It's a great and awesome statement
that our Lord made to this man named Nicodemus. Verse one of
chapter three, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus,
and not just a Pharisee, not your average run-of-the-mill
Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews. That means he set in judgment
the Sanhedrin, you've heard that term. This is one who rose to
great heights in his religion. And this Nicodemus, verse 2,
came to Jesus by night. I suppose, as some commentators
say, that Nicodemus came by night because he didn't want to be
seen speaking to this man from Nazareth. I don't know that for
sure. But that's what most commentators
say, and I'm not going to say much more about that. He may not have wanted to be
viewed by his peers in religion. This shows that Nicodemus was
a most unusual man. God providentially gave him a
measure of open-mindedness. amidst his peers, the Pharisees. The Pharisees, as you know, they
were pretty close-minded about this man from Nazareth, Jesus
of Nazareth, who he is. And so Nicodemus came by night,
verse two, and said unto him, Rabbi, or Master, 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. Well, obviously
Nicodemus thought well of Jesus of Nazareth, but the point that's
going to be made here is that Nicodemus didn't think well enough
of this man. And you know, this thing about
salvation, true Christianity in the gospel, sometimes can
be boiled down to that one great question that Christ posed to
those who sought to trap him by their questions. And he said
this, what think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? What do you
think about his cross work? What did he accomplish? Most
people are satisfied with just simply saying I believe in the
death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. I do too. You do too
if you believe the gospel. But the issue is this, who is
he? And what did he accomplish in
his death, burial, and resurrection? So Nicodemus thought well of
him, but not well enough. He thought Jesus of Nazareth
was a good man, but only a man. He thought Jesus of Nazareth
was a prophet, but no greater than Moses. You know, the Messiah,
it is said, by Moses himself, as he wrote in the book of Deuteronomy,
The Messiah would be a prophet greater than Moses. And Nicodemus
says, you're a good teacher, come from God, nobody could do
the works you do. Except he come from God. Nicodemus
looked at Jesus as a leader of men, but not a king like David
or Solomon. And so what does this reveal
about Nicodemus? Well, he was a ruler, who needed
a Redeemer. He was a religious man who needed
a righteousness. But he didn't see the need of
either one. He'd grown up in the religious
schools that taught that what was traditionally taught and
conventionally taught by men was God-given. that what was traditional must
be regarded as the truth, and it was no only the traditions
of men, not the word of God. It's kind of like people today
who've been brought up in traditional popular Christianity, false Christianity. They just believe something is
true, not because they've been convinced from God's word, but
because the majority believe it. And that's what we were taught
from our youth up. You might consider that yourself.
I know I do. What do I believe? And why do
I believe it? The Bible tells me to examine
myself, whether I be in the faith. Test your beliefs. Put them to
the test before it's too late. And so what the Lord does is
he confronts this man named Nicodemus, and I don't believe he did it
in a hateful way, but in a kind way, and here's what he says
in verse three. Jesus answered and said unto
him, Verily, verily, truly, truly, I say unto thee, except a man
be born again, and that's literally be born from above, He cannot see the kingdom of God. Now I'm gonna divide this message
up into two parts. And today what I wanna major
on is the necessity of the new birth. And then I'm gonna come
back Lord willing next week and deal with evidences of the new
birth. But I'll be talking about some of those evidences today
too. the necessity of the new birth. He says, except a man
be born again, born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of
heaven. Now we understand that the sight
that he's talking about is not physical sight. Nicodemus had
physical sight. There are people who are born
without physical sight or who lose their sight. Christ healed
many of them. We think about blind Bartimaeus.
We think about the man in, what is it, John chapter seven, I
believe. He said, I was blind, now I see. But what he's talking about here
that comes from being born from above is spiritual sight. Except, he said, a man be born
again. That's one of the many except
statements that our Lord put forth. Let me give you a few
of Matthew 520. He said, I say unto you that
except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and the Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom
of heaven. What is he saying? Well, if you
read the whole context of that in the sermon on the mat, he's
telling us this, that we need a righteousness we can't produce.
That's what you need. That's what I need. A righteousness
that I had no part in producing because I don't have any righteousness
and I can't produce one. All I could do is defile it. What was the righteousness of
the scribes and the Pharisees? Well, it involved what they believed
God had made them and enabled them to do. And it involved what
they did in attempting to keep the law. And it always falls short. So
does mine. So does yours. All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. So I need a righteousness
that equals what God requires, that answers the demands of God's
law and justice. Let me give you another except
statement. In Matthew 18.3, he's talking to his disciples. He
says, Verily I say in you, except you be converted, and become
as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of God,
kingdom of heaven. I need to be converted, how about
you? In this thing of salvation, it involves a conversion. In
fact, the conversion is part of this being born again. To
be converted is to be brought by God to faith in Christ. and repentance of dead works.
Let me show you another passage back over in Matthew 13. And
it's connected with this sight thing. He said, except a man be born
again, born from above, he cannot see. And again, spiritually,
spiritual sight. Cannot even see, cannot understand,
cannot know the kingdom of God. And here in Matthew 13, as the
Lord was speaking in parables. If you look over at verse 10
of Matthew 13, listen to this, the disciples came and said unto
him, why speakest thou unto them in parables? Why are you talking
to them in parables? And he answered and said unto
them, because it is given unto you, it's a gift. Now whatever
he's talking about, it's a gift from God. given you to know the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it's not given. Now,
why was it given to the disciples and not given to these unbelieving
Jews? Well, it has to be because the
disciples were better guys than the unbelieving Jews. Is that
what you think? Well, they might not have been
better, but they were a little less obstinate. They exercise
their free will, as they say. Absolutely not. You know why
he gave it to his disciples and not to them? It was his sovereign
prerogative to do so. I'll have mercy on whom I'll
have mercy. I'll be gracious to whom I'll
be gracious. Does that make people angry today? I'll tell you what it ought to
do. It ought to cause us to fall on our faces before the sovereign
God of this universe and thank God that He has mercy and grace
on any of us. He's going to show mercy to somebody.
Could it be me? I don't deserve it. If I deserved
it, it wouldn't be mercy. I haven't earned it. If I earned
it, it wouldn't be grace. He says, it's given unto you.
But now look over at verse 15 of this Matthew 13. Well, look at verse 14, he quotes
from the prophet Isaiah. In them is fulfilled the prophecy
of Isaiah, which say, by hearing you shall hear and shall not
understand, and seeing you shall see and not perceive, shall not
perceive. That's the kind of sight he's
talking about, the perception, the understanding, the knowledge.
And look at verse 15, he says, for this people's heart is waxed
gross, that is grown hard. and their ears are dull of hearing,
and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should
see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand
with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal
them. You know what they closed their
ears and their eyes to? The preaching of the cross, the
preaching of the gospel, the light of God that exposed all
of their false refuges and all of their hopes and all of their
experiences to be dead works and even dumb. But he said in verse 16, but
blessed are your eyes for they see. Well, what does that mean?
That means they've been born again. Your ears for they hear. They've
been born again. Go back to John three. Accept a man be born again. Let me give you another couple
more except statements. In Luke 13 three, Christ said,
I tell you, except you repent and you shall all likewise perish. I need to repent. You need to
repent. Christ said, verily, verily,
in John 6, 53, I say unto you, except you eat the flesh of the
Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Now,
he's not talking about cannibalism there, he's talking about faith
in Christ. That's what, this is a metaphor,
eating his flesh and drinking his blood. That means you believe
in the God-man who satisfied God's justice and brought mercy
to his people. And unless you do that, you have
no life in you. Basically what he's saying here is if you walk
out of here in unbelief, I can tell you something about you.
I can tell you you have not been born again. Your eyes are still
blind. You know what the testimony of
born again people is? I was blind, now I see. To see here is to understand
and believe unto salvation. The Bible says in Romans 10,
10, with the heart man believes unto righteousness. In fact,
here's the way we could put it here. Seeing here, seeing is
believing. We need God to give us eyes to
see. The natural man, the Bible tells
us, Man, as we are born naturally, as fallen in Adam, and spiritually
dead in trespasses and sin, spiritually blind, spiritually deaf, in darkness,
shows us the necessity of the new birth. And the necessity
of the new birth lies in the sinful nature of man, by nature. Again, we're all spiritually
dead. So before we can see, we have to be given life. That baby
that comes out of the mother's womb, there's life there before
he sees. Before we can have life, there
must be righteousness. Sin demands death. Righteousness
demands life. And man has no righteousness.
Now, I've stated this many times, and some of you may say, well,
you're just repeating yourself. Well, that's okay. I think it
deserves to be repeated. But you would be amazed, and
maybe you wouldn't be, at how many people who claim to believe
the same gospel we believe, but who are confused about this issue. And what I'm talking about is
the difference of, now listen to me carefully, the difference
between Christ's work for, F-O-R, for us on the cross, and Christ's
work in us by the Holy Spirit in the new birth. There are a
lot of people who are confused about that. They basically get
the cart before the horse. You see, Before we can have life,
spiritual life, the issue of sin, the sin problem must be
dealt with in a legal way. That's right. It must be dealt
with under the law because Christ was made under the law to do
what? To keep the law and to satisfy
the law's justice for the sins of His people. The Bible says
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believeth. So the first thing that has to
happen is righteousness has to be imputed, charged, accounted
to God's people. Sin has to be put away. Sin must
be purged. Righteousness established. And
how is that accomplished? Totally. exclusively by the work
of Christ on the cross, for his people, as our surety, our substitute,
our redeemer. The Bible says in Proverbs 12,
28, in the way of righteousness is life, and in the pathway thereof,
there is no death. In Romans chapter eight and verse
10, it says, if Christ be in you, The body is dead because
of sin, this physical body. But the Holy Spirit is life because
of righteousness. So that has to be settled. And
then the Bible teaches us where righteousness, where Christ's
righteousness is imputed, life will, at some point in time,
in God's appointed time, be given in the new birth. And so spiritual
life has to be given by God, except you be born again. You
cannot see the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. When I look
at verse four, well, Nicodemus saith unto 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 answered, verse five,
verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water,
and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Why? Because that which is born of
the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is
spirit. Now, he says you gotta be born of water, and you've
gotta be born of the spirit. Some say that the water here
refers to water baptism. and they teach the heresy of
baptismal regeneration. You ever heard of that? That
you go into the waters of baptism and that's where God applies
the blood of Christ and that's where he gives you life. That's
heresy. First of all, at this time, the
ordinance of Christian baptism had not even been instituted
yet. And secondly, every believer
in the Old Testament had been born again by the Spirit. I'm
gonna show you more of that next week. So, if you ever hear anybody
say that, that's heresy now. There is no regenerate, there's
no life, there's no salvation in the waters of the ordinance
of baptism. The ordinance of water baptism
is a confession of something that has already taken place.
If you haven't already been born again, come to faith in Christ
and repentance of dead works, don't get into the waters of
baptism. You don't have anything to confess. Some say that water
here refers to our first physical birth. So Christ would be saying
that as we have to go through both, we have to be born physically
into this world, And our first birth is in spiritual death,
but it has to be. Then we have to be born from
above, a second birth, in order to see and enter the kingdom
of heaven. And that could be what it means
in light of Nicodemus' question. And in light of, he says, that
which is born of flesh is flesh. But here's one thing, here's
something I can tell you about both births. Our physical birth
and our spiritual birth, both of them are exclusively, totally
all of God. Neither one of them is based
upon anything we do or say or think or decide. You know, it's
common for people to believe today that, well, you make your
choice, you decide for Jesus, give your heart to him, and then
you're born again. No, sir. A dead man or a dead
woman cannot give their heart to Jesus and will not give their
heart to Jesus. In fact, he doesn't want that
heart. In the new birth, what does he do? He gives us a new
heart. So that could be what it's talking
about. Others say that he's speaking of water as the spirit and the
word of God, the gospel as the power of God unto salvation,
as empowered by the Holy Spirit. Over in the book of Titus, it
speaks of this in Titus chapter three and verse four. It says,
after the kindness and love of God, our Savior toward man appeared,
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing
of the Holy Ghost. And so that could be what this
means. Even if that isn't what he means
here in John three, that is true because other places of the scripture
teaches it. It's true that the new birth
is accomplished in us by the Holy Spirit in that invincible
calling through the word of God, the gospel of God's free and
sovereign grace. Now let me show you a scripture
on that. Turn to 1 Peter 1, where I read at the beginning of the
service. And look at verse 22. And here's what I'm telling you.
The new birth is necessary. And the new birth takes place
by the power of the Holy Spirit under the preaching of the gospel,
under the communication of the gospel. Now he says in verse
22 of 1 Peter 1, seeing you have purified your souls in obeying
the truth through the Spirit, under unfeigned love of the brethren,
see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently,
and a pure heart is one that's washed in the blood of Christ,
Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by
the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. Now the
word of God there is this common word in the New Testament. Christ
is the word, the word logos, you've heard that. And that's
Christ. The life that God gives to his
people, the spiritual life, comes from Christ. Some of the old
writers used to call it the resurrection life of Christ. And he says in
verse four, he says, 24, for all flesh is as grass, all glory
of man is a flower of grass, the grass wither, and the flower
thereof falleth away. But look at verse 25, but the
word of the Lord endureth forever, that's the same word, logos.
And then all of a sudden, and this is the word, that's a different
word, it means the uttered word. the preached word, this is the
word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Look at Romans. I know I'm having
you turn to scriptures here, but you mark it down if you can't
get there. I want you to see this, Romans six. What I'm saying
is this. The new birth takes place by
the power of the spirit where he gives life And in the preaching
or the communication of the Gospel, brings a sinner to faith in Christ
and repentance. That sinner sees things that
he didn't see before. He hears things he didn't hear.
What it is, you see him in a different way. You see him with the understanding.
The Son of God hath come and given us an understanding that
we may know Him that is true. But look at Romans 6, 17. But
God bethink that you were the servants of sin. You were unbelievers. You were in a state of spiritual
death. You were spiritually blind. Servants
of sin, even at your best. But you have obeyed from the
heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you, which you
were delivered to, literally. Being then made free from sin,
you became the servants of righteousness, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. In the book of James, chapter
1 and verse 18, it is said, of his own will begat he us with
the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruit of his
creatures. You know it's common for people
to claim today to have been born again when they had some religious
experience, no matter what message was preached, even under a false
gospel. But that's not so. A corrupt
tree cannot produce good fruit. You gotta be under a good tree,
attached to a good tree, and that's Christ. That's his truth. Now what does it mean to be born
again? Christ said here back in John 3 to Nicodemus, that
which is born of the flesh is flesh. All the flesh can produce
is flesh. Nothing eternal, nothing spiritual. And that which is born of the
spirit is spirit. To be born again means to be
born from above, born of God, born of the Spirit. It is sometimes
referred to as regeneration, passing from death unto life,
being raised from the dead. You can't raise yourself from
the dead. Old Lazarus in that tomb, Christ didn't say, Lazarus,
will you accept me as your personal Savior? No, he said, Lazarus, come forth. You know what happened? Lazarus
came forth. Passing from death unto life. It involves conversion as spiritual
life is made known. And it's communicated, imparted,
it's a communication and impartation of life from God in Christ. It's not the result of man doing
anything. Look over at John 1, verse 11. The new birth, being born again,
is not the result of man or woman doing anything. It's the result
of God, the Holy Spirit, invincibly giving life and calling sinners
unto the gospel. Look at verse 11, he came to
his own, and his own received him not. You know why they didn't
receive him? Because except a man be born
again, he can't see the kingdom of heaven. Verse 12, but as many
as received him, to them gave he power. Now the word power
there is the right or the privilege to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on his name. That's what receiving Him is,
it's believing on His name, believing who He is and what He accomplished. And verse 13 says, those who
believe on His name which were born, not of blood. You see, not of natural birth,
not of your pedigree. You could have been born a Jew,
you could have been born a Gentile, it doesn't matter. It's not of
blood. Nor of the will of the flesh.
Now I believe what that means is the works of the flesh. This new birth does not come
about because of working. Religiously, morally, sincerely,
however. And then he says, nor of the
will of man. It's not of your will. It's not
of your free will. But of God. Born of God. by the Spirit, who came forth
from the Son, who lived and died and was risen the third day,
because righteousness was established, the resurrection life of Christ.
The new birth is not renovation, it's not reformation, it's not
cleaning up and improving the flesh. Whenever we speak of the
flesh in this way, you know what we mean? It's sin. You can't
improve sin. You cannot make sin to become
righteousness or holiness. Sin is sin. The only way you
can deal with sin is for someone who's able and willing to come
and take it away. Finish it. And that's what Christ
did. It's not simply making me a better
person. The new birth is not simply making
us better people. Self-help books and programs
can do that. But it's not just making me a
better man, it's making me a new man in Christ. The old man, you know the Bible
speaks of the old man and the new man. The old man is our natural
unregenerate state, connected with Adam. We still have the vestiges of
the old man in the flesh. We have a war, flesh and the
spirit. The old man is our natural unregenerate state. The new man
is our spiritual regenerate state in Christ. And it is first known
as God gives us the gift of faith in Christ and brings us to repentance
of dead works. You must be born again or you
cannot see this, cannot believe it. All right.