, what would you have learned? So a couple of lessons here as we got five
minutes. You would have learned that no one goes to heaven unless a change takes
place here on earth first. We can't enter the presence of God unless we are
changed. How? Well, we're changed from guilty to forgiven, we're changed from
disobedient to willing to obey. Doesn't mean perfect to obey, but we're willing
to obey. We're changed from condemned sinners to accepted as sons of God.
Spiritually dead to spiritually alive. I mean I could just keep going here. So if
these changes have not occurred in your life you shall not enter the kingdom
of heaven, that's what Jesus said. What else would you have learned? You
would have learned that the change takes place in a particular way. First of all,
it's powered by God, He's the power behind the change, not us. Secondly the
change is based on faith in Christ, not intelligence, not self-will, not
power, not position, not tradition; it's powered by faith in Jesus Christ. If
you don't believe then there is no change. And thirdly, the change happens at baptism. I should go back here, there we go, the
change happens at baptism just as looking at the snake was
an expression of faith ordained by God. Remember I said to you
He could have said, 'I want you to go and touch the pole. I want you to go and pray
to the pole. I want you to go run around the pole.' He could have, He
didn't say that. He said, 'You go and you look at the pole with faith
that I will do this for you and it'll happen.' So in the New Testament baptism
is that action of faith, if you wish. God could have said, Jesus could have said,
'Clap your hands three times. If you believe in Jesus. Clap your hands three times to
demonstrate your faith,' or, 'Say, "I believe in Jesus," to demonstrate your faith' or 'walk a mile with no shoes on to demonstrate your
faith,' but that's not what He said. He said, 'In order to demonstrate your faith
be baptized, be immersed in the water.' That's the [demonstration]. Is there any miracle in
the water? No, there's no miracle in the water, we don't believe in what's called baptismal regeneration, we don't believe in that. We believe that baptism is the biblical expression
of faith that Jesus requires of us. In the same way that they looked upon the
snake, we are immersed in water for the forgiveness of sin. Baptism is that
perfect expression of faith that results in our forgiveness and reception of the
Holy Spirit, Acts 2:38. That was the hardest part for me. I was 30 years old,
baptized as a little baby by the Catholics, baptized in a lake by the
Pentecostals in order to join a certain sect when I was maybe twenty six or
seven. I figured I've been in the water a lot, but then I read the
Scripture and again Jim's word kept coming back to me, 'Is what you did? This
is what you did, is it the same as what Jesus outlines for you to do in the
Scriptures?', and when I did it they didn't fit it. It was sort of, kind of...
it was a baptism when I was a baby, sprinkle, but it wasn't, but I didn't repent, I wasn't an adult, it wasn't something I decided
to do, and then when I was baptized in the lake, well, I was being
baptized so I could join that group. So finally I said, 'Now wait a minute.
In my whole life have I ever on my own decided I believe in Jesus Christ and I
will be immersed in water based on that faith,' and the clear answer to me, I asked
myself the question was, 'No. Alright then, then I'm gonna make sure that
these two pieces fit properly, it's too important to play games with that
command of Jesus.' And then the third thing you would learn, Jesus Christ the
center of the change, the Spirit that changes us is sent by Jesus. It isn't
faith in general that saves, that transforms, it's faith in Jesus that has
the power to regenerate us, He's at the center of our faith. When we are baptized
we are reenacting His death and burial and resurrection. We are saying we
believe in His death, His burial, and His resurrection by going through a similar
thing which answers one question. [That was the first bell.] Some people say, 'Why
baptism? Why didn't He pick something more convenient? You know clap your hands,
raise your hand, whatever, touch the TV? Why didn't He do that? Because baptism
reenacts perfectly what Jesus did on the cross. He was crucified, He died, He was
buried, He was resurrected. We crucify the old person by repenting of our sins.
We say, 'No more of the old life. No more of the old sin. No more of the old ways. We're buried.
We're immersed in the water and then we're resurrected from the water
regenerated, saved, new creatures, children of God absolutely assured of our
salvation and eternal life, a marvelous way that God has given us to reenact
Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. If we had been with Jesus instead of
Nicodemus these are some of the things that we would have learned. So
let's do a little epilogue. Nicodemus' life changed after that
night. You only see a few glimpses of him but enough to observe the transformation
that faith did to him. In John 7:50, he defends Jesus to the Sanhedrin, not as a
disciple, but as a point of law, a timid defense, but a beginning. After Jesus'
death, he and Joseph of Arimathea bury the Lord's body, again by night, again a
timid gesture, but this time counting himself as a disciple. Now tradition, not
the Bible, but tradition, in other words, historical writings have it that he was
finally put out of the Sanhedrin and he was baptized by Peter and John and at
his death he was buried in a common grave with other Christians. So let's
hope that Nicodemus experienced the change that he sought after when he came to
Jesus by night and let's also hope that our faith is changing us, not our
circumstances, not our self-will as we look to Jesus for the rebirth and the
eternal life that He promises us. Remember what I said, only you measure
your experience with what the Scriptures say. When they match, you're good to go'
when they don't match, you need to make the adjustment according to what the Scriptures say. Alright there we go, John 3:1 to 16. That's it.
