But there was a man from among the Pharisees, his name Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews;
This verse gives a name, a religious party and an office, and it follows the last line of chapter 2: Jesus knew what was in man. So the question is whether religion, rank and learning can bring a man into the kingdom of God.
A small connecting word opens this verse and ties it to chapter 2. The ESV translates it "Now"; the commentator below renders it "But."
There is a little word connecting the second and third chapters of John's Gospel which does not appear in our ordinary English Bible. Chapter 2 ends by saying that Jesus did not entrust Himself to them, because He knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man. He Himself knew what was in man. Then the third chapter really begins with, "But there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus." The Spirit of God, so to speak, says, I will bring before you the very nicest piece of humanity that the world can produce, a man you would think has claims to anything and everything, because of his moral character and religious activity.
One commentator takes those closing words as a truth about people in general, not a hint about Nicodemus alone:
It is the great, general truth that the special case of Nicodemus so fittingly shows. Man at his best was unfit for the kingdom of God, and so he needed to be born afresh, or from the very beginning.
The verse names his religious party and his rank. Add the title the rest of the chapter gives him, and the portrait is of a man with every human advantage.
Nicodemus is deeply religious, highly respectable, and very intelligent. He is a man of the Pharisees, a ruler of the Jews, and a teacher in Israel. Yet we learn that none of these human advantages will let a man enter the kingdom of God. What is flesh is flesh. It may be cultured and refined flesh, as with Nicodemus, or completely degraded flesh, as with the woman in the fourth chapter.
So the answer is not a better version of the same man:
Religiousness, morality, education and culture are not enough to save man and give him a place in the Kingdom of God. The new birth is the one thing needed... The flesh cannot be changed into something better. In the new birth the Holy Spirit gives a new nature, the divine nature.
Knowing his name and his position still leaves the real question untouched.
We learn only half the truth when we answer, Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. In fact, this tells us nothing beyond his name and official rank. These things have no weight before God, and no meaning for a soul that is seeking.
Two things pulled at him at once, and a third was at work that he knew nothing about:
He was a leading man among the strictest of the chosen people. He was in earnest enough to seek Jesus for truth, and still valued the world enough to fear its condemnation and scorn... He did not know that a deeper work was going on inside him, and that this was what drew him, and not them, to Jesus.
One writer traces where such longing comes from, and what it cost a man in his position:
Where the Spirit of God is at work, He always produces needs in the soul: a craving and desire for what is of God and godly. With that comes a sense of our own lack... Being a ruler, and above all a religious ruler, made it harder for him to go to Christ. The dignity of a man appointed to teach does not help him go and learn.
Nicodemus appears three times in this Gospel. One commentator names the three stages by their light:
There are three stages in his history. I call John 3 midnight, John 7 twilight, and John 19 daylight... The death of Christ produced in Nicodemus what His life had never achieved. When he saw that He was dead, the truth of John 3 became clear to him. His actions said, in front of the whole world: think what you like, say what you like, do what you like — Christ is for me, and I am for Him.
- Connection. The small word that opens the verse ties it to the previous lines: Jesus knew what was in man, and Nicodemus is the test case.
- Credentials. Pharisee, ruler, teacher — the best that religion, rank, and learning can produce in one person.
- Cancelled. None of it counts. Refined flesh and degraded flesh are equally shut out of the kingdom; only new birth opens it.
- Craving. What drew him to Jesus was not his learning but a deeper work inside him that he did not know about.
- Conquered. The man of John 3 starts at midnight and ends in daylight, openly on Christ's side once He had died.
he came to him by night, and said to him, Rabbi, we know that thou art come a teacher from God, for none can do these signs that thou doest unless God be with him.
A ruler of the Jews arrives after dark with a compliment, and gets an answer he never asked for. His opening words sound respectful and even correct. So why does the Lord cut across them with talk of a second birth?
Everything about the visitor is impressive. Everything about the timing is not:
He was a leading man among the strictest religious group in God's chosen people. He was earnest enough to seek Jesus for truth. Yet he still valued the world enough to fear its blame and scorn. So he came to Jesus by night. Even so, he took his stand on a belief he shared with his fellow leaders, because of the signs the Lord did. He did not know that a deeper work was going on within, which drew him, and not them, to Jesus.
That fear of being seen is not ancient history:
There are many people today exactly like that. They would like to come to Jesus and get their need met, but at the same time they would not like all the world to know it.
Nicodemus reasons from the miracles back to their source. The reasoning is sound as far as it goes — and that is the problem:
Nicodemus had reached a right conclusion about Christ, like the people mentioned at the end of the last chapter. It rested on the outward evidence of miracles... As far as it went, the conclusion was just, and the human mind can reach it. But if it is nothing more than the result of human reason, it leaves the soul far from God, with no sense of its need of Christ.
Note his "we know" — the plural. He speaks for a group, and states a case he thinks no one can doubt:
He was fully convinced that God had sent Jesus, and he will not allow that anyone can have the slightest doubt about it. He says: "We know." The testimony is abundant and overwhelming. If others refuse to admit it, that is a sin against light.
A man can grant the credentials and still stumble at the first thing the Teacher says:
He hesitates to accept a doctrine, because this doctrine silenced his understanding. Yet he owns the One who teaches it to be "a teacher come from God." That is the strange inconsistency of man. So it is possible to accept the mission of Jesus, backed as it is by glorious, undeniable proofs. But without the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit it is impossible to accept the teaching.
He came to a teacher for teaching, as if his only lack was information. The Lord's blunt reply meets a need he had not seen:
What he needs is not teaching. He needs a new nature, a new source of spiritual being, to see the kingdom of God. No inference, however logical, is faith... In such a state teaching would only increase the danger... He needed to be made alive, not to be fed fresh food for his mind.
So the title he offers is quietly exchanged for a better one:
Nicodemus had come to Him as to a Teacher. The Lord at once turns him in another direction, and lets him know that he must come to Him as a Saviour or Life-giver. Nicodemus was seeking instruction. The Lord tells him that he needed life.
Others in Jerusalem had seen the same signs and drawn the same conclusion. One thing set this man apart, and it was not his understanding:
But there was a hunger in the heart of Nicodemus which was not in theirs. That hunger brought him to the feet of Jesus, and no one was ever rejected there.
That night visit was not the end of his story:
There are three stages in his history. I call John 3 midnight, John 7 twilight, and John 19 daylight. It was darkest midnight in that man's soul when he came creeping to Jesus, hoping nobody saw him. He began to get a glimmer of light when he put in a word for the Lord in chapter 7. But the death of Christ produced in Nicodemus what His life had never achieved.
- Night. A leading, earnest religious man came to Christ. He chose an hour that showed he still feared the world's scorn.
- Evidence. His argument from the miracles was fair. But reason alone leaves the soul far from God, with no sense of its need.
- Title. "Teacher come from God" admits the mission but not the Person. A man can accept the credentials and still choke on the first thing taught.
- Exchange. He asked for instruction. The Lord answered with life, turning him from a Teacher to a Saviour. No logical inference is faith.
- Daylight. What separated him from the crowd was hunger, not insight — and no one who comes with that is ever turned away. Midnight in chapter 3 became open daylight at the cross.
Jesus answered and said to him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except any one be born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Nicodemus says to him, How can a man be born being old? can he enter a second time into the womb of his mother and be born?
Nicodemus was a respected teacher among the Jews. Jesus had just told him that no one can see the kingdom of God without a new birth, and his reply shows he could picture only a second physical birth.
His reply is itself evidence of what the Lord's words meant. If Jesus had only said "born from above," the thought of returning to the womb would never have come to him.
His question proves that "born from above" is not at all the true meaning of the verse. If the Lord had led Nicodemus to understand it that way, he could never have asked such a question. No; He meant born afresh, born from the very start. It appears to be the strongest possible expression of this; at any rate, I do not know a stronger one in Scripture.
He reasons as anyone would, measuring a new statement by the only birth he has ever known.
Nicodemus reasons as a natural man, and he shows that human thoughts are limited to human experience. Left to himself, man cannot understand spiritual and heavenly things.
There is a strange split in him. He has already granted that Jesus comes from God, yet the first thing Jesus says leaves him unable to go on.
Scripture presents Nicodemus as an honest man. He values the Lord's miracles rightly and admits that they confirm His divine mission. Nicodemus was "ruler of the Jews," one of the religious authorities of that day. Yet the very first thing he hears leaves him baffled. The veil was on his heart. He hesitates to accept a teaching that silenced his understanding, even though it comes from One he himself calls "a teacher come from God." Such is the curious inconsistency of man. So a man may accept the mission of Jesus, backed by glorious, undeniable proofs, and still be unable to accept the teaching without the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. Only the one who is born again can see and believe that the same Person is both the teacher and the teaching.
Suppose the impossible could happen. The outcome would be the man he already is.
A second natural birth would gain no more than the first. A natural man could enter his mother's womb ten thousand times and be born, and he would still be nothing but a natural man; for "that which is born of the flesh is flesh." Do what you will with flesh — with nature — and you cannot alter or improve it. Nothing could change flesh into spirit. You may raise it to the rank of Pharisee, ruler of the Jews, master of Israel. You could hardly raise it higher. It will be flesh all the same.
If repeating birth is the wrong idea, what is the right one? Everything turns on where the new life comes from.
Suppose the old tale of an old man made young again could be true. Suppose even that the strange case the astonished Pharisee imagines could be made fact by a miracle. It would still fail to meet what the kingdom of God requires. For it would be human nature still, whether renewed in its youth or repeated in its birth ever so far or so often. A clean thing cannot come out of an unclean; and such is man's nature since the fall. God's way of renewal is not that at all. He gives a nature wholly fresh from its source, for the believer is born of God, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, by the living and abiding word of God.
Notice what Jesus does not do. He does not argue about whether it can happen. He tells Nicodemus how it happens.
Taken strictly, this question means: How is it possible for a man to be born again? But our Lord's answer does not deal with it in that form. He shows the way a man is born again: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God."
- Again — his question proves the Lord meant born afresh, from the very start, not just born from above.
- Blocked — the natural mind reasons only from what it has lived through, so the new birth sounds impossible.
- Split — a man may honestly own Jesus as a teacher sent from God and still stall at the first thing He teaches.
- Repeat — a second natural birth would only produce the same nature again. Flesh cannot be improved into spirit, however high the religious rank.
- Fresh — God does not patch up the old nature. He gives one wholly fresh from its source, and Christ answers the "how" instead of debating the "whether."
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except any one be born of water and of Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.