Above? Again?

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John 3:1-8

3 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 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.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 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?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 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.”

 
 

In chapters 2–4, Jesus keeps interacting with an important Jewish institution or theme, and through each interaction, Jesus further reveals who He is and that what He is able to do far exceeds what the Old Covenant could offer. He then offers His hearers a choice to either turn toward Him in faith and believe, or turn away from Him in unbelief. Here, Jesus interacts with a “teacher of Israel” (3:10), that is, the Jewish leadership and authority structure. Once again, the interaction will show that Jesus is superior to what has come before.

You will not understand this interchange between Nicodemus and Jesus if you don’t understand that in Greek the same word means “again” and “from above.”

Jesus tells Nicodemus that the only way to take part in what God is doing and live in the eternal life of God (“see the kingdom of God”) is to totally reorient one’s life to live it according to God’s perspective and God’s values, that is, to be “born from above” through the Holy Spirit. In other words, Jesus is saying that for a person to live in God’s life it will require a radical reorientation of a person’s life, a reorientation—as He will explain to Nicodemus later on—that is only possible through the Holy Spirit. This is how it works:

  • The Old Testament Law offered life to those who obeyed it but death to those who disobeyed it;

  • The Father Himself fulfilled the Law’s demands by sending His own Son.

  • Jesus, as the faithful Israelite, perfectly followed the Law, thereby bringing life and blessing to all who trust Him;

  • While at the same time God condemned sin once and for all by nailing it to the cross and thereby defeating it;

  • The Son of God died in place of unfaithful Israel, and He brought sin down with Him;

  • Sin and death stayed dead, but Jesus was raised to new life in the power of the Spirit;

  • And now those who trust Jesus live by the Spirit, who enables them to actually fulfill the Law and live righteous lives;

  • Living in the Spirit is eternal life, which the Son came to bring.

And how does one receive this Spirit-life? Through a radical reordering of one’s life that begins with repentance or turning back from destruction, asking for mercy, and trusting that Jesus offers life. Jesus’s shorthand way of explaining all of this to Nicodemus is summed up this way: “You have to be born from above.” And the beautiful thing is that this life is available to anyone, anywhere—“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” (v.8).

Nicodemus is a member of the Jewish religious establishment, but he totally missed the point; rather, he thick-headedly thinks Jesus is talking about literally being born through childbirth a second time!

Jesus is talking about how the Holy Spirit changes a person, but Nicodemus totally misses it.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
The same blindness is constantly present around us. If people decide to turn aside from God, they are more and more lost, more and more blind. But, if people turn toward God in faith, then they see more and more clearly through the power of the Holy Spirit. This explains how something can be so obvious to us in the church and yet the world can totally miss it.