Chapter # 3 Paragraph # 1 Study # 4
August 13, 2023
Broadlands, Louisiana
(Download Audio)
Thesis: Jesus explained the issue of an "again birth" to Nicodemus.
Introduction: In our last study we considered Nicodemus' lack of awareness of the "Relational Universe" which is only known when the "Material Universe" is used as a stepping stone up from the "material" into the "spiritual" (
Note John 3:12). Because Nicodemus had formed his "T"heology to agree with his "Material" view of the universe, he had no frame of reference to understand Jesus' warning that only those who were "born again" would be able to "see" the Kingdom of God. We saw that Nicodemus flatly denied the possibility of an "again birth", so Jesus had to respond with an explanation.
This morning we are going to seek to understand this explanation.
- I. Jesus' Response To Nicodemus' Rejection Of The Necessity Of Starting Over.
- A. Nicodemus' rejection of the statement "you must be born again".
- 1. Nicodemus had absolutely no "frame of reference" to the necessity of an "again birth" from his studies of the Scriptures that he had (our Old Testament).
- 2. There had been no known individual, physical, "again births" in Nicodemus' known history of mankind. But there had been a major physical "birth" likeness given by God to the nation at the crossing of the Red Sea. This "national, physical, likeness" of an individual physical birth mimiced (a spelling accepted by "The Sage" on the internet, but replaced by mimicked by my spell checker) the physical individual "birth" of individuals that resulted in a "national physical reality" that existed without the "heart" reality (Deuteronomy 29:4) that only an "again birth" can produce: Israel is yet awaiting, as a nation, the "birth by the Spirit" promised in Joel 2:28. Technically an "again birth" is connected to "resurrection" as Acts 13:33 clearly indicates.
- 3. Without an understanding of "Scripture" and "historical precedent", Nicodemus was in no condition to "understand" at all.
- B. Jesus' choice of words was deliberate, knowing that Nicodemus could not "understand" him since he had no understanding of the "relational universe" that is a matter of "spirit".
- C. Jesus responded to Nicodemus' "question" and to his "rejection".
- 1. He began His response with a repetition of the double "amen" that He used in 3:3.
- 2. Then, He explained his meaning of "an again birth".
- a. His "I am saying" is deliberately intensive to His statement: the use of "lego" is a claim to be "saying" things that are "true" at a fundamental doctrinal level, and are supposed to be "believed" at a "heart" level.
- 1) For Nicodemus to reject a "lego" statement is to reject what he had already declared to be a "known" truth: that Jesus was "Teacher" (anartharous), having come (Perfect Indicative) from God.
- 2) Now he is "between a rock and a hard place": "Teacher sent by God" cannot be legitimately disputed even if He says things that make no sense at all to the student.
- b. Jesus returned to Nicodemus' original "response" (his "question") and ignored his secondary "response" (his declaration of unbelief).
- c. Jesus' explanation.
- 1) Begins with the issue of an "again birth".
- a) There is a "birth out of water", (pictured on a massive scale by Israel's "birth of a nation" by crossing out of the waters of the Red Sea).
- i. There are three factors to a "birth out of water": conception, birth pains, and the breaking of the water that allows the birth to come.
- ii. This is the universally recognized "individual, physical, birth" of which all men know because they have witnessed it.
- iii. These "universally recognized" factors of a physical birth were given a very large stage at the "birth" of the nation.
- i) There was the "conception" when Jacob moved his family down to Egypt and set up in the land of Goshen.
- ii) There was a set of ten "birth pains" when God subjected Egypt to ten plagues that grew more intense as they progressed until the final "pain" came in the form of the death of the firstborn of every family of Egypt and the Pharaoh demanded that "the nation" get out of Egypt.
- iii) There was the "breaking of the water" when Moses extended his rod over the Sea and the waters "parted" to allow the nation to walk out of the womb of Egypt into the desert beyond.
- iv) Then there was the fact that this "physical-level birth" was "of the flesh" when Moses pointedly declared, in Deuteronomy 29:4, that this "birth" was absent of the necessary "heart" that is required for a "birth" to result in a "child of God", and was followed by Joel 2:28 which promised an "again birth" when God was to pour out His Spirit upon the nation and beyond that would make the "nation" qualified to "see" and "enter into" the Kingdom of God.
- ii. It is this universally recognized physical birth that gives us a basis for grasping the essence of the unrecognized birth "out of Spirit".
- b) There is a "birth out of Spirit".
- i. This "birth" was also "pictured" by God's creation of Adam as He blew His breath into Adam's body of dust and Adam became a "son of God" (Luke 3:23 and 38); the "breath" being the "spirit of life".
- ii. This "birth" is not generally recognized because it is not a reality that has its roots in "physical manifestation" except in secondary ways.
- iii. That it is not generally recognized does not mean it is not "real".
- 2) Continues with the insertion of what is at stake.
- a) No one can "enter into" (eiselthein) "into" (repetitive "eis") the Kingdom of The God.
- b) This maintains the fact that such "entrance" is an extremely serious matter.
- 3) Proceeds with a further explanation.
- a) That which has been born out of the flesh is flesh.
- b) And that which has been born out of Spirit is Spirit.
- c) Unacceptably, many have taken the descriptions of "two births" and forced those descriptions into a description of how the "birth out of Spirit" occurs; taking the "water" and "spirit" as applying to the "again birth" rather than taking the "water" birth as the first birth and the "spirit" birth as the "again birth" (this is a false mixing of the material and relational universes).
- d) Jesus, alternatively, simply describes the first birth as "out of water" and the second birth as "out of Spirit".
- i. Peter recognized this with his "corruptible seed" (first birth) and his "incorruptible seed" (again birth): 1 Peter 1:23.
- ii. Though not a high visibility concept in the totality of the New Testament Scriptures (or even of the Old Testament), it is nonetheless a critical one (Peter is the only New Testament author to use the verb "anagennao" and John is the only New Testament author to use the phrase "gennethe anothen".
- iii. Additionally, John, the also-author of 1 John, uses the phrase "born of God" six times in that short epistle and no one else does in the entire New Testament.
