(John 3:7)
�Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.�
Nicodemus could not understand the meaning of what Jesus had said. �Ye must be born again� was a phrase that was not only impossible but also incomprehensible to his ears. The problem was that Jesus was speaking of spiritual realities while Nicodemus was hearing with physical ears.
We�ve discussed over and over the truth that man has no frame of reference to understand, or even conceive of, the spiritual. Man is a created creature who has known only the twin concepts of physicality and time. His grasp of the things of the spirit and of eternity is nonexistent.
This is one of the reasons why Jesus so frequently taught in the �word picture� of parables. We might understand that playing rugby is somewhat like playing football. We might understand that playing cricket is somewhat like playing baseball. Jesus often, and Scripture in general as well, used words to describe something with which we might be familiar to explain those things of the spiritual reality in a way in which we could begin to understand.
In this place, Jesus was explaining to Nicodemus that �going to Heaven,� or �being saved,� is not a process. It is not a state into which we grow. It is a radical change which requires a specific starting point.
Salvation becomes a reality within a person�s life when they accept Jesus Christ, and His sacrifice for sin, for themselves. No one can �work� towards this as a goal. It is a reality upon the acceptance of Jesus as Savior. It is at this point that the Great Physician �delivers� the sinner into the Household of Faith as a �new born saint.�
The picture of birth also signifies a radical new mode of existence.
The baby in the mother�s womb is unaware of the surroundings of the world outside that place of gestation. That gestation, itself, is only a preparation for an emerging change in his life.
Likewise, the sinner doesn�t really understand the reality of the spiritual world all about him. What he does understand, at the point of conversion, is that he now has a relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus has saved him from the dominion of sin.
As a new born baby will begin to learn to roll over, the sit up, to crawl, to walk, to begin to speak, and all those other things that children learn, so will the new born Christian begin to adapt to this new world of the Christian walk.
Now, some do not so develop. Too many Christians are handicapped in their Christian lives by never moving forward in their spiritual development. This is not the plan of God for them. But, even as the parent of the handicapped child will still love and protect that child, so will God love and prod each Christian to move forward to reach the full potential of their walk.
That some never quite make those first steps is not the fault of a lack of love from the Heavenly Father. The fault often lies within the church as we fail to teach and encourage the new Christians. Sometimes the churches are only looking for numbers to put on a Sunday School attendance chart rather than doing the hard job of being
�Spiritual Parents� to these newly new born Christians.
Remember, even physical birth begins with a process called �Labor.� It is not to be expected that training a new Christian will always be an easy task.
Sometimes, however, the fault lies with those new Christians who have only decided to accept Christ as an insurance policy from Hell. It is a sad commentary on the reality of the human experience that such happens; but it does!
It is a glorious commentary on the love of God that He continues to love and call people to repentance in the face of this insulting eventuality.
As to the nonunderstanding of Nicodemus, Jesus said, �Don�t be surprised.� �Marvel not��
This idea of �being born again� was an uncommon word to Nicodemus. It is still an uncommon word in our day. Many are the ways in which man seeks to find spiritual peace in our day. Few of these have anything to do with the Biblical concept of being born again.
Science, much of it, will tell us that we can have no real �spiritual� peace. There is no such thing as the spiritual, we are told. The idea of �spiritual� is only the process of certain areas of our brains firing off signals that cause us to have a �spiritual feeling.� The only �salvation� to which we can aspire is that which comes by learning as much as possible about the mechanics of our bodies and coming to terms with our mortality.
We will die. That is the only offer that science can make. Now, science is not bad. Science is not wrong about most things. However, science is only able to comment upon that which is observable. Science can never see the soul with the physical eyes so it is unable to understand that which is beyond the physical senses.
God cannot be placed in a test tube. God cannot be dissected in such a way as to understand physically His functions are from a spiritual environment. God cannot be replicated so that His manners and powers can be studied.
In the end, science can only offer a human acceptance of what we seem to be as animals. The problem with this is that which we need to accept is not our humanity; it is Jesus and His offered salvation which must be accepted into our souls.
We are not simple beasts of the fields. We are persons, created in the image of God with immortal souls and destinies. Jesus offers us the destiny of Heaven. Without Him we find only the eternal destiny of perdition.
The secular process can never understand the Biblical concept of being born again. The secular asks that we become altruistic. It asks that we consider the feelings of others, their own needs and wants, as important. The problem with this is that the natural man, lost in his sins, does not understand that his wants can only be satisfied by his need of a Savior.
The secular world asks that we be tolerant and accepting of the cultural precepts of others. The problem with this is that we are encouraged to tolerate and accept people into a Christless grave and an eternal Hell.
Even much of the sacred world has a jaundiced view of the meaning of Jesus� call to be born again. The sacred world will emphasize the religious systems of the world. The fact is that no one was ever saved from their sins by religion. Many religious systems even mitigate against true salvation.
Any system which does not lead to faith and trust in Jesus Christ and His substitutionary death on the Cross of Calvary is a faith in that which will fail! Jesus, in John 14:6, said that He is the Way to the Father.
Many people this coming week will be boarding airplanes, and trains, and ships, and motor vehicles in order to travel to a destination. These are modes of transportation. They are not the destination; they are means to reach the destination.
Jesus is that; He is the means to reach the destination of salvation. But, He is more. �Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.� (John 14:6)
Jesus is the Way to salvation and peace with God. But, Jesus is also the Truth which, alone, can set men free from their sins. But, He is also the Life Eternal which is the goal, or destination, of spiritual salvation. He, alone, is the means and the conveyance, and the destination for the salvation of our souls.
In Him, and only Him, can we find the way to full and sufficient salvation. Only by faith in Him and His great sacrifice on Calvary can we find the Truth which will set us free from sin. Only in Him is there life eternal. Only in Him is there that peace with God which allows us to finally experience any real peace within ourselves.
It is a unique Word which Jesus brought to Nicodemus. Nicodemus had been brought up in, indeed had brought others up in, a religious system which had very strict rules of behavior. They were told when and how, and where and what, they were to do in acts of devotion. These religious acts, they reasoned, were the ways to find ultimate salvation and peace with God.
These religious people didn�t realize that these acts had been placed as guideposts to lead humanity to the Man Who was now speaking with Nicodemus. Religion is often so caught up in what man can do to try to reach out to God that men often fail to realize that it is God Who is reaching out to mankind.
We, humanity, do not have the ability to save our own souls from sin. We are drowning in a cesspool of sin.
A man who falls overboard from a ship cannot simply climb back on board the ship. Instead, he is thrown a �life preserver� and pulled on to the rescue boat sent to retrieve him. Jesus is that �Life Preserver.� We are to simply trust Him. He will take us to the place of spiritual, and eternal, safety with His Own Hands of Love.
Many will argue that they want to do things for themselves. That isn�t the way. Jesus is the Way, the only Way. This is an uncompromising Word which was delivered to Nicodemus.
All of the great learning we may amass, all the good deeds we may attempt and accomplish, all of the religious devotion we may bring to God are not only useless, they are activities which stand between us and God.
God has said that salvation is through trust in the sacrifice of Jesus. We either trust Him, or we trust something else. That �something else� may even be our goodness or religiosity. But, if we are trusting any �something else,� we cannot simultaneously trust Jesus with all our heart and soul. This being true, we are, in such a situation, not trusting Jesus for salvation.
In such an instance there is no salvation possible. It is a simple formula. Jesus and nothing equals everything. Jesus and anything equals nothing. This is a spiritual truth, and uncompromising spiritual truth, when it comes to salvation.
Jesus also told Nicodemus to not be stubborn. ��that I said unto thee�� It is a matter of accepting the Words of Jesus even when Nicodemus might have had other ideas on the subject.
The central fact is that Nicodemus had asked a spiritual question of Jesus. Jesus had answered that question. Even though Nicodemus did not understand the answer, that answer was a delivered word.
This really is a problem in our day. Too often we are persecuted, as were the early Christians, for simply speaking the Truth to people. The difference is that those early Christians moved out into the world about them in spite of the persecution.
Part of this persecution in our day is often our own fault. It really is! Far too often the Christian goes out with a �chip on his shoulder.�
Unless the Holy Spirit has given us the marching orders, we can never expect to win those we set out to whip.
We often avail ourselves of an old Southern custom when we do seek to witness. It used to be, probably still is in many instances, that Sister Jones would say all manner of evil about Sister Smith. Sister Jones would accuse Sister Smith of backbiting, of gossiping (Of course, Sister Jones wasn�t gossiping. She was merely reporting the truth! How we rationalize!), of having unruly children, and maybe of pinching a little snuff now and then.
Sister Jones would close her tirade with, �Bless her soul.� I�m not sure that this little benediction made Sister Smith feel any better toward Sister Jones. I�m guessing the two wouldn�t be going to each other�s house for tea in the coming week.
But, don�t many Christians engage in the same. We (Yeah, I�ve been there!) start off by accusing someone of being a drunkard. After all, we did see their car at a local tavern. We accuse them of being no more than �A Smokestack for Satan.� After all, we do know they�d walk a mile for a dromedary. We accuse them of being an enemy of God. Well, we�ve never seen them in OUR church. Then we accuse them of being bigoted because they don�t want to listen to our �religious� talk.
�I�d like you to meet my friend, Jesus.� �If He�s a friend of yours I doubt we�d get along very well!
True? You know it is!
Look in the New Testament. Jesus never attacked a sinner. He never condoned their sin. He was known to call sin, sin. Even the woman taken in adultery was described as a sinner by Him. We often look at this incident and marvel at how kind and gentle He was towards this woman.
But, He followed up with, �Go and sin no more.� She was a sinner. He knew that. He let her know that He knew that. He never sugar coated the fact. But, he called her to forsake her sin; He did this gently and in love.
Is it any wonder that the world, already in the chains of their sin nature, does not want to hear our witness.
The sad thing is that the above type Christian is about the only one who is even trying to follow the Great Commission!
The only thing worse than someone telling the story of salvation is a mean spirited manner is the person who won�t tell it at all.
The message of sin and salvation needs to be delivered to the world. Some areas of the Southeastern U. S. have been experiencing a drought. Their aquifers have been drying up. They need rain.
The entire world is experiencing a drought of the Water of Life. We are the aquifers which God has placed into the world. Witnessing is not the job of the pastor alone. Besides, too many pastors would have a hard time recalling the last time they ever spread the Water of Life upon a spiritually dry and thirsty soul!
It is the job of every single Christian to let the world know that Jesus Christ died in time so that man could live in eternity.
This is simply what Jesus was doing with Nicodemus. Jesus was engaged in �personal work� in that He was calling Nicodemus to repentance.
This was the Divine Word which Jesus was relating to Nicodemus.
Those of us who have been in the church for many years have become somewhat jaded to one of the most glorious facts of humanity. It is repeated in the children�s song: �Jesus loves me. This I know; for the Bible tells me so.�
Consider for a moment how glorious, how wonderful, how humbling for us is this simple truth. Jesus loves me. In a few weeks, Lord willing, we will be looking at John 3:16: �For God so loved the world��
This is a world of sin. This is a world in complete and utter rebellion against God. This is a world that often hates everything about the God of the Bible. The most banned book in the world is the Bible. This isn�t only true in foreign lands. This is true right here in the United States.
It seems that the only time the Bible is not banned in this nation is when it is being derided.
But, in the midst of all this, �For God so loved the world, the he gave his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.� (John 3:16)
At the end of the Second World War, the victors lined up the losers at Nuremberg. I�m not about to argue against this. The terrible crimes that these people had committed demanded justice. But, consider that if any one of these criminals had fallen on their knees, in true repentance, and accepted Jesus as their Savior, He would have accepted them.
How far beyond the comprehension of any of us is the great love of God!
That is a Divine Word for no other could even consider uttering the sentiment.
This is also the determining word. The actions of man to accept Jesus, or to not accept Him, determines the eternal abode of his immortal soul.
I almost said �accept or reject.� That would have been false. No one needs to reject Jesus to be lost in their sins. �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)
How important it is that a man be born again. How patient was Jesus in explaining this fact to Nicodemus.
In a sense, we could see Jesus saying, �Don�t be silly,� to Nicodemus as Nicodemus seemed to argue against the concept of a second birth. ��ye must be born again.�
I was watching television a few minutes ago. Honestly, I don�t really watch all that much T. V. I just keep making comment on what I do see on the �tube.�
There was a story being debated about a license plate that says �I Believe� which one of the States is ready to issue upon request. This joins a host of other �personal interest plates� that range from environmental control to college and university affiliation. Locally we even have a plate that celebrates a yearly festival in honor of trains.
But, this plate was different. The �howl and cry� went up that this was the establishment of the Christian religion by the State. The plate did, also, feature a cross. First, the State cannot �establish� that which is already in existence. Second, the plate in question is not an establishment; it is recognition of reality. Many people do believe.
Why should these people�s right to profess pride in their �morality� be denied while others are allowed to celebrate the causes for which they care? Can we all say, �Discrimination?�
The truth is that we live in a culture which celebrates the concept of multiculturalism. That is, multiculturalism is celebrated unless the �culture� being celebrated is Biblically based. Then we are collectively aghast!
The truth is that Christianity, itself, is the most egalitarian concept on this planet. The Word which Jesus spoke to Nicodemus was an equalizing Word. All people need the salvation which Jesus offers. This salvation is offered to all people.
Too many Christians spend too much time building walls where Jesus wanted doorways. The Bible teaches that there is no difference among the peoples of the world when it comes to their soul and the needs of that soul. The Bible teaches that we are all of the �race� of Adam. There may be seeming differences in our family traits. This does not mitigate against the actual physical brotherhood of all men and women.
The Bible tells us that, physically speaking God, ��hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.� (Acts 17:26) By the way, ��the bounds of their habitation� does not mean that I should have stayed in Holland (my name is of Dutch extraction) or you should have stayed in Africa. The �bounds of habitation� is ��all the face of the earth��
I�ve made a distinction, above, when I have said that we are all brothers and sisters �physically.� The New Birth of which Jesus spoke is the determining factor of our spiritual kinship. Not everyone has been born again. The point of equality is twofold: 1) All need to be born again, and, 2) To fail to be born again is to be spiritually differentiated from those who are the sons and daughters of God.
Jesus also taught that there was a �fatherhood,� with a resultant brotherhood, of Satan. �Ye are of your father the devil�� (John 8:44a) This is the natural state of humanity. This is what makes the �new birth,� in the �family� of God, a necessity.
God is the physical Father of all in creation. He is the spiritual Father of the saved in the New Birth.
This was an emphatic Word which Jesus spoke to Nicodemus.
Jesus took time to explain this point to Nicodemus because of His Own great concern for the soul of this man. Jesus cared so much about the human need of redemption from sin that He went willingly to the Cross of Calvary. He, purposefully, shed His Blood so that you and I could be born again in the fellowship and family of the redeemed of the earth.
One wonders about those who claim to be �Christian� who do not share the passion for souls as did Jesus Christ. How can we claim to be followers of Christ and yet fail to follow where He leads!
This was an energizing Word which Jesus taught to Nicodemus.
I made some macaroni last night. Have you ever eaten macaroni straight out of the box? Probably not. We cook macaroni before we eat it, do we not? Why? Because macaroni is dry and hard, very unappetizing, before it is cooked in boiling water.
The boiling water seeps into the macaroni and makes it soft and pleasing to the taste. The boiling water seeps into the macaroni and makes it digestible. The boiling water combines with the macaroni and changes its consistency.
How much more does the Blood of Jesus change the soul of the sinner! Jesus makes us fit for the Kingdom of God.
Have you ever accepted Him as your own Savior? Now, while you are considering the great salvation which Jesus does offer, come to Him.
He really does love you. He loves you so much that He died in order to take away your sin.
Accept Him now!