Nicodemus, a respected Jewish teacher, meets with Jesus and starts of with a positive address to Him, though he saw Him only as a “teacher from God” (3:1-2). (Jesus is possibly referring to this title in 3:12-13, that He was literally from heaven and therefore could speak of heavenly things. Nicodemus spoke the truth better than he knew!)
Jesus seems to cut Nicodemus’s flattering introduction short by jumping straight to the core issue that Nico (and by implication the whole body of religious leaders) have not recognized. He must be born again (vv. 3-8). He saw the signs but didn’t understand their significance. They are signs of the kingdom of God come to earth.
Jesus repeatedly hammers home Nicodemus’s ignorance in vv. 10-12: he is a teacher, but hasn’t begun to understand the things of God. He does not accept the testimony of those in the know because he is not in the same kingdom to recognize the truth. He does not believe the parables of earthly things because they speak of the kingdom realities of a changed heart. John in 20:31 said the signs were an aid for people to believe that Jesus is the Son. The religious leaders missed this.
Jesus literally came from heaven. The irony of Nicodemus saying that Jesus came from God is lost to Nicodemus. Since Jesus is the Son of God come from heaven, God has invaded this world. The kingdom of God has come to earth. The king came not only to teach but set people free. He came to draw them near to God; even so far as to make Jew and Gentile one.
Jesus then speaks of the ignorance of everyone else in vv. 19-20: people don’t understand because they prefer darkness to light. They don’t want to know the light of holiness because it pricks their guilty consciences and wounds their prideful egos. The light of Jesus Christ judges them, v. 19. They dislike having their self-delusions proven wrong. In comparison to the light of Christ, they are fraudulent teachers from hell leading people astray.
They are focused on external performance when Jesus is aiming for a new heart that is oriented to God, which only the Spirit could form in them. This is the striking character of the kingdom of God they could not acknowledge because they were men of the flesh, not the Spirit. They think they have to build it themselves. But all they build is from the flesh and reproduces people of the flesh.
Men of the flesh cannot teach their hearers to be people of the Spirit. The people would then be oriented to performance, not of such godly character as are oriented in humility toward Jesus as Lord. Jesus is not king in their version of the kingdom. The flesh rules on the throne of their hearts.
So they misrepresent all Scripture and cannot see a suffering Messiah who comes to die on behalf of the sins of the world. They don’t see sin as the problem. They see the external rule of the kingdom of Rome as the problem. Their notion of the kingdom of God overcoming Roman domination is hopelessly misinterpreted and misguided.
Christians miss the point when Jesus talks about the beatitudes and other subjects in the Sermon on the Mount. We miss the point when we read it and say, “I don’t think I can do that.” We can’t do that. That’s the point. We need the Spirit to create a new heart in us to be trained up in the kingdom of God and see this fruit, or outgrowth, of the Spirit.
In vv. 7-8, Jesus is giving us the critical component that makes the kingdom of God come alive in us: the movement of the Spirit active and unhindered in the believers’ lives. Paul explicitly spells this out in Romans 8:1-17. Either the flesh is ruling, or the Spirit is and the flesh is defeated. Surrendering to the authority of the Spirit is the thrust of the kingdom. When the flesh is ruling, the kingdom life is not known, and the fleshly mind with its orientation to the flesh is blinding it to the things of God, Rom. 8:5-8.
Are we prompted by the flesh more than the Spirit? Highly learned Nicodemus attained rank among men but missed the kingdom. He ruled others but God did not rule him. The teacher of Israel taught the ways of men and brings them into bondage; the Spirit teaches the ways of God and liberates their souls.
By faith we enter into this born-again life, as John 3:16 indicates. We progress in this life by growing in kingdom values by faith.
The two-fold way into kingdom training has its first part in the words of Jesus: “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mark 8:34).
The second part is found in the words of Paul, “Do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God,” (Romans 6).
From beginning to the end, it’s a life of faith.
