Let’s say you develop a painful lump somewhere on your body. You go to the doctor and after a thorough examination he determines that it is very suspicious and recommends a biopsy. He doesn’t want to alarm you, but he tells you that he has seen this type of lump before and the odds are high it could be malignant. And worse, these types of malignancies, if not treated in time, are almost always fatal.
He isn’t trying to frighten you; he simply wants to prepare you for the worst. The biopsy is taken and now you are to go home and wait. In that time, you prepare yourself and your family for the real possibility that the news could be very bad.
Imagine now, how relieved you are when the results come back negative! Would that be just “ok” news, or would it be the best kind of good news ever, worthy of a real celebration? Of course, it would be wonderful! A huge burden has just been lifted from you and your whole family. Relief doesn’t come close to describing how you feel! You have just been granted a new lease on life!
You could say that, metaphorically speaking, in Adam, each one of us has inherited a fatal malignant tumor. Simply put, we are born with it and left untreated, it will kill us. That is the sad, sober news.
But we are not left to despair. We are not without hope. In fact, there is a cure with a 100% recovery rate!
You see, we didn’t have to do anything wrong, per se, to inherit this condition, right? I mean, all we did was to simply be born. What if I told you that the answer to situation was to simply, be born again?
That sounds impossible. What exactly does it mean to be “born again”? Thankfully, you weren’t the first person to ask, and we can go directly to our bibles for an answer. A guy by the name of Nicodemus asked Jesus the very same question.
We pick up this story in the third chapter of the gospel of John . Here we learn that Nicodemus is a “man of the Pharisees, a ruler of the Jews”. In short, he was kind of a big deal in the Jewish culture at the time. A Pharisee was someone who had studied the Law of Moses quite extensively. The name itself means “separate ones” and they saw themselves as a cut above the average Jewish person. They believed in and taught a strict adherence to Jewish traditions and religious practices. This particular Pharisee comes to Jesus one night for a rather covert meeting. He opens the discussion in a benign way, acknowledging Jesus as “Rabbi” and says,
“We know you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”
Jesus is going to take the opportunity to reveal to Nicodemus that God is not merely “with Him”. Jesus dispenses with the pleasantries and straight away makes a pointed statement.
“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’”
Jesus answers a question Nicodemus hasn’t even asked yet.
This, of course, was the real reason he came to Jesus in the first place, but now he is rather perplexed.
Nicodemus is old. Too old and too big to “enter into his mother’s womb a second time and be born again.” This, to him, is ridiculous.
But Jesus continues,
“…unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
Jesus is saying that when you are born into this world, into the kingdom of the earth as a son or daughter of Adam, you are born of the flesh, with a body and a soul only. Flesh is the life of earth.
In order to have the ability to enter and dwell in the kingdom of God (aka the kingdom of Heaven), you must have the life of heaven, which is the life of the Spirit. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15:50).
And Jesus goes on to tell Nicodemus that being born of the Spirit not like being born physically but is more like experiencing the wind. You cannot touch it or see it, yet you can perceive it; you can discern its effects. And just as you were born of the flesh, receiving earthly life from your earthly father, you must be born of the Spirit and receive heavenly life from your Heavenly Father.
And then Jesus kind of chastises Nicodemus. He is saying, look, you regard yourself as an expert in spiritual matters and you don’t even know this? Even if I tell you of earthly things you don’t believe me, how are you going to believe me if I tell you of heavenly things? No one has gone up into heaven, Nicodemus, but there is One has actually come down from there.
And then Jesus drives the point entirely home when He says,
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3:16-18
Jesus is revealing to Nicodemus that He is not just a teacher, He is not just a rabbi, and God is not merely “with Him”. He is declaring that He Himself is this Son of God that has come down from heaven, that He now possesses the Spirit and life of heaven. And to receive it from Him, you must believe in Him.
He is stating that all one must do to be born again is to merely believe in Him.
Now you may be asking, “Is it really as simple as all that?” And the honest answer would be yes… and no. Yes, in that there is absolutely nothing you can do for yourself to gain this eternal life, except to receive it by faith. And no, because it is more than just believing that Jesus is, you have to know Him personally.
As we progress along in our gospel story, I will explain exactly what I mean by this. We will journey together into all the aspects of Who Christ is as the Son of God and how everything He did, He did to secure our eternal home in the Kingdom of Heaven.
I do hope you will come back for the next post because we are only just beginning to get to the most amazing part of the story. When we are all finished, you will appreciate the gospel in a way you never have before.