Nicodemus answered and said to him, How can these things be?
The Lord has just told Nicodemus that no one enters God's kingdom without being born again. His whole answer is one question — and it is the last thing he says in this conversation.
By this point Nicodemus is not arguing. He is out of his depth. One writer says the problem was not only the strangeness of a spiritual birth. It also broke everything he had been taught to expect as a Jew.
Nicodemus could see this much — perhaps not how it all fitted together, but that it lay completely outside everything he had known as a Jew. His mind was at a loss. "How can these things be?" The trouble was not only the spiritual character of these things. It was also the way they broke into Jewish feelings — the huge change needed before even a Jew could enter the kingdom.
Commentators read his tone in two ways. One hears the normal reaction of the human mind to the works of God:
"How can these things be?" is a very natural question when the human mind looks at the works and ways of God. It is, however, the question of unbelief, not of faith. Take the fall of Jericho's walls, Jonah's three days in the fish, our Lord's walking on the sea, or any other wonder. Nothing shakes the heart that has learned to trust God and believe His word.
Another writer hears something else in it. Here is a man who has given up his own standing, and that is where learning starts.
As Nicodemus answers, "How can these things be?" he seems to want light, if it is not already dawning on his soul. He is an anxious inquirer. It is a very happy thing when a man gives up all his learning and all his knowledge. He takes the place of nothingness at the Saviour's feet. That is what Nicodemus does here. Now he is going to learn. Have you ever asked that question yet?
The Lord's reply treats the question as one Nicodemus should have been able to answer himself. He was a teacher of Israel, and the material was in the prophets he taught from.
Nicodemus still marvels at truths so entirely contrary to his natural reason. He asks, "How can these things be?" The Lord suggests that, as a teacher, he should have known these things already. Had not the prophet Ezekiel spoken of the "water" and the "spirit" working in people, to cleanse them from their filthiness and give them a new heart (Ezekiel 36:25-27)?
Ezekiel had said: "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean" and "I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you." Water, Spirit and a new heart were joined together long before that night.
There is more in the Lord's reply. A man who believes God should expect to meet things above his own sight.
Nicodemus has no argument. He is puzzled, and asks, "How can these things be?" But if he believes God, should he not expect things higher than man's observation?
One writer draws the comparison with the natural world we live in:
There are many things in nature we cannot explain, but we have to accept them. Take the mystery of natural life. Is it any wonder that there are mysteries in the spiritual world too? We cannot explain them, but we gladly accept them on the testimony of God's word. Let us not drag things down to the level of our own understanding. Let us humbly accept the testimony of Scripture.
After this verse Nicodemus says nothing more. His last question clears the way for the Lord to speak about Himself.
Never before had Nicodemus met anyone who spoke to him as the Lord now spoke. The Lord's statements were so definite and His explanations so clear that Nicodemus had no reply left but to ask, "How can these things be?" Was he not now coming to a teachable frame of mind? Certainly he was to learn in whose presence he was. The One to whom he had come under cover of night was speaking of what He knew, and testifying of what He had seen.
- Puzzled. Nicodemus is not arguing. His mind is at a loss, because the new birth broke through everything he had been trained to expect.
- Question. Commentators differ on his tone. One hears unbelief, not faith. Another hears a seeker who is at last ready to learn.
- Prophets. A teacher of Israel should have known this already. Ezekiel had spoken of water, Spirit and a new heart long before.
- Proportion. A man who believes God should expect truths above his own observation. We cannot explain the mystery of natural life, yet we accept it.
- Person. Once his questions stop, the subject moves from the new birth to the One speaking — the One who tells what He knows and has seen.
Jesus answered and said to him, Thou art the teacher of Israel and knowest not these things!
Nicodemus came to Jesus with a compliment about His teaching. He soon found himself taught something he could not follow. The Lord's reply turns the tables. Israel's own teacher does not know the first thing about entering God's kingdom.
The wording puts all the weight on one word: teacher. It sets the teacher against the learner.
"The teacher" (John 3:10) simply means "teacher" as opposed to "student." Putting the emphasis there, we should say, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet do not know that?" Such a contrast always leaves out any other people who teach, or gathers them all into one.
The rebuke only stings if he could have known. One writer points to two things in Ezekiel that Nicodemus had every reason to have read.
An intelligent Israelite ought to have known something about the new birth. The plain statement of Ezekiel, "And I will give you a new heart," should have been enough to teach the ruler this. The prophet's vision of the dry bones coming back to life should have shown him that God is the One who gives life to the dead. So our Lord exposes still further the ignorance of this "man of the Pharisees."
The same rebuke settles an argument about the water the Lord had just spoken of.
Christian baptism did not begin, and the facts it pictures did not happen, until the Lord died and rose. How then could Nicodemus know them in advance, or understand the Lord's answer to his difficulty about being born again? Yet the Lord reproaches him as "the teacher of Israel" for being slow to understand. That is, he should have known these things simply as a teacher of Jews. He could not have known them at all if the Lord meant a Christian practice not yet revealed.
Nicodemus holds three religious titles. None of them counts for anything here.
In His reply the Lord ignores, or makes nothing of, his professional standing. Ruler of the Jews, doctor of law or teacher of Israel, and man of the Pharisees, were only religious names and titles, valued by a lifeless orthodoxy. Jesus cuts through the layers of profession and finds at the bottom only a man. As such, he can no more enter the kingdom of God than Adam could win back paradise, after God's judgment shut him out.
The Lord's rebuke leads straight on. Nicodemus had failed the lower lesson, the earthly one.
How! says He, you a teacher in Israel! You ought to understand that Israel must have a new and purified heart to enjoy the promises. How is it that you do not know these things? If you will not take in My words — that you must be born of water and of the Spirit — and do not understand these earthly things, how can anyone expect you to believe about heavenly things?
The question hits one man. It measures the whole nation he stands for.
Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know the very principle on which Israel is let into the kingdom? We may add that the question does more than set Nicodemus on right thoughts. It expresses our Lord's feelings about the state of the people: how shall I deal with them? What will be the result for them if the teacher of Israel does not know the first principles?
The rebuke is firm, but it is not harsh. One writer notes the tone:
The Lord rebukes, though with all tenderness, both his ignorance (v. 10) and his unbelief (vv. 11, 12).
- Title. "The teacher" is emphatic — the one man in Israel whose job was to know, set against the pupil he has now become.
- Text. This was no hidden mystery. The water and the new heart already stood written in his own prophets.
- Standing. Ruler, Pharisee, teacher — the Lord looks past all three and finds simply a man who cannot enter the kingdom.
- Ladder. He stumbled on the earthly step. The heavenly things above it stayed out of reach.
- Nation. One teacher's ignorance measures a whole people's. Yet the Lord exposes it gently, and opens a fuller answer instead of ending the talk.