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Well, let's turn again in our Bibles to John chapter 3. This is the third
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Lord's Day on which we're examining this passage, and because it's taken us a few occasions to get through this, there is a measure of repetition to bring us up to speed as to where we are, and then continue a little farther along.
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And so, in order for us to gain understanding of the context, we'll begin once again with verse 1, and today we'll read through verse 15.
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And this is the New King James Version, by the way. There was a man of the Pharisees named
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Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. And this man came to Jesus by night and said to him,
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Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.
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And Jesus answered, said to him, most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
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Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?
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Jesus answered, most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the
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Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the
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Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.
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The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes.
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So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered, said to him, how can these things be?
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And Jesus answered and said to him, are you the teacher of Israel and do not know these things?
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Most assuredly, I say to you, we speak what we know and testify what we have seen and you do not receive our witness.
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If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
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No one has ascended to heaven but he who came down from heaven, that is the
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Son of Man, who is in heaven. That's a curious expression, who is in heaven.
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There's a little textual variant there, we'll address it next week, Lord willing, not today. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
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Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
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And so we've been working through this passage, this chapter of John, in which we read of our
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Lord Jesus engaging this very prominent Jewish leader regarding his need for a new birth.
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And so although Nicodemus was perhaps at the top of his profession, one of the foremost
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Jewish religious in Jerusalem, highly respected by all, highly placed, nevertheless,
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Jesus told him that unless he was born again, he would not enter the kingdom of God. Must have been quite shocking to Nicodemus to hear those words.
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I was reading this book, haven't read it in a while, been on my shelf for decades now, from an old expositor of the
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Gospels, Alfred Edersheim. He wrote a two -volume work, it's a classic,
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The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. And what was special about Edersheim, still is today
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I think, is he had such an insight into the life and the culture of the Jewish people that he could paint a picture, as it were, and as though you were there watching and listening.
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He at times was rather creative, I'd have to say, and he probably was here too.
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But I found it quite interesting as he was describing the setting, as he attempted to put it back together, the setting of Jesus meeting with Nicodemus.
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Edersheim first speculated that John the Apostle had a house in Jerusalem. That's not all that far -fetched because we know that John the
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Apostle was in some type of relationship with the high priest there in Jerusalem, in the temple, in the
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Jewish hierarchy. And so John may have had a house in Jerusalem which would have had a flat roof which served as an outdoor patio, would have had some smaller structure there for guests perhaps, and this flat roof could be reached by outside stairs.
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And so granted his speculation, Edersheim described the scene. If from John 1927 we might infer that St.
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John had a home in Jerusalem itself, which considering the simplicity of living at the time and the cost of houses would not necessarily imply that he was rich, the scene about to be described would have taken place under the roof of him who has given us this record.
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In other words, John gave us the gospel, of course, and it kind of retells as though an eyewitness were there.
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In any case, the circumstances of life at the time are so well known that we have no difficulty in realizing the surroundings.
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It was night, one of the nights in that Easter week so full of marvels, making reference to the
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Passover, of course, the spring. Perhaps we may be allowed to suppose that as so often in analogous circumstances, the spring wind sweeping up the narrow streets of the city had suggested the comparison, that would be the comparison of the wind and the
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Holy Spirit, which was so full of deepest teaching to Nicodemus.
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Up in the simply furnished aliyah, and that would have been the guest chamber on the roof, the lamp was still burning and the heavenly guest, that would be
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Jesus, still busy with thought and words. There was no need for Nicodemus to pass through the house for an outside stair led to the upper room.
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It was night when Jewish superstition would keep men at home, a wild gusty spring night when loiterers would not be in the streets and no one would see him, as at that hour he ascended the outside steps that led up to the aliyah.
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As Aaron was soon told, one sentence, that which admitted the divine teachership of Jesus, and that one sentence is, we know you're from God, no man could do, you know, the signs you do unless God is with him.
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And of course this generated all this discussion. Nay, his very presence there spoke them, or if otherwise the answer of Jesus spoke them.
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Throughout, Jesus never descended to the standpoint of Nicodemus, but rather sought to lift him to his own.
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It was all about the kingdom of God. So connected with that teacher come from God, that Nicodemus would inquire.
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Found that interesting. I'd always kind of assumed, and as I began to thinking about it, I really had no basis for it, but I always kind of assumed that Nicodemus maybe saw
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Jesus there in the garden on the
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Mount of Olives. That was their common place where they spent a great deal of time. But then my assumption really have no more warrant than Eder chimes, and perhaps less than what he has said before us.
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Now last week we addressed in a measure verses 3 through 6. Our Lord's initial pronouncement in verse 3 must have been quite startling and unsettling to Nicodemus.
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Jesus said to him, barely, barely, I say unto you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
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He speaks of one outside, you know, anyone really, but he wasn't speaking directly to Nicodemus in his need at this point.
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He does later. One must be born again in order to enter the kingdom of God. He won't see it otherwise.
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Nicodemus responded with a question he posed to Jesus. He said to Jesus, how can a man be born when he's old?
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Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Some believe
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Nicodemus to have been an honest inquirer. He desired information, and so he was inquisitive by asking this question.
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But the question that Nicodemus poses to Jesus seems to connote more than just wanting instruction.
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There seems to be somewhat of a reaction of Nicodemus to Jesus, and so it would seem that Jesus's words to Nicodemus might have struck a nerve.
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It should have, because it was really repudiating everything Nicodemus was and had been all his life.
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I would think that it struck a nerve. Nicodemus asked a rhetorical question which seems to suggest our
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Lord's statement was illegitimate, or at least inappropriate. Can a man be born, you know, enter his mother's womb and be born a second time?
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Clearly Nicodemus was ignorant, and he wanted answers, but he may have also been incredulous at this word from Jesus.
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After the Lord gave him an answer that seemed to penetrate his soul and really confront his entire worldview, to discredit as illegitimate and immaterial all that Nicodemus was and all that he had achieved in life.
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Again, he was at the top of the class, highly regarded. He thought he was fair for entrance into the kingdom of God.
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Nicodemus was like those the Apostle Paul described. He had certainly a zeal for God, but in spite of his education, his experience, his service to God, his zeal was not according to knowledge, and Jesus revealed this to him.
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He had thought that his salvation, that is his entrance and participation in the promised kingdom of God, that's how they understood salvation and eternal life, would be granted to him because he had ordered his life in righteousness.
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He thought that this entitled him entrance and participation in the resurrection onto eternal life, but the
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Lord Jesus, in these few words, instructed him otherwise. This man would only be granted entrance into the kingdom of God if God performed a sovereign work of grace in his soul, in which the
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Holy Spirit would cause him to be born again or born from above, and if that didn't happen
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Nicodemus had no hope of entering really what he was looking for us toward his whole life, dedicating his whole existence toward that event, which he had been confident, apparently, that he would enter.
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And so Nicodemus would have understood that Jesus had just placed him on the same standing, say, as Gentiles who would convert to Judaism.
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Nicodemus, too, just as they, that is Gentiles, needed a new birth, and the Jews commonly thought of a
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Gentile proselyte into Judaism as experiencing a new birth, and now
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Jesus is saying basically, Nicodemus, this has to occur to you. He was in need of being born of water and spirit, as Jesus declared to him in verse 5.
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And so Nicodemus was taken to school by Jesus and taught the first lesson in the school of Christ, that salvation is by God's grace, not by man's natural birth into a
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Jewish family or achievement within a prescribed religious system, as good and righteous as that system might be.
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And Nicodemus had been ignorant of this until our Savior stated the matter clearly and forthrightly to him, and very simply and succinctly, by the way.
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You can bet those words were remembered by Nicodemus for some time to come. J. C.
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Ryle wrote that the crass spiritual ignorance of Nicodemus was commonplace in the churches of his day toward the end of the 19th century, and we could say probably
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J. C. Ryle's words would apply today, too. Ignorance like that of Nicodemus is unhappily far too common in the
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Church of Christ. We must never be surprised if we find it in quarters where we might reasonably expect knowledge.
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Learning, rank, high ecclesiastical office are no proof that a minister is taught by the
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Spirit. The successors of Nicodemus in every age are far more numerous than the successors of St.
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Peter. On no point is religious ignorance so common as on the work of the
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Holy Ghost. That old stumbling block in which Nicodemus stumbled is as much an offense to thousands in the present day as it was in the days of Christ.
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The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. Happy is he who has been taught to prove all things by Scripture and to call no man master upon earth.
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And so the problem was with Nicodemus in his day, the problem was in the 19th century, the problem is still today, always has been and always will be until the
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Lord returns. And so Nicodemus was in need of this work of God's grace in his soul, a transformative work in which he would become a new man, a new creature, and it would result in him understanding that he had no merit, nothing to commend him onto God, that God must extend to him his grace or else he'll perish.
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Arthur Pink wrote a book on regeneration, it's not one of his longer ones, it's only about 40 pages in length, and he addresses twofold need of the forgiveness of sin by God and the receiving of new life from God.
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And we set forward last week that we think that this is what was advocated, you need to be born of water and of spirit, they're not two births spoken there, one birth, a cleansing from sin and new life.
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And what I'm saying is that all too frequently today the idea of salvation is simply and only the forgiveness of sins, but forgiveness of sins is only one half of the equation, people need new life.
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And John the Baptist emphasized the need for forgiveness of sins and Jesus is emphasizing the need for new life, the spirit must impart life.
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So Arthur Pink wrote, two chief obstacles lie in the way of the salvation of any of Adam's fallen descendants, bondage to the guilt and penalty of sin, secondly bondage to the power and presence of sin, or in other words they are being bound for hell and they're being unfit for heaven.
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These obstacles are so far as man is concerned entirely insurmountable, a lost sinner might more easily create a world than save his own soul.
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He went on to write of these two works of grace, as intimated above, two things are absolutely essential in order to salvation, deliverance from the guilt and penalty of sin, deliverance from the power and presence of sin.
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The one is secured by the mediatorial work of Christ, the other is accomplished by the effectual operations of the
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Holy Spirit. The one is the blessed result of what the Lord Jesus did for God's people, the other is the glorious consequence of what the
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Holy Spirit does in God's people. And again you know
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I wish I would have put it in my notes, what we have today all too often is a form of godliness without the power thereof.
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An idea that you know people can have forgiveness of sins and yet still not have the power of God to make them into righteous persons who are suited and fitted to live and dwell in the kingdom of God.
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And if we're presenting that kind of gospel we've truncated the gospel, we're not being true to scripture and we're not being true to souls.
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In response to the question posed by Nicodemus, our Lord responded to him in verses six and seven, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit of spirit.
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Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. It's pointed. And we explained last week that we should avoid limiting
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Jesus's use of flesh by uncritically importing Paul's common use of the term flesh to speak of the sinful nature.
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Clearly that is involved here, but it should not be reduced only that Jesus was talking about the sinful nature.
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As one wrote, this further statement by Jesus serves to reinforce the radical nature of the cleansing and renewal from God.
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The concept of flesh is not to be simplistically imported from the apostle Paul, for in John, that is in John's gospel, flesh is merely the body and its limitations, which is sharply contrasted to the source of the children of God, which is supernatural and entirely from the outside of a person.
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The point is quite simple, flesh and spirit are different spheres of reality, each producing offspring like itself.
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This is important. In other words, in verse six, that which is born of flesh is flesh is describing more broadly our limitation as finite, yes, sinful, but finite, principally finite creatures in this world, and we're not suited to live in a spiritual world in the kingdom of God.
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And so we are incapable through natural birth to enter into the kingdom of God, which is characterized by another kind of existence in the presence of an infinite
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God, that which is born of flesh is flesh, that which is born of spirit is spirit, the two cannot mix.
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You need to be born of the spirit, Nicodemus. And so the Lord Jesus, who himself became flesh,
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John 1, told Nicodemus that because he was but a human being and that he was a sinful human being, he was unable to enter the kingdom of God.
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He was not qualified to dwell in God's presence. And so, yes, he needed cleansing from sin.
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He needed pardon for his sin, but he needed much more. He needed new life imparted to him from above.
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He was in need of a new kind of life, not just forgiveness of sin, as critically important as that is.
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He was in need of a spiritual dimension or existence imparted to him that would enable him to experience and enjoy life with God and in the presence of God.
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And as he currently was, he was not suited for it. He was unfit for the kingdom.
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More was needed than a physical birth, only that which is born of the spirit can enter the kingdom of God.
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Matthew Henry addressed both causes of our limitation to dwell with God. He was so sharp writing so long ago, but he spoke about both of these needs that the non -Christian must receive by God's grace, the necessity of this change.
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First, Christ here shows that it is necessary in the nature of the thing, for we are not fit to enter the kingdom of God till we are born again.
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That which is born of the flesh is flesh. Here is our malady with the causes of it, which are such that it's plain.
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There is no remedy, but we must be born again. We are told what we are. We are flesh, not only corporal, but corrupt.
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There you have the two ideas, sinful, but also, you know, we don't live within that spiritual dimension.
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We're but flesh. The soul is still a spiritual substance, but so wedded to the flesh, so captivated by the will of the flesh, so in love with the delights of the flesh, so employed in making provision for the flesh that it's mostly called flesh.
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It is carnal. And what communion can there be between God who is a spirit and a soul in this condition?
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Two, how we came to be so, by being born of the flesh. It is a corruption that is bred in the bone with us, and therefore we cannot have a new nature, but we must be born again.
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The corrupt nature, which is flesh, takes rise from our first birth, and therefore the new nature, which is spirit, must take rise from a second birth.
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Nicodemus spoke of entering again into his mother's womb and being born, but if he could do so, to what purpose?
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If he were born of his mother a hundred times, that would not mend the matter, for still that which is born of flesh is flesh.
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A clean thing cannot be brought out of an unclean. He must seek for another original, must be born of the spirit, or he cannot become spiritual.
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The case is, in short, this, though man is made to consist of body and soul, yet his spiritual part had then so much the dominion over his corporal part that he was denominated a living soul,
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Genesis 2, 7, speaking of Adam. But by indulging the appetite of the flesh, and eating forbidden fruit, he prostituted the just dominion of the soul to the tyranny of sensual lust, and became no longer a living soul, but flesh.
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Dust thou art, was the declaration. And so is it any wonder that Jesus would say in verse 7 to Nicodemus, do not marvel that I said to you.
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This isn't something that's surprising, should be surprising to you. Don't marvel,
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I said to you, you must be born again. Now there's something here in the
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Greek pronouns, in the Greek text, that is not apparent in the English text, but it's important.
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Pronouns, of course, can either be singular or plural, just like nouns. And so in English, the first person singular is
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I, I did this. The first person plural would be, we did this.
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And then the third person singular would be either he, she, or it, singular.
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A plural personal pronoun, third person, would be they. He, she, or it, singular, plural, they.
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However, in English, of course, our second person, you, is spelt the same way in both singular and plural.
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And so depending on the context, I could either be speaking about you as an individual, or I could be speaking about you collectively, all of you together.
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But in Greek, the pronoun for you is different, it's spelt differently between singular and plural.
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And it's very interesting here in verse seven, when
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Jesus said, Nicodemus, do not marvel, I said to you, that first you is singular. But then in the second clause, you must be born again,
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Jesus switches to a plural pronoun. And so he's really causing Nicodemus to look beyond, not just Nicodemus, but the whole human race, needs to be born again.
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So the Spirit of God, you know, speaking through Jesus, Nicodemus, he's telling you and me, we need to be born again too, or we're going to be in the same miserable condition of Nicodemus.
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There's no hope for us unless God takes the initiative and causes something quite miraculous and remarkable to transform us.
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And so there's an expanding emphasis here in verse seven. By natural birth, people become members of an earthly family, to become members of the family of God, to receive the spiritual nature, which alone can gain admittance to his kingdom, a birth from above is necessary, absolutely necessary.
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And so all human beings are in need of being born again.
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You, I need to be born again by the grace of God, by the
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Holy Spirit of God. And unless he does it, there's no hope for us. We need new life.
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You need new life. And sadly, there are many, like Nicodemus, walking around in our churches who believe themselves forgiven of their sins, but they're void of new life.
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And it's apparent because of how they think, how they feel, and how they live.
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They perhaps have been promised and they've assured themselves that they have the forgiveness of sins, but they're still living in this earthly existence.
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And they're clueless about the life and the kingdom of God, which is spiritual in nature.
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They need to be born again. And so our
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Lord made it clear to Nicodemus that he was powerless to affect this change or even qualify himself to receive this blessing from God.
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Jesus makes it clear, this is a sovereign work of God. He declares it in verse eight, the wind blows where it lists.
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You hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell where it comes from, where it goes. So as everyone who is born of the spirit.
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Edershine mentioned, you know, perhaps the spring breeze is blowing through the streets that maybe, you know, you can, you can well imagine how, how, you know, this, this breeze came up, this wind came up and the
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Lord Jesus has immediately made this parallel to Nicodemus with the spirit and with the wind.
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And so here, the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit actually is set forth. The wind is a metaphor of the
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Holy Spirit, but it goes deeper than that. The actual Greek word translated for spirit is the same
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Greek word translated as wind or breath happens to be in the same, in the old
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Testament, by the way, the same Hebrew word can be translated, either wind or spirit, depending on the context.
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Clearly the Lord Jesus was telling Nicodemus that the Holy Spirit is sovereign in whom he creates life, even the breath of eternal life.
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As one wrote, the hidden work of the spirit of the human heart cannot be controlled or seen, but its effects are unmistakably evident.
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We're talking about sovereign grace here. It's so clearly set forth in John chapter three, any honest
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Arminian would come here, he'd end up reformed. Jesus is clearly telling Nicodemus that he was powerless to effect, qualify himself, bring about any change.
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It was a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit that affects this change. And by the way, we've underscored this, it's important to say this,
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Jesus never gives instruction to Nicodemus as to certain steps he could take in order to be born again.
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He's telling Nicodemus, you must be born again, but Nicodemus was powerless to do anything about it.
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And by the way, I'm going to find a quote this week, I recalled it yesterday, that some ministries and some evangelists will emphasize the need for the new birth.
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And I read years ago that this was the early message of George Whitefield. For about three years into his evangelistic ministry, he'd go out and he'd be preaching people need to be born again, which is a truism.
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But he came to the realization that people can't cause themselves to be born again.
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I'm telling them something they need, but there's really nothing they can do. And he shifted or changed his message principally to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
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And his ministry was transformed by the Lord blessing that ministry.
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And I remember where I read it now, it was in Lloyd -Jones, D. Martin Lloyd -Jones biography, because he read about Whitefield and how he came to that, because Lloyd -Jones did the same thing in his ministry there in Wales as a young man.
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He preached regeneration, the need to be born again. And then he read about Whitefield and he came to realize, yeah,
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I'm telling them something they can't do anything about. And he began to preach repentance and faith.
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And he testified how the Lord greatly transformed his ministry and he began to see conversions.
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And we'll see that transition here in John 3. He's telling Nicodemus what he needed, but Nicodemus couldn't bring it about.
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But then he goes in to talk about the need to believe, the need for faith.
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And that's the emphasis toward the second half of John chapter 3. And so we'll consider that in more detail next week,
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Lord willing. But Jesus clearly is saying, just as the wind does what it wants to do when it wants to do it, so does the
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Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is sovereign in his operations, which is a wonderful thing.
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You know, again, we're not as the Arminians trying to find seekers, you know, trying to find people out there that are less offended by the gospel that we might be able to persuade to supposedly embrace
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Christ. We go out and preach the gospel to sinners and it's amazing whom the Lord chooses to save.
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It's a wonderful thing and it's an encouraging thing. And that understanding, of course, really stirred, began the whole century of missionary movement in the 19th century, where reformed guys in England, you know, came to the conclusion that God has a people out there among the heathen.
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He can save them and it's his purpose to save them. But I got to get the gospel to him because that's the means that God uses.
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And so it was reformed people that were really instrumental in the great missionary movement initially in the early 19th century.
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Well, just as the wind does what it wants to do when it wants to do it, so does the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is sovereign, as one commentator comments.
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The effective, though invisible, operation of the Spirit ought not to cause men surprise, since the privy and perceptible working of the wind testifies to the reality and power of what's beyond human sight.
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The analogy is all the more remarkable, because the same word in Greek and Hebrew means both wind and spirit.
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The whole sentence about the wind is word for word directly applicable to the Spirit. What those who have been born of the
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Spirit are, whence they come, whither they go, is incomprehensible to the world, as incomprehensible as Jesus himself to the
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Jews. In fact, there's a translation, it's an errant translation, but because this
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Greek word can be translated either wind or spirit, there's a translation, English translation actually translates it spirit instead of wind, but the context clearly shows that that is an incorrect translation.
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And so the analogy of our Lord is very clever and full of meaning and implication. Another wrote, the meaning is found not in the point of reconciliation between differences, but in the one thing both wind and spirit have in common, the mysterious, the unseen.
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The further apart the two might appear only enhances what they have in common, and this is exactly what
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Jesus stresses. The wind cannot be controlled, it contains its own power.
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The wind can be heard and even recognized, but it cannot be known or analyzed. Its activities, though active in and around us, are wholly other.
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It is at one and the same time a part of our experience and yet totally beyond us, entirely outside of what we know to do.
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And so it is with the spirit. Jesus's comparison is not between wind and lowercase spirit, but he has creatively necessitated the term referred to the uppercase spirit.
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In other words, the Holy Spirit, not just human spirit. For only the spirit is able to provide the new birth.
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The creative use of spirit, wind, and spirit, Holy Spirit, capital S, allows
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Jesus to explain forcefully the mysterious power and activity of the spirit. Just as life is in the word, so also are spiritual things empowered by the spirit.
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The one born of the spirit, therefore, is nothing less than a mysterious, supernatural creation of God.
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Just as water and spirit, in verse 5, was echoing Ezekiel 36, this is clever by the way,
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I'd never seen this, so here the playful use term of wind, spirit, and spirit, capital
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S, echoes Ezekiel 37. That's the valley of dry bones where the spirit brings life to dead
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Israel. So the dead have breath put in them. This is the nature of the new birth which
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Jesus speaks. And Spurgeon, he's always got his way, and so I wanted to put this paragraph down.
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The Holy Spirit is like the wind because he is absolutely sovereign. Preachers scarcely like to tell their congregations nowadays that God gives his grace according to his own good pleasure.
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I learned when I was a boy that the chief end of man was to glorify God and enjoy him forever, but I hear now according to the new theology that the chief end of God is to glorify man and enjoy him forever.
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Yet this is turning of things upside down. The glory of God is still the chief end of the world's existence, and whether men will have it or so or not, the
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Lord has settled it. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion, so that it's not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God who shows mercy.
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No voice is more glad than mine to preach the free salvation of God to them that perish.
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In other words, we offer Christ to sinners, to every sinner, without any qualification.
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Come to Christ and have salvation. Believe on him, and yet he says, but God has not sunk his sovereignty in his bounty, his desire to abundantly bless.
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Jehovah still reigns, and the wind blows where it wishes, and not where man wills that it shall blow.
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The concept of spiritual life that God imparts to people was unintelligible to Nicodemus. He was clueless.
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He couldn't comprehend it, for spiritual truth must be apprehended by the Spirit. A fellow named
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Hoskins, who wrote a commentary back in the 40s, I see it referenced here and there, but he's not very well known.
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He wrote these words, knowledge, true theological knowledge and apprehension, capacity to see the dominion or the kingdom of God is not secured by acquiring more and more information.
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Nicodemus already possessed quite sufficient information, both acquired and hereditary.
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The knowledge of God demands reorientation, a new creative beginning, so ultimate and fundamental that the initial fact of birth provides the only analogy, proper analogy.
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The only proper analogy in the sense that all other analogies depend upon it, but Nicodemus does not understand this, nor does he understand what a sign or parable is.
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By a strange paradox, the man who's come to converse about God and is sure that he knows what a divine mission is turns out to be, in spite of his delicate perceptions, a complete materialist.
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He can conceive of no birth other than that which made him what he is. He's grown old in the service of God, and an old man cannot begin all over again.
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Indeed, is not the life he is now living as a rabbi and Pharisee the life demanded by God? That's how he would have thought.
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Nicodemus is a materialist, not because he takes visible human life seriously, but because he does not see what it means.
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He does not see the human birth itself speaks, that which lies beyond it and above it.
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It's speaking of the creative act of God, birth from above. Jesus meets the expressed unbelief of Nicodemus by asserting what he had said with greater precision is not merely a question of knowledge, as though the kingdom of God were a thing to be seen and known as if it were from outside.
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The dominion of God is that under which men must live. They must enter into it, for it is their proper life, but no one belongs to the
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Israel of God unless he's been purified and created by the Spirit of God.
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And there again, we have those two works of grace, pardon, purified, and created, transformed.
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Well, we read further this dialogue in verses 9 and 10. Nicodemus answered, said to him, how can these things be?
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And Jesus answered and said to him, are you the teacher of Israel and you don't know these things?
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Even though Nicodemus reflects his ignorance, he had this realization.
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What he was hearing was profound and would change everything that he had ever believed.
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It would discredit everything he had ever done and would dismiss every motivation that ever stirred him onward in the
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Jews religion. Those few words of Jesus. The Lord Jesus did not seem to make it easy for him.
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Are you the teacher of Israel? You don't know these things. It would appear that our
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Lord drew attention, his attention, to consider the high regard and position that he had attained, but he should have understood what was being told to him, but he didn't.
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As Ryle wrote on J .C. Ryle, these verses show us firstly what gross spiritual ignorance there may be in the mind of great and learned men.
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We see a master of Israel unacquainted with the first elements of saving religion. Nicodemus is told about the new birth and at once exclaims, how can these things be?
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When such was the darkness of a Jewish teacher, what must have been the state of the Jewish people? It was indeed due time for Christ to appear.
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The pastors of Israel had ceased to feed the people with knowledge. The blind were leading the blind and both were falling into the ditch.
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He was the teacher of Israel and he didn't get it, but notice as ignorant as Nicodemus was, he was culpable for his ignorance.
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Any man who dares to stand before others to teach in the word of God will not be able to plead ignorance when he stands before the
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Lord because the warning is clearly given. Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
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Nicodemus was culpable, guilty for his ignorance.
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When Jesus said to him, are you the teacher of Israel? You do not know these things. He was rebuking
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Nicodemus for his spiritual ignorance. He was culpable and accountable.
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As one wrote, Nicodemus confessed himself baffled by all this. This puzzled question elicits the gentle reminder that a man in his position ought not to find it all so very difficult.
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The teacher of Israel points at very least to preeminence as a teacher. The article, aren't you the teacher?
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Not without the article, aren't you a teacher? He doesn't say that. The article may indicate that Nicodemus held some official position, but if so, if he did, we really don't know what that position was according to Leon Morris.
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Again, I might draw your attention to some thoughts about Alfred Edersheim. He thought the issue that stymied
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Nicodemus was the order in which Jesus arranged the new birth and entrance into the kingdom. Nicodemus would have agreed with the notion that to enter the kingdom would result in one entering a new life, that it would be like a new birth.
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But for Nicodemus, he thought that all of life's preparation qualified for his entrance, and then it would be like he would be entering into a new life.
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Jesus told him, however, that he had the order all wrong. He must first be given the new life, and only then would he be qualified to enter the kingdom.
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It was a reversal of how Nicodemus, that was his worldview. As one wrote, according, this was
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Edersheim, according to the Jewish view, the second birth was the consequence of having taken upon yourself the kingdom.
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That's what Nicodemus had done all his life. Not, as Jesus put it, the cause and condition of it.
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The proselyte, that would be the Gentile convert to Judaism, had taken upon himself the kingdom and therefore was born anew.
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Nicodemus would have understood that, while Jesus put it that he must be born again in order to save the kingdom of God.
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What Nicodemus had seen of Jesus had not only shaken the confidence which his former views on this subject had engendered in him, but it opened
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Nicodemus to dim possibilities, the very suggestion of which filled him with uneasiness of his past and vague hopes as to the future.
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This rattled him, and I cannot help but think that Nicodemus walked home that night in an unsettled and even as a quivering man as he thought about these words.
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He'd been taken to the school of Christ and he learned more than what he thought he needed to know.
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His whole world had been turned upside down, or at least now he was pondering whether he'd been viewing things wrongly all his life.
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And so he must have come to see that he had so much to learn and he had a whole lot more to unlearn. He was starting anew already,
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I would think. As one wrote, all this sounded quite strange and unintelligible to Nicodemus.
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He could understand how a man might become other and so ultimately be other.
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In other words, you enter the kingdom and then as a result you're transformed. But how a man could first be other in order to become other, more than that needed to be born from above in order to see the kingdom of God passed alike his experience in his
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Jewish thinking. He didn't think in those terms. There was only one gate by which a man could pass into the kingdom of God, for that which was of the flesh could ever be only fleshly.
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Here a man might strive, as did the Jews, by outward conformity to become, but he would never attain to being.
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That kingdom was spiritual. Here a man must be, be born again in order to become, that is to come into the kingdom and enjoy its blessing.
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And so perhaps this short little visit with Jesus, this short interchange that we have recorded,
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I don't know how long it was, caused Nicodemus to ponder again the scriptures, which he knew thoroughly, at least he thought he knew thoroughly.
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Had he pondered the holy scriptures and the Holy Spirit helped him in his quest, he would have found that even though he was a teacher of Israel, Jesus was right, he should have known these things, because they're found in the holy scriptures.
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Jesus appealed to him, you should know these things, Nicodemus, you know the scriptures, our
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Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures, because the Old Testament clearly speaks of the need for the new birth and regeneration by God's grace.
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For example, Deuteronomy 528 and following, we'll just cite a couple of them. When God had given his law to Moses, or to Israel through Moses, Moses returned to God, telling
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God that people made this commitment, everything that he has said to us we will do. And then we have this word of exclamation on the part of God, and so we read in Deuteronomy 528, then the
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Lord heard the voice of your words, Moses is recounting to the people what took place, when you spoke to me and the
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Lord said to me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you, they are right in all that they have spoken.
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They were right to say, we'll do what you've commanded us to do. And then God says this, oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear me always, keep all my commandments, that it might be well with them and their children forever.
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They didn't have a heart within them. There was no provision in the Mosaic covenant for them to have a new heart.
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And here the people of Israel, the nation of Israel, agreed to order their life according to the laws of God.
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And here it's intimated by God himself, their need for the new birth.
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Psalm 51 10 and 11, King David in his confession of his great sin, requested of God to give him a new heart by the
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Holy Spirit. Create in me a clean heart O God, renew a steadfast spirit within me, do not cast me away from your presence, do not take your
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Holy Spirit away from me. Now David was asking for renewal and restoration, but it suggests the need for a new birth, a new heart, a new creation in order to have a blessed relationship with God.
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God had to do something. Ezekiel 18 30 through 32, the prophet addressed the nation of Israel at a time when it was under the wrath of God for having broken their covenant with God.
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He was an exilic prophet. The Jews were in Babylon as it were.
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And here the Lord spoke through his prophet speaking of their need for a new heart and a new spirit. Nicodemus should have known this.
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Therefore I will judge you, God speaking, O house of Israel, every one of you according to your ways, says the Lord, repent, turn from all your transgressions so that iniquity will not be your ruin, cast away from you all the transgressions which you've committed and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.
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Now that's a command of God to these people. Obviously people are powerless to get themselves a new heart.
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Jesus told Nicodemus that, but here it clearly shows their need for one. And then later on in Ezekiel we see
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God's provision for the new heart in Ezekiel 36. Here God was declaring he would cause a remnant of Jews to return to their homeland after the
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Babylonian exile and he would give that remnant his salvation. To them he sent the
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Messiah. He would do so by cleansing them of their sin and by giving them the
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Holy Spirit. There again you have that two works of grace, forgiveness and new life. He would give them the
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Holy Spirit, enabling them to order their lives according to God's laws. I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, bring you into your own land.
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And that's not a promise of some future event to us Jews returning to Palestine. This was fulfilled when the
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Jews came back from the Babylonian exile. And then I will sprinkle clean water upon you, an emblem of cleansing of sin.
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And you should be clean and I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. And I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.
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And I'll take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them.
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And then you should dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers and you should be my people and I will be your God. That's covenant language.
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But here again we have God declaring that he was going to transform this people by giving them the
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Holy Spirit as well as cleansing them from sin. J .C. Ryle wrote,
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Nicodemus professed to know the Old Testament scriptures. The doctrine therefore of the necessity of a new birth ought not to appear strange to him.
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A clean heart, circumcision of the heart, a new heart, a heart of stone instead of a heart of flesh were expressions and ideas which he must have read in the prophets and which all pointed towards the new birth.
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His ignorance consequently was deserving of blame. And Jesus clearly laid it on him.
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F .F. Bruce, I really appreciate his writing ministry in the 20th century.
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He wrote in the same vein, the description of Nicodemus as a teacher of Israel implies that he had some standing among the rabbis of the day.
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He might therefore been expected to comprehend Jesus's teaching which was not a complete innovation but was implicit in the
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Hebrew scriptures and not in the prophets only. The safe passage of Noah and his family through the flood to start life anew in a new world, the redeemed
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Israelites crossing of the Sea of Reeds to be a people set apart for God, Naaman the
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Syrian's baptism in Jordan whereby his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child and he was clean.
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These and other Old Testament incidents were parables of the truth which Jesus was endeavoring to convey to Nicodemus.
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The Naaman incident in particular was regarded as a precedent for proselyte baptism,
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Naaman a Syrian. But from none of these scriptures had Nicodemus learned the lesson that the
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Jews by natural descent as well as for proselytes the life of the age to come and participation in the kingdom of God could be attained only through the gateway of regeneration.
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It's taught throughout the Old Testament. Years ago
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I had the privilege of spending five days with James Montgomery Boyce and so I had a couple questions
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I wanted to pose to him. Things I was searching out myself and I asked him
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I said how was it that Jesus could tell you know Nicodemus that he should have known these things and Boyce proceeded basically to unpack what we've just considered here that throughout the
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Old Testament the new birth is anticipated you know hinted at intimated at and prophesied that it would come to pass he should have known these things and he was absolutely right.
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Nicodemus should have known these things. The entire Old Testament record is a history of the total failure of the people to live in the kingdom of God over which
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God the creator was their king. The promised mediatorial kingdom of the Messiah would secure a people however who would be willingly compliant happily so to the laws of God administered by their king the son of David who was a son of God and so the prophets are replete with foretelling of the coming kingdom of God and a transformed people that would be living within this kingdom with the blessing of God.
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We'll not read that passage from Micah but that's a prophecy of the coming kingdom and so the
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Lord rebuked Nicodemus he should have known better and later one of the
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Lord's own Peter would stand up in Jerusalem and declare all the prophets who have ever spoken have foretold these days
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Nicodemus should have known had he known truly the meaning of the scriptures.
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Thomas Schreiner who wrote a wonderful biblical theology telling the story of the Old New Testament as it unfolds and flows wrote this as a summary of the prophet's message exile is not a permanent condition as the
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Jews off in the Babylonian exile and scattered throughout all the nations. The promise that the offspring of the woman would triumph over the serpent was not withdrawn hearkening back to Genesis 3 15.
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The promise made to Abraham of offspring land and worldwide blessing would still be fulfilled as with the promise that a king from David's line would reign the prophets promised that Israel will return to the land a new exodus is coming.
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Yahweh will go before the nation Jehovah will go before the nation and bring them back to Israel the
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Lord does not only promise a new exodus but a new creation the mountains will drip with sweet wine and all nature will be transformed for there will be a new heaven and a new earth and the
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Lord also pledges to make a new covenant with the people Yahweh Jehovah would write his law in the hearts of his people he would pour out his spirit and the spirit would indwell their hearts so that they would do his will
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Israel would gladly submit to Yahweh or Jehovah's rule and count the coming new creation would be a new paradise but it would be a paradise better than the old paradise for nothing will ever defile it and basically the
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Lord Jesus was telling Nicodemus that day has arrived and unless you get born again you're not going to see it you're not going to enter it you're not suited for it you're not equipped for it your whole nature is unqualified you need a new nature given to you by the blessed holy spirit we're going to stop there and next week we'll pick up with verse 12 and I just draw your attention there's a curious change of pronouns that Jesus uses and in our new
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King James version not the ESV but in the new King James version that capitalizes pronouns for deity which is which
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I prefer Jesus says most assuredly I say to you we speak of what we know and testify what we have seen and you don't receive our witness why did
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Jesus speak in the plural there who is he referring to and it's in your notes if you care to read it but we'll we'll address it next week lord willing let's pray our father we recognize that encountering and enjoying salvation is more as blessed as that is the forgiveness of sins is much more his new life and that lord just being born into this world does not qualify us for entrance we need this new birth and we thank you our god that you have affected that new birth in so many of us we were ignorant far more ignorant than Nicodemus and we were in rebellion far more than Nicodemus was and yet you intervened and caused us to be born anew born again you put within us new desires new delights new aspirations you drew us to yourself and revealed
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Christ to us and transformed us and we pray our god that you would do that work again lord in these days in so many different lives revive us our god revive our church revive our community our region bless the gospel bless your churches lord that are promoting proclaiming