Two Births, Two Resurrections and Only One Death

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

Nicodemus and the New Birth from Above

The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the third chapter. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, 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.

Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 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?

Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Nicodemus said to Him, How can these things be? Jesus answered him, Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.

If I have told you of earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.

This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

I need a prop for a sermon illustration, so just think of this as like an herbal supplement. Would you do that for me? Thank you.

All right.

So have you noticed that human beings have this thing? They're afraid of death. And there are people who make all kinds of money by playing on that fear. I mean, have you ever been like scrolling through social media and you see an ad that says something like this?

Ah, we have found an herbal supplement that is put together from rare herbs that are only found in Tibet and places like this. And quick, you need to act now before they, they, they take this video down because they don't want you to know about this herbal supplement because this herbal supplement will take 10 years off of your life.

It will make you 100 pounds lighter. It will actually reinvigorate you. And if you're in your 50s, people will swear you are in your late 20s. Quick, act now for five easy payments of only $49 .95. You can have this herbal supplement and, well, again, act now before they, they keep you from doing it.

So a person purchases this nonsense, right, this herbal supplement, and they got up-saled some extra turmeric to go along with it because we all know the benefits of turmeric, right? And so death starts knocking on their door, and the person pulls out their bottle of herbal supplement and says, Be gone, death.

I have taken the supplement. And death goes, Right. Yeah. You'll note that we do that, right? And so here's the thing. Have you noticed that when we read in the Scriptures that we Christians are not promised, are not promised that death will not come to visit us?

In fact, when you look at the way Scripture talks about birth and death, you'll note that your physical death doesn't even measure in the discussion. It's the weirdest thing, okay? So here's what we're going to do.

We're going to take a look at why this is. Why is it and how we can kind of work this out, and we'll work through our text this way. So first note, Christ says, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

You see, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Note where the emphasis is. Salvation through Christ, that you will not perish but have eternal life.

And the question is, be saved from what? Perish in what way? Because you'll note that as a pastor, I've buried a few folks from Kong's Finger, right? And if I continue to serve here, there's a good chance I'll bury some more Kong's Finger folks.

That's what we pastors are called to do. And I can legitimately say that each person that I have buried in a physical sense has perished. But have they now? Really? That's kind of the thing that we're going to focus in on.

So our text begins, Gospel of John chapter 3. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, 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.

Now Nicodemus has to be credited here. He's recognizing a few things that in all of human history there was nobody that can do miraculous signs like Jesus. In fact, that's still true to this day. Every wingnut wackerdoodle in the Pentecostal churches that claim that we can do greater miracles than Jesus doesn't understand what the text is talking about.

When Jesus says you can do greater works. So Nicodemus notes here, you have to be from God. These cannot be demonic signs. They have to be truly signs that you have been sent from God. And so Jesus, you'll note that he does something interesting.

He does this quite annoyingly, but not so much annoyingly if you think about it. He changes the subject. Have you noticed that people come to Jesus and they want to talk about one thing and Jesus isn't interested in talking about that thing.

He's interested in talking about another thing. Jesus isn't interested in talking about himself. He's interested in Nicodemus' soul. He's interested in his salvation. And he knows exactly what Nicodemus needs to hear so that he repents and trusts in Christ.

And you'll note it's Nicodemus who was there when Christ's body was taken down from the cross and he helped prepare Christ's body for burial. Important things that we consider here. So Jesus says to him, amen, amen.

That's what it says in the Greek, amen, amen. I say to you, unless one is born, I always like to keep this word untranslated, unless one is born anothen, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Well, that's an abrupt change of subject with no segue.

Thanks, Jesus, my head is still spinning, right? And so here we are then, we are now confronted with the fact that for Christians, there is a second birth. And it's important that we keep our births right and our resurrections right and our deaths right.

We kind of have to work through this biblically. So you'll note our Old Testament text last week, Adam and Eve were clearly told by God. Actually, God told this to Adam and Adam taught it to Eve that they eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

They would surely, truly die. Did they?

The answer is yes.

They absolutely died. But you sit there and go, how is that so? Because they were breathing when God handed out the curses and the punishments and stuff. How can you say that they died? And here's where we must understand something.

Scripture makes it clear that we are not to lean on our own understandings. We are to trust in the Lord with all of our hearts and lean not on our own understandings. So when we talk about death as human beings, we oftentimes define it according to what?

Our experience. But our experiences are not the measure of divine biblical doctrine. So when we talk about death, we are going to need to adapt our definition of death and expand it out so that when we are talking about the death that God is talking about and the birth that God is talking about, that we're going to have to adapt so that our definitions now are informed and conformed to the biblical definition.

We do not let experiences define our theology. Instead, our experiences have to be judged by biblical doctrine so that our understanding of theology is correct. So did Adam and Eve die that day? Yes, they did.

You look at the book of Ephesians chapter 2, and Ephesians says that you were all once dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of the prince of the power of this world, things like this, right?

So we were all born and conceived dead in trespasses and sins. So what is this death that God was referring to back in Genesis? It's a spiritual death. That's legitimately what took place. And you'll note in Adam's case, 900-something years after his fall into sin, his body then went dead too, right?

The spiritual death leads to physical death, and God has spaced out those events, if you would. So it's absolutely true that Adam and Eve died on the day that they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

This is why we are all born and conceived even dead, dead as a doornail when it comes to God, dead. And we're not talking mostly dead. Miracle Max can't fix this. We're talking totally stone-cold spiritually dead.

So what Christ is talking about here then is being born anothen. Now the Greek word anothen can mean again and can also mean from above. Nicodemus reaches into his experience bag and tries to figure out what Jesus is saying and hinting at with him by trying to interpret it according to his understanding of things.

So Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Of course not. That's ridiculous.

That's silly.

That's actually gross. That's not what God is talking about here. That's not what Jesus is getting at. So Jesus kind of doesn't rebuke Nicodemus, just kind of keeps going on. He says, listen, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, what's that a reference to?

Yeah, it's a reference to that over there, the baptismal font. It's an actual reference to baptism. He cannot enter the kingdom of God. And then listen to the words. That which is born of the flesh is flesh.

That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. We need to be spiritually raised from the dead. This is most certainly true. In fact, here's where another biblical text will help us just a little bit. In the book of Revelation, chapter 20, we hear this in verse 6.

Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power. Now I'm just complicating things because it sounds like we're doing math, right? But here's the thing.

Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the what? First resurrection. Those who are born from above, who are born by the Spirit, who are born again. All of these phrases are biblically correct. That is the person then, like you and like I, who has experienced the first resurrection.

What's the second resurrection? The resurrection of your physical body, right? And you'll note that Christ here talks about the fact, Scripture talks about the fact, that there is not only a rebirth, but that rebirth is likened to and described as a first resurrection.

And that first resurrection then makes it so that the second death has no power over you. What was the first one again? You were spiritually dead when you were conceived because of the sin of Adam and Eve.

What's the second death according to Scripture? The second death is being thrown into the lake of fire on the last day with the devil and all of his demons. That's the second death. Now you're going to note something here.

When we start to kind of count this up, those who are twice born do not experience the second death. Those who are twice born in this life are already experiencing the first resurrection. Those who are twice born will also experience a second resurrection unto eternal life.

In fact, everybody receives the resurrection unto eternal life, but only the twice born are the ones who are kept from the second death. Now, you might want to ask the question here, yeah, but what about my physical death here?

Because, you know, the graveyard out here has like two dates on it. You know, birth date, death date. There's two dates on every tombstone. What about the one that's coming for me that's going to be that second date?

I'll be blunt. Scripture doesn't really care about that. And here's the reason why. Jesus says that everyone who believes in him will never die. In other words, because you have already been buried with Christ, raised with Christ, the Spirit has made you alive and regenerated.

You've experienced the first resurrection. That means you're never going to die. And you sit there and go, but I see people dying all the time. Who are you going to believe, Jesus or your experiences?

Stop relying on your experiences. Your death legitimately, in the grand scheme of things, is a non-event. Except for you, when you die, you're going to finally see Jesus face to face. So it's going to be a big deal for you.

This is why Christians can die well. This is why Christians can die as martyrs. And this is why we don't fall for those stupid, and I mean legitimately stupid, theological, nonsensical theologies that claim things akin to the herbal supplement here.

Have you heard that Ken Copeland claims that God has told him he will live to be 120? And the man already has a pacemaker. And he does this ridiculous thing. Have you noticed that Ken Copeland, that if you see video of him, he doesn't have a single gray hair on his head?

And what does he teach people? He teaches people that the reason why he has no gray on his head is because he uses the power of his faith-filled words. And so he speaks to his hair. And he puts his hand over his hair and he says, Hair, in the name of Jesus, I command you to stay the right color and not turn gray.

And he teaches people to do this. I've seen audiences where you have bald guys doing this to themselves. It's absurd.

Right?

So note here, God doesn't save us from physical death. That's not the point of Christianity. Nor is God really in the business of making it so that your life can be expanded out beyond the normal up to 120 years or weird things like this.

Okay, so that being the case, Jesus says, So don't marvel that I said that you must be born anothen, born from above. The Spirit blows where it wishes. You hear its sound. You don't know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is what? Born of the Spirit. That's the first resurrection. And Nicodemus, okay, the emoji, you know, the little nuclear blast coming out of his cranium. He doesn't get this.

He goes, How can this be?

Right?

And Jesus said, Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know. We bear witness of what we've seen. But you don't receive our testimony.

If I have told you of earthly things and you don't believe, how can you believe me if I tell you of heavenly things? And then Jesus gets really interesting here. No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. So there's a little bit more of a hint here as to why it is we Christians still have to physically die.

And that's because of what Christ makes reference to here in the book of Numbers chapter 21. In Numbers 21, we get this account, and here's what the story says starting at verse 4. From Mount Hor, the children of Israel set out by the way to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom.

And the people became impatient on the way, and the people spoke against God and Moses. Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there's no food, there's no water. We loathe this worthless manna.

And I'm sure that they spoke these words like in the temper tantrum kind of tone of a three-year-old, right? So then Yahweh sent fiery serpents among the people. They bit the people so that many people of Israel died.

In previous sermons on this text, I've noted that the connections here between what takes place in the Garden of Eden and its impact on us to this day still is profound. You'll note that in the types and shadows and in the imagery of the Old Testament, the serpent is the one who brought our first parents into sin and tempted them, and they went for it.

And you'll note then that each and every one of us, because Scripture claims that we are all born dead in trespasses and sins, and the Scripture is correct, that we, each and every one of us, like Adam and Eve, are serpent bit.

We all have the venom of the serpent running through us. And you'll note that Adam and Eve, they weren't bitten on their legs. They were bitten in their ears through the words of Satan, right? And so we still have that venom running through us.

This is the reason why the children of Israel grumbled against God, grumbled against Moses. What should they have done? They should have trusted that God means to take care of them, and they should have asked them for their daily bread and the things that they need in humble faith.

But instead, they grumbled like a bunch of, well, privileged 3-year-olds, and as a result of it, God now punishes them. And here's the thing. Fiery serpents are not something you want to get bitten by.

The reason why they're called fiery serpents has literally nothing to do with how they look because they're bronze adders. They basically have a bronze color to them. The reason why they're called fiery serpents is because if you are the unfortunate one to be envenomated by one of these critters, basically, it is described as the pain that you feel, it's as if your entire insides have turned on fire.

This is the ultimate hot flash, if you would. But this is one where it ends in your death. And so many of the people of Israel, they died. They were bitten, and they died. And the people came to Moses, and they said, we've sinned, for we have spoken against Yahweh and against you.

Pray to Yahweh that he would take away the serpents from us. So Moses prayed for the people. And here's the thing. Did God take away the serpents? No, he did not. He did not take away his punishment. He did not take away the curse.

Instead, God had Moses do something that's quite interesting. He had Moses set up, if you would, a sacrament. Now, what is a sacrament? My catechumens should be paying attention to this part. A sacrament is when God takes his word and he attaches it to something physical on this earth.

Baptism is a washing of water and the word. The Lord's Supper is bread and wine. And then with the words of Christ added to it, it is also the body and blood of Christ given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins.

So here, God commands Moses to make a fiery serpent and to set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, then he shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent, set it on a pole, and if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

And you'll note, God didn't save them from the curse of fiery serpents. He saved them through the curse, through a promise. And Jesus then takes this imagery in John chapter three and applies it to himself.

He says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. Each and every one of us are truly snakebit under the dominion of darkness when we are conceived and born, and God is the one who delivers us from the dominion of darkness.

And it is true that we have eternal life. However, that is all apprehended and grasped by faith. And in the meantime, what happens to us? The normal thing. We grow up, we grow old, we grow weak, and we die.

This is how this goes from generation to generation to generation, and no herbal supplement from Tibet is going to stop this. In fact, the reality is this. You and I do not know when our death is, but when we, again, add up how the scriptures talk about birth and death and resurrection, the death that we need to have on our mind to avoid is the second one, not the first one, which we've all already experienced.

And you'll note that we can legitimately say that because we have been united with Christ in his death and his resurrection, as the scripture says, in the waters of baptism, we truly have already experienced the first resurrection, and we are those who are blessed as God's word claims that we are.

And this, then, is a great gift and a great mystery. And the nice thing about it, the fact that God doesn't really think that our physical death here and now is that big of a deal makes it possible for us to live without that fear of death anymore.

Death can come tomorrow, whoop-de-doo, right? In fact, it would be a benefit if it did for me, right? Same with you. Death can come for us at any time, and then we don't mourn as the world mourns regarding death.

Have you ever seen an unbeliever's funeral? Holy smokes, what a completely vapid and sad thing those things are. I remember once when I lived in Indiana, I was playing disc golf in the summer. I like to play disc golf.

And the park that I used to play disc golf at, they had this really nice gazebo, one of these things where people can rent them from the city and use them for parties and things like this. And I remember as I was approaching the 18th hole, they're called holes still, they're not really holes, it's really a basket.

But I was approaching the 18th hole, and I was watching as a bunch of people dressed in dark black colors were listening to a country and western song played out loud on kind of like a makeshift PA. And they had a bunch of balloons, and they were releasing the balloons.

And this was some kind of a symbol of something. And so I recognized one of the people that was there in the gazebo. And after I finished the 18th hole, I said, what's going on here? He says, oh, we're just having a life celebration over somebody that we know that just died.

And I went, oh.

And I said, well, is there a pastor here? He said, no, there's no pastor here. We just kind of gathered together, shared some stories, released a balloon, and played some of his favorite music.

Wow.

Right?

Eternal Life by Grace Through Faith, Not Escape from Physical Death

But the reality is this. We are already alive in Christ. We've already experienced the first resurrection. We are gonna be raised to eternal life. And so we know all of this is true because we believe these words, that God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

As Christians, we recognize then that we have been given the gift of salvation. It is not by our works. It is the gift of God. It is by grace through faith. And each and every one of us now possesses eternal life, which makes it possible that when we do finally expire here, our bodies catch up with death itself, that we will always be able to say to each other,.

I'll see you later.

It's never goodbye for the Christian. And so when we gather together here for a funeral, and boy, does Kongsvinger know how to put on a funeral, right? When we gather here for a funeral, we're here to proclaim Christ and him crucified for our sins, and in defiance of death itself, we proclaim that that person is still alive, even though they are not physically with us, because nobody who is in Christ ever eternally perishes, and Jesus makes it clear that God is the God of the living and not the dead.

And all of this is because of the good news, the good news that God did not send Jesus Christ into the world to condemn us or to scold us or to give us the eternal tsk, tsk, tsk. Why don't you guys get your act together?

No, that's not why he was sent. He was not sent to condemn us, but in order that we might be saved through him. So, brothers and sisters, know this, that there is a day coming when you will physically expire, but that's kind of a non-event.

There's the first birth, there's the second birth. There's the first resurrection, there's a second resurrection. And everybody who has experienced the first resurrection, they will never perish, because to perish is to experience not the first death, which we've all already experienced because of Adam and Eve, but to eternally perish is to experience the second death, that death where one is thrown into the lake of fire and spends an eternity in the torment of God's wrath along with the devil and his angels.

But we, even though this is what we have earned, God does not desire your damnation. Instead, he desires your salvation. And this is why God has sent his son, the one who bore your sin and mine on the cross.

And so we look to Jesus, crucified, and we look to him, just as Moses said, look to the serpent and live. We look to Christ and we live. And we know then that we are saved, not from temporal death, but we are saved from damnation and the second death and because of God's great love and mercy, Christ bleeding and dying for our sins, walking us then now through the curse, not taking us out of it.

We know and trust that we have eternal life. In the name of Jesus, amen.

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