08 Nicodemus: For God so loved the world (John 3:14-21)

Welcome back to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Today is the eight talk in our series on the Gospel of John. We will be studying John chapter 3, verses 14 through 21. Thanks so much for listening. Well, we are continuing in the Gospel of John today. I have argued that the fundamental assertion of the Gospel of John is that eternal life comes to those who believe the testimony that Jesus is the Messiah. But belief is not always simple and straightforward, and in this Gospel, John explores the issues that surround belief. As we've talked about, John's Gospel focuses on three related main themes. First, the importance of testimony. Second, the fact that believing in Jesus is the only way to receive eternal life. And third, the necessity of being born again or baptized with the Spirit. In the first two chapters, we saw a rather simple picture of belief in Christ. John the Baptist testified that as a prophet from God, God told him how he would recognize the Messiah. John the Baptist testified that he saw that miraculous sign when he baptized Jesus of Nazareth. The first disciples, the ones who will become the apostles, believe Jesus is the Christ primarily because of John the Baptist's testimony, and then they see some miraculous signs for themselves. John has presented this picture so far that belief results from testimony and experience. But the connection between seeing a miracle and believing is not automatic. It's not always as simple and straightforward as see evidence and belief results. Sometimes belief is not what it appears to be, and John is exploring all that. Last week we begin the story of Nicodemus, which is in John chapter 3, and that begins this theme of the more complex nature of belief. In this story, author John introduces the third major theme of this gospel, and that is the nature of belief, the fact that we must be born again to receive eternal life. And as we'll see, sincere, committed faith takes more than being impressed by a few signs and wonders. Last week we looked at the first part of this story. Nicodemus, a Pharisee, is part of the ruling elite. He approaches Jesus with what seems like belief. He says, Jesus, we know you're a teacher from God because of the signs you do and at face value, that is a kind of belief. You might think Jesus would be encouraged that this important leader in Jerusalem is interested in him, but no, Jesus challenges Nicodemus and questions his belief. The dialogue that we're looking at today is in response to the initial statement that Nicodemus made. Nicodemus opened the conversation with, We've seen your signs, we know you're a teacher from God. And in response, Jesus confronts Nicodemus with four challenges. In the last podcast, we looked at the first challenge. Nicodemus portrays himself as a truth seeker. He acknowledges that God is doing something through Jesus. However, Jesus reminds him only those who have been spiritually transformed receive eternal life and blessing from God. Seeking the truth is not enough. So the first thing Jesus confronted Nicodemus with is the need for spiritual rebirth. Nicodemus, as a Jew, thinks, well, if you're born Jewish, you're a descendant of Abraham, and you make a good faith effort to keep the law, that's good enough. And now Jesus is saying, that's not good enough. So how can anyone be saved? And Jesus says, remember it's not up to your efforts. Faith is a gift of God. God needs to give you his spirit. This spiritual rebirth is not something you can physically accomplish on your own or do. It's like the wind. You can't control the wind, it blows where it wants to blow. You don't see it, but you know it was there by the changes that take place. To be saved of the Spirit of God needs to cleanse us of our rebelliousness and being born of the Spirit or being born again, being born from above refers to this idea that the Spirit of God must change us from the inside out so that we repent of our sins and seek the mercy of God. All right, let's move on to the second challenge to the way Nicodemus was thinking. Remember, Nicodemus has come to Jesus saying, We know you're from God because of these signs, and Jesus confronts Nicodemus with the reality that he, Jesus, is much more than just a teacher from God. We're going to pick up the story in chapter three, verses eleven through thirteen. Truly, truly I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. I think Jesus is making a really bold statement here. He's saying, I am different from every other human being and especially every other teacher or prophet from God that you have ever encountered. Who's qualified to teach us about God? Who has the authority to tell us this is what God plans to do and this is how God is going to do it? At times, God revealed some of his plans to prophets like John the Baptist, Isaiah, Moses, Jeremiah, but no human being has gone to heaven to bring back the truths of God. We humans are cut off from God's realm. We have to depend on God to reach out to us because we can't go to heaven and then come back to earth and learn from him. We can't go up, check out the scene, get a few lessons and then come back and explain to everyone else what we saw. But Jesus is different. He has come down from heaven in a way no other human being has. Jesus knows God's plans and purposes because God has revealed them to him. God sent Jesus from heaven to explain these divine plans to us, and Jesus is testifying to what he knows. He and he alone can give testimony about what God is doing and where this grand plan of salvation is going. I don't think it's a coincidence that the word testimony is in our passage again this week. We've seen it in every passage we've looked at so far. John the Baptist testifies to what God told him. The disciples testify to what they saw and heard. But now we see a crucial and unique kind of testimony. Jesus, the Messiah, testifies to what he knows as the unique Son of God, the unique prophetic messenger sent from heaven. The sad part is Nicodemus doesn't get it. Nicodemus approached Jesus saying, Well, we know you're a teacher from God, but then immediately he starts questioning and doubting and asking Jesus, what in the world are you talking about? How can these things be? Jesus has to explain the need for spiritual rebirth to Nicodemus. And that's the easy stuff. Jesus says Nicodemus should have already understood that part because he has studied the Old Testament. The truth about spiritual rebirth has been apparent from the scriptures for centuries, and Nicodemus should know that already. So Jesus says, Nicodemus, if you don't believe me about the ideas that have already been revealed through Scripture, how are you going to believe me when I tell you heavenly things? When I tell you new ideas that you've never heard before, because God is just now revealing that part of the plan through me. Because the fact is, I, Jesus, know the whole story and I'm here to testify about it to you. So I think Jesus' comments are no longer aimed only at Nicodemus. Nicodemus came in saying, We in the plural know you're a teacher from God. He's kind of vaguely saying, Well, you know, everyone knows this. I'm in the Sanhedrin, I hang around with Pharisees and Sadducees and the religious elite, and we're all talking about you because we've seen the signs and we think something must be happening here. In response, Jesus says, You all, you plural, don't receive my testimony. He challenges Nicodemus, but Nicodemus, I think at this point is a representative of mankind and in particular a representative of the Jewish leadership. Another theme we're going to see in John's Gospel is the response of the Jewish leaders and the Jewish people to Jesus. And that's all tied to this theme of belief and unbelief and how that all gets sorted out. Although Nicodemus had said, We think you're a teacher from God, Jesus disagrees and says, No, the fact is you don't believe my testimony. I'm here to tell you what's going on, and you're not responding with belief. You may be curious because you've seen a sign or two, but you don't believe yet. And that's another important word that's going to come up a lot, this word believe. We will see it over and over again. And that brings us to the third way Jesus challenges Nicodemus in his thinking. Nicodemus has acknowledged Jesus as a teacher from God, but Jesus has to remind him how much is really at stake. His eternal destiny is dependent on whether or not he believes Jesus is the Messiah. Let's look at three verses fourteen through seventeen. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Here we get probably the most famous verse in the Bible, and let's look at it in context. Jesus is clarifying how important it is to believe. Believing in him is the way to eternal life. Whether or not you receive eternal life depends on how you respond to Jesus. Now if you stop and think about it, that is a really audacious claim to make. Today we're so used to this as modern Christians, we've known the story for centuries. Believe in Jesus, you get saved. But we lose sight of the fact that that is a very bold and strange sort of claim to make. By way of analogy, if I came to you and said, If you believe I'm the best Bible teacher in the world, you will be saved. Well you'd all laugh in my face. I mean, what an outrageous thing to say. You'd probably respond something like, Who do you think you are? Why would believing anything about you make any difference at all about anything? Why would that determine my destiny? I think that's how the claims of Jesus must have sounded to the Jews standing around him. They're saying, Look, Jesus, we're the Jews. We've had prophets come, we've had prophets go for centuries. What makes you think you're any different than Moses or Isaiah or Ezekiel? Why should believing in you make a difference? Moses never made that kind of claim. But nonetheless, that's what Jesus says, and we want to explore what he means by that. Now Jesus refers to the story of the serpent in the wilderness, which you'll find in Numbers 21. This event takes place in the time of the Exodus. The children of Israel have been released from slavery in Egypt and they're wandering around in the desert. At one point, they rebel against God and the leadership of Moses, they start grumbling and complaining. In response, God sends fiery, poisonous serpents among them, and many of them die from snake bites. Eventually they cry out for help and they beg Moses to intervene with God. And God tells Moses to fashion a bronze serpent and put it on a pole, and then he holds it up high, and anyone bitten by a serpent could look at the bronze serpent on the pole and they would be healed. So in this story, God sends serpents as judgment for their unbelief and rebellion, and at the same time, he provides a way of salvation through this bronze servant that is lifted up on the pole. Look at the serpent on the pole, and you won't die from this bite of the serpent that I sent as judgment upon you. Now Jesus says, this is 314 and 15 again, and as Moses lifted up the servant in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. Son of man is the way Jesus likes to refer to himself most often. I've talked about that in other podcasts. I'm not going to go into it here, but I think he's referring to himself. And here's the analogy to our situation. We are guilty, we are sinful creatures, we will be condemned if God does not make a provision for us. Just like the Israelites were bitten by those serpents and they died until God provided a way of escape, we are going to die eternally if God does not provide a way of escape for us. Well, Jesus, the Messiah, is God's provision and way of escape. If we look to him like the Israelites look to the serpent on the pole, we will live. So you have this visual metaphor in both of these stories about the provision for salvation. In Numbers 21, God's solution was to put the serpent, the thing that was their judgment and brought them death, high on a pole for them to look at. When they looked at it, essentially acknowledged they need help, they need salvation, they were saved from the serpents. We could say the same thing is true about the cross. We are asked to look on Christ's suffering, Christ's offering his life and his death that he died on the cross, and realize that's the death we're escaping. We are asked to acknowledge that is our judgment. We will be judged and condemned unless we accept the mercy offered by the cross. Just as Moses lifted up the snake and presented it to the Israelites as their means of salvation, so Jesus is going to be lifted up on the cross that we might look to him and find salvation. The important point here is that Christ has come to save us by being the object of our belief, which is what Jesus says next, in three sixteen and seventeen. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Now there is some debate whether three sixteen to twenty-one should be seen as the words of Jesus or the words of the author John. Some scholars think that Jesus stops speaking at the end of three fifteen and then three sixteen begins John's commentary on what Jesus just said. They argue that Jesus is called the Son of God in this section, and that must be the Apostle John talking because Jesus never refers to himself as the Son of God. I'm not sure who's right. Either way, it's clear these verses are meant to explain this analogy about Moses and the serpent. I believe John and Jesus agree, and that John had the authority to speak for Jesus. So whether Jesus said it first and John quotes him or explains what he said, it amounts to the same thing. Believing Jesus was sent by God to testify to the plans of God and to be the Savior of the world is what gains you eternal life. We all deserve condemnation, but Jesus the Messiah did not come to carry out that condemnation. As a messenger from God, he didn't come to hand out the judgment that he could have and the judgment we deserve. Instead, he came to rescue us from that condemnation instead. In this supreme act of love, God sent his son into the world not to judge and condemn us, but to offer us salvation. Sending his son was an act of great love, not an act of judgment. Now one day there will be final judgment. Jesus talks about that in other places, but here the point he's making is that he came to rescue us by dying on the cross. So you can see when Nicodemus makes the simple statement, you're a teacher from God, that's not going to cut it. Making that claim is not enough. Nicodemus has to come to terms with the fact that Jesus is the Messiah sent from heaven to save him from the judgment he deserves. Now we're still left with that nagging question, well, why? Why is believing in Jesus so important? Why would it be significant that I believe Jesus is my salvation and find life in that way? And this I think is where Jesus' final challenge to Nicodemus comes in. Nicodemus has not understood that his response to Jesus is a symptom of his deeper underlying spiritual condition. How we respond to Jesus is significant because it says something about who we are inside, and that's the last thing Jesus, or maybe John, says starting in three hundred eighteen. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed, but whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. Now personally I think this little section is hugely important. We have to start with the understanding that we are all guilty and worthy of judgment. If God does not show us mercy, we will be condemned. That's a truth we must face into and it's one of the four core convictions of saving faith. The bad news of the gospel is we are all condemned. The good news of the gospel is there is a way to avoid that condemnation. Each and every one of us will be justly condemned and found guilty, but the ones who believe in Jesus will escape the punishment, for those who believe our sins will not be held against us and we will find forgiveness. God has thrown us a lifeline in the cross, and if we reject that lifeline, then we stand condemned. The one who refuses to believe this has already passed judgment on him or herself. The refusal to believe in and of itself testifies that we are guilty and condemned. Now, what's he getting at here? And this I think this is just so important. Unbelief is testimony to the inner reality that we humans are hostile to God and reject the truth. Jesus shines the light of truth on everything. He says with divine authority, this is what's true, and this is a lie. He's telling the truth about God, but he's also shining the light of truth on us, and that light shows that we are sinful and rebellious. But we don't want to hear that. We want to be told we're special. We want to be told we're misunderstood. We want to be told we're just like everybody else, only we're unique. But the fact is we are evil and we deny it. We don't want to admit that we are fallen, corrupt, sinful creatures who deserve condemnation. Basically, we don't believe because we don't want the truth to be true. It's inconvenient. It interferes with our selfish desires. It interferes with how we want to understand ourselves. We want to tell ourselves a different story. We want reality to be different than reality actually is, and we insist on believing what we want to be true instead of what actually is true. Or as Jesus puts it, we love the darkness rather than the light because our deeds are evil. Truth is humiliating to us because if we measure ourselves by truth, we don't look so good. To believe in a savior is to admit that we need saving. It's good news that Jesus has come to save us, but it involves standing in a very bright light and saying, I'm not worthy. I need to be saved from who I am, but we don't want to come clean that way. So that refusal to believe, the refusal to believe in Jesus is a symptom of this deeper fundamental hostility to God and a rejection of the truth about our own guilt before Him. The very act of unbelief proves I'm hostile to God. It shows I refuse to come into the light and let the truth be known. Then Jesus flips the coin. He says unbelief is a symptom of rebellion. Belief is a symptom of a deeper spiritual reality as well. By the grace of God, some of us walk into the light, some of us embrace and practice the truth. He's clearly contrasting those who believe with those who don't. Unbelief proves you're still hiding in the darkness, hiding from the light, but belief shows that you are no longer hiding in the darkness, you have come into the light, and you're willing to be honest about who you are because God is working in you. Now we do want to be clear, look at how this ends in 321. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. We might think that what Jesus is saying here is there are two kinds of people in the world. There are evil people who don't believe in Jesus because they don't want it to be known that they're evil. And then there are these wonderful, righteous, perfect people, and they don't mind coming into the light because they can say, Hey, look at me, I'm great. It may sound like that's what he's saying, but that's not what he's saying. All of us are guilty. All of us are evil. It's only by God's grace and mercy that any of us receive forgiveness and escape the justice of God. It's a miracle, it's an act of the Holy Spirit that any of us come into the light. It's a miracle that any of us believe, and we only believe because God has been at work in our lives. I think that's what he means by this verse so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. God did this, God brings us to belief, even our faith is a gift from him. The difference in the two groups is that believers embrace the truth. We've stopped lying to ourselves about who we are, and we've stopped lying to ourselves about God. We admit the problem we have with sin. We're grateful for the mercy of God because we know we desperately need it and we hunger and thirst after God's holiness. But we reach that point by the Spirit of God changing us from the inside out. God changes us so that we are willing to come to Jesus and seek the salvation he offers on the cross. All right, let me try to wrap up what Jesus has said to Nicodemus. Nicodemus comes to him and says, We know you're a teacher, we know you're a prophet because we've seen these signs. Jesus says, No, I'm not just a teacher, I am the Messiah sent from heaven itself. What I teach is truth straight from heaven itself. I am testifying to the very things of God, and I have come to save the world from condemnation. You have a fundamental choice to make. Your eternal destiny depends on whether you believe that I, Jesus, am that Savior. Believing is essential because to reject me is to rebel against the truth at a most fundamental level. If you won't believe in me, then you have condemned yourself as an enemy of the truth. On the other hand, to believe in me is evidence of a profound work that God is doing in you. It shows your willingness to come to the light, to seek the truth, embrace the truth, admit your sin, repent, and receive God's mercy. That brings us back to this idea of being born again by the Spirit that we talked about last week. Since believing in Jesus is such a profound spiritual change at such a deep level, only the one who has been given a new birth by the Spirit of God will ever arrive there. By nature, left to ourselves, we are filled with all that is evil, selfish, and corrupt. We hide from the light, we cling to the darkness. It is new birth that brings forth people who are actually willing to step into the light and to be seen as the recipients of the work of God in their life. There are two ideas in this passage that are very important to me personally, and I think very important from a theological perspective. They are foundational to how we ought to think about life as a believer and what faith is all about. The first one is this idea of new birth. We cannot change ourselves. God is not saying to us, save yourself, try harder and I'll help you. He's saying, You're completely lost and condemned. Let me help you. It is God reaching into our heart to do what we cannot do for ourselves that saves us. The Spirit of God gives us new birth into spiritual life. We don't give birth to ourselves, we are given birth by the Spirit. Yes, I live my life, I make choices out of the kind of person I am, but only God can reach into me and change what I choose so that I begin to choose what is true and right. Our faith is like the wind of the spirit blowing through the branches. When we see each other living out faith, we say, that's God doing something. This theme of being born again, of faith being a miraculous work of God and a gift to us is going to be a big theme in John's gospel. And that brings me to the second point. And I can't overemphasize how important I think this is. Probably all of us at one time or another have probably wondered, does it really matter if I believe in Jesus or not? I remember in college I was having a conversation with an exchange student from Pakistan. He was asking all these really great questions about Christianity, and we had a lot of common theology in the way we viewed the world, but we hit a roadblock when I said, Well, you have to believe in Jesus. His objection went something like this. You're going to tell me that God's going to determine whether I go to heaven or not by whether I believe this particular doctrinal proposition about a man named Jesus? That doesn't make any sense. If I came along and said you have to believe the earth is flat in order to be saved, what are you going to do? Are you going to believe the earth is flat? Well, to me, saying you have to believe in Jesus is like saying you have to believe the earth is flat. It's just ridiculous. That's not how it worked. Well, at the time we had that conversation, I was speechless. I had no idea how to defend that idea. But I knew it was true. I knew that believing in Jesus was essential to salvation. Now I know that the answer to that kind of objection is what Jesus is saying right here. Ultimately, unbelief is a sign of rebellion. Belief is a sign of submission. Jesus is the only person who has ever come down from heaven to tell us authoritatively and definitively this is what God is doing. This is the way to be saved. And now that brings us back to the four core convictions of saving faith that we've talked about in other podcasts. And those four convictions are one, we are sinful. Two, we cannot save ourselves by ourselves. Three, God is not obligated or required to save us because of anything we've done. And four, God will save us because of the blood of Jesus Christ. And that fourth one is essential. We must believe it to be true. The gospel about Jesus Christ is a kind of touchstone. It's a story that hits at us inside. It starts poking around to say, what kind of person are you? What do you believe is true? It makes you ask, where will life be found? Where ultimately will I find life? And it pushes you to figure that out. What do I ultimately believe? Why do I believe it? Am I an enemy of the truth? Do I want to hide from the truth about myself and my guilt and my need for mercy? Or will I walk into the light and believe the truth as Jesus proclaimed it? I would argue that's what Jesus is saying here. That's the point he's making to Nicodemus. We have to come to the light. We have to let the light of truth shine on us and say, Yep, I messed up. I need help. And God has offered that help through the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's not the fact that I believe the doctrine that is significant. It's not the fact that I could pass a theological test that makes a difference. It is believing that that is reality. That belief shows what sort of person I am. It shows that the Spirit of God has been working in my life. And it's the miraculous willingness to recognize I am a sinner who needs a savior that is the key to finding eternal life. The Bible makes a big connection between believing truth and being saved. And throughout church history, we have made this association. We know that there's this important association between believing truth and being saved. But I think historically that has tended to make us emphasize the idea of doctrine a little too much. If believing the truth gets you saved, then it's easy to think, well, the most important thing is that you have to have the right truths to believe. You've got to get your doctrine in order and cross all your T's and dot all your I's, because if your doctrine isn't right, then there's something wrong with you. And we see that throughout church history in various ways. We fight about which doctrines matter. How wide do we have to make that door? What doctrines must people believe or not believe to be saved? And we wrestle with it. And it's easy to make that net too wide. For example, must I believe the Orthodox view of the Trinity? Must I believe a certain view about the role of women? Must I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture? Must I believe in election and predestination? Where do we draw the line? Well, I think what Jesus is saying here gives us an important clue as to how we ought to face those kinds of issues. We have wrongly at times, I think, put the emphasis on the idea of knowing the right things as the way you get saved. But Jesus doesn't say here, if you don't know who I am, you won't be saved. He says if you refuse to believe in me, you will not be saved. It is the unbelief that He is the Savior, the Messiah that condemns us, not ignorance. He's talking about a hostility to the truth, a condition of the heart, not whether or not I have perfectly heard and understood a particular doctrine. All of us have some crazy doctrine at some point in our lives, maybe all of our lives. We don't have to be doctrinally perfect, but we do have to be receptive to the truth. We do have to be people who are willing to walk into the light and let it change us. We have to be the kind of people who are willing to humble ourselves before God and say, Father, you are right, I am wrong, teach me. So on the one hand, what we believe is a reflection of our inner person. To refuse to believe the truth about who Jesus was and what he did for us, that is a very significant thing. To refuse to believe I'm a sinner in need of a savior betrays that my heart is hard and rebellious against God. But on the other hand, I could hold all kinds of wrong doctrines about all kinds of issues for a variety of reasons. Maybe I've never been told, maybe I've just misunderstood, maybe I've been taught wrong and I don't know how to think about it. Or maybe I have old mistaken beliefs that I'm still sorting through and I haven't figured out they're mistaken yet. That is a very different thing than refusing to believe because my heart is hard, and refusing to believe because I don't care what God says about anything anyway. That kind of unbelief that says, I don't care what God says, this is what I want to be true, that is a huge spiritual mistake. But that's the issue. The issue is where are you coming from, not do you understand doctrine perfectly. I firmly believe that Jesus is the only way to be saved, but the issue isn't what I know about him, the issue is how I respond to the truths that I have been confronted with. The gospel, at least as I see it, is the sharpest, deepest knife in God's surgical toolkit. How we respond to it cuts right to the heart. And that's why it's so significant how we respond to the gospel. But the issue of exactly which doctrines, which theological truths we believe at any particular moment, that can get really complex. We may need to be patient with each other over those kinds of differences. It's right and appropriate to be patient with each other as we sort through our various goofy beliefs. But at the same time, it's also right to be concerned that ultimately what we believe is a reflection of a heart that is either hardened itself against God or not. And that's a problem that must be dealt with. The issue of being born again is not an issue of do I have all my theological ducks in a row? It's an issue of am I willing to embrace the truth when I see it and hear it. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to explain not only what a passage means, but how we figure it out. The blog version of this episode is on the link below the podcast, or you can find it at wednesdayintheword.com slash John 8. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please support the show by subscribing and leave a positive review wherever you listen to your podcast. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned, and if you can, tell him where you learned it. RC Music is graciously provided by my friend and favorite musician Reggie Coast. You can find all of his music on heartfeltmusic.org. If you'd like to hear more in this series or find previous episodes, please go to wednesdayintheword.com. Thanks so much for listening today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.