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Chad Werkhoven

John 3:1-7 - Say What?

Don't let yourself get spiritually hangry.


 

John 3:1-7 (NIV)


Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”


Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”


“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”


5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’



3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”


7 Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’

 

Listen to passage & devotional:


 

Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 35: The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper


We believe and confess

that our Savior Jesus Christ

has ordained and instituted the sacrament of the Holy Supper

to nourish and sustain those

who are already born again and ingrafted

into his family:

his church.


Now those who are born again have two lives in them.

The one is physical and temporal—

they have it from the moment of their first birth,

and it is common to all.

The other is spiritual and heavenly,

and is given them in their second birth;

it comes through the Word of the gospel

in the communion of the body of Christ;

and this life is common to God’s elect only.


Thus, to support the physical and earthly life

God has prescribed for us

an appropriate earthly and material bread,

which is as common to all

as life itself also is.

But to maintain the spiritual and heavenly life

that belongs to believers

he has sent a living bread

that came down from heaven:

namely Jesus Christ,

who nourishes and maintains

the spiritual life of believers

when eaten—that is, when appropriated

and received spiritually

by faith.


To represent to us

this spiritual and heavenly bread

Christ has instituted

an earthly and visible bread as the sacrament of his body

and wine as the sacrament of his blood.

He did this to testify to us that

just as truly as we take and hold the sacraments in our hands

and eat and drink it in our mouths,

by which our life is then sustained,

so truly we receive into our souls,

for our spiritual life,

the true body and true blood of Christ,

our only Savior.

We receive these by faith,

which is the hand and mouth of our souls.


Now it is certain

that Jesus Christ did not prescribe

his sacraments for us in vain,

since he works in us all he represents

by these holy signs,

although the manner in which he does it

goes beyond our understanding

and is incomprehensible to us,

just as the operation of God’s Spirit

is hidden and incomprehensible.

 

Summary


One of the first books of the Bible we learn to read in Greek while at seminary is the gospel of John. He writes with a simple style that's the easiest of all of the New Testament books for a beginning translator to get started with. But hidden beneath his elementary grammatical style are some of the Bible's most elegantly complex gems!


One of John's best features are the secondary characters we read about throughout the gospel, all of which undergo significant development and change throughout the story. John draws his readers deep into the lives of men like Thomas, Pilate and even John himself using their struggles and questions as a foil for understanding our own personal challenges.


But one of John's most fascinating secondary characters is Nicodemus. We meet this pillar of the Jewish establishment here in chapter 3 as he comes to Jesus at night (the contrast between light/dark is another theme throughout John's gospel).


Nicodemus recognizes that Jesus is "a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” But rather than bringing the clarity Nicodemus wanted, Jesus' answer confused him all the more. Jesus told him that only those who were born again could truly know who Jesus was and the Kingdom He came from.



Dig Deeper


Nicodemus immediately got hung up on the logistics of physically being born again. But that's not what Jesus meant. We can be certain of that, because if that's what He meant, John, who writes using plain, simple words, could have expressed the thought much more plainly in recording Jesus' words. But instead John used a lesser used Greek word that perfectly captures the nuance of the Aramaic words that Jesus like spoke in.


It certainly could mean born again, as it's most commonly translated, but it's best understood to mean born from above. In other words, seeing and understanding the Kingdom of God comes only to those who are born again from above by the Spirit (Read the NET Bible Study notes on v3).


It's this idea that brings us to this passage today as we work to understand the Lord's Supper. You very much get that you need to eat on a regular and continual basis to nourish your physical body. Most of experience immediate physical (and even mental) effects if we miss a meal (any of you get hangry?).


The same holds true for your spiritual life. Since you've been born from above, it only makes sense that you need to be fed from above on a regular basis. You're spiritual meal always comes in the form of the Word. As you read it now, it's a midweek snack. As you hear it preached on the Lord's Day, it's a substantial meal. But you also need to regularly experience in the formal setting of the visible signs that Jesus ordained to both physically and spiritually nourish and seal your faith.



  • ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who brings us into His Kingdom by causing us to be born again, from above;

  • ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that by the power of the Holy Spirit you will continue to remain obedient to the truth;

  • ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:

 

Read the New Testament in a year! Today: 1 Thessalonians 2

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