(John 3:1-21)
Read Part 1 first; and then you might need help to collect your thoughts. This passage can so easily read as one of those “I say ‘tomato’, you say ‘93.8 km/hour, but only on Sundays'” kind of moments, when two people appear to be speaking past each other; and here with John also apparently bringing up the rear with an editorial gloss. And that is not at all what is going on here. Let me summarise:
Nicodemus kicks off with a statement to the effect that the signs Jesus performs demonstrate that He is a teacher sent by God. Jesus replies by saying that he, Nicodemus, can’t ever understand what he is seeing, unless he should be begotten anew (we normally say born again, but that is imprecise) by water and [God’s] breath (taking the middle ground between “wind” and “Spirit”). Otherwise he is like someone hearing the wind and seeing the trees bend but having no idea where the wind is coming from or to where it is heading.
Why does Jesus then talk about “we”? Precisely because Nicodemus is talking about ‘signs’. They aren’t ‘signs’ at all – that is just like hearing the sound of the wind, without knowing what is happening – they are things that Jesus and His disciples are doing together as Jesus – the only one who has seen Heaven – trains His disciples in the operation of the Kingdom of Heaven. So they can all speak of what they know by observation (and involvement), and bear witness to what they have seen; but Nicodemus and his fellow Pharisees won’t accept the testimony.
Pause for a moment; go back to the wedding at Cana, which I covered in a previous post. Even John calls it “the first of His signs which He performed in Cana of Galilee, and His disciples believed in Him”, but that isn’t the important bit. The important bit is that Jesus, and a handful of household servants, demonstrated how the Kingdom operates, for the disciples to observe and learn from.
When Nicodemus confesses that he doesn’t understand how these things can come about, Jesus points out that as “the teacher of Israel”, he should know; but rather than disparaging him and leaving him wondering, Jesus proceeds to teach him what he, as the teacher of Israel, is going to need to understand to make sense of what lies ahead. Jesus didn’t say to Nicodemus, “come follow me” – at least, not as far as we know. And yet, as I pointed out before, Nicodemus speaks up for Jesus in the Sanhedrin, and then helps Joseph of Arimathea to bury Jesus – both acts requiring the courage of his convictions, in the face of the authorities cutting every corner and ignoring every moral and legal imperative in order to see Jesus dead. So we can be confident that Jesus knew what He was doing in instructing the instructor. So what did He teach him?
Start from verse 14. In the same way that Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so Jesus, the Son of Man, will be lifted up also, in order that every one who trusts in him might lay hold of eternal life. (Just like the Israelites who had been bitten by snakes and who, to be saved, had to trust in, and look upon, the remedy God sent via Moses, a bronze model of their problem – as Nicodemus would have known, perfectly well.)
But why? Verse 16: because God so loved the world that He gave the only-begotten Son, in order that everyone trusting in Him might not perish but lay hold on everlasting life. For God didn’t send the Son in order that He might judge the world, but in order that He (God) might save the world through Him (the Son). The one trusting in Him is not brought to trial (κρίνεται in the passive is more than just ‘judged’ ); the one not trusting in Him has already been judged (perfect passive, the completion of being brought to trial is ‘judged’) because he has not trusted in the name (reputation/ fame and not just ‘name’) of the only-begotten Son of God. (This is a rather different story from the Pharisees’ own internal narrative, which was more like “everyone who isn’t us is judged”.)
Why is the one not trusting in Him judged? Verse 19. This is the judgement: that “the Light” has come into the world and men loved the darkness more than the Light, because their deeds were wretched.
And remember: this is not a general statement about people in general; Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus as a representative of “you (plural) have not received our testimony”. It isn’t necessarily an accusation against Nicodemus personally, but Jesus is describing the people Nicodemus represents as “your deeds are wretched”. Most translations say “evil” but this goes beyond what Jesus says. On a side note, we see ἀγαθός and πονηρός as “good” and “evil”, but “noble / serviceable” and “wretched / oppressed” are much nearer the mark.
Their deeds were wretched, and this made them love darkness more? Why? Verse 20. Everyone who achieves (πράσσων) cheap and shoddy things (φαῦλα) hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works are exposed (cross-examined, put to the proof). The one [either ποιέω] making true or real things [or ποιόω] making true things of a certain quality (in other words, who has worked with the truth to the best of their ability and capacity) comes to the Light, in order that it may be made manifest that their works have been worked in God.
If you look back over the last five paragraphs, summarising the instruction Jesus gave to Nicodemus, you will see that this is inescapable judgement on the Pharisees and all their kind. “You have been playing your own religious games, thinking you were the righteous, but your failure to come to the Light has already judged you; it demonstrates that you know your works would not look well in the Light.”
And of course, it also explains why Jesus has given so much time and straight-from-the-shoulder instruction to Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel. Nicodemus is the one Pharisee who stands free of that judgement, having come to the Light without deception and with an open heart. I am sure Nicodemus went away still trying to piece it all together; but I am equally sure He knew God had spoken to him, and that as a man speaks to his friend.
Seeing the Kingdom 