Laying the Foundation
What Foundation Must be Laid for Our Witnessing?
You can come to God anytime (John 3:2)
That Nicodemus should have come secretly during the later period would have been natural, for the hostility of the Sanhedrim to Jesus had already been aroused (7:50); but that there should have been any danger in conversing with the new Teacher in the early days of His ministry does not appear
Nicodemus was ready to address Jesus as Rabbi, because he recognised in Him a divinely sent διδάσκαλος.
Why Nicodemus came to Jesus at night is uncertain. Some have thought this reference to ‘night’ is nothing more than a personal reminiscence of an historical detail
Still others speculate that Nicodemus came to Jesus at night in order to benefit from the cloak of darkness, fearing to be identified in the public mind with the Galilean teacher and wonder-worker
Nicodemus, however, was an important man, a Pharisee and a ruler (archōn) of the Jews
Some interpreters might suggest that Nicodemus came to Jesus “at night” (3:2) to prevent detection or alternatively that (as an intense rabbi) he studied late into the night, but most commentators are agreed that the reference to night is a picture of a man who was in an uneasy state of unbelief or doubt.
Nicodemus was a member of the most influential Jewish sect in Jesus’ time.
Nicodemus concluded that Jesus was ‘a teacher who has come from God’ and that he performed his miracles because God was with him.
2. came to Jesus by night—One of those superficial “believers” mentioned in Jn 2:23, 24, yet inwardly craving further satisfaction, Nicodemus comes to Jesus in quest of it, but comes “by night” (see Jn 19:38, 39; 12:42); he avows his conviction that He was
Jesus was always surrounded by people in the daytime, so a late-evening meeting would have been a logical choice. We should not infer that Nicodemus was afraid or embarrassed to be with Jesus.
By night. Through timidity, fearing to compromise his dignity, and possibly his safety. The fact is noticed again, 19:39 (see on 7:50). By night, “when Jewish superstition would keep men at home.” He could reach Jesus’ apartment without being observed by the other inmates of the house, for an outside stair led to the upper room.
God’s love is unmeasurable (John 3:16)
All you do brings God glory (John 3:21)
come from God—an expression never applied to a merely human messenger, and probably meaning more here—but only as “a teacher,” and in His miracles he sees a proof merely that “God is with Him.” Thus, while unable to repress his convictions, he is afraid of committing himself too far.
21. doeth truth—whose only object in life is to be and do what will bear the light. Therefore he loves and “comes to the light,” that all he is and does, being thus thoroughly tested, may be seen to have nothing in it but what is divinely wrought and divinely approved. This is the “Israelite, indeed, in whom is no guile.”
We know (οἴδαμεν). Assured conviction based on Jesus’ miracles (see on 2:24).
Thou art a teacher. According to the Greek order, that thou art come from God as teacher.
From God. These words stand first in the sentence as emphatic. It is from God that thou hast come.