Bible Study John 3:1-17

 These notes were prepared for the Wednesday 10 am Bible Study at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church, Orlando FL.

Nicodemus is the perfect 21^st Century man – it just happens that he shows up in the first century. 

He is a successful man from a business or community point of view.

He has a leadership position in the community.

He is spiritually open and curious, while also being very rational and intellectual.

In John’s Gospel he approaches Jesus directly, but at the same time, privately. 

3:1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.

This is an abrupt start to this story.  John does not tell us where this takes place, only that it is somewhere in Jerusalem during the Passover feast (John 2:23).

We are told only that Nicodemus is a Pharisee and a ruler.

Nicodemus was rich. When Jesus died, Nicodemus brought for his body ‘a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds’ (John 19:39).  In the Roman system of weights and measures, a pound equaled 12 ounces, so we’re really talking about 75 pounds – but we are still talking about an excessive amount – and only a wealthy man could have brought that.   

Nicodemus was a Pharisee. Many modern people have a negative view of Pharisees, but in many ways they were the best people in the whole country. It was a small and elite group - there were never more than 6,000 of them.  When they became Pharisees, people would take a pledge in front of three witnesses that they would dedicate their lives in observing every detail of the scribal law. The scribes who worked out the regulations; the Pharisees were devoted to keeping the regulations. The word Pharisee means the separated one; and the Pharisees separated themselves from ordinary life in order to keep every detail of the law of the scribes.

Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews, but he was more than a ruler.  The word is archon, which means he was a member of the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was a court of seventy men.  It was a governing body for the Jews. Their power was limited by the occupation of the Romans, but still, among the Jews they had a lot of power.  In theory, the Sanhedrin had religious jurisdiction over every Jew in the world.

3:2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God."

In John’s Gospel, two of the major themes are light and darkness. 

Nicodemus comes to Jesus in a time of darkness and he is seeking spiritual light.

Later, as the story ends, Nicodemus disappears back into the darkness of the night.

One gets the feeling that Nicodemus is not committed, but open to Christ.  He does not want to be publically associated with Jesus – at least not at this point – perhaps for fear of losing some of his authority among the Jews.  Clearly, Nicodemus is being very cautious.

There may have been two reasons why Nicodemus came to Jesus at night:

(1)  Caution. Nicodemus quite frankly may not have wished to commit himself by coming to Jesus by day. For him to come to Jesus might have resulted in criticism of Nicodemus.

(2)  Night is a good time to study.  The Rabbis declared that the best time to study the law was at night when it could be done undisturbed. During the day, Jesus was surrounded by crowds of people all the time. 

3:3 Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above."

Nicodemus admits that Jesus is sent and empowered by God.

Jesus responds by giving an answer to a question Nicodemus did not ask.

How does one who lives in darkness find spiritual light?  By being reborn.

Historically, most Christian denominations understood “born again” as a spiritual regeneration via baptism by water and the word.  This continues today with the Roman Catholic and to some degree the Anglican communities.  For many, however, being reborn is a conversion experience.

1. What is your view of being reborn?
2. What does this say of infant baptism?

3:4 Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?"

John loves these conversations in which Jesus is on one level and the other person is on another level.  The same happens with the woman at the well.  Jesus talks about living water and the woman at the well asks, “where is this living water, I’ve been coming to this well for years and I just see this one kind of water.”  It is much like a student in school trying to understand the teacher and being totally confused, so Nicodemus is confused by the words of Jesus. 

When Jesus said that it was necessary to be born anew, Nicodemus misunderstood him.  He was on a different level than Jesus.  This misunderstanding came from the difficulty in translating the Greek.  The Revised Standard Version translates the Greek word anothen  as anew. That word has three different meanings.

(1) It can mean from the beginning.

(2) It can mean again, in the sense of for the second time.

(3) It can mean from above, and, therefore, from God.

It is not possible for us to get all these meanings into any English word; and yet all three of them are in the phrase born anew. To be born anew is to undergo such a radical change that it is like a new birth; it is to have something happen to the soul which can only be described as being born all over again; and the whole process is not a human achievement, because it comes from the grace and power of God.

This phrase born anew, this idea of rebirth, runs all through the New Testament.

James speaks of God giving us birth by the word of truth (James 1:18).

Peter speaks of being born anew by God’s great mercy (1 Peter 1:3);

Peter also talks about being born anew not of perishable seed, but of imperishable (1 Peter 1:23).

Paul speaks of the Christian as dying with Christ and then rising to life anew (Romans 6:1–11). Paul also likes to talk about those who are recent converts to Christianity as being infants in Christ (1 Corinthians 3:1–2).

This idea of rebirth is not entirely a radical new Christian invention.  It was known to the Jews.  When a person of another faith became a Jew and had been accepted into Judaism by a ceremony that included adult baptism, he was regarded as being reborn.

3:5 Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.

3:6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.

When rebirth happens, we are born of water and the Spirit. There are two thoughts there. Water is the symbol of cleansing. Our past sins are forgiven and we are clean.

Also, the Spirit is the symbol of power. When Jesus takes possession of our lives, it is not only that the past is forgotten and forgiven; if that were all, we might well proceed to make the same mistakes over and over – the Spirit gives us power to live a Christian life.

3:7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.'

3:8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

3:9 Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?"

3:10 Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

3:11 "Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony.

3:12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?

3:13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

3:14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,

3:15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

For John, the bronze serpent in the wilderness, which healed those Israelites struck by plague, is a type of Christ whose death on the cross, in a similar paradox, gives healing and life (Num 21:4–9). All of this expresses God's radical love for the world that shows itself in the giving of the Son, even to death (3:16), a love that desires not condemnation and death but salvation and life (3:16–17).

3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

For many Christians, the gospel is summarized by the words in John 3:16.

Everyone who believes in Jesus will not perish but will have eternal life.

Some Christians, however, understand faith or “believing in Jesus” to be simply what one does with one’s mind. In John’s Gospel believing and doing are inseparable.

ALL great men and women have had their favorite texts, but this has been called ‘everybody’s text’.

How is this text important to your life?

3:17 "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

I have heard people say that verse 17 is as important as verse 16, but that it often gets overlooked, and it is overlooked.  Verse 16 tells us that God loves us, and verse 17 reminds us that God’s love does not condemn – his goal is to love.