John 3:1-8 - Night & Day
- Chad Werkhoven
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
Your new birth in Christ enables you to see in the dark.
John 3:1-8 (NIV)
3 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.”
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
4 “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. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Canons of Dordt
Article 3: Total Inability
All people are conceived in sin and are born children of wrath,
unfit for any saving good, inclined to evil,
dead in their sins, and slaves to sin.
Without the grace of the regenerating Holy Spirit
they are neither willing nor able to return to God,
to reform their distorted nature,
or even to dispose themselves to such reform.
Summary
John has this brilliant way of capturing profound truth with simple words, the way he here describes Nicodemus' secretive visit to Jesus - he came to Jesus at night. It's possible that John just casually mentions the time of day and means nothing by it. Maybe he wants to convey the fear that Nicodemus, a well known member of the establishment, had of being seen talking to Jesus. But it's more likely that John is framing this episode according to his prevailing gospel theme in which he contrasts light and dark; Nicodemus here steps out of the darkness and into Christ's wonderful light (to borrow language from Peter).
Interestingly, Nicodemus begins not with a question for Jesus, but a statement about himself. He and his colleagues know that Jesus is a teacher who has come from God. They've seen the signs Jesus performed (sign is John's word for miracle), signs that Jesus could only perform if God were with Him.
Nicodemus here is prodding Jesus to tell a bit more about who He is. But in His reply, it doesn't seem like Jesus takes the bait. Rather, Jesus begins talking about the kingdom of God. From our viewpoint, the concepts of Jesus and the kingdom of God are so synonymous that we hardly notice Jesus' subtle conversational shift, but image how confusing things were for Nicodemus at this point!
Just a few words into their visit, Nicodemus is realizing for the first time that Jesus is so much more than what people tend to categorize Him as - both Jesus' contemporaries as well as people still today. Certainly Jesus taught and performed signs - almost everybody knows this - but that's not His primary identity. John conveys to you what Jesus explained to Nicodemus: He is the King God's people have been waiting for.
But Nicodemus' confusion was only just beginning.
Dig Deeper
The three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark & Luke) all begin with some sort of proclamation announcing the arrival of the kingdom of God. John, in keeping with his deeper style, frames his kingdom announcement more personally. John reports that the only way people can see the kingdom of God, as Jesus famously tells Nicodemus, is if they are born again. In other words, the blindness brought about by sin is so severe that something as significant as the kingdom of God can be right in front of an unregenerate person but not be seen.
This is in keeping with the way that so many different Biblical writers explain the primary effect of this doctrine we call total depravity: sin incapacitates mankind's ability to think and properly understand the reality around us. As the Canons put it, without the grace of the regenerating Holy Spirit people are neither willing nor able to return to God, to reform their distorted nature, or even to dispose themselves to such reform.
But as Jesus talks to His new friend Nicodemus on that dark night, He's not so interesting in unpacking all of these theological and noetic implications. Jesus wants to shed light upon how this blindness is cured: that the only way one can see and enter the kingdom of God is to be born again.
Nicodemus, one of the men responsible for teaching Israel prophecies like Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones come to life and how the Spirit would regenerate stone cold hearts into hearts of flesh, misses the implication of Jesus' words here as he gets hung up on physical logistics.
For Nicodemus, the lights didn't suddenly come on all at once; He would need to hear more from Jesus. So it is with us all. The more we hear God's Word proclaimed, the more the Holy Spirit brings us into new birth. Sunday's quickly coming again; begin preparing yourself to come further out of this present world's night and into the light of Christ as you gather once again with the saints.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, whose kingdom has come near;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray for a desire to leave the dark night behind and come into the light of Christ;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: Luke 5
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