The third chapter of the gospel of John begins by noting that: "There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews" (v.1). Then the conversation between this man and Christ follows. The pharisee asks: "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." (v.2). Christ responds, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (v.3). The explanation comes in v.6: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit". Compare with Romans 8:7, "the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be".
In John 8 some pharisees responds to Christ's words of the liberating power of the gospel with the objection: "We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?" (John 8:33). One of the pillars of the pharisaic outlook and ethical endeavor was that those who devoted their lives entirely to fulfilling God's will, as it was revealed in the law, were thus free men. This was especially possible for Israel, which entered into covenant with God to obey His law. The pharisaic prayer in the synagogue is: "My God, the soul that you have given me is pure." Just as the greeks, the pharisaic theology come to entertain the notion that God, despite the fall, had left behind a divine spark in man's interior. The impurity in man did not thus come from within but from without. Pharisaism taught that man was free, even in the spiritual sense. Man's impurity therefore depends on his freedom of choice. If he chooses the evil inclination ("jesaer haara") before the good inclination ("jesaer tov") or vice versa.
Diametrically against this thinking is Christ's proclamation: "those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies" (Matthew 15:18-19). "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess." (Matthew 23:25).
Christ does not affirm that natural man has an inherent ability to freely choose between good and evil inclinations. The pharisee Nicodemus got no pious commentaries in response to his religious speculations. He is mercilessly confronted with the glaring problem in his own soul. "That which is born of the flesh (sinful nature) is flesh (sinful nature)" (John 3:6). The natural birth does not make you a child of God. "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again" (John 3:7). Compares this with the words of Paul in Ephesians 2:3, "Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others". By nature, i.e. by birth. Not even kinship with Abraham or circumcision (without faith) ensures fellowship with God. To jews, who believed themselves to be free before God, Christ says: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do" (John 8:44).
Pharisaism says: Man shall desire the good, and he may do that which is good. Anyone who wants what is good, and try to do good, will become a good and upright man. Christian ethic however is based on the recognition of human nature as inherently sinful and says that man by his nature neither will nor can do what is good in his natural state. Christ's words in John 8:44, "Ye are of your father the devil", together with Ephesians 2:2, "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" or 2Tim 2:26: "that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will" speaks of a dark reality in natural man that is anything but good.
Salvation is then never found in man, but always outside of him. The pharisee Nicodemus was delivered the good news: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16). Christ portrays a familiar motif for Nicodemus. The israelites were attacked by poisonous snakes, as spoken about in Numbers 21, they had no independent ability or own power to rely upon. They were doomed to die unless God had promised that anyone who looked up at the bronze serpent, which was lifted up on a pole in the camp, would be cured or healed (Numbers 21:6-9). "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:14-15). Seeing the serpent on a pole of bronze, was the instrument for acquiring the healing, "every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live" (Numbers 21:8). Similarly, the belief in the exalted Christ on the cross is the instrument for the acquisition of salvation: "That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:15) and "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (John 3:18).
But faith is never perceived as something that springs from man's own good interior. Faith is described as a creative miracle, when God quickens the spiritually dead. It's about being born again (John 3:3) or being born from above, "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:7). It is about to be freed from the spiritual bondage of darkness and sin (John 8:34) and Satan (John 8 44). It is not about to make oneself alive - but to be made alive, quickened, by God. Raised from the dead! It is not about allowing oneself to be born again by own willpower, it is about being born. It is not about freeing oneself but about being freed. In repentance and rebirth, man is passive and only God himself is active. The faith that this spawns is a gracious miracle of God.
Compare hereto Phil 1:29: "For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake" with Phil. 2:13: "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" and John 6:44 "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day." In John 15:5 Christ says, "without me ye can do nothing" and in Matthew 11:27 He says:"All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him".
Christ teaches that spiritual freedom comes to man through the Word and baptism. Nicodemus received the gospel of Christ and is referred to the means Christ uses to convey salvation, namely baptism (Titus 3:4-5, Ephesians 5:25-27, Romans 6:4, Galatians 3:27) "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John 3:5). Just as man in his natural birth could not "assist" or "interact" to his birth, he can not also do it in spiritual birth. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). Just as man can not affect weather - the wind - just as little can man participate in or influence the action of the Spirit in the new birth. This is also noted initially in John's Gospel, which says of God's children, "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13).
Christ says to pharisees: "the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). It does not say: You must liberate yourself or allow yourself to be liberated. People do not come to the Truth. It is truth that comes to us, and makes us free. Man is the passive object (the one who repents), while the Spirit of God is described as the active subject (who makes us repent). It is important to emphasize that this is not about just any so-called "truth" out there. When Christ says that the truth sets free He begins the sentence: "If ye continue in MY word ..." (John 8:31). Just like Nicodemus was referred to baptism (John 3:5) are the jews in John 8 referred to the Word, Christ's own Word. As baptism is attributed to regenerative power (Titus 3:4, 5, John 3:5) is Christ's Word attributed to the Gospel and its regenerative power. We read in James 1:18, "Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth" and in 1 Peter 1:23: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever".
No one can fight their way to salvation. Christ is the one who lived, suffered and died for lost sinners. We can not carry out the sacrifice of Christ again. It is finished at Calvary hill once and for all. But neither can we fight our way to have faith. The Word of the Gospel, God's living Word, goes out and people hear the message of Christ (Romans 10:14-17). Whereever faith comes to a person the cause of it is completely of the Holy Spirit in the Word. Salvation is by grace alone - from start to finish. The ignition of faith in man is described in Scripture as a miracle equal to the one of creation (2 Corinthians 4:6). Sometimes some argue that the call to repentance in Scripture implies an ability in the unrepentant and unregenerate man to positively respond to it, that it is just a matter of choosing it. This echoes the anthropology of the pharisees who thought it was just for (natural) man to choose the good inclination before the evil.. But just as the physically dead Lazarus (John 11:14-39) could not make himself alive - nor can the spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1-3) make themselves alive. Just as Christ's words "Lazarus, come forth!" (John 11:43) had the divine power to make Lazarus alive, Christ's Words in the proclamation of the Gospel, today, has the divine power to make a spiritually dead person alive. In John's Gospel, the third chapter, Christ calls this the new birth (v.3, 5, 7, 8). In 2 Corinthians 5:17 it's called the new creation (cf Gal 6:15). In Romans 6.5 it is called resurrection.
The pharisees understood repentance primarily as a moral change of one's living pattern. Christianity brings the message of a change that has already been accomplished by God. The message of how Christ appeases the wrath of God by sacrificing Himself as man's representative. This message, the Gospel Word of forgiveness of sins, is the divine means God uses to turn people on board. This message has the divine power to turn the stone heart into a believing heart that trusts in God's undeserved grace in Christ. This preaching will have two different receptions John chapter 3 does not tell the whole story about the pharisee Nicodemus response to Christ's sermon on sin and grace. But we see the same man in John 7:48-52 as a defender of Christ, and he's at Christ's tomb in John 19:39. From this we can assume that Christ's words to Nicodemus had actually penetrated his heart. The reaction to Christ's teachings for other pharisees were different. The text says that some of them "took ... up stones to cast at him" (John 8:59). So, we see illustrated the double end of Christ's Word preaching. Some believe, others reject, the Word.
Amen.
In John 8 some pharisees responds to Christ's words of the liberating power of the gospel with the objection: "We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?" (John 8:33). One of the pillars of the pharisaic outlook and ethical endeavor was that those who devoted their lives entirely to fulfilling God's will, as it was revealed in the law, were thus free men. This was especially possible for Israel, which entered into covenant with God to obey His law. The pharisaic prayer in the synagogue is: "My God, the soul that you have given me is pure." Just as the greeks, the pharisaic theology come to entertain the notion that God, despite the fall, had left behind a divine spark in man's interior. The impurity in man did not thus come from within but from without. Pharisaism taught that man was free, even in the spiritual sense. Man's impurity therefore depends on his freedom of choice. If he chooses the evil inclination ("jesaer haara") before the good inclination ("jesaer tov") or vice versa.
Diametrically against this thinking is Christ's proclamation: "those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies" (Matthew 15:18-19). "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess." (Matthew 23:25).
Christ does not affirm that natural man has an inherent ability to freely choose between good and evil inclinations. The pharisee Nicodemus got no pious commentaries in response to his religious speculations. He is mercilessly confronted with the glaring problem in his own soul. "That which is born of the flesh (sinful nature) is flesh (sinful nature)" (John 3:6). The natural birth does not make you a child of God. "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again" (John 3:7). Compares this with the words of Paul in Ephesians 2:3, "Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others". By nature, i.e. by birth. Not even kinship with Abraham or circumcision (without faith) ensures fellowship with God. To jews, who believed themselves to be free before God, Christ says: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do" (John 8:44).
Pharisaism says: Man shall desire the good, and he may do that which is good. Anyone who wants what is good, and try to do good, will become a good and upright man. Christian ethic however is based on the recognition of human nature as inherently sinful and says that man by his nature neither will nor can do what is good in his natural state. Christ's words in John 8:44, "Ye are of your father the devil", together with Ephesians 2:2, "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" or 2Tim 2:26: "that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will" speaks of a dark reality in natural man that is anything but good.
Salvation is then never found in man, but always outside of him. The pharisee Nicodemus was delivered the good news: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16). Christ portrays a familiar motif for Nicodemus. The israelites were attacked by poisonous snakes, as spoken about in Numbers 21, they had no independent ability or own power to rely upon. They were doomed to die unless God had promised that anyone who looked up at the bronze serpent, which was lifted up on a pole in the camp, would be cured or healed (Numbers 21:6-9). "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:14-15). Seeing the serpent on a pole of bronze, was the instrument for acquiring the healing, "every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live" (Numbers 21:8). Similarly, the belief in the exalted Christ on the cross is the instrument for the acquisition of salvation: "That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:15) and "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (John 3:18).
But faith is never perceived as something that springs from man's own good interior. Faith is described as a creative miracle, when God quickens the spiritually dead. It's about being born again (John 3:3) or being born from above, "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:7). It is about to be freed from the spiritual bondage of darkness and sin (John 8:34) and Satan (John 8 44). It is not about to make oneself alive - but to be made alive, quickened, by God. Raised from the dead! It is not about allowing oneself to be born again by own willpower, it is about being born. It is not about freeing oneself but about being freed. In repentance and rebirth, man is passive and only God himself is active. The faith that this spawns is a gracious miracle of God.
Compare hereto Phil 1:29: "For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake" with Phil. 2:13: "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" and John 6:44 "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day." In John 15:5 Christ says, "without me ye can do nothing" and in Matthew 11:27 He says:"All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him".
Christ teaches that spiritual freedom comes to man through the Word and baptism. Nicodemus received the gospel of Christ and is referred to the means Christ uses to convey salvation, namely baptism (Titus 3:4-5, Ephesians 5:25-27, Romans 6:4, Galatians 3:27) "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John 3:5). Just as man in his natural birth could not "assist" or "interact" to his birth, he can not also do it in spiritual birth. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). Just as man can not affect weather - the wind - just as little can man participate in or influence the action of the Spirit in the new birth. This is also noted initially in John's Gospel, which says of God's children, "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13).
Christ says to pharisees: "the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). It does not say: You must liberate yourself or allow yourself to be liberated. People do not come to the Truth. It is truth that comes to us, and makes us free. Man is the passive object (the one who repents), while the Spirit of God is described as the active subject (who makes us repent). It is important to emphasize that this is not about just any so-called "truth" out there. When Christ says that the truth sets free He begins the sentence: "If ye continue in MY word ..." (John 8:31). Just like Nicodemus was referred to baptism (John 3:5) are the jews in John 8 referred to the Word, Christ's own Word. As baptism is attributed to regenerative power (Titus 3:4, 5, John 3:5) is Christ's Word attributed to the Gospel and its regenerative power. We read in James 1:18, "Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth" and in 1 Peter 1:23: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever".
No one can fight their way to salvation. Christ is the one who lived, suffered and died for lost sinners. We can not carry out the sacrifice of Christ again. It is finished at Calvary hill once and for all. But neither can we fight our way to have faith. The Word of the Gospel, God's living Word, goes out and people hear the message of Christ (Romans 10:14-17). Whereever faith comes to a person the cause of it is completely of the Holy Spirit in the Word. Salvation is by grace alone - from start to finish. The ignition of faith in man is described in Scripture as a miracle equal to the one of creation (2 Corinthians 4:6). Sometimes some argue that the call to repentance in Scripture implies an ability in the unrepentant and unregenerate man to positively respond to it, that it is just a matter of choosing it. This echoes the anthropology of the pharisees who thought it was just for (natural) man to choose the good inclination before the evil.. But just as the physically dead Lazarus (John 11:14-39) could not make himself alive - nor can the spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1-3) make themselves alive. Just as Christ's words "Lazarus, come forth!" (John 11:43) had the divine power to make Lazarus alive, Christ's Words in the proclamation of the Gospel, today, has the divine power to make a spiritually dead person alive. In John's Gospel, the third chapter, Christ calls this the new birth (v.3, 5, 7, 8). In 2 Corinthians 5:17 it's called the new creation (cf Gal 6:15). In Romans 6.5 it is called resurrection.
The pharisees understood repentance primarily as a moral change of one's living pattern. Christianity brings the message of a change that has already been accomplished by God. The message of how Christ appeases the wrath of God by sacrificing Himself as man's representative. This message, the Gospel Word of forgiveness of sins, is the divine means God uses to turn people on board. This message has the divine power to turn the stone heart into a believing heart that trusts in God's undeserved grace in Christ. This preaching will have two different receptions John chapter 3 does not tell the whole story about the pharisee Nicodemus response to Christ's sermon on sin and grace. But we see the same man in John 7:48-52 as a defender of Christ, and he's at Christ's tomb in John 19:39. From this we can assume that Christ's words to Nicodemus had actually penetrated his heart. The reaction to Christ's teachings for other pharisees were different. The text says that some of them "took ... up stones to cast at him" (John 8:59). So, we see illustrated the double end of Christ's Word preaching. Some believe, others reject, the Word.
Amen.
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