Nicodemus says to them (being one of themselves),
The council has just sneered that not one ruler has believed in Jesus, and at that moment a ruler speaks. The speaker is Nicodemus, the man who had once come to Jesus at night. His words show how far he has moved since then, and how far he still has to go.
The officers had come back confessing the power of Jesus' words. The Pharisees answered with a challenge: name one ruler who believed.
Conscience answered to the words of the Lord. In front of their masters it drew out of the officers a confession they never meant to make — a confession of the power with which He spoke. But the Pharisees, with unbreakable hardness, throw that weakness back at them. They challenge them to name any of the rulers or of the Pharisees who believed, and they show their contempt for the mass of their countrymen. Boasting in law, they were then dishonouring God by breaking the law and far worse. But God brings forward an unexpected, even if feeble, witness from among themselves — not only a Pharisee, but a ruler.
The verse points back to that first night visit. One writer reads his three appearances in this Gospel as a slow sunrise.
You tell me, as a criticism, that he came by night. Well, never mind — he came to Jesus, and that is more than you have done yet. 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 that nobody saw him. He was beginning to get a glimmer of light when he put in a word sideways for the Lord in chapter 7. But the death of Christ produced in Nicodemus what His life had never achieved.
He speaks carefully. He asks the council to keep the law they boast in.
However, from their own ranks a voice speaks out. Nicodemus was both a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews (John 3:1). He appeals to the law they spoke of: "Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?" (v. 51). He himself had taken time to listen to the Lord (John 3:1-21), and all he asks for is a fair hearing, as the law itself demands. He does not here even take sides with the Lord Jesus, but he calls for righteous judgment.
Even that costs him. The answer he gets is scorn, and one writer turns it on the reader.
The moment he does speak a little word, indirectly, on behalf of Jesus, how is he met? With scorn and derision. "Are you from Galilee too?" say the Pharisees. "Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee." My friend, do not let the laughter of someone who knows less than you turn you aside. Do not let the sneer or the jeer of a worldly person stop you from coming out boldly for the Saviour.
Commentators weigh this step differently. One reads it as real progress, though incomplete:
Here Nicodemus' advice brings him under suspicion. He is more in the open than when he first went to Jesus by night. Surely here we see an advance, but he is still in the Sanhedrin, sitting among the men who would have arrested our Lord.
Another looks at the same scene and sees a man defending Christ in the wrong room, and notices where he is never found:
But this is slow work, and the slowness is not to his credit. The fear of man was still over him. The affections that drew him to the Lord were not yet in command. Had they been, he would not have been standing up for Him in a council of enemies. He would have joined himself to His disciples. Indeed we never find him in their company; a bad sign. Cords that do not pull a man that way must be weak. Still, the thing is real with him. The man who once stole by night to the Lord now stands up for His rights, as one accused, before His enemies.
His story does not end here. The last time he appears, the crisis that paralysed the bold has made the cautious brave.
Now we find him taking a further step forward. He identified himself with Jesus in His death more definitely than he ever had during His life. The crisis had paralysed the men who had boldly identified themselves with the Lord in His life and ministry. That same crisis steeled these timid and cautious men into boldness and action. Until then they had been in the background, unrecognised. Truly Omnipotence has servants everywhere!
- Night. He first came to Jesus in the dark, hiding the visit; that beginning is not despised — coming at all is more than most do.
- Twilight. Here he moves only a little into the open: he asks for a lawful hearing, without yet taking Christ's side.
- Answer. The council demanded the name of one ruler who believed; God answered from inside the council itself, with a Pharisee and a ruler.
- Cost. Even a plea for common fairness drew mockery; the jeer of those who know less is no reason to stay silent.
- Daylight. At His death the timid man acted while the bold stood paralysed — God has servants everywhere, even in that council.
Does our law judge a man before it have first heard from himself, and know what he does?
The council has just written off the whole crowd as accursed for not knowing the law. It has boasted that no ruler believed in Jesus. Then one of their own rulers speaks up with a question about that very law — and the question exposes them.
The Pharisees had challenged the temple officers to name a single ruler who believed. The answer came from someone sitting with them.
Here conscience answered to the words of the Lord. In front of their masters it drew out an involuntary confession of the power with which He spoke. But the Pharisees are hard past breaking. They throw the officers' weakness back at them. They challenge them to name any ruler or Pharisee who believed. And they show their contempt for the mass of their countrymen. Boasting in law, they were at that very moment dishonouring God by breaking the law, and by far worse. But God brings forward a witness from among themselves. He is unexpected and feeble — yet not only a Pharisee, but a ruler.
The question has two halves: hearing the man, and knowing what he does. Both were legal requirements, not personal favours.
At this time Nicodemus makes no confession of Christ. Still, he ventures to raise a word on behalf of law and order. The law did not allow anyone to condemn a man before hearing evidence of what he had said and done. At once Nicodemus exposes himself to the sneer that he too is one of His followers from Galilee. The implication is that there is no need to hear Him or ask what He has done.
The council had just used the law as a weapon against the ignorant crowd. Nicodemus takes that same weapon out of their hands. Yet one writer sees timidity in the way he does it.
Notice, too, how their thinking is thrown off course. "This people, that does not know the law, are accursed." But what stops them? "Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing?" And what is this timidity of Nicodemus? He shelters himself behind the plea of their law. So he takes out of their mouth their complaint that the people are ignorant of the law. And he throws the breaking of it on them if they carried out their purpose. Oh, if only we had faith to trust God! But if we are not willing to suffer in the flesh, we never shall.
Nicodemus does not defend Jesus. He asks for procedure. But this ruler had heard Jesus for himself once before.
He appeals to the law they spoke of: "Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?" He himself had taken time to listen to the Lord. All he asks for is fair consideration, as the law itself calls for. He does not here even take sides with the Lord Jesus, but he calls for righteous judgment.
A fair question should have slowed them down. Instead they attacked the questioner — and got their facts wrong doing it.
He now speaks, Nicodemus by name, and asks a simple, relevant, but most unwelcome question. Such a question might well have made honest people pause. It only irritated the men he had asked. They turned at once on Nicodemus and said, "Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee." As often happens when people support a bad cause, they tried to silence the man whose question was so inconvenient. And, like many others in the same spirit, they did not care whether their words were accurate. There certainly had been one prophet out of Galilee, if no more — Jonah, the son of Amittai, of Gath-hepher.
This verse is the middle of three scenes in one life, and the middle is not the end.
Nicodemus afterwards grew bolder. In the council he urged that they ought to hear the Lord and examine His acts before condemning Him. The last we read of Nicodemus is this: after the crucifixion he brought about a hundred pounds' weight of myrrh and aloes to embalm the Lord's body.
Read together, the three appearances trace a single line.
Is this not a charming biography of a disciple, given in the fewest possible words? The beginning, NIGHT; further on, TWILIGHT; lastly, open confession of a heroic kind — NOONTIDE. No book but the Bible can convey so stimulating a story in a few vivid strokes.
- Night. Nicodemus first came to Jesus after dark. Now he is the one ruler who speaks — an unexpected and feeble witness, from inside the very body that boasted no ruler believed.
- Law. His question states a plain legal rule: judges must hear a man and examine what he has done before they condemn him.
- Irony. The men who cursed the crowd for not knowing the law were breaking it themselves. Nicodemus turns their own charge back on them.
- Twilight. Commentators differ: one calls it timidity, another says he grew bolder. Either way, he shelters behind the law and does not yet take sides.
- Noontide. A fair question got a sneer and a false claim in reply. But the man who asked it came out at last in daylight. He carried spices to the grave of the One he had once visited at night.