JESUS TEACHES THE TEACHER

JOHN 2:23-3:21

2:23 Now while Jesus was in Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover, many people believed in his name because they saw the miraculous signs he was doing. 2:24 But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people.2:25 He did not need anyone to testify about man, for he knew what was in man.

The essence of verses 23–25 is that there are others who believed in the name of Jesus on the basis of His signs, “but Jesus would not entrust himself to them” (1:24 NIV, emphasis added). When the text says that He does not entrust Himself, the idea is that He does not connect Himself to these people like He does the disciples because He knows their hearts.

3:1 Now a certain man, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council,3:2 came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.”

sn The reference to signs (σημεῖα, sēmeia) forms a link with John 2:23–25. Those people in Jerusalem believed in Jesus because of the signs he had performed. Nicodemus had apparently seen them too. But for Nicodemus all the signs meant is that Jesus was a great teacher sent from God. His approach to Jesus was well-intentioned but theologically inadequate; he had failed to grasp the messianic implications of the miraculous signs.

sn Possibly Nicodemus came … at night because he was afraid of public association with Jesus, or he wanted a lengthy discussion without interruptions; no explanation for the timing of the interview is given by the author. But the timing is significant for John in terms of the light-darkness motif—compare John 9:4, 11:10, 13:30 (especially), 19:39, and 21:3. Out of the darkness of his life and religiosity Nicodemus came to the Light of the world. The author probably had multiple meanings or associations in mind here, as is often the case.

Nicodemus’ first statement (3:2) reveals who he and others think that Jesus is: • He is from God. • He is a teacher. • God is with Jesus on the basis of the signs that He has performed. His statement also implies a question: Is there more that I should know about who you are?

Having heard that Jesus knows the motives of the kind of person (anthrōpos—2:25) who has placed faith in him on the basis of “signs,” the reader is immediately introduced to such a person (anthrōpos—3:1), Nicodemus. The dialogue becomes an illustration of the discussion between those who apparently share the same identity (both are Jewish teachers/leaders) but do not read the “signs” in the same way.

3:3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 3:4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time, can he?”

Jesus begins His reply in verse 3 with the famous, “Verily, verily” (KJV), or the more modern, “I tell you the truth” (NIV). He does this as well in verses 5 and 11. In Greek, the word used here is amen, which means “this is the binding truth.” Basically, Jesus says Nicodemus will be unable to understand who He is and the true nature of His life unless he is radically transformed—born again (3:3). When Nicodemus fails to understand, he responds to the idea of rebirth literally (3:4). Nicodemus has a physical understanding of the kingdom of God rather than a spiritual one.

sn Or born again. The Greek word ἄνωθεν (anōthen) can mean both “again” and “from above,” giving rise to Nicodemus’ misunderstanding about a second physical birth (v. 4).

3:5 Jesus answered, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 3:6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.

tn Or “born of water and wind” (the same Greek word, πνεύματος [pneumatos], may be translated either “spirit/Spirit” or “wind”).

sn Jesus’ somewhat enigmatic statement points to the necessity of being born “from above,” because water and wind/spirit/Spirit come from above. Isaiah 44:3–5 and Ezek 37:9–10 are pertinent examples of water and wind as life-giving symbols of the Spirit of God in his work among people.

Notice in verse 3, Jesus says that one cannot see (perceive) the kingdom of God unless he is born again, and in verse 5, Jesus says that one cannot enter (experience) the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and Spirit.

What does this mean to be born of water and Spirit? In order to understand we must look from Nicodemus’s point of view. While John the Baptist had baptized in water to prepare for redemption, Christian baptism (as a symbol of redemption through Christ) is not a custom yet. Jesus chastises Nicodemus for not understanding (3:10), so Jesus’ reference is to something Nicodemus would have heard. In this case it is an Old Testament passage that Nicodemus would be very familiar with—Ezekiel 36, specifically verses 25–27

36:24 “ ‘I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries; then I will bring you to your land. 36:25 I will sprinkle you with pure water and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols. 36:26 I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. 36:27 I will put my Spirit within you; I will take the initiative and you will obey my statutes and carefully observe my regulations.

51:5 Look, I was guilty of sin from birth, a sinner the moment my mother conceived me. 51:6 Look, you desire integrity in the inner man; you want me to possess wisdom. 51:7 Sprinkle me with water and I will be pure; wash me and I will be whiter than snow.

3:7 Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’ 3:8 The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

3:8 Jesus illustrated his pronouncement of vv. 3–5 with an analogy between wind and a person born of the Spirit. Wind and Spirit translate the same Greek and Hebrew words (Gk pneuma; Hb ruach). While the wind’s origin is invisible, its effects can be observed; it is the same with those born of the Spirit.

3:9 Nicodemus replied, “How can these things be?” 3:10 Jesus answered, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things? 3:11 I tell you the solemn truth, we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony.

Jesus’ point to Nicodemus in verse 10 is that the truth has been in the scriptures all along. Yet Nicodemus may have spent his life teaching that adherence to the Law of God was the condition to enter the kingdom of God. That was certainly the impression given by the Pharisees of his day.

sn Note the remarkable similarity of Jesus’ testimony to the later testimony of the Apostle John himself in 1 John 1:2: “And we have seen and testify and report to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was revealed to us.” This is only one example of how thoroughly the author’s own thoughts were saturated with the words of Jesus (and also how difficult it is to distinguish the words of Jesus from the words of the author in the Fourth Gospel).

3:12 If I have told you people about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 3:13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the Son of Man.

Nicodemus’s failure is a lack of wisdom, not of explanation. It is a failure to believe (3:11–12). Jesus is the one who came from heaven as the revelation of God (3:13). Jesus is God explained. What Nicodemus needs to do if he is going to understand these things is come to grips with Jesus Christ.

In the context, taking earthly things as referring to the words Jesus has just spoken fits with the fact that Nicodemus did not believe. And he would not after hearing heavenly things either, unless he first believed in the earthly things—which included the necessity of a regenerating work from above, by the Holy Spirit.

3:14 Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 3:15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

3:14–15 The reference to the Son of Man being lifted up is the first of three “lifted up” sayings in John (8:28; 12:32). All three speak of the future “lifting up” of the Son of Man in double meaning (possibly inspired by the language of Is 52:13). The reference in this verse invokes Moses’s lifting up of a serpent in the wilderness so that everyone who had been bitten by a poisonous snake and looked at the serpent in faith was healed (Nm 21:8–9). The third and final “lifted up” saying (Jn 12:32) emphasizes that the lifting up of the Son of Man refers to Jesus’s crucifixion (cp. 12:33 and the similar reference to Peter’s martyrdom in 21:19).

Nicodemus is being challenged to turn to Jesus for new birth, just as the ancient Israelites were commanded to turn to the bronze snake for new life. The word believe as used here by Jesus (3:15) means to place trust and faith in something. In this context, it means that your entire relationship with God is resting on this one thing, Jesus Christ.

In John, being lifted up refers to one continuous action of ascent, beginning with the cross but ending at the right hand of the Father. Step 1 is Jesus’ death; step 2 is his resurrection; and step 3 is the ascension back to heaven. It is the upward swing of the “pendulum” which began with the incarnation, the descent of the Word become flesh from heaven to earth (cf. Paul in Phil 2:5–11). See also the note on the title Son of Man in 1:51.

3:16 For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him.

The traditional translation “begotten” used in some versions of John 3:16, is probably better translated as “one of a kind” or “unique.” Jesus is the one who is from God, and therefore shares the nature of God. His glory is not just a part of God; He shares in the full nature of God. There are two types of believing. One type is to mentally understand something. The other type is a belief in something so much that you place all of your hope and trust in that which you believe. Here Jesus means the latter, that all who place their faith in the work of Jesus on the cross will have eternal life.

John’s favorite designation for Jesus is the Son sent by the Father (3:34–36; 5:19–26; 6:40; 8:35–36; 14:13; 17:1), imagery taken from the Jewish concept of the shaliach (messenger), according to which the sent one is like the sender himself and faithfully pursues the sender’s interests (13:16, 20). Jesus is that “sent one” par excellence (9:7), and he in turn sends his disciples (see note at 20:21–22). Being sent implies that the commission, charge, and message are issued by the sender rather than originating with the ones sent. The messengers’ role is to fulfill their commission according to their sender’s will.

3:18 The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.

When He says those who do not believe are judged already (3:18), He is saying that they stood condemned before God prior to Christ, and now they just add to their judgment by rejecting Christ. Also John doesn’t only write that judgment comes from not believing in Jesus, but from not believing in His name (3:18). The name of someone in first-century Judaism represented his or her character or nature. To not believe in the name of Jesus is to deny His character or nature.

V 18 makes clear that Jesus as God’s Son is the ultimate touchstone which divides the world into two groups, believers and unbelievers. The reference here to faith in God’s Son links up with the statement of the author’s purpose in writing the gospel in 20:30–31.

3:19 Now this is the basis for judging: that the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. 3:20 For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed.

Verses 19–21 provide the basis for the judgment of which Jesus spoke. This judgment is described in metaphorical terms—light and darkness. The light that enters the world is the coming of God in the person of Jesus Christ. That humanity loved darkness means that humanity preferred to live without the knowledge of God. Why? Because of a fundamentally evil nature.

3:19–21. Ancient texts (especially the *Dead Sea Scrolls) often contrast light and darkness as good and evil in the same way John does here. Everyone would have understood John’s point. Bracketing off a narrative by starting and ending on the same point (3:2) was an ancient literary device.

3:21 But the one who practices the truth comes to the light, so that it may be plainly evident that his deeds have been done in God.

Notice the contrast in verse 21. The ones who practice the truth actually walk toward the light with no fear at all. Practicing the truth comes from a Jewish phrase that means to act faithfully. It is the idea of living out the very standard of God. Jesus is explaining that those who have been born again do not run away from the accountability of the light. They run toward it. There are two contrasts that Jesus is pointing out about the nature of man in these verses.

sn John 3:16–21 provides an introduction to the (so-called) “realized” eschatology of the Fourth Gospel: Judgment has come; eternal life may be possessed now, in the present life, as well as in the future.

Take It Home: The truths given to Nicodemus are important for each of us: 1. A person needs to be born again if he is to have eternal life. A well-lived life is not good enough. 2. Salvation happens when a person looks to the cross of Jesus Christ. 3. A person will never understand God, the things of God, or even the scriptures unless he comes to grips with Jesus Christ first. Therefore it’s no use to only use human logic and human wisdom to convince someone that God exists. We must offer the testimony of Jesus.