Friday
Friday
The Encounter with Nicodemus
Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
John 3:3
Nicodemus is an outstanding example of a sincere seeker after the truth. If only there were more Nicodemuses in the world today—men and women who are prepared to lay aside apathy, prejudice, and fear and seek the truth with an honest and humble spirit! “Seek and you will find,” Jesus promised (Matt 7:7).
Jesus must have startled Nicodemus by telling him that he must be born again. What did he mean? Obviously he was not referring to a second physical birth or to an act of self-reformation. Nor can Jesus have been alluding to Christian baptism, since it was not instituted until after the resurrection. To be sure, baptism is the sign or sacrament of the new birth, but we must not confuse the outward sign with the inward thing signified. Baptism is a visible public dramatization of the new birth, which is itself an invisible and secret work of God, by which he gives us a new life, a new beginning.
Moreover (Jesus said), we must be born again. Without the new birth we can neither see nor enter God’s kingdom. Nicodemus was religious, moral, educated, respectable, and courteous. He even believed in the divine origin of Jesus. But all this was not enough. He still needed to be born again.
So how does this new birth take place? From one point of view, it is entirely a work of God. Nobody has ever given birth to himself. So the new birth is a birth “from above,” a birth “of the Holy Spirit.” But from our side we have both to repent and to believe. Nicodemus could not bypass John’s baptism of repentance. This was surely what Jesus meant by being “born of water.” Then he must believe, putting his trust in Jesus the Messiah, who was the Savior he needed.
For further reading: John 3:1–16