THE NEW BIRTH
John chapter 3, verses 1 to 21
Nicodemus (victor over the people) was a Pharisee and a member of the ruling council (called the Sanhedrin). The Pharisees were a group of religious leaders whom Jesus and John the Baptist often criticised for being hypocrites. Most Pharisees were intensely jealous of Jesus because he undermined their authority and challenged their views. But Nicodemus believed that Jesus was a man of God and, though a learned teacher himself, he came to learn more from Him and to separate fact from rumour.
The necessity of the new birth grows out of the incapacity of the natural man to "see" or "enter into" the kingdom of God. However gifted, moral, or refined, the natural man is absolutely blind to spiritual truth, and impotent to enter the kingdom; for he can neither obey, understand, nor please God (John 3:3, 5, 6; Psalm 51:5; Jeremiah 17:9; Mark 7:21-23; 1 Corinthians 2:14; Romans 8:7, 8; Ephesians 2:3). The new birth, or rebirth (Titus 3:5), denotes that change of heart following repentance from sin, elsewhere spoken of as a passing from death to life (1 John 3:14), or a raising from the dead (Ephesians 2:6) and being made alive (Ephesians 2: 1, 5), becoming a new creature in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5: 17) with a renewal of the mind (Romans 12:2).
The new birth is not a reformation of the old nature, but a creative act of the holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 2:10; 4:24, 1 Thessalonians 1: 5). It originates from God (John 1: 12, 13; 1 John 2:29; 5: 1, 4), and consists in the implanting of a new principle or disposition in the soul, called the new spirit, the creation of spiritual life, the re-establishment of communion with God, to those who are by nature "dead in trespasses and sins." The necessity of such a change is emphatically affirmed in Scripture (John 3:3; Romans 7:18; 8:7-9; 1 Corinthians 2:14; Ephesians 2: 1; 4:21-24).
Water is symbolic of the Word of God (Ephesians 5:26). Later on the Lord Jesus said, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth" (chapter 17:17), and, "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you" (chapter 15:3): there is a cleansing, sanctifying power in the Word, and it is likened unto water again and again. The expression "born of water and of the Spirit" means that a person must be born again in obedience to the Word of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, who inspired it: there is no other Way (Romans 8:9).
Just as we cannot see the wind, but we see its effects, we cannot tell exactly how the Spirit of God operates, but can surely tell when He is moving in the lives and hearts of His people.
It is probable that he came after dark to avoid being noticed, which might create problems for him among his peers. Later, when he understood that Jesus was truly the Messiah, he spoke up boldly in his defence (John 7:50, 51).
From the Old Testament prophecies, Nicodemus would have known that God would set up His kingdom on earth over His people: the Jews expected the coming Messiah to do this. Jesus revealed to this devout Pharisee that no-one can see this kingdom unless he is born again: the new birth gives eternal life! Jesus later taught that Gods kingdom has already begun in the hearts of believers (Luke 17:21). It will be fully realised when Jesus returns again to judge the world and to abolish evil forever (Revelation 21:22 - 22:5).
Nicodemus was astonished: he had never heard of being born again, and what he heard was beyond his comprehension. He realised it was impossible in a physical sense. But the Old Testament Scriptures, of which he was a teacher, does mention radical change in character and attitudes, and he should have been able to understand what Jesus was implying (e.g. Ezekiel 11:17-20).
Our Lord then chided Nicodemus for his ignorance, and claimed His own superior knowledge of things on earth and things in heaven, because He was the only man who had ever been in heaven. Later He said "I came forth from the Father and have come into the world. Again, 1 leave the world and go to the Father" (chapter 16:28). At that point in time no man had ascended up to heaven except He who came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven. Therefore He is the only One who can speak about heaven. It is true that multitudes have gone to heaven after Christ, but until He returned to heaven, all saints went to a place called Paradise or Abraham's Bosom, as our Lord called it (Luke 16:22). It was not until after Christ died and ascended to heaven that He led captivity captive, meaning that He took those who were in Paradise into the presence of God in heaven. Since then, for the child of God, it has always been "… absent from the body … present with the Lord" (2Corinthians 5:8).
He then presented Nicodemus with a clear description of the price He was going to pay in order that the whole world (not only the Jews) might have the opportunity, through believing in Him, of escaping condemnation and attaining eternal life. Like Moses lifted up a bronze snake in the desert so that those doomed to die from snakebite could be healed simply by looking up at it, He would have to be lifted up: physically raised on the cross, to die for the sins of those who believe in him, thereby giving them eternal life: reconciliation with God for ever, adoption as His children, and an incorruptible inheritance (Romans 5: 11, Galatians 4: 5, 1Peter 1:4).
To "believe" is not just to agree that Jesus is God. It implies:
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to trust confidently that he alone can save us: to admit that as sinners we are dead to God and subject to His wrath and judgement, but that Christ has taken God's wrath and judgement upon Himself, making us justified before God.
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to put Christ in charge of our life for ever.
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to trust His words, passed on to us by His apostles, as reliable, without question.
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to rely on Him for the power of the Holy Spirit to change, and with this power to be vigilant and fight our enemies: the flesh, the world, and the devil.
Those who do evil (evil is anything apart from salvation and obedience to God's law-word) do not like the light (the word of God), for it exposes their evil. They do not want to be changed.
When a person is born again, he enjoys living by the truth, the Word of God.
R David Jones
1 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 and said to him, "Most assuredly, 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, "Most assuredly, 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 the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit."
9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, "How can these things be?"
10 Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?
11 "Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness.
12 "If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
13 "No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
14 "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15 "that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
17 "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
18 "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 "And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 "For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
21 "But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God."