DIGGING DEEP NO. 1028 – March 26, 2024 YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN – Jh.3: 1- 21.

Nicodemus was a Pharisee, which meant he lived by the strictest possible religious rules. He was a man of high moral character, deep religious hunger, and yet profound spiritual blindness. In order to instruct Nicodemus in the basics of salvation, our Lord Jesus Christ used four quite different illustrations.

1. Birth – Jh.3: 1- 7our Lord Jesus Christ began with that which was familiar, birth; it is a universal experience. Though all human beings have experienced natural birth on earth, if they expect to go to heaven, they must experience a supernatural spiritual birth from above. This well-educated religious leader Nicodemus did not understand what the Savior was talking about. Jesus was speaking about a spiritual birth, but Nicodemus thought only of a physical birth. To be born again means to be born of the Spirit. Just as there are two parents for physical birth, so there are two parents for spiritual birth; the Spirit of GodJh.3: 5 and the Word of God Jam.1: 18; 1Pet.1: 23- 25. The Spirit of God takes the Word of God and when mixed with faith, imparts the life of God.

The emphasis in Jh.3: 14- 21 is on believing because salvation comes through faith Ephe.2: 8- 9.

11. Human birth involves travailJh.16: 21, and so does the birth from above. Our Savior had to travail on the cross so that we might become members of the family of God Is.53: 11. Concerned believers have to travail in prayer and witness as they seek to lead sinners to Christ Gal.4: 19.
12. The child inherits the nature of the parents, and so does the child of God. We become partakers of the Divine nature2Pet.1: 4.  That divine nature gives us appetite for the things of God 1Pet.2: 2- 3.
13. A child of God feeds on the Word of God and grows into spiritual maturityHeb.5: 12- 14.

Birth involves life, and the spiritual birth from above involves God’s life. The person who has not believed on Jesus Christ does not have God’s life, eternal life, and abundant life. The only way to enter God’s family is through the new birth Jh.1: 11- 13.

12. Birth involves a future, and we are born again to a living hope. A newborn baby cannot be arrested because he or she has no past. When you are born again into God’s family, your sins are forgiven and forgotten, and your future is bright with a living hopePs.103: 11- 12.
13. The wind – Jh.3: 8- 13one of the symbols of the Spirit of God in the Bible is the wind or breathJb.33: 4; Jh.20: 22; Acts.2: 2. like the wind, the Spirit is invisible but powerful, and you cannot explain or predict the movements of the wind.

When Jesus used this symbol, Nicodemus should have readily remembered Ezek.37: 1- 14. The prophet saw a valley full of dead bones, but when he prophesied to the wind, the Spirit came and gave the bones life. Again, it was the combination of the Spirit of God and the Word of God that gave life.

3. The serpent on the pole – Jh.3: 14- 18the story in Numb.21: 4- 9 was certainly familiar to Nicodemus. It is a story of sin, for the nation rebelled against God and had to be punished. God sent fiery serpents that bit the people so that many died. It is also a story of grace, for Moses interceded for the people and God provided a remedy. He told Moses to make a brass serpent and lift it up on a pole for all to see. Any stricken person who looked at the serpent would immediately be healed. It is also a story of faith; when the people looked by faith, they were saved. As the serpent was lifted up on that pole, so the Son of God would be lifted up on a cross. Why? To save us from sin and death. In the camp of Israel, the solution to the serpent problem was not killing the serpents, making medicine, pretending they were not there, passing anti serpent laws, or climbing the pole. The answer was in looking by faith at the uplifted serpent.

The whole world had been bitten by sin, and the wages of sin is death Rom.6: 23. God sent His Son to die, not only for Israel, but for a whole world. How is a person born from above? How is he or she saved from eternal perishing? By believing on Jesus Christ; by looking to Him in faith. The serpent in Moses day brought physical life to dying Jews, but Jesus Christ gives eternal life to anyone who trusts Him.

4. Light and darkness – Jh.3: 19- 21why will sinners not come into the light of life? Because they love the darkness! They want to persist in their evil deeds, and this keeps them from coming to the light, for the closer the sinner gets to the light, the more his sins are exposed. It is not intellectual problems that keep people from trusting Christ, it is the moral and spiritual blindness that keeps them loving the darkness and hating the light.

Nicodemus finally did come to the light when he identified with Christ at Calvary Jh.19: 38- 42.

In Conclusion – Nicodemus was in the midnight of confusion but eventually came into the sunlight of confession. He realized that the uplifted Savior was indeed the Son of God.