Life Group
John 3
Nicodemus, however, was an important man, a Pharisee and a ruler (archōn) of the Jews.
John’s description of him marks him not merely as a community leader but as one of the revered seventy, who along with the high priest composed the Sanhedrin, the equivalent of the Jewish Supreme Court
The two incidents recorded in John 2 clarified the terms of Jesus’ relationship to Israel’s religious heritage: he brings the wine of the kingdom to the water of Judaism, and as the crucified and risen One he re-establishes and renews its worship. In the next section, containing the first of his extended discourses, he dialogues with one of Israel’s teachers, clarifying the radical nature of the kingdom he is inaugurating.
It is intended to refer back to verse 2:25 [AB, BAR, IVP, Kn, Lns, NICNT1, NICNT2, Rd]: he himself knew what was in man. Now there was a man.… It links to the two uses of the same word in 2:25 indicating that Nicodemus was a specific example of those who believed because of seeing Jesus’ signs
His coming by night (2) may have been occasioned by the difficulty of finding time to talk with Jesus during the day. There may well have been an element of furtiveness, however, in his approach. Jesus was not likely to have been the kind of company he would be expected to keep.
Though he was a distinguished teacher, Nicodemus addressed Jesus with a collegial Rabbi. In a sense this was worth more than when the same word was uttered by two untaught disciples of John the Baptist (1:38); it was certainly more respectful than the tone of some of Nicodemus’ colleagues (7:15, 45–52). Nor was Nicodemus as dismissive of Jesus’ miracles as those who assigned his works to the power of Satan (8:48, 52; cf. Mk. 3:22ff. par.). It is the evidence of the miraculous signs that convinces Nicodemus that Jesus is no ordinary teacher: he must be a teacher who has come from God—which is certainly not a confession of Jesus’ pre-existence, but a recognition that God was peculiarly with him, very much as he was with Moses or Jeremiah (Ex. 3:12; Je. 1:19).
At one level this assessment of Jesus must be judged disappointing. Nicodemus does not suggest Jesus is a prophet, still less the prophet or the Messiah, but simply a teacher mightily endowed with God’s power. Nicodemus was openly curious about Jesus, but still fell a long way short of confession that he was uniquely the promised Coming One.
Two plurals in this verse demand notice. First, Nicodemus refers to ‘miraculous signs’ (plur.), even though only one has been reported so far in any detail (2:1–11). But John has just mentioned others (2:23), and in any case this Gospel informs its readers that Jesus performed many miracles other than the ones found here (20:30; 21:24–25).
Second, Nicodemus speaks in the first person plural ‘we know’, not ‘I know’.
It is most natural to think that Nicodemus saw himself speaking for at least some of the Pharisees or members of the Jewish ruling council (v. 1) who were in essential agreement with him. Nicodemus is likely hiding somewhat behind his colleagues, his ‘we’ betraying a touch of swagger or nervousness.
3:3. Formally, Nicodemus has not yet asked anything, though the implied question seems to be something like, ‘Who are you, then? We know you are a teacher from God, but are you more? Are you a prophet? Are you the Messiah?’
Nicodemus, like other Jews (cf. notes on 8:31ff.), wants to set up criteria by which to assess who Jesus is. Jesus rejects the priority of Nicodemus, and radically questions his qualification for sorting out ‘heavenly things’ (v. 11; cf. Carson, p. 180; Haenchen, 1. 200). Nicodemus claims he can ‘see’ something of who Jesus is in the miracles; Jesus insists no-one can ‘see’ the saving reign of God at all, including the display of miraculous signs, unless born again. Even more fundamentally, if there is any possibility at all that Jesus is the promised Messiah, it would be more fitting for Nicodemus to ask himself if he is ready for him,
Introducing his words with the solemn formula I tell you the truth (cf. notes on 1:51), Jesus declares that unless a man (the expression in Greek refers to a man or a woman) is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. The full expression ‘the kingdom of God’ is not found in the Old Testament,
To a Jew with the background and convictions of Nicodemus, ‘to see the kingdom of God’ was to participate in the kingdom at the end of the age, to experience eternal, resurrection life.
One of the most startling features of the kingdom announced in the Synoptics is that it is not exclusively future. The kingdom, God’s saving and transforming reign, has in certain respects already been inaugurated in the person, works and message of Jesus.
If the kingdom does not dawn until the end of the age, then of course one cannot enter it before it comes. Predominant religious thought in Jesus’ day affirmed that all Jews would be admitted to that kingdom apart from those guilty of deliberate apostasy or extraordinary wickedness (e.g. Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1). But here was Jesus telling Nicodemus, a respected and conscientious member not only of Israel but of the Sanhedrin, that he cannot enter the kingdom unless he is born again.
The coming of the kingdom at the end can be described as the ‘regeneration’ of the world (Mt. 19:28, NIV ‘renewal’), but here what is required is the regeneration of the individual before the end of the world and in order to enter the kingdom.
This regeneration is anōthen, a word that can mean ‘from above’ or ‘again’. Because Nicodemus understood it to mean ‘again’ (cf. ‘a second time’, v. 4), and Jesus did not correct him, some have argued that ‘again’ must stand. But Jesus also insists that this new birth, this new begetting, this new regeneration, must be the work of the Spirit, who comes from the realm of the ‘above’. Certainly the other occurrences of anōthen in John mean ‘from above’ (3:31; 19:11, 23). As he does with other terms, John may be choosing to extend double meaning to this one in John 3:3, 7, both ‘from above’ and ‘again’; he certainly does not mean less than the former. Readers who have followed the Gospel to this point will instantly think (as Nicodemus couldn’t) of John 1:12–13: ‘to be born again’ or ‘to be born from above’ must mean the same thing as ‘to become children of God’, to be ‘born of God’, by believing in the name of the incarnate Word.
What must be seized from Jesus’ insistence on the new birth as the prerequisite for entrance into the kingdom is the fact that this truth is applied to a man of the calibre of Nicodemus. If Nicodemus, with his knowledge, gifts, understanding, position and integrity cannot enter the promised kingdom by virtue of his standing and works, what hope is there for anyone who seeks salvation along such lines? Even for a Nicodemus, there must be a radical transformation, the generation of new life, comparable with physical birth. Barrett (p. 206) finely cites Calvin: ‘by the term born again He means not the amendment of a part but the renewal of the whole nature. Hence it follows that there is nothing in us that is not defective’
3:4. Nicodemus’s incredulous response is part of a recurring pattern of misunderstanding followed by further explanation in this Gospel
Some have wondered if he was purposely setting a metaphorical problem against a metaphorical challenge—i.e. he understood that Jesus was demanding some sort of transformation of an individual’s entire character, but he could not see how an old man, decisively shaped by his heritage and firmly set in his ways, could possibly turn the clock back and start all over again as a new person.
A more realistic view is that Nicodemus did not understand what Jesus was talking about at all. At this point he could not believe (v. 12) that new birth was a requirement for entrance into the kingdom and was amazed (v. 7) by the very category
3:5. Whatever the nature and degree of Nicodemus’s misunderstanding, Jesus sets about to restate his challenge in slightly different form (v. 5), and with expansive comment (vv. 6–8). Again there is the solemn formula I tell you the truth (cf. notes on 1:51).
(1) Noting that v. 6 describes two births, one from flesh to flesh and the other from Spirit to Spirit, some interpreters propose that ‘born of water and the Spirit’ similarly refers to two births, one natural and the other supernatural.
To support this view, ‘water’ has been understood to refer to the amniotic fluid that breaks from the womb shortly before childbirth
The Greek construction does not favour two births here. Moreover the entire expression ‘of water and the Spirit’ cries out to be read as the equivalent of anōthen, ‘from above’, if there is genuine parallelism between v. 3 and v. 5, and this too argues that the expression should be taken as a reference to but one birth, not two.
(2) Many find in ‘water’ a reference to Christian baptism
If water = baptism is so important for entering the kingdom, it is surprising that the rest of the discussion never mentions it again: the entire focus is on the work of the Spirit (v. 8), the work of the Son (vv. 14–15), the work of God himself (vv. 16–17), and the place of faith (vv. 15–16).
(3) A variation on this view is that ‘water’ refers not to Christian baptism but to John’s baptism (Godet, 2. 49–52; Westcott, 1. 108–109, and others). In that case, Jesus is either saying that the baptism of repentance, as important as it is, must not be thought sufficient: there must be Spirit-birth as well; or, if Nicodemus refused to be baptized by the Baptist, Jesus is rebuking him and saying that he must pass through repentance-baptism (‘water’) and new birth (‘Spirit’).
To receive the Spirit from the Messiah was no humiliation; on the contrary, it was a glorious privilege. But to go down into Jordan before a wondering crowd and own [his] need of cleansing and new birth was too much. Therefore to this Pharisee our Lord declares that an honest dying to the past is as needful as new life for the future’
The argument presupposes that John the Baptist was so influential at the time that a mere mention of water would conjure up pictures of his ministry. If so, however, the response of Nicodemus is inappropriate. If the allusion to the Baptist were clear, why should Nicodemus respond with such incredulity, ignorance and unbelief (3:4, 9–10, 12), rather than mere distaste or hardened arrogance?
The most plausible interpretation of ‘born of water and the Spirit’ turns on three factors. First, the expression is parallel to ‘from above’ (anōthen, v. 3), and so only one birth is in view. Second, the preposition ‘of’ governs both ‘water’ and ‘spirit’. The most natural way of taking this construction is to see the phrase as a conceptual unity: there is a water-spirit source (cf. Murray J. Harris, NIDNTT 3. 1178) that stands as the origin of this regeneration. Third, Jesus berates Nicodemus for not understanding these things in his role as ‘Israel’s teacher’ (v. 10), a senior ‘professor’ of the Scriptures,
Although the full construction ‘born of water and of the Spirit’ is not found in the Old Testament, the ingredients are there.
the Old Testament background to ‘water’ and ‘spirit’. The ‘spirit’ is constantly God’s principle of life, even in creation (e.g. Gn. 2:7; 6:3; Jb. 34:14); but many Old Testament writers look forward to a time when God’s ‘spirit’ will be poured out on humankind (Joel 2:28) with the result that there will be blessing and righteousness (Is. 32:15–20; 44:3; Ezk. 39:29), and inner renewal which cleanses God’s covenant people from their idolatry and disobedience (Ezk. 11:19–20; 36:26–27). When water is used figuratively in the Old Testament, it habitually refers to renewal or cleansing, especially when it is found in conjunction with ‘spirit’.
Most important of all is Ezekiel 36:25–27, where water and spirit come together so forcefully, the first to signify cleansing from impurity, and the second to depict the transformation of heart that will enable people to follow God wholly. And it is no accident that the account of the valley of dry bones, where Ezekiel preaches and the Spirit brings life to dry bones, follows hard after Ezekiel’s water/spirit passage (cf. Ezk. 37; and notes on 3:8, below). The language is reminiscent of the ‘new heart’ expressions that revolve around the promise of the new covenant (Je. 31:29ff.).
In short, born of water and spirit (the article and the capital ‘S’ in the NIV should be dropped: the focus is on the impartation of God’s nature as ‘spirit’ [cf. 4:24], not on the Holy Spirit as such) signals a new begetting, a new birth that cleanses and renews, the eschatological cleansing and renewal promised by the Old Testament prophets. True, the prophets tended to focus on the corporate results, the restoration of the nation; but they also anticipated a transformation of individual ‘hearts’—no longer hearts of stone but hearts that hunger to do God’s will. It appears that individual regeneration is presupposed. Apparently Nicodemus had not thought of the Old Testament passages this way. If he was like some other Pharisees, he was too confident of the quality of his own obedience to think he needed much repentance (cf. Lk. 7:30), let alone to have his whole life cleansed and his heart transformed, to be born again.
Some have argued that if the flow of the passage is anything like what has been described then it is hopelessly anachronistic, for John’s Gospel makes it abundantly clear (cf. esp. 7:37–39) that the Holy Spirit would not be given until after Jesus is glorified, and it is this Holy Spirit who must effect the new birth, even if the expression ‘born of water and spirit’ does not refer to the Holy Spirit per se. So how then can Jesus demand of Nicodemus such regeneration?
The charge is ill-conceived. Jesus is not presented as demanding that Nicodemus experience the new birth in the instant; rather, he is forcefully articulating what must be experienced if one is to enter the kingdom of God.
That is why all discipleship in all four Gospels is inevitably transitional. The coming-to-faith of the first followers of Jesus was in certain respects unique: they could not instantly become ‘Christians’ in the full-orbed sense, and experience the full sweep of the new birth, until after the resurrection and glorification of Jesus. If we take the Gospel records seriously, we must conclude that Jesus sometimes proclaimed truth the full significance and application of which could be fully appreciated and experienced only after he had risen from the dead. John 3 falls under this category.
No matter how good their Jewish credentials, they too must be born again if they are to see or enter the kingdom of God.
What is emphasized is the need for radical transformation, the fulfillment of Old Testament promises anticipating the outpouring of the Spirit, and not a particular rite. If baptism is associated in the readers’ minds with entrance into the Christian faith, and therefore with new birth, then they are being told in the strongest terms that it is the new birth itself that is essential, not the rite.
3:6–7. Like generates like. Flesh gives birth to flesh. The word flesh does not here bear the most frequent freight Paul assigns it, ‘sinful nature’ or the like. As in 1:14, ‘flesh’ refers to human nature. The point is that natural, human birth produces people who belong to the earthly family of humankind, but not to the children of God. Only the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
For human beings, those born of the flesh, to experience this new birth that makes them children of God, the eternal Word, himself God (1:1, 18), became flesh (1:14). Nicodemus could not have been expected to know all that the readers of the Prologue have absorbed, but from his study of Scripture, his grasp of the distance between human beings and God, and the axiom that like produces like, he should have understood the need for a God-given new birth, and God’s promise that he would give his people a new heart, a new nature, clean lives and a full measure of the Spirit on the last day. That is why Jesus told Nicodemus he should not be surprised.
3:8. Both the Hebrew word rûaḥ and the Greek word pneuma can mean ‘breath’ or ‘wind’ as well as ‘spirit’, though in the New Testament any meaning other than ‘Spirit’ is extremely rare. That is why some people translate the first clause of this verse, ‘The Spirit breathes where he wills’. That is unlikely: the hearing of sound and the mention of origin and destination are in the first instance more appropriately applied to the wind. Jesus is drawing an analogy between wind and the Spirit, or, more precisely, between the effects of wind and the effects of the Spirit, and the internal cohesion of the analogy is tighter in the Greek text than in English, because there the same word is used.
The point is that the wind can be neither controlled nor understood by human beings (remembering of course that this was written before modern meteorology alleviated at least some of our lack of understanding). But that does not mean we cannot detect the wind’s effects. We hear its sound, watch the swaying grasses, see the clouds scudding by, hide in fear before the worst wind storms. So it is with the Spirit. We can neither control him nor understand him. But that does not mean we cannot witness his effects. Where the Spirit works, the effects are undeniable and unmistakable
How is this relevant to the nature of the new birth? Having drawn the implicit analogy through the ambiguous term ‘wind/spirit’, Jesus applies it to the new birth by creating a further explicit analogy: So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. The person who is ‘born of the Spirit’ can be neither controlled nor understood by persons of but one birth.
3:9–10. Nicodemus’ incredulous question is not How can this be? (NIV), but ‘How can this happen?’ Doubtless he himself had for years taught others the conditions of entrance to the kingdom of God, conditions cast in terms of obedience to God’s commands, devotion to God, happy submission to his will; but here he is facing a condition he has never heard expressed, the absolute requirement of birth from above.
Jesus’ response projects the blame in sharp focus: Nicodemus in his role as Israel’s teacher should have understood these things. The article with this expression (lit. ‘the teacher of Israel’) suggests he was a recognized master, an established religious authority. ‘You are the Reverend Professor Doctor, and do you not understand these things?’ Nothing could make clearer the fact that Jesus’ teaching on the new birth was built on the teaching of the Old Testament (cf. notes on 3:5).
3:11. There is no further report of Nicodemus’ replies: dialogue becomes monologue, which in turn becomes a paragraph of reflection by the Evangelist
3:12. The contrast between the ‘earthly things’ and the ‘heavenly things’ is not easy to fathom. Some take the ‘earthly things’ to refer to physical elements such as wind and natural birth, while ‘heavenly things’ refers to the new birth. But no-one disbelieves in ‘earthly things’ such as wind and physical birth.
On the face of it, the obvious candidate for ‘earthly things’ is the new birth itself, the subject of Jesus’ conversation so far (hence I have spoken to you of earthly things …; cf. Blank, pp. 62–63). Some reject this interpretation because birth ‘of water and the spirit’ is ‘from above’ (anōthen), so it can scarcely be considered an ‘earthly thing’. But it is ‘earthly’ in that it takes place here on earth when people are born again. More important, Jesus’ teaching on the new birth is elementary. If Nicodemus had apocalyptic leanings, then he might have wanted to know what the new heavens and new earth (Is. 65:17) would be like, what the kingdom of God would be like when it finally dawned. Jesus says, in effect, that entrance into the kingdom depends absolutely on new birth; if Nicodemus stumbles over this elementary point of entry, then what is the use of going on to explain more of the details of life in the kingdom? The ‘heavenly things’ are then the splendours of the consummated kingdom, and what it means to live under such glorious, ineffable rule
3:13. This verse, connected to the preceding verse by kai (‘and’), provides the explanation for the fact that Jesus is able to speak authoritatively of ‘heavenly things’.
3:14. The connections between this verse and the preceding verses are two. First, Jesus moves from an explanation of the new birth in terms of the categories ‘water’ and ‘spirit’ used by Ezekiel (cf. notes on 3:5) to a narrative passage, the well-known account of the bronze snake in the desert (Nu. 21:4–9). That bronze snake on a pole was the means God used to give new (physical) life to the children of Israel if they were bitten in the plague of snakes that had been sent in as a punishment for the persistent murmuring. By God’s provision, new life was graciously granted. Why then should it be thought so strange that by the gracious provision of this same God there should be new spiritual life, indeed ‘eternal life’ (v. 15)?
Second, the deepest point of connection between the bronze snake and Jesus was in the act of being ‘lifted up’. Moses lifted up the snake on a pole so that all who were afflicted in the camp might look and live. In the same way, the Son of Man must be lifted up. The Greek verb for ‘lifted up’ (hypsoō) in its four occurrences in this Gospel (cf. 8:28; 12:32, 34) always combines the notions of being physically lifted up on the cross, with the notion of exaltation.
3:15. The purpose of Jesus’ being lifted up is now made explicit: that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him
3:16. As the new birth, the acquisition of eternal life, has been grounded in the ‘lifting up’ of the Son (vv. 14–15), so also that ‘lifting up’, the climax of the Son’s mission, is itself grounded in the love of God. The mission of the Son and its consequences is the theme of this paragraph, but John begins by insisting that the Son’s mission was itself the consequence of God’s love. The Greek construction behind so loved that he gave his one and only Son (houtōs plus hōste plus the indicative instead of the infinitive) emphasizes the intensity of the love, and insists that the envisaged consequence really did ensue; the words ‘his one and only Son’ (cf. notes on 1:14) stress the greatness of the gift. The Father gave his best, his unique and beloved Son (cf. Rom. 8:32).
Both the verb ‘to love’ (agapaō) and the noun ‘love’ (agapē) occur much more frequently in chs. 13–17 than anywhere else in the Fourth Gospel, reflecting the fact that John devotes special attention to the love relationships amongst the Father, the Son and the disciples.
More than any New Testament writer, John develops a theology of the love relations between the Father and the Son, and makes it clear that, as applied to human beings, the love of God is not the consequence of their loveliness but of the sublime truth that ‘God is love’ (1 Jn. 4:16).
From this survey it is clear that it is atypical for John to speak of God’s love for the world, but this truth is therefore made to stand out as all the more wonderful. Jews were familiar with the truth that God loved the children of Israel; here God’s love is not restricted by race. Even so, God’s love is to be admired not because the world is so big and includes so many people, but because the world is so bad: that is the customary connotation of kosmos (‘world’; cf. notes on 1:9). The world is so wicked that John elsewhere forbids Christians to love it or anything in it (1 Jn. 2:15–17). There is no contradiction between this prohibition and the fact that God does love it. Christians are not to love the world with the selfish love of participation; God loves the world with the self-less, costly love of redemption.
This dual stance of God is a commonplace of biblical theology. The holy God finds wicked actions to be detestable things (Ezk. 18:10–13), but that does not prevent him from crying out, ‘Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?’ (Ezk. 18:23)
Because John 3:16 is sandwiched between vv. 14–15 and v. 17, the fact that God gave his one and only Son is tied both to the Son’s incarnation (v. 17) and to his death (vv. 14–15). That is the immediate result of the love of God for the world: the mission of the Son. His ultimate purpose is the salvation of those in the world who believe in him (eis auton, not en autō as in v. 15). Whoever believes in him experiences new birth (3:3, 5), has eternal life (3:15, 16), is saved (3:17); the alternative is to perish (cf. also 10:28), to lose one’s life (12:25), to be doomed to destruction (17:12, cognate with ‘to perish’). There is no third option.
3:17. The theme of the mission of the Son is common enough in the Synoptics (e.g. Mt. 9:13; 15:24; Mk. 1:38; Lk. 4:18, 43). Here John aims to make a simple point, a clarification of the purpose of that mission, already articulated in v. 16. God’s purpose in sending his Son into the world (a phrase that distinguishes the sending of Jesus from the sending of John the Baptist, 1:6) was not to condemn the world, but to save the world through him
Some find it difficult to reconcile this verse with 9:39, where Jesus declares. ‘For judgment (krisis) I have come into this world.…’; indeed, John insists that God has given Jesus ‘authority to judge (krinō) because he is the Son of Man’ (5:27). Two factors alleviate the difficulty. First, in these two passages the meaning of krinō/krisis is neutral. Anyone familiar with Daniel 7:13–14 would not be surprised to learn that the Son of Man has authority to pronounce judgment, and that he came for that purpose. That is rather different from saying he came to pronounce condemnation. Second, and more important, the Son of Man came into an already lost and condemned world. He did not come into a neutral world in order to save some and condemn others; he came into a lost world (for that is the nature of the ‘world’, 1:9) in order to save some. That not all of the world will be saved is made perfectly clear by the next verses (vv. 18–21); but God’s purpose in the mission of Jesus was to bring salvation to it. That is why Jesus is later called ‘the Saviour of the world’ (4:42; cf. 1 Jn. 4:14).
3:18. No longer does John speak of ‘the world’ holistically. Instead he distinguishes between the one who believes and is therefore not condemned, and the one who does not believe.
3:19–21. The essence of this self-incurred condemnation is pictured in the metaphorical terms, light and darkness. The verdict (Gk. krisis) is entirely negative in vv. 19–20. Light has come into the world; with the incarnation of the Word, the light shone in the darkness (cf. notes on 1:4–5) even more brightly than at the creation. As the light of the world (8:12), Jesus is the revelation of God and the objectification of divine holiness and purity
The purpose of these three verses, then, is not to encourage readers to think they fall into a deterministic category bound up with their intrinsic nature, but to make them see the imminence of their danger (the verdict is being declared), and the fundamentally moral reasons why people hate the light. John stresses these points in the hope that his readers will beseech God that all they do may be done through him—in short, that they will turn to the ‘lifted up’ Son of Man with the same simple, desperate, unqualified faith as the Israelites displayed who turned to the bronze snake in the desert (vv. 13–15). By such faith and such faith alone can anyone experience the new birth (vv. 3, 5) and thereby gain eternal life (vv. 15–16).