'Good enough to get to Heaven?
He was smart.
He was deeply religious.
He was connected, and he had power.
Sounds like 'the package', doesn't it?
Fact is, he risked a lot by going to see Jesus;
likely the reason he went at night--
less chance of anyone seeing him.
Then again, the Jerusalem streets were still
packed with all of the Passover observants in town, so it was easier to get around at night.
John. chapter. three. Though early in Jesus' ministry, word was out; Nicodemus heard about the rabbi from Nazareth--the wedding miracle, the things He was teaching, and then how Jesus had cleared the Temple, hundreds of worshippers looking on.
What a spectacle it was! He had to find out more, had to talk to Jesus himself; yes, Nicodemus had to meet the man before Jesus left Jerusalem.
Conversations are telling. From the one between Nicodemus and Jesus we learn a lot.
“Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.” What--right out of the gate, he makes an admission like this to Jesus?!
Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.” Check it - Nicodemus had not asked Jesus a question, but Jesus got right to the point.
“What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”
Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”
“How are these things possible?” Nicodemus asked.
Jesus replied, “You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things? I assure you, we tell you what we know and have seen, and yet you won’t believe our testimony. But if you don’t believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has come down from heaven. And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, (speaking of himself) so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. John 3.1-16
Nicodemus opens up the conversation with a rather shocking statement honoring Jesus, which Jesus does not even acknowledge. Instead, Jesus gets right to the most important piece of information anyone can know: how to get to heaven.
For Nicodemus, that had to have been shocking as he thought he had Heaven in the bag! After all, he was a super righteous Pharisee, and on top of that, part of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin... so of course, the Kingdom of God would be his.
But five times in these few verses, Jesus tells the Jewish leader, you must be born again; neither your righteousness nor your erudite position will give you the ticket to paradise.
The modern day equivalent to Nicodemus thinking he was righteous enough is something I have heard many times:
'yeah, I think I'm going to Heaven because I am a good person--I try to
do good things, you know what I mean?'
Jesus' answer to Nicodemus, 'You must be born again, you must be made new, spiritually, and that only happens through the Son of man--that's Me.’ Jesus does not beat around the bush. Not with Nicodemus, not with us.
Nicodemus asked a question about going back into his mother’s womb, Jesus just explained spiritual rebirth. [With Jesus, there are no dumb questions, just unasked ones.] Nicodemus, the great Jewish teacher, met the greatest teacher of all time in Jesus Christ. In this one discussion, Jesus tells Nicodemus what you and I need to know to gain eternal life, what it means to be in the kingdom of God, and how to be born again—tenderly explaining that because of God’s great love, he came to us, to make possible all three.
‘Don’t you see, Nicodemus, my Father loves you--the only requirement on your part, Nicodemus, is that you believe, that you trust in Me.
And then I think Jesus was quiet as Nicodemus tried to absorb what He meant by eternal life, and ‘belief’. 'What about the Law? What about the 613 points of the Law that he endeavored to keep as a good and righteous Jew?’ his mind raced to figure out. And love? Is this what he was searching for when he went to see Jesus—the love of God? ‘Our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you ,’ Augustine said, and yes, it’s true! Our hearts long for the love of the Father, and we can only know that love through Jesus.
At some point, we have all been Nicodemus, as we suddenly become aware that there are questions to be answered, things to discover for ourselves about eternity, about the claims of Jesus Christ . . . and right then, we have a choice to believe or not. And let me be clear—it is not enough to rank Jesus as a great teacher along with other religious leaders. While Jesus was the greatest teacher ever, he did not just come to teach; he was God incarnate—God made flesh, who came to carry a cross, then be nailed to it and die, so that we need never die, but live with him forever.
New life, the best life, comes only through Christ, because when we trust him,
‘his kingdom comes to earth as it is in heaven’
and we enter into eternal life, never to be separated from the love of God.
today after I worked out, I commented to someone that I hoped to be in the gym up til the day I die, meaning I want to be 'fit' as long as I live. But there is another kind of fitness, you know. More than being physically fit, I want to be fit forever, walking with the Lord here and straight into heaven when I die. Yep, I wanna be fit forever!
Listen: "Walk with Jesus," by Consumed by Fire:
Born Again, are you?
Christine
John, no.9
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