Chapter # 3 Paragraph # 1 Study # 3
August 6, 2023
Broadlands, Louisiana
(Download Audio)
Thesis: The beginning of the issue of being qualified to "see" the Kingdom of The God involves coming to realize that "faith" operates on a different and exclusive level than "obedience".
Introduction: In our last study, we considered Jesus' forceful declaration that the ability to "see" the Kingdom of The God was, at root, a declaration that men have to "
start over" if they wish to be accepted into God's Kingdom. This is
the point of making physical birth a legitimate analogy for a statement of what God requires for entrance into His Kingdom. When men are not aware of the absolute distinction between the physical creation and the relational creation, it is impossible for them to come to grips with biblical "faith". The physical creation is a physical level illustration of the relational creation, not an equivalent creation. The illustration has to be allowed to become a teaching method to move men beyond the physical into the relational.
This morning we are going to look into how Jesus pushed Nicodemus to jettison all that he thought he understood and "start over".
- I. Nicodemus' Response To Jesus' Declaration Of The Necessity Of A Second Birth.
- A. Author-John's focus is upon Nicodemus "saying"... .
- 1. At issue here is Nicodemus' total lack of a point of reference for a "second birth".
- a. The only "birth" of which he is aware is the physical birth of a baby from its mother's womb.
- b. Assuredly, Nicodemus knows that his bankruptcy of understanding is totally inadequate to impart meaning; but he has no other "point of reference".
- c. There is, in Isaiah 66:8, a mention of "a land born in a day" that is, to Isaiah, a future event, but it has a prior frame of reference in the Exodus narrative when Israel came out of Egypt in one night. [This was, in a very physical sense, a "birth out of water".]
- 2. The main question is "How?"
- a. "How is it possible for a man to be 'born' as an old man?"
- b. "He cannot enter into the womb of his mother a second time and be born."
- 1) This sentence is taken to be a question by the Authorized Version, the NASB, and the NASB77, but it can be legitimately translated as a statement of fact, and Nicodemus was not a fool.
- 2) He knew that a man could not enter into his mother's womb. He also knew that the biblical record contained no record of a man doing such a thing, and that many, over the centuries, had become qualified to see the Kingdom of God.
- a) However, at this point, the matter of "qualification" has been raised, and the interpretations of the Law by the Jews have focused upon the appearance of the larger picture (man is qualified by his obedience to God).
- b) However, in that "Law" it was revealed that a man was "justified by God", and, thus, qualified, and that the particulars of that revelation declared "justification" to be by "faith" in God and not in man and his very flawed attempts to "obey".
- c) However, the Jews had simply melded the faith/obedience issues into a single unit with the focus upon the "obedience" side of the issues, not realizing that such an "interpretation" was totally erroneous: the issues cannot be "melded"; they stand as separate states of mind.
- i. Faith in God is faith in God.
- ii. Faith in acceptance by obedience is faith in man.
- d) It had never occurred to the Jews that the word of God could not be "blended" into "physical world understandings".
- i. Jesus' declaration to the Samaritan woman was adamant: God is spirit and must be worshipped in spirit (4:24).
- ii. This is reinforced by Jesus with His "the flesh profts nothing" declaration in 6:63.
- iii. Thus, the reality of two creations, one material and another relational, was declared and established, each with its own characteristics.
- 3) This absolutely rules out the text as a question; Nicodemus is straight out denying a physical level reality of "another birth" and, thus, his real question: How is a man enabled to be born again being old?
- B. This question/declaration does this, at least: it tells us that Nicodemus took Jesus' words at a kind of "face-value" ... being born again meaning a second time.
- II. Jesus' Response To Nicodemus.
- A. A second "amen amen" statement: Jesus is doubling down.
- B. "Except one should be born out of water and Spirit, he is not able to enter into the Kingdom of The God."
- 1. This is literal and graphic: "born out of water" is an apt description of a woman's "water" breaking and the baby being born out of it.
- 2. In the same way, "born out of Spirit" signals a non-physical reality unassociated with "water" (physical), but wrapped up in the concept of "Spirit" (non-physical).
- a. In 3:34, Witness-John tells his errant disciples that God has given Jesus His Spirit "without measure" so that "He speaks the words of God", again tying the "birth" idea of 1:12-13 to "believing into His name", and continuing with Jesus' declarations to Nicodemus. We can hardly escape the connection that makes "being born again" methodologically tied to "believing His words": when a person "believes into His name", he is "born of God". John 6:63 strongly reinforces this fact.
- b. This does not, however, disconnect the "second birth" from its bottom line analogy to the "first birth": starting over, a reality of reorientation to the original authority and effectiveness of The Word of The God.
- 1) This "new beginning" requires a fundamental and profound shift to The Word of The God as one's source of truth for all things connected to "relational living".
- 2) This will inevitably lead to the shift from legal-performance in order to "see" and "enter" The Kingdom of The God, to the fundamental connection of "faith" unto "righteousness" and, thus, "Life".
- c. The total incapacity of what is born of "flesh" to generate a legitimate connection to the bottom line issue of "seeing" and "entering" The Kingdom is Jesus' "point".
- 1) One who depends upon the flesh to empower the "faith" necessary to the new birth will find that flesh" incompetent.
- 2) On the other hand, however, everyone who depends upon the Spirit to empower the "faith" that leads to the "second birth" finds Him exceedingly powerful to that task and effective for that task.
- 3) It is the Words Of The Spirit, "believed", that bring people to "Life". Galatians 3:2 establishes this truth. Those who "hear with faith" are given this Spirit unto new "life" with all of its downline results.
