Human Responsibility?

Introduction

Last week, we started looking at a conversation that Jesus was having with Nicodemus.

We found out that this man was the premier teaching in Israel, so he was well known through the nation.

He was a gifted teacher of the Law (first 5 books of the Bible) and probably had the whole thing memorized.

But we’ve seen that he still had questions on his heart.

Jesus weeded through the mess and said “truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born from above He cannot see the Kingdom of God (John 3:3).”

This flabbergasts Nicodemus, and he wonders if you have to return to your mothers womb to be born from above.

Jesus’s answer simply put is that you have to be born of the Spirit to be born again.

We cannot control the Spirit on whom and when He wishes to regenerate people; just as the wind, we can’t control it for find where it starts, but we can see evidence of its working.

This teaching astonishes Nicodemus. He knew Jesus was from God, but this was more than he could take.

Here we have the premier teacher of the Law being taught by the Law Giver, and He couldn’t handle a simple “hypothetical” analogy.

His religious system was turned on its head.

With that, we come to today’s text of Scripture, turn with me to John 3:11-21, we’re not going to cover it all today, but for contexts’ sake, we’ll read it all.

In this lesson, we are going to see Jesus say something that may seem contrary to last week.

Last week He said that those who are born again, can only be born again by the Holy Spirit. There is nothing that they can do to be born again, except by the Holy Spirit.

This week, Jesus is going to say that those who are born again have placed their faith in the Son of Man who has been lifted up on a tree.

These, God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, are not in conflict with one another.

We are going to see this passage broken down in three different sections:

Spiritual Blindness.

Divine Revelation.

Faith Alone.

Spiritual Blindness (vv. 11-12).

In verse 11, the Greek Word for “you” is a plural, which points back to the “we” that Nicodemus was speaking about in John 3:2.

This is where Nicodemus is referring to the whole nation of Israel, who saw Jesus perform miracles and the such in 2:23-25.

And then Jesus says “we”. He’s probably referring to himself plus a few more people. Who else has the nation of Israel heard preaching the same message as Christ?

Most probably John the Baptizer, who we learned about in chapter 1, where he was the forerunner of Christ.

He said “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

And then the disciples of Jesus, who from the wedding of Cana, have not left Jesus’s side.

So here in verse 11, Jesus saying, “All we can do is tell about what we know, and what we have seen, yet you guys continue to not believe us.”

They are blind to the truth that Jesus is teaching them.

Christ gets a little more in depth in the next couple of verses.

What does He say in verse 12? Essentially He is saying, “look, all I am doing is telling you earthly things, and you don’t believe, how are you going to believe heavenly things when I tell you them?”

Divine Revelation (v. 13).

In verse 13, Jesus separates Himself from all other religious forms claiming they have divine revelation.

Before Christ became man, He was dwelling in heaven with the Father.

Now He came to earth with divine revelation.

In fact, in essence, Jesus was the Word from God (John 1:1-3).

Hebrews 1:1-2.

So now, Jesus, the Son of God has come from heaven to reveal God to us.

John 1:18 “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”

You will remember that the Greek term for “explained” is the term where we get “exegete” from. That is what should be done every time we come to the Scriptures. They should be explained from what they say, not what we want them to say.

If we tamper with them at all, from Genesis to Revelation, we misrepresent God Himself, because it is in His Scriptures that He is revealed.

We must be careful.

Here in verse 13, Jesus is alluding to His incarnation. He is pointing to the fact that Heaven is His home!

Why does Jesus use the phrase “Son of Man”?

Jesus was explaining that He was the Messiah.

It comes from Daniel 7:13-14.

Jesus just claimed this title, as Messiah.

Because of that Jesus is basically rebuking the Nation of Israel because they are not believing in God, because they are not believing in Him.

Faith Alone (vv. 14-15).

Illustrating His point, Jesus goes to the Scriptures that Nicodemus knew, and explains in.

Numbers 21:4–9 “Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey. The people spoke against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.” The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.”

What is the bronze serpent that saved them?

No! It was God, as they trusted in Him that He was going to do what He said He was going to do.

Jesus uses this as an allusion or a veiled prediction of His death on the cross.

Not only did the cross lift those on it over the people, but where they were crucified on was a hill.

so that begs the question, is it the cross that saves us, or what God said He was going to do through Christ, on the cross, that saves us.

verse 15.

It is when we place our faith in Christ, and trust that He accomplished what He said He was going to accomplish do we have eternal life.

“Eternal life refers not only to eternal quantity but divine quality of life. It means literally ‘life of the age to come’ and refers therefore to resurrection and heavenly existence in perfect glory and holiness. This life for believers in the Lord Jesus is experienced before heaven is reached. This ‘eternal life’ is in essence nothing less than participation in the eternal life of the Living Word, Jesus Christ. It is the life of God in every believer, yet not fully manifest until the resurrection.” -John MacArthur.