John chapter three. I mentioned
in the bulletin that I believe that we could spend all of our
time here in this chapter. This is probably one of the most,
it's not only one of the most important chapters, I believe,
if there is such a thing, the most important in scripture.
but also it's referred to very frequently in most churches,
especially verse 16. I don't think there's another
verse in scripture which is better known in the English speaking
world. And I don't know about the non-English
speaking world, but it appears on the bottoms of cups at restaurants. It appears on football. In football
games, it's plastered everywhere, John 3, 16. You may be able to
quote it from memory, but we want to look at this chapter
because John 3, 16 is in the context, and we need to understand
what that context is. And so I have entitled today's
message, How the Lord Saves a Proud Christian. Self-righteous man. Too long, I know. But it's the
way I understand this. This is how the Lord saves a
proud man. And we're gonna see that here.
If you remember last week in the end of chapter two, there
were people who saw the miracles Jesus did and believed in his
name. But Jesus did not commit. He did not entrust himself to
them. And if you understand that, that's
a very significant thing. I know that when I read those
words, I think of myself as have I believed in a way where the
Lord Jesus Christ himself entrusts himself to me. And so it concerns
me. And you see here in the end of
chapter two, a couple of things. First, that Christ is discriminating. He's scrutinizing. He knows all men and he only
entrusted himself to some and not to all. And so in that sense,
we see that the Lord is executing judgment. And also we see that
because He didn't commit Himself to them, it meant that He didn't
receive them into His company. He didn't receive them into His
circle, His disciples. And we know what that's like,
and this actually serves as a very good illustration for chapter
3 to set the context. We all have friends, and you've
probably, at least maybe you can think back when you were
in high school or something, where you were standing around
talking with a group of your friends. And somebody who was
strange to the group would walk over and try to join in, and
immediately you felt that the conversation began to be guarded and you didn't
express yourselves as freely and openly, whatever you were
talking about, because somebody knew was there and you didn't
know their loyalties. You didn't know where their allegiances
lay. So then you began to be careful
about how you talked and you didn't trust yourself to them
because you didn't know them. They weren't your inner circle
of friends. In that sense, I think, is what
we see here. These people came, they saw,
and they, at least in a physical, natural way, believed that Jesus
was who he said he was. And yet he did not allow them
into his circle. He did not disclose himself to
them. He didn't entrust himself to
them. He didn't become their life. And that helps us to understand
chapter three, because we need more than anything what God tells
us here in chapter three. Christ himself has to receive
us in order for us to be saved. It's not enough for us to go
through a mental process and check off the boxes to do what's
right in order to become part of the group. It's popular. And this is not strange to you. I know that When I was growing
up, I always wanted to be accepted in some group. And going back
to high school again, there was always a few different groups.
There was that group over there, and they wore certain clothes.
There was this group over there, and they wore different kind
of clothes and drove different kind of cars and had a different
level of income or whatever it was. And so you gravitated toward
the group that you felt most comfortable in. But you wanted
to be in some group, didn't you? And nowadays, sometimes it's
popular to be in the Gothic group, you know, the outcast group or
whatever it is. Everybody wants to be part of
something, somewhere accepted. But salvation is not becoming,
not coming to be part of a group, not coming to a a way of people who have joined
together and have a certain mindset and make you feel accepted. That
is not salvation. But salvation is coming to the
Lord himself, each one of us, individually. Not because Joe
or Henry or Bill or Frank or somebody we know is in this group
and we feel comfortable there because they're here. Yesterday,
my daughter and her fiancé were married and now I have a new
son-in-law. He's part of our family and now
I have a familiarity and sort of an inside track with his family
because he married my daughter. But that comfort that we can
now, that ease with which we can be with other people who
were strange to us before, that doesn't make us part of the kingdom
of God. We can feel accepted now in a
larger group and that allows us to have certain liberties
and that makes us feel good. That's nothing to do. with what
Christ is talking about here. Nicodemus felt good about being
part of a religious sect, the Pharisees. And these people who
saw the miracles Jesus did, they wanted to be part of his group.
And so they believed that He could provide them a benefit,
but they didn't have God's Word dwelling in them because, as
we read last week in John 5 and 6, they didn't receive Him whom
God sent, and He didn't receive them. They weren't loyal to Him. They would depart. In fact, they
would betray Him when He revealed to them the essential reason
why he came to save sinners, they didn't find themselves to
have that need. And so when he told them they
had to eat his flesh and drink his blood, they found no need,
it offended them and they left him. When he told them that he
was the sovereign son of man, then that offended them more. And so we see there in this chapter
that precedes chapter three, a group of people who in every
way are like Nicodemus as a people. They wanted to be part of Christ's
group as they understood it, as many understood it in the
days when Jesus was on the earth, that he was the son of David.
He would be the king and deliver them from their enemies and set
them up and give them blessings from God. That's not why He came. He came to save sinners. And
unless we're needy as a sinner and find Him, by God's revelation
to us, to be the only Savior of sinners and come to Him without
anything and depending on Him for all, then we can't be with
Him. He will not entrust Himself to
us. And we will be outside of the kingdom of God, separated
from life, having no salvation, not knowing the Lord of glory,
not having any blessing from God, no lasting blessing except
the temporal blessings of this life. And that sets the context
here. The Lord Jesus knew all men.
And we are now here today and every day of our life in the
presence of the Lord of glory and we need Him to accept us. And religion says you need to
accept Christ. Then you need to make a decision.
You need to decide. That's not the issue. The issue
is, has God received me for Christ's sake? That's looking to Christ. Now let's pick it up in John
chapter three. And I want you to, I want you
to, I want to take my time as we go through this because it's,
it's, everything is important here. In order to understand
this, we need to understand the richness of God's Word here. It's so deep, and it means so
much to us, but don't lose sight of this as we go through this.
This is the Lord. This is the Lord Jesus Christ,
God's only begotten Son, the Lamb of God, the one who God
appointed to be the Son of Man, coming into this world The one
who has to stoop to behold the things in heaven has now come
to the earth, and he has taken up his place in the human nature
of a man. And he dwells among men, and
he's going to receive a proud sinner, but not until he does
his work in that man. And this is the work he must
do in us. And when we look at this, we
naturally can imagine what Nicodemus looked like. He might have had
some kind of special religious hat or clothes, and he was probably
bearded and austere looking, and we would have been intimidated
because his face was stern, perhaps, and he knew everything. We couldn't
get anything past him, and he could spot out our trickiness
or whatever. We've been around people like
that. They make you feel intimidated.
You ought to be intimidated, but not before men. You see,
that's the issue here. And so this man Nicodemus came
to the Lord, and he came to him in this way. And we're going
to see this, but everything is significant here. Everything. Don't think of Nicodemus in this
artistic way that you might see in a painting of a proud man
and begin to throw darts at the picture. God is setting him up
in order to see yourself in this man, you see. Okay, let's read
through this and take it one piece at a time. Christ is going
to save a proud man. That's me, the chief of sinners. That's what the apostle said,
the apostle Paul. He said, Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners of whom I am chief, and he was a
Pharisee of the Pharisees. Within that group, he was in
the top. He had that in his resume. Okay, the Lord Jesus Christ is
speaking to us here from his word. One more thing before we
get into this. Why did God write these words
here? Why did He give us this book?
Remember, He tells us the reason, so that you might believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing Him
you might have life through his name, okay? So here we are, we
are Nicodemus. God has given us this word that
we might believe him, that we as proud Pharisees might be humbled
to see ourselves as among those who were nothing but sin, and
then see Christ as our only hope and all of our salvation. John
chapter three and verse one. There was a man of the Pharisees
named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. All right, he's a man. What was his religion? A Pharisee. What is a Pharisee? Well, the
word Pharisee means someone separated. Who separated him? Did God? When God separates something,
then it is holy. But who separated Nicodemus?
He separated himself. Perhaps those also who were Pharisees
had separated him by identifying him as meeting whatever criteria
they required in order to be part of their group, our sect. So he was separated, but not
by God, but by himself. not separated from sin, but in
sin, and still with a sinful nature, having still no hope,
and leaving himself self-deceived, and worse, deceiving others.
That's what he was like. Separated by himself, separated
to the praise of men, a self-acclaimed teacher recognized and admired
by men, but still a sinner, still in his unbelief, still in his
sins, deceived and deceiving others. As Brad read from Titus
chapter three, we also ourselves were once foolish, disobedient,
deceived, hateful, and hating others. Okay, so that's the first
thing. He was a Pharisee, a self-proclaimed
separatist. And I used to think if I could
just be away from these people who are influencing me, I could
be a pretty good person. That's not the problem. Jesus
said it's not what goes into a man that defiles the man. It's not what influences us on
the outside. It's what comes from within the
man that defiles the man. It's what we are. It's our nature. It's who we are that's our problem.
And so he was a Pharisee. He was a sinner, but sinners
love to get wrapped up in religious clothing because it makes them
look better to men. And when we have the approval
of others, it makes us feel good. We lose a lot of stress. We're
more at peace because other people say, you're an OK. You're OK. You're better than those other
people. All right? The other thing about him being
separated is that, It says in Luke 18, in fact, take a look
at Luke 18. This is one of those texts of
scripture that we often go to in the book of Luke. Luke 18,
Jesus said this in verse nine. He spake this parable unto certain
which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised
others. Two men went up into the temple
to pray, the one a Pharisee. Okay? So here we see the nature
of the Pharisees is that they not only separated themselves,
but they trusted in themselves that they were righteous. And
because they trusted in themselves that they were righteous, they
could only see others as being repugnant, repulsive, nauseating,
and criticize and condemn them. So this is the way that religion
works. It puts us in one place and puts
others in another place. But the gospel puts us in the
lowest place. before God and men. And so that
we see here about the Pharisee. So he was a man of the Pharisees
named Nicodemus. Now, Nicodemus, the name means
a victorious one or victorious among the people. So we see here
that he was the best specimen of what men could be in themselves. People admired him. He was victorious,
as it were, among men. They praised him. In fact, in
verse 10, Jesus said, are you a master? You are a master of
Israel, and you don't know these things. So he was called a master. He was a teacher. He was one
people expected to be able to explain things and help them,
an authority. His name was Nicodemus. He says
he was a ruler of the Jews. A ruler of the Jews. Now a ruler
is someone who has a position, a recognized position of authority.
And here he was, a teacher, recognized. He was admired. He was respected. People expected him to have the
answers. And they followed what he said.
In fact, because he was a ruler of the Jews, it meant that those
who were listening to him and following him as Jews could only
be what he was. He was making disciples of himself. And in Matthew chapter 7, Jesus
tells us that in the day of judgment, many will say to him in that
day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, cast
out devils in thy name, done many wonderful works in thy name?
We did what our teachers told us to do, and these who say that
will be the teachers and preachers who were teaching that and trusting
in it. And all those who also trust
in their works like they will, are just like them. Psalm 115
says, idols have mouths, but they speak not. They have eyes,
but they see not. Ears have they, but they hear
not. Hands, but they handle not. They have feet, but they can't
walk. They have throats, but they can't
speak through their throats. Because they're dumb idols. And
it's easy for us to say, yeah, But then it says in Psalm 115,
and they that make them are likened to them. And so is everyone that
trusts in them. Idols are self-made gods. We
like to imagine God is like this, he's like us, so that we can
manipulate him, so that we can feel good about ourselves because
of our preconceived notions of what God is like. And so as a
ruler and teacher of the Jews, he was leading them as the blind
man leads the blind into the ditch. And so we go on, he was
a Pharisee, his name was Nicodemus, he was a ruler of the Jews, and
he came to Jesus by night. Now, This is not put there accidentally. It's not accidentally that it
says he came to Jesus at night. It describes him, doesn't it? It describes him. not as he thought
he was in the light, being able to teach others, but as a man
who was in darkness. In fact, in Ephesians chapter
5, it says, you were sometimes not just in darkness, not merely
in the dark, but you are darkness. You were darkness itself, but
now Are you light in the Lord, you see? So we are also deceived
and deceiving others, ourselves. This describes us. Naturally,
we are in the dark. Everyone the Lord saves, he saves
them out of the dark. When Nicodemus came to Jesus,
he was in darkness. He was darkness itself. He looked
like, to men, to be someone who had the light, but he was darkness. When the Lord saves us, He saves
us out of darkness. We're not saved until He saved
us. Sometimes people say, I've been
a Christian all my life. That's too long. The Lord doesn't
save Christians, He saves sinners. And we like to get ourselves
into the right group, the right church, and look and doing the
right things. That profits us nothing. The
Lord has to save us. And when he does that, he saves
us out of the darkness. In Ephesians chapter 2, it says,
God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved
us even when we were dead in sins has quickened or made us
alive together with Christ for by grace you are saved. You see, our condition with the
Lord saved us, we were dead. And if we weren't dead, then
Christ did not give us life. We are still dead. If he didn't
give us light, then we are still in the dark. If we think that
we didn't have to be saved, then we're still lost. And so that's
the point here of these first two verses. Nicodemus comes as
the best specimen of what a man can be in religion. And he comes
with his resume of who he is in the esteem of others and in
his own esteem. And he is in the dark in God's
esteem. All right, let's go on. He says
in verse two, verse two, he says, the
same came to Jesus by night. Then he says, he spoke to Jesus. He said to him, Rabbi, we know
that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these
miracles that thou doest except God be with him. He was observing
that Jesus did miracles and also teaching, and he says, he's a
teacher come from God. Just like we saw in chapter two.
He was drawing a conclusion from observable evidence. Even a child
could draw that conclusion. It required no grace. It required
no light. It required no life. It required
no miracle. It's all that he was naturally. And notice here that when he
speaks to Jesus, he calls him a teacher, a teacher. Now, it
seems like an honorary title, you're a teacher, but really
it wasn't because he himself was a teacher. He was a master
in Israel. He had that title, he had that
respect from men. So what Nicodemus is doing, he's
coming to the Lord On his level, he thinks of himself as being
like the Lord. He has the position of a teacher,
just like he does. Yeah, well, maybe the Lord Jesus
is able to do miracles. He couldn't do miracles, but
still. I mean, we're teachers. We understand things. And so
he comes to him as a teacher, and he gives him this faint praise,
if you will. We know you're a teacher come
from God. And so he's showing here his disrespect for the Lord
Jesus Christ. As I said, when we're coming
to Christ, we're coming to the Lord of glory. He's the Lord. There's an infinite difference
between what he is and what we are. We are unrighteous. He's righteous. The righteousness
of God. We are not good. He's the only
one good. We're ignorance. He's the wisdom
of God. We're darkness. He's light. We're
dead in our sins. He is the life. He's the way,
the truth, and the life. We can't find our way to God,
and we are hostile towards God. He's with the Father. He's the
way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but
by Him. There's an infinite difference between us and Christ. And yet,
Nicodemus, as we naturally do, we come into the presence of
the Lord thinking that he's going to have respect to us. And that's
a foolish and sinful way of coming. And notice in verse 3, now that
Nicodemus has presented himself, now the Lord Jesus is going to
begin his operation here. It says, Jesus answered and said
to him, verily, verily. Now these words mean this is
true. It's a double true. You can take
it as the truth, and I am speaking it. He says, I say unto thee. This is the one who has all authority. This is the one who knows. I'm
telling you what I know. I'm telling you what I've seen.
I'm telling you what I do. He says, verily, verily, I say
unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom
of God. And Nicodemus said to him, how
can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter the second time
into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus said, you have to
be born again. Jesus said, how can you be born
a second time? He's asking the question. It
seems like a reasonable question, doesn't it? If I have to be born
to enter the kingdom of God, what? Born a second time? And
what was he thinking? Well, he suggests entering into
his mother's womb to be born again the second time. Nicodemus
is almost mocking what Jesus said here, isn't he? I would
say that he is mocking what Jesus said. This is ludicrous. What
you're saying makes no sense. Guess what? Of course not. It
doesn't make sense to the natural man. It made no sense to Nicodemus. How can a man be born when he's
old? He's thinking physically. He's thinking of his experience
in his physical birth. He's thinking of an earthly operation. He had no part in it. His mom
and his dad, his birth was entirely in himself. He was utterly passive
in it, but he knew something about physical birth. And so
he asks this question. But Jesus identifies his condition
in verse 3. He says, you cannot see the kingdom
of God. You can't see it. Now, the kingdom
of God is God's realm. It's where God's people are.
It's where all blessings from God are given. It's where God
makes himself known. This is the group. that we cannot
enter or be received into. We can't even see it unless the
Lord Jesus Christ brings us into it. He has to receive us and
trust himself to us. And so he says this in verse
four, in a mocking way, like challenging him. That can't be
true. That doesn't make sense. It doesn't
make sense to me. It wouldn't make sense to anybody.
It wouldn't make sense to any of my peers, obviously. And so Jesus builds on what he
says in verse three. You can't enter, you can't see,
he says in verse three, you can't see the kingdom of God unless
you're born again. He had been born and he was really
a physical descendant of Abraham, but he needed to be born again. That birth didn't do anything
to get him into this kingdom. Verse six, Jesus goes on. Now in these next verses, what
we're gonna see is that the Lord, He asked the question in a mocking
way in verse four. How can a man be born when he's
old? Can he enter the second time? And the Lord is going to
explain it to him in a way that is undeniably clear and also
shuts him up to the fact that he was wrong in his objection
in verse four. He's going to have to admit that
he was wrong and foolish and ignorant of what Jesus was saying.
And so he says, in verse six, first in verse three, no man
can accept a man be born again. He cannot see the kingdom of
God. In verse six, he goes on to silence
this king of Israel. response of Nicodemus that objected
to Jesus's claiming that a man could even be born again, Jesus
said, okay, understand this, verily, verily, I say unto thee,
except a man be born, I'm sorry, yeah, in verse five, except a
man be born of water and of the Spirit, He cannot enter into
the kingdom of God. Nicodemus was thinking, my mom?
No, not your mom, water and spirit. Now in the original, it's really
water and wind or breath. And so these are two earthly
things, water and wind, pneuma. He says, unless you're born of
these two things, you can't enter the kingdom of God. Now those
were physical things that had to do with a spiritual reality. And in verse 6 he says, that
which is born of the flesh is flesh. Animals give birth to animals.
People give birth to people. Flesh gives birth to flesh. That which is born of the spirit
is spirit. So the only way you can enter
the kingdom of God, if you're spiritual, if you are spiritually
born, which can only be by the spirit of God. Now, that makes
it clear, doesn't it? Nicodemus says, how can a man
be born when he's old? Can he enter the second time
into his mother's womb and be born? No, you have to be born
of water and wind. The flesh begets flesh, only
the Spirit of God begets spirit. And then Jesus adds in verse
seven, marvel not that I said unto thee, you must be born again. Because here at this point, Nicodemus
is obviously like his mouth is down. He has nothing to say. There's no clever retorts to
this. He's silenced. He has to admit that makes sense,
even though I don't understand it. And so he says to him, marvel
not that I said unto thee, you Nicodemus, you, proud, religious,
self-confident, in the right group, thinking you're accepted,
and know and teach others, you who trust in your own righteousness,
you must be born again. And then he goes on, verse 8,
he explains it. He explains the operation of
the Spirit of God in a man. He says, the wind, just like
the wind blows where it listeth, or whatever it pleases, as the
word listeth, it means whatever pleases it, as it likes to. The wind blows as it likes to
and wherever it likes, however it pleases God to do that. He
says, and you hear the sound thereof, you hear the sound of
the wind, but canst not tell whence it cometh, you don't know
where it came from, and whither it goeth, you don't know where
the wind is going, so is everyone that is born of the Spirit. So
now he's saying, not only must you be born of the Spirit, but
that operation of the Spirit of God is an operation you can't
control. Can you control the wind? Can
you initiate the wind? Can you restrain or impede the
blow of the wind? No. You get out there, we were
on the beach yesterday, the wind is blowing, it's like, the wind
is messing everything up. It's blowing the sand, it's blowing
our hair, it's blowing our clothes. We can't control it. That's the
way the wind is. The wind blows as it likes, where
it pleases. It starts where it wants to,
it goes where it wants to. You can see the effects of it,
but you can't tell where it's going, where it came from, and
you can't control it. And this is the operation of
the Spirit of God in giving us a spiritual life, a spiritual
birth, in fact, birthing us as spiritually related to God as
children. All right, in verse nine, Nicodemus
answered and said to him, how can these things be? Now, that's
more in line with where Nicodemus was at this point. I don't know
how this can possibly be. He didn't know how it could be,
not only because he didn't know the operation of the Spirit of
God, he was ignorant of it, but he especially didn't know it
because he couldn't control it. He couldn't make it happen. And
none of the people that he associated with as Pharisees who had come
to this higher level of understanding of Scripture and were experts
in that body of knowledge, they couldn't explain it either. They
couldn't control it. They couldn't administer this
operation in order to make it happen. And that's exactly what
preachers try to do in religion. We can control this. You come
to me and I'll counsel you and then you'll go back and you'll
be fine. No, it doesn't work that way. John the Baptist said,
behold the Lamb of God. And he sent his disciples to
Christ. You must believe on him, he said. And so Nicodemus says, how can
these things be? Now in verse 10, Jesus answered
and said to him, are you a master of Israel? Now he's bringing
him down, isn't he? First he said in verse three,
you can't see the kingdom of God. And then in verse five,
you can't enter the kingdom of God. And then he says, you can't
control You can't make it happen. In verse 8, he says, this is
the operation of the Spirit of God in a man. And then when Nicodemus
says, how? How can it be? I can't control
it. I can't understand it. I can't
master this. Jesus said, are you a master
of Israel? And you don't know this. You
don't know the first things about salvation. because you don't
know this is God's work. And what is the effect that this
has on us when we come under the chilling reality that we
can't control God, especially when we're ignorant and we professed
to be teachers when we profess to know, not only profess to
know, but be followers, to be obedient to God, as Nicodemus
obviously did. He wasn't like those other people
who were sinners. He was separate from them. He
had long since isolated himself, as they do in monasteries. But
not physically, he would just walk around with a different
air, a different look, a different speech, a different accent, a
different set of words, a different knowledge, and different friends,
different degrees after his name. Whatever it was, he was different
from them. He compared himself to them,
and he was different. But no, not anymore. Jesus says,
you're claiming to be something, and all it is, is a paper document. It means nothing with God. You
get the praise from men, you do not have the approval of God
in this. You're a master and you don't
know these things. Do you see what you're claiming?
You're claiming to be a leader of the blind and you are blind.
What greater blindness is there than to not know you're blind?
And to claim that you can see when you're blind? or that you
can hear when you're totally deaf, and you can speak, but
you can't, you're mute, that your hands can do things? No,
your hands don't do anything. Or your feet can walk? No. This
describes those who trust in a religion of idolatry. So you're a master, but you can't
explain the simplest things. You don't know them. And now
look at verse 11, and we'll try to wrap it up here shortly. Verse
11, trying to give you the context. This is how Christ saves a proud
man. He brings him down, doesn't he?
He shows him what he is, really. You're not what you thought you
were. And I'm not who you thought I was, the Lord is saying to
him. And he says, verily, this is
the third time now he said this, verily, verily, I say to thee,
we speak that we do know. We're telling you what we do
know. And we testify that we have seen. You talk about things as if you
know, but you don't know anything because you just said, how can
these things be? And you're a master in Israel? Let me tell you, we are not like
that. We actually speak what we do
know. And we testify what we have actually
seen. Who are the we here? He's talking
about himself. He's talking about the Father
who sent him. He's talking about the Spirit of God who does this
operation, who births men spiritually from above to be children of
God and entering into the kingdom. He says, we speak what we know. We testify what we've seen. And
here's your response. You receive not our witness. Verse 12. If I have told you
earthly things and you believe not, how shall you believe if
I tell you heavenly things?" Up to this time, Jesus was describing
what Nicodemus was befuddled. How can you be born again? He
says, let me explain it to you. Flesh begets flesh, but the Spirit
of God begets spiritual people. You had nothing to do with your
physical birth. Infinitely more, you have nothing to do with your
spiritual birth. It's a sovereign act of God.
And God operates in men and women and boys and girls in order to
give them life in their spirit, in order to make them spiritually
related to God by a birth where God's spirit becomes one with
their spirit. They have the seed of God in
them instead of the seed of a man. And that seed is a holy spiritual
being because it's united to Christ in spirit. It says this
in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 17, he that is joined to the Lord
is one spirit. Or in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, having
been baptized into Christ by the spirit of God. being immersed
into Him. We're created in Christ Jesus
by the Spirit of God. We're birthed, we're given life
from the dead, we're dead in sins, God gives us life. That's
the operation of the Spirit of God. And it is a heavenly operation,
but it occurs on earth in our lifetime. And so as Jesus is
describing this to Nicodemus, this operation of God on a level
on earth, he says, you don't believe me, because you just
said, how can these things be? You don't believe me. He says,
in fact, if you look at verse 19, This is condemnation that light
has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light
because their deeds were evil. Christ is the light. Nicodemus
was in the dark. Light has come. You didn't like
the light. And so he said that, you're in
the dark. And now he's saying here, he
says, I told you, I told you what I know. I told you what
I've seen and you received not our witness. Notice this, and
look at verse 34. Chapter 3, verse 34, he says,
John the Baptist spoke of Christ, he whom God has sent, so these
are all God's words, speaks the words of God. Christ was the
one God sent. He only spoke God's words, for
God giveth not the spirit by measure to him. In other words,
Jesus, when he spoke, was breathing out the spirit of God. So that
the people who heard him were given the life that is required
for us to be born again. And so he's saying, I speak what
I do know. I'm telling you what I've seen
and you receive not our witness. What he's saying here is that
Nicodemus, you were an unbeliever. I spoke the truth and you still
didn't believe. You know why? No spiritual life,
no spiritual understanding. You haven't been born of God.
And so he says, if I told you earthly things, how God's spirit
operates on the earth in men, he says, how shall you believe
if I tell you heavenly things? And what is a heavenly thing?
Well, he's getting ready to explain it in verse 13. He's going to
tell Nicodemus and us now, us proud, religious, lost, blind,
ignorant, idol-worshipping people in ourselves naturally, he's
going to tell us heavenly things. Verse 13, he's going to talk
about the mediator. No man has ascended up to heaven
but he that came down from heaven, even the son of man, which is
in heaven." Nicodemus came to Jesus as a teacher. You're a
teacher sent from God. So is Elijah. So is Jonah. So is Isaiah. Jesus said, a greater
than Jonah is here. You're wise. So is Solomon. A greater than Solomon is here. You're Christ, you must be the
king of Israel. So is David. But David called
him Lord, a greater than David is here, you see. So what he's
doing here when he says, no man has ascended up to heaven, but
he that came down from heaven, the first thing we see is the
infinite distance between Nicodemus and us, I mean us with Nicodemus,
and the Lord Jesus Christ, the son of man. John later says,
in John chapter three, he says, he that cometh from above is
above all. And you can see that in verse
31. So Christ came from above. He
who ascended, the only one who ascended first descended. The Lord of glory, because he
ascended up where no man could ascend up, he was enthroned first
descended. He speaks about the ascension
first in order to draw attention to his superior preeminence,
in order to humble Nicodemus in the dust of his arrogant ignorance. The son of man, he goes on. He says, no man has ascended
up, but he that came down. Notice the character of the one
who came from heaven, the one who tells what he has seen, who
speaks what he has heard. What does he say? The one who
come from heaven, he descended. Nicodemus was all about ascending. He was all about getting the
attention of man, coming with his resume and his qualifications
to be accepted by Christ. Maybe secretly, because he thought
if he comes at night, there won't be the scandal of having to be
openly rebuked and shown to be nothing, really. Maybe he had
that thought. But now he sees Christ as the
Son of Man, the one appointed from eternity to be the ruler
over God's people, to be the king, the prophet, and the priest
like no other. Like Melchizedek, he had no beginning,
no end, no end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, you
see. The one the Father spoke of in
Daniel 7, 13, and 14, who was given a dominion in the kingdom,
and all nations must bow to Him, and His kingdom is an everlasting
kingdom, and His dominion an everlasting dominion. The Son
of Man, the one who had glory with the Father before, then
He descended, unlike proud man who wants to rise up in comparison
to others. Christ descended. He says, the son of man, in Matthew
20, 28, did not come to be served, but to serve. The one who alone,
whose right alone it is to rule, made obedience and service his
rule of life. You see the contrast between
Nicodemus and Christ? There was no likeness whatsoever.
Christ was the Lord of Glory who took the place of the servant.
Nicodemus was the worm of the dust who tried to take the place
of the Lord of Glory. The Son of Man is the only one
who ascended up. You talk about a teacher, I'm
talking about the Lord and Prince of Life. He alone ascended up. that He first came down. He came down from heaven. And
then what happened when He came down? He fulfilled all of God's
will. How? He who is the Lord of all,
who is the Word of God, he came under his own law. He was made
under the law and he took the place of his people. He bore
the obligations of his law in order to fulfill that law and
magnify it in his righteousness and then Having fulfilled the
law, he took the sins of his people and was made sin and then
subjected himself to the curse of God's law in order to take
the curse from them and redeem them from the curse and give
them his spirit. Because he took away the curse,
he established their righteousness and gave them everlasting life. That's the son of man. He describes
himself. And now Nicodemus, he's just
standing there with the resplendent majesty of the Lord of glory
being set forth before him in his person. The glory of God
seen in the humility and the humiliation of the Lord Jesus
Christ in the place of sinners to the glory of God's righteousness
and grace. That's what he's saying here. Unless the Lord does this for
us, the Lord hasn't saved us. He's going to bring us into his
presence and he's going to humble us in the dust until we see ourselves
as one of these, he describes next, those bitten because of
their speaking against God's law and God's law giver Moses
and against God himself and God sent serpents to bite them and
they were bitten and dying and many died and there was no remedy
and they cried to Moses, Do something! And he cried to God, and God
said, you lift up that serpent on the pole, and everyone who
looks shall live. And all those who were bitten
who looked lived. And Jesus says, that son of man,
he was lifted up. He bore the curse because He
bore the sins and was under the law and fulfilled it too and
answered God's justice and magnified His wisdom and His righteousness
in order to shed forth His grace and to give everlasting life
to those for whom He died. And everyone who looks to Him,
believing Him, will not perish but have everlasting life. Now that's the breathing out
of the Spirit of God that gives life. That's the Word of Christ,
which by God's Holy Spirit has to be given to us to persuade
us who are arrogantly proud in our self-esteem, thinking that
God must receive us like Nicodemus came, totally in the dark, deceived
and deceiving others. needing God to jerk the rug out
from under us so that we might see ourselves to be what we are
and then see Christ for what he is and what he's done and
trust him. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for
this chapter in scripture that teaches us of our tremendous
need that we're blind and don't know it. We're so blind. We're
in the dark and we think we're light. We're so foolish that
we need God Himself to operate in us, to show us Christ and
Him crucified, set down from eternity to be our Savior, and
coming in time to perform what He did in eternity, and then
rising again in triumph in order to give this salvation and His
own Spirit to us that we might be born from above. In Jesus'
name we pray. Amen.