I had a conversation with someone a while back who said she’d been asked by co-workers whether she was a “born again” Christian. Maybe you’ve heard the term. Depending on who you speak to, that term evokes different emotions and reactions in people. Some, like my friend above, are really curious about what it means and whether it actually applies to them. Others might not know much, if anything, about what it means, but they see it as a narrow minded, judgmental expression and they want no part of hearing anything more about it. Maybe you’re someone who has heard the expression and wonders yourself where it came from and what it means.
Actually it was Jesus who coined that particular phrase in a conversation he had with a religious man of his day. You can read about it in chapter 3 of the Gospel of John in the New Testament.
The man was named Nicodemus and he was a Pharisee (a Jewish sect that believed in strict adherence to all of the law of Moses). As such, he was also a member of the Jewish ruling council of Jesus’ day. Because he had some notoriety, and because Jesus’ teachings were stirring up so much opposition from Nicodemus’ peers, he came to Jesus at night so as to minimize the chance of being seen, so he could ask his questions.
John, chapter 3, beginning with verse 2:
“(Nicodemus) said: ‘Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him’. In reply, Jesus declared, ‘I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.’
Okay, so even I’m surprised as I read that again because Jesus’ reply doesn’t fit Nicodemus’ statement. Maybe what Jesus is getting at is that it will be difficult to have a conversation with Nicodemus about the kingdom of God because he won’t be able to grasp the answer, or SEE with spiritual eyes unless he’s born again.
Okay, now Jesus has his complete attention, so Nicodemus goes on (undoubtedly scratching his head and wrinkling his brow) to ask: “How can a man be born when he is old? Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born?” (In other words: “What?? I don’t get you Jesus!”)
In verse 5, we read, “Jesus answered, ‘I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Nicodemus, who probably considered himself to already be securely IN the kingdom of God by virtue of his Jewish roots, his attention to keeping the law of Moses as a good Pharisee would, and his standing as a leader in Israel, must have been caught completely by surprise. Jesus was saying that not only could someone not born again even SEE the kingdom of God, he could not even ENTER it unless born of the Spirit!
Nicodemus' answer, in verse 9, reflects his confusion. “How can this BE?”
Beginning in verse 10, Jesus replies:
“You are Israel’s teacher and do you not understand these things. . . I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven – the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
Jesus goes on for a while longer but there is no recorded response by Nicodemus. Jesus was challenging Nicodemus to recognize him for who he was – not just a good and wise rabbi – but the One sent by the Father from heaven to save the world from the penalty of sin and make a relationship with Him possible.
What it would take to enter the kingdom and grasp the meaning of kingdom things was a whole new birth. Nicodemus had already been physically born, what he needed now was a spiritual birth, which could only come through faith in Jesus.
Nicodemus would have understood Jesus’ (who calls himself the “Son of Man”), comment about the snake Moses lifted up in the desert, and its significance. The Old Testament book of Numbers, chapter 21, tells the story.
Having been delivered by God from Egypt, the people of Israel were traveling in the desert under the leadership of Moses, when they fell into their habitual response to the lack of food and water by grumbling and complaining instead of turning to God, who had been completely faithful to that point. God’s response is a stern one.
“Then the LORD set venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. The LORD said to Moses, ‘Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.’ So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.”
Nicodemus would undoubtedly have gone away from his meeting with Jesus puzzling over this connection – until Jesus was crucified. What Jesus was saying was that just as looking to that bronze snake brought life to those who expected certain death from a deadly snake bite, so Jesus, when he was lifted up on a tree (crucifixion), would bring life to those whose penalty for sin was also certain death and separation from God. Jesus’ death would give eternal life to all those who looked to him by faith.
So, how do we understand all this in a way that makes being “born again” significant for us?
Years ago there was a little gospel tract with a title something like, “The 18 Most Important Inches”, (I’m making that up, because I really can’t remember, but it’s the message, not the title that counts!). The 18 inches spoken of is the approximate physical distance between our brain and our heart.
What Jesus was saying to Nicodemus in essence was that even though he was a well respected, “religious” person, that 18 inches between his head knowledge (which contained all the laws of Moses, all his effort at keeping those laws, and all the keeping of religious ritual) and his heart knowledge of Jesus as a person, and as Messiah, would keep him from entrance into God’s kingdom.
What he needed was FAITH in Jesus – and THAT was a matter of the heart, not the head. In fact, all those religious trappings could actually keep Nicodemus OUT of the kingdom – because being born again of the Spirit, a new birth through faith in Jesus was the ONLY thing that guaranteed entrance!
I know a very precious person who doesn’t understand this. All her life she has believed that her ticket to the kingdom is based on what she DOES, or DOESN’T do, as defined by regular church attendance, whether or not she’s been baptized or regularly takes communion, or been confirmed, and a host of other things. I have tried to tell her that Jesus died to make that possible and all she needs is faith in what HE did, but she’s been working hard a long time and doesn’t believe it could be that simple. It makes me sad.
Someone else I know says that she KNOWS and ACKNOWLEDGES everything the Bible says about Jesus to be true – but that belief has not reached her heart, it doesn’t affect her life in any way, as a matter of fact she still acts in ways that would dishonor Jesus. 18 inches is keeping her out of the kingdom.
Nicodemus KNEW Jesus. He had met him, he believed him to be a rabbi (a teacher). He believed that Jesus must have come from God because only God could enable him to do the miraculous things he was doing. But Nicodemus was missing something – FAITH in Jesus as the One sent from heaven by the Father to be the Savior.
Head knowledge ABOUT Jesus alone will not gain us entrance into the kingdom or enable us to understand spiritual things – that is simply head knowledge. What we need to enter the kingdom and understand spiritual things is the Holy Spirit, and the only way we can possess the Spirit is by FAITH – and that is a heart issue – we MUST be born again by the Spirit.
Long before I met my husband, I knew about him. Our mothers worked together, so I had heard all about him and his 3 brothers from my mom. When I would meet my mom for lunch, Jim’s mom would tell me what a lovely person I was and how I needed to meet her son. I finally met him on a blind date.
Now I knew him, but barely. I knew he was a college senior. I knew he was in ROTC. I knew he was an accounting major. I knew he had a really cool car! I knew he was very quiet. I knew he was handsome. But I really didn’t KNOW him, I just knew a lot of facts about him. It was only after we spent time together that I began to really KNOW him in a personal way – then, my head knowledge became heart knowledge.
That’s the way we need to KNOW Jesus if we’re going to enter the kingdom and understand kingdom things. And that happens when we are born again by the Spirit. It is the work of God. And it is also a work of faith and faith ALONE – not just head knowledge, not following a list of do’s and don’ts.
In the New Testament book of Ephesians, chapter 2, verse 8, the Apostle Paul says this: “For it is by GRACE you have been saved through FAITH – and this not from yourselves, it is the GIFT of God – not by (your) works, so that no one can boast.”
If you have been reading these blogs and don’t really KNOW Jesus – not just in your head, but in your heart – then God is calling you into that relationship with Him now. In the gospel of Luke, chapter 11, Jesus speaks about God’s good gifts and says this:
“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
Ask the Heavenly Father to help you understand what it means to KNOW Jesus in the way he spoke about knowing in his conversation with Nicodemus. Ask him for the spiritual re-birth that comes with knowing Jesus, not just with your mind, but in your HEART. Believe me, he LOVES to answer that prayer!
So what DID happen to Nicodemus? Did he ever go from knowing ABOUT Jesus to really KNOWING Jesus in his heart? The Bible doesn’t spell it out for us, but it does tell us some things that might just be a hint that Nicodemus had a change that went right down to his heart.
In John’s gospel, chapter 7, verses 50-52, in a meeting of the chief priests and Pharisees to discuss Jesus, this is said of Nicodemus:
“Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, ‘Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?’
Nicodemus was going out on a limb here to speak in Jesus' defense because his fellow Pharisees were furious with Jesus. Nicodemus was putting his reputation on the line with those words.
“ They replied, ‘Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”
Then later, after the crucifixion of Jesus, we read this in John 19:38-41:
“Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 75 pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.”
Back in the conversation Jesus had with Nicodemus in John 3, Jesus said: "You must be born again. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."
What Jesus meant was that we can't SEE the Spirit anymore than we can SEE the wind which blows wherever it pleases. BUT, we can see the EFFECTS of the Spirit, as we can see and hear the effects of the wind in the leaves of the trees.
I like to believe that this effort to which Nicodemus went and the tenderness with which he and Joseph treated the body of Jesus indicated a heartfelt love for Jesus that went beyond just head knowledge - evidence perhaps that Nicodemus had indeed experienced the new birth because the wind of the Spirit was directing his life. But I guess we’ll have to wait till heaven to see if Nicodemus truly entered the kingdom. What a conversation we will have!
The more important questions is, have YOU experienced the new birth? If not, ask Jesus to take you from a knowledge ABOUT Him to a genuine, heartfelt, Spirit filled KNOWING of Him personally.
That can only happen when you are born again!
That can only happen when you are born again!
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