Q & A with the Messiah Part One

Q&A with the Messiah: False Conversion and True Conversion

The title of today's sermon is Q &A with the Messiah, because that's what we have in the preceding verses here. John chapter 3, verses 1 through 21 really is this Q &A with the Messiah between a Pharisee and Christ.

And so we will look at these 21 verses over the course of the next few Sundays. This is Q &A with the Messiah, part one. And as we think about this passage, we can think about even the context of the passage in what had just happened in John's eyewitness account.

As John recorded for us the first sign wonder of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana, and then the cleansing of the temple, last week we looked at this little insert that he gave us talking about the people that had witnessed these things, how they believed, but that Jesus didn't count them as his true disciples.

So now we will continue in the eyewitness account and we'll see this conversation start. So we have these miracles, we have a note about false conversion, and then we have now a conversation where we get to be a fly on the wall and listen to the words of Christ describe what true conversion looks like.

This is what salvation is, and he's going to explain it for this religious leader, Nicodemus. False conversion versus true conversion. And I think I may have shared this story before, but I'm aware of us, of a pastor's wife who was saved 15 years after the pastor had started his preaching ministry in a local church.

So they met each other, both professing Christians, he goes through seminary, becomes a pastor and is called to pastor a church. And 15 years into that ministry at the local church, preaching every Sunday, think of all the fellowship and just all the Sundays of preaching, 15 years, he notices that his wife is weeping and there's some emotions coming out after the sermon and he goes down to check and she's sort of surrounded by some folks from the church.

And she had professed Christ for the first time. Now that original profession was with her mouth, but there was some obviously something going on in the heart where she didn't truly believe. She had a misunderstanding based probably on her upbringing, you know.

I went to church as a kid, my parents brought me to church, I've been in the church my whole.

Life.

And there's no relationship with Christ. So here she is, a pastor's wife, 15 years, and the Lord, in His perfect timing, at the time of His good pleasure, according to the counsel of His will, as Paul says, just graciously saved her.

So for those 15 years, she was a false convert. False conversion versus true conversion. Now we don't know what was going on in her heart, but I think it's fair to say we live in a generation that likes the emotions and the feelings that can be elicited in even singing worship songs or a powerful sermon or actually a sermon that just kind of is a warm and fuzzy sermon.

It's something that sounds good and you come out of the church feeling great about yourself. Just how special you are and God is love and just a warm and fuzzy. So you go out of there with really no conviction of sin.

No understanding of theological truths. A sermon where the pastor reads a passage out loud and then talks to you about whatever political, social, cultural things are going on in society and makes a strong case for what his opinions are as he cherry-picks verses of the Bible.

We see that in this generation, described in this part of the gospel here, that the folks were seeking a sign. They were responding to the miracles. They wanted to see something and when they saw that, it was a spectacle.

And so seeking a sign versus trusting in the teachings of Jesus is what we really have before us. I'd say in this contemporary time, we have just a general desire to have an emotional experience, a feeling-based experiential response to whatever is being said in the pulpit or in the worship songs.

Well in this passage, we see a really just a question and answer session between a Pharisee and Jesus as he explains false conversion versus true conversion and he helps Nicodemus to understand a bit more about true salvation.

And so we can break this passage down. As we look at this chapter, we're gonna focus on the first 21 verses and we'll look at this over the course of the next few Sundays and this is really three truly, truly, I say to you statements.

So if you look at verses 1 through 21, that's what you'll see. Three truly, truly, I say to you statements. The first part is the introduction. Let's break this down. The introduction. That's the first three verses and that's what we're gonna look at today.

The start of the Q &A exchange and introducing the matter of discussion. It's the first truly, truly statement. The next would be the inquiry. The inquiry in verses 4 through 15. The follow-up questions and answers.

The Q &A is underway. You have the next two truly, truly statements and then finally the explanation. The explanation. Verses 16 through 21. This is the wrapping up of the Q &A on the topic of true conversion and salvation and a thoroughly, really explaining the three truly, truly statements.

So if we look at the whole unit as this Q &A with the Messiah, we can see these statements and you could break it up just like that. The introduction, the inquiry, the explanation. And false conversion versus true conversion is the topic at hand.

And so now Jesus is going to answer Nicodemus' first statement which is really a statement but it's kind of in the form of a question. In verses 1 through 21, the Apostle John records the Q &A between Nicodemus and Jesus on the topic of true conversion so that you can understand salvation and true conversion according to God's understanding, not an incorrect personal or worldly understanding.

And so the first area we'll look at is the introduction, verses 1 through 3. So that's what we'll look at this morning and as we look at these first three verses, the introduction is really straightforward.

It's the man in verse 1, it's the meeting in verse 2, and it's the matter in verse 3. The introduction, verse 1, the man. Verse 1, the man. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

And so the first verse sets the stage for really the rest of the exchange between Jesus and the man, Nicodemus. The Q &A that follows starts with this benign introductory statement. John identifies the man who was involved in the exchange, a man named Nicodemus.

The background of this guy is really important for us to think about, is what Jesus is about to say. John tells us two important things about this man to start. John will reveal more about Nicodemus in verse 2, but for now, he starts with the man's credentials.

Who is Nicodemus? Well, he was a member of the Pharisees, but not just that, he was a ruler of the Jews. So understanding, the Pharisees were part of the ruling council, and it's even referred to as the High Council.

This is the ruling council of the day. Another name for the High Council was the Sanhedrin, the Sanhedrin. This was the ruling authority of the synagogues at the time. Some of these men would be Levites or descended from Levites.

This is the priestly order of the nation of Israel. However, they mostly consisted of the Jewish middle class and businessmen. The Sanhedrin held the power to really put people out of the synagogue. And at that time, it wasn't like a, you know, it's not like our culture.

So if you were at the synagogue worshiping, you would count on them for even clothing, food, community. So if you were put out of the synagogue, it's like you were put out of the community. You might as well just move.

You were like an outcast. So the Sanhedrin held a lot of power over these individuals' lives that would attend the synagogue in the local area. They also held the power to interpret and teach scripture.

So they're interpreting and teaching Old Testament scripture, but here's the thing. Their interpretation was elevated to the status of the law. What they said went. And they had the power and authority to put people out of the synagogue, not just that.

They could have people beaten. They could have people arrested. And in Christ's case, what did they do to him? They had him arrested and executed. And they appealed to the authorities of Rome. But these were a very powerful group of men.

And the Sanhedrin was made up of two groups, the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The Sanhedrin was about a 70-person council. So you can think about it like 70-person kind of Supreme Court of ancient Israel.

And there are similarities between the two groups that make up the Sanhedrin, but also some differences that are important for us to understand. Both groups would have honored Moses and the law. And both groups wielded extremely powerful political power.

The Sadducees are considered more conservative by us today because they held to a more literal interpretation of the text of Scripture. So that's a plus for them, good for them. However, the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead.

And they rejected the idea of the afterlife. Essentially, the Sadducees believed that the soul perished at death. And I remember just a sort of a weird cliche where I heard a pastor say, oh, you guys may have heard this, where they're sad, you see, because they don't believe in the resurrection.

They're sad, you see. I just thought that was stupid. I'm sure you guys have heard that at some point. You see, they don't believe in the afterlife. They're sad, you see. I thought it was dumb, too. Yeah, they don't believe in it.

And they reject the idea. So essentially, once you die, your soul just perishes at death. No afterlife. And it goes beyond that, too. But to their credit, they did not add to the Scripture. And if they couldn't find a teaching in the law, they held that to be man-made.

So these are different than the Pharisees, the Sadducees. However, to their discredit, they also rejected the concept of an unseen or spiritual realm. So no afterlife, no resurrection. The Pharisees did believe in the afterlife and a correlating or appropriate reward or punishment for people based on how they lived.

So that's a good thing for them. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection, but here's the problem. They elevated their interpretation and oral tradition to the equal authority of Scripture. So there's some kind of a misunderstanding here, where they have these traditions and oral tradition, their own interpretations, and they're elevating that to the point of like the Bible, the Old Testament.

So there's similarities and differences. And the New Testament gives us some insight to both. Both were part of the ruling authority of the day, the Sanhedrin. And it was the Sanhedrin, comprised of both groups, that were responsible for the mock trial and murder of Jesus.

In Matthew 26, we see this account. It says, now those who had seized Jesus led him away to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were gathered together. But Peter was following him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and entered in and sat down with the officers to see the outcome.

Now the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus so that they might put him to death. So we're not giving the Sadducees a pass here, but Nicodemus is a Pharisee.

You see, there's plenty of New Testament passages that highlight the differences. Mark chapter 12, then some Sadducees who say that there is no resurrection came to Jesus and began questioning him, saying, you know, they're just challenging him, basically.

In contrast, the Pharisees did believe in the resurrection. Paul's words recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, this is Acts 23, but knowing that one group were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, Paul began crying out in the Sanhedrin, brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees.

I am on trial for the hope and resurrection of the dead. And as he said this, there was dissension between the Pharisees and Sadducees and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, but listen to this, nor an angel, nor a spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.

But by no way does this excuse the Pharisees. Jesus often criticized the Pharisees for being hypocrites, for being hypocrites in a way that we just don't see the same weight in power and indictment in his comments regarding the Sadducees.

And I believe that is because of their higher view of Scripture, looking at the Bible and not adding man-made rules, you know, not elevating oral tradition to the authority of the Scripture. They got it wrong and had to be corrected by Jesus, but not in the same way as the Pharisees just in the gospel accounts.

Look at the attitude of the Sadducees and the response of Jesus. So here they're asking this question, in Matthew 22 it says, on that day some Sadducees, and again Levi, Matthew puts the insert, who say there's no resurrection, they came to Jesus and asked him a question saying, teacher, Moses said if a man dies having no children, his brother as next of kin shall marry his wife and raise up a seed for his brother.

Now there were seven brothers with us and the first married and died and having no seed, he left his wife to his brother, so also the second and the third down to the seventh. And last of all, the woman died.

In the resurrection, so now here they're asking a specific question based on what they believe. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they had all married her. But Jesus answered and said to them, you are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God.

For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven. But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God saying, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob?

He is not the God of the dead but of the living. And when the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching. Not the same kind of attitude and indictment we see in Jesus' exchange with the Pharisees.

Even later in that same chapter, Matthew 22, but when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together and one of them, a scholar of the law, an expert in the Old Testament, asked him a question testing him.

So you see, that is left out in the first exchange there. It says that the Sadducees came to him asking a question. It doesn't say that they were trying to scheme behind the scenes. They weren't testing him.

They were asking a question and he explains the theology behind their question. According to these passages, the simple takeaway is the Pharisees had bad motives. They had bad motives. But by this, in no way excuses the Sadducees either.

John the Baptist's rebuke of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, really the Sanhedrin, Matthew chapter 3, but when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, you brood of vipers.

He's calling them snakes. You brood of vipers. Who warned you to flee the wrath to come? So the Pharisees were in a league of their own and we see that in the way Jesus interacted with them. The Pharisees had bad motives and they held man-made laws up to scripture.

So let me explain that to you. According to some scholars and various calculations, listen to this. They had a system of 613 laws, 600, over 600 laws. About 365 negative commands and 248 positive commands.

So I guess the Ten Commandments wasn't enough for them. 613 commands are these areas that they wanted to live by. They also are recorded again and again in the Gospels as having false motives in questioning or testing Jesus.

And why are they doing that? To find fault in something he said, not asking for the right, you know, to want to know the answer. No, they are recorded as being intellectually dishonest and having a false pretense in their speech and secret heart motives toward Jesus.

Listen to Jesus' assessment of the Pharisees. Matthew 23, Now think about that. He could have said the Sanhedrin. He could have said the Pharisees and the Sadducees, but he said the Pharisees. Therefore, all that they, it says, all that they tell you do and keep, but do not do according to their deeds.

For they say things and do not do them. And they tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders. But they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men.

For they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. And they love the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces.

And they love being called teacher by men. They love being called rabbi by men. And this Nicodemus, he was a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin. So, now we can rightly understand the importance and how profound the first truly, truly statement is for us.

Nicodemus was not like the other Pharisees. The apostle does not record a disingenuous heart or false motive in this Pharisee. A clue for Nicodemus genuinely seeking the truth may be in the manner in which he approached.

Jesus.

And his statement. Not necessarily a question, but sometimes a statement can be made that masks a question or a statement that can demand an answer. And that's what we see in the introduction. The man, the man Nicodemus, despite a heavy religious background, demonstrated a genuine and humble desire to seek the answers from the questions he had from Jesus.

We can look at Nicodemus as an example to follow. Instead of going along with the others, he genuinely wanted to know the truth. And for this reason, he was genuinely ready to receive the truth. You must examine Jesus for yourselves.

Another person can't do that for you. You yourself have to interact with God's Word and discover for yourself who Jesus is. It's like I was raised in the church and this is what they always taught.

Who cares? Who cares?

It's what the Bible teaches. Read the Bible. Read the gospel for yourself. And if you genuinely are seeking answers, let me give you an encouragement today. You will find the answers. But if you're reading the Bible looking to find something wrong, here's another thing.

You will find something wrong. What are you looking for? Are you looking to find something wrong or are you looking for the truth? And that's an important principle we have to understand. No one else can examine Jesus for you.

This is between you and the Lord. When you are before Him at the end of the age, you're not going to stand before the pastor. You're going to stand before Him. Yeah, others cannot do it for us. We must examine Jesus for ourselves and not church tradition or whatever religious background you got brought up in.

Only then if we truly believe He is who He says, the Christ, the Son of the living God, the Savior of sinners, then we will follow Him and submit to Him. Then, we will truly want to speak up for Him and make Him known to those who don't know.

Him.

That's the man. And this explanation of who Jesus is about to talk to now sets up the meeting. Verse two. Verse two. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.

Now there are a few possibilities in John's inclusion of the timing of Nicodemus' visit. Some have taken this to reflect a figurative suggestion of John that insinuated the spiritual condition of Nicodemus in terms of he had come at dark because his heart was spiritually dark.

Dark?

That seems almost nonsensical in the greater context of the gospel. It's like, what are you talking about? I thought that was a weird position. He came at night because his heart was dark too. It's like, what?

It's like a weird Hallmark card, kind of a over-spiritualizing the text. No, that seems just like that does not fit, especially with John. John did not write like that. He was more factual. He gave historical details to the narrative accounts because they're eyewitness testimony.

Now, next, giving Nicodemus the benefit of the doubt, there is the position that he came at night because he wanted to have uninterrupted conversation with Jesus. So Jesus is surrounded all the time during the day, just too busy, I can't get a word.

In.

I'm going to go at night because then we'll be uninterrupted, I'll have more time with.

Him.

If no one else was around, then he would have more access and more time to converse with.

Jesus.

So this is really giving him the benefit of the doubt. That's not directly implied in the text, so I see that as more speculative. I think a more common sense conclusion without importing our thoughts is we can assume as a Pharisee, Nicodemus wanted to avoid any controversy amongst his fellow Pharisees.

Remember, the Baptist had already called out the Sanhedrin as what? A brood of snakes, a brood of vipers. Obviously the Pharisees knew the Baptist's association with Jesus and his disciples on some level, and then now here you are, a member of the Sanhedrin, going to go talk to that.

Guy.

So a plain reading of the text, simply John is letting us know Nicodemus wanted to talk with Jesus, but he didn't want to talk during the day in the open. We also need to understand that most of the Pharisees were not fans of Jesus.

He's not popular. It is not popular to hear somebody using the word of God to call you to repentance and to reveal the sin and bring the sin to the heart. They were not Jesus fanboys. They did not like him.

So we need to understand that. We'll see in many of the exchanges in the gospel that these men were extremely jealous.

Of Jesus.

They responded to witnessing miracles and signs with hardened hearts of unbelief. And we can ask, what was the difference? Why did some witnesses respond with belief and why did some respond with scoffing or unbelief?

And I think the answer is genuinely looking or seeking. It's almost like, what can you get out of it? What can I get out of this? The Pharisees hated Jesus because he undermined their authority. He called into question their incorrect religious views and pulled their secret sin to the surface and they hated him for it.

They didn't care if the blind could see or if the deaf could hear or if the lame could walk. A dead person brought back to life, they didn't care. Jesus was challenging their views and they hated him for it.

They didn't care about the truth proclaimed by the word of God. So they didn't care about the one who God sent to explain that truth to them. The difference is that Nicodemus had seen some of the signs and he was searching for answers.

He was genuinely looking for the truth from the word of God. And if you want the truth, you will humble yourself to receive it. Not only will you seek the answers, but you will accept the answers. Nicodemus was searching and he believed that Jesus had some of those answers.

Even though the man was a learned teacher himself. Nicodemus came to the meeting and sought out Jesus to be taught. Another important observation from the meeting is that Nicodemus came personally to Jesus.

Remember, this was a ruler of the Jews. He certainly could have sent one of his scribes or assistants. No, this was too important. This was personal. Nicodemus needed to examine Jesus for himself. This man had witnessed the signs and there is an acknowledgment that Jesus had come from.

God.

Sure, it's true on some level Nicodemus was, you know, possibly afraid of what his fellow Pharisees would say about the meeting. But also on some level, he didn't care. He likely was acting shrewd and coming after dark, but he came nonetheless.

At this point, he clearly had some misunderstandings and we can probably assume here that he may have even been among the group who believed, but Jesus had not yet counted as his disciples. Remember the context of this passage.

It's chapter two, verses 23 through 25. How those verses are really sandwiched between Jesus's first sign wonder and the cleansing of the temple with this record of the Q &A with the Messiah. A note on false conversion followed by a conversation about true conversion.

Look at chapter two, verse 23. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the feast, many believed in his name when they saw his signs, which he was doing. But Jesus on his part was not entrusting himself to them for he knew all men and because he had no need that anyone bear witness concerning man for he himself knew what was in man.

In verses 23 through 25, the apostle explained the outcome of Jesus's first sign wonder and the cleansing of the temple so that you can understand that believing in Jesus for the wrong reasons does not equal genuine conversion.

John's explanation of the outcome of false conversion actually. The context in verse 23 sets the stage for Jesus's discerning reaction to those who merely profess belief outwardly in response to the good things he does.

The contrast in verse 24 shows that outward profession of belief does not equal genuine heart conversion because Jesus's disciples follow his way, not their own. And then the conclusion in verse 25 is that Jesus knows the heart and whether a professing believer truly desires to submit to him as a follower and disciple.

And this reality also informs how Jesus would answer Nicodemus in verse 3 compared to other spots in the gospels that recorded Jesus's interactions with Pharisees. Matthew 23 is this just scathing indictment for religiosity.

Matthew 23 is the woes, the woes to the Pharisees. I'll just give you a small excerpt instead of reading the whole passage, but these can be found in Matthew 23, 13 through 33. Here's just a few. But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people.

For you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows' houses and for a pretense you make long prayers.

Therefore, you will receive greater condemnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.

Ouch.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. But these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.

You blind guides who strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.

In this way you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell? That's what Jesus said to the Pharisees.

These accounts are valuable for us to understand that that is not how Jesus saw Nicodemus. Number one, Jesus answered Nicodemus' statement from verse two in the following verse with an answer explaining his misunderstanding.

And number two, John records more information about Nicodemus when he understood that Jesus was truly the Messiah. Later in this gospel, John recorded the switch from Nicodemus being a truth seeker, having a meeting in the dark, to a true follower who spoke up boldly in Jesus' defense.

Later from this gospel, chapter seven, Nicodemus, he who came to him before, referring to this meeting here in chapter three, being one of them, a member of the Sanhedrin, said to them, in the presence of all, does our law judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing?

Now he is publicly in the midst of the Sanhedrin defending Jesus Christ. This is no longer a secret meeting. Now this account shows Nicodemus had become a follower and disciple and records how he defended Jesus in the very presence of his fellow Pharisees.

The meeting is helpful for us to consider Nicodemus' attitude and posture toward Jesus. The meeting. The meeting demonstrates the correct posture toward Jesus in genuinely seeking answers from him and humbly approaching him as the source of true understanding.

No matter how intelligent and well-educated you are, no matter how much wealth or esteem you have accrued, no matter how much you think you know the Bible, you must come to Jesus with an open mind and heart.

So, Jesus can teach you the truth about God. Whether you agree with the teaching or not, will you humbly submit to doing things Jesus' way, not your own? Will you humbly submit to accepting the answers that Jesus gives?

Nicodemus was not asking with false motives. The Pharisees were unbelievers, so they weren't genuinely seeking the truth. Lost sheep become Christians because God causes them to genuinely seek the truth.

Sometimes even as regenerated sinners saved by God's grace, we can behave like Pharisees and try to avoid or dismiss Jesus' teachings. To have an apathetic attitude, a flippant attitude, a dismissive attitude.

Sometimes we're looking for the euphoria of emotions and feelings over truth. The Bible teacher and evangelist Andrew Rappaport said this, quote, there are far too many Christians that are focused on, quote, miracles, rather than pointing to the Scriptures itself.

This is to miss out what God has provided for the Christians. When we focus on the wrong elements for spiritual maturity, we will eventually go astray. Nicodemus wasn't focused on the signs or the miracles.

He wanted answers according to the Scripture. And he recognized Jesus as the one to go to to get the answers, the meeting. And then now in verse three, the matter, the matter. Jesus answered and said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Verse three is the first truly, truly statement that starts really the meat of the conversation to follow. This is the heart of the matter that the follow-up questions and answers will go back to and further examine.

From the statement in verse two in Jesus' first answer, we can see that Nicodemus knew about the kingdom of God on some level. It seems that there is an underlying misunderstanding that Jesus now begins to explain and correct.

It seems Nicodemus understood from the Old Testament Scripture that the kingdom would be ruled by God. Number one, that there is a kingdom and that it would be ruled by God. There seems to be an acceptance in his comment in verse two that the kingdom would be restored.

On earth.

It would include God's people, we believe. Nicodemus recognized that some of the Jews knew that Jesus had come from God and that only someone that came from God could do what Jesus had been doing on the earth.

In the famous gospel passage of verse 16, Jesus would go on to reveal that the whole world would experience the kingdom because Jesus was the kingdom on earth. We'll see that in the explanation of true conversion in verses 16 through 21.

In other words, the kingdom was not just for the Jewish people. In the inquiry recorded by John in verses four through 15, Jesus will go on to explain that Nicodemus personally could not enter the kingdom unless he was personally born.

Again.

This went beyond Nicodemus' status as a Jew. Here in verse three, Jesus begins to discuss the greater matter and theological understanding of true conversion. Salvation comes from God. The Holy Spirit causes a person to be born again, to be regenerated.

So Jesus starts by saying, truly, truly, and this is the Greek word amin. It is translated as truly, and it might sound familiar to you, or amen. He's using the word amen. This is the Greek word for amen.

This is a strong affirmation of what is stated as expression of faith. Let it be so, truly, amen. It is also translated in the New Testament as a proper name or title, Revelation chapter three, and to the angel of the church in Laodicea write, this is what the Amen, capital A, the faithful and true witness, capital W, the beginning, capital B, of the creation of God says.

It's referring to Jesus Christ. He is the Amen, capital A. I mean, think about that. We say this word at the end of every prayer. It is used in liturgical formula at the end of the liturgy or the benediction, spoken by the congregation to affirm the statement that preceded it.

Here it is used simply as a particle to declare or state something emphatically, truly, always. And this is the beginning of a solemn declaration, but important, only ever used by Jesus in this way. Jesus is the only one that uses this term in this way.

And we can read it like this. I assure you that I solemnly tell you, truly, truly, very important. The double usage is superlative and emphasis, emphasis. What I'm about to say is very important. Listen up.

This is very important, truly, truly, I say to you, the heart of the matter, unless you are born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. Two things here. One, Jesus accepts that Nicodemus has rightly understood that he is from God.

And two, that Jesus helps Nicodemus to understand the only way to rightly enter the kingdom.

Of God.

The entrance isn't based on whether you're a Jewish person or a national Israelite. The entrance requirements of the kingdom of God are repentance and spiritual birth. Jesus would later teach that God's kingdom had already begun in the hearts of believers.

Luke chapter 17 says this, now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them and said, the kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, look here or there, for behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.