Objecting to God’s grace

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.” Jesus answered and said to 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 into the kingdom of God. That which has been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which has been 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 do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who has been born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “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 bear witness of what we have seen, and you do not accept our witness. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? And no one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And 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 have eternal life.

John 3:1-15

Introduction

In this precursor to one of the most famous verses in the entire Bible, the scene is set and the context is laid. A secret meeting between a leader of the Pharisees and Jesus Christ takes place, proving that while the Pharisees considered the Lord their enemy, He did not do the same to them. He came to seek and to save the lost, whether they are Pharisees or tax collectors, Jews or gentiles.

In this clandestine rendezvous, an extremely well-learned man is dumbfounded by the arrival of One whose presence does not fit within the theological scheme he had concluded and taught for so many years. While the Pharisees believed in a human Messiah, they did not believe the Messiah would be divine and capable of forgiving sins.

Jesus presented a radical problem for the worldview of the Pharisees, then. As Nicodemus points out, He was obviously “from God,” as attested to by the signs and wonders He performed. But to fully admit this would require the Pharisees to admit elements of their theology was wrong. And fearing it would be like pulling a single thread in a knitted garment, the Pharisees did whatever they could to avoid admitting they were wrong on any point of doctrine, especially one as important as this.

Born again?

Believing righteousness was derived from lawkeeping rather than causing lawkeeping, the Pharisees built hedges around the Law of Moses. They were meticulous in their cataloguing of what was and was not allowed; what was and was not prohibited. By the time of Jesus, much of this was written in the foundational document used by Orthodox Jews today, the Mishna.

In not much time at all, the Mishna became viewed as actual Law given to Moses and transmitted orally before being written down. This sort of thing is common for people to do. Whether it is the elevation of oral tradition like this or the unquestionable nature of a country’s founding documents, old wisdom has a habit of being deified by future generations. And so what was originally intended to be a guide for achieving righteousness by lawkeeping became a mandate from God to achieve righteousness by lawkeeping.

So when Jesus told Nicodemus that one must be born again by the Spirit, he was troubled and confused. No one chooses to be born. It is one of the few things that everyone experiences passively. Being born happens to you. This prompts Nicodemus to ask how it is possible to be the agent in one’s own second birth, “Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” It does not fit into his worldview that righteousness and justification before God can possibly be something God does to you rather than something you do to yourself.

We ought to know

After these objections, Jesus turns to Nicodemus and rebukes him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?” What Jesus taught to Nicodemus that night should not have been news to him. It was not some novel teaching that had never been heard in Israel before. It was, in fact, there all along. Consider Deuteronomy 7:7-8, for instance, which reads,

Yaheweh did not set His affection on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because Yahweh loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your fathers, Yahweh brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

The status of Israel as God’s chosen people, holy and set apart had nothing to do with what they brought to the table. They were the chosen people purely and simply because He chose them.

Grace is only grace when it is unmerited. The righteousness anyone has before God is the result of God acting in that person’s life. What a difficult thing it must have been for a Pharisee to hear that. And then Jesus tells Nicodemus something else that shatters his worldview all over again: that as Moses lifted the serpent in the wilderness, the Messiah would also be raised up. Not raised up in power, but raised up on a cross to die. And all who believe in Him will be granted eternal life.

May the Lord bless you and conform you into the image of His Son.