Alive To God

There are times when people seem to be depending on you or praising you more than they ought, and you need to direct them to trust in Someone greater than yourself. Unfortunately, sometimes we’ll be full of ourselves when we speak. In this passage, we’ll see how John the baptizer, called “Rabbi” by his followers, dealt with it.

John 3:21-24 introduces the setting and the characters. The time is prior to John’s imprisonment, and his followers were baptizing at the Jordan river, just south of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus and His disciples were further south, in Judea, also baptizing.

In John 3:17 we see the contrast between the “saved” and the “condemned.” Condemnation implies that judgment has been passed upon us by the Judge, and we are all guilty of breaking God’s laws. If we are saved, we who were under condemnation are no longer condemned.

According to Jesus in 3:16, we would perish for being under condemnation. But Jesus gave His own life in place of ours, receiving in Himself our sentence of condemnation and death. When we place our faith in the Son, the condemnation passes away and we receive a new kind of life where God counts us innocent not guilty; accepted in His sight and not condemned.

In John 3, we have an interesting interplay of words here. The term “born again” is introduced, and as the chapter continues, it is expanded on with new words, such as Spirit (as opposed to flesh), everlasting life (as opposed to perishing), saved (as opposed to condemned), and light (as opposed to darkness). In my understanding, all these words and concepts help us appreciate how the Lord intends the born-again life to be understood.

Jesus puts born again against the backdrop of flesh and Spirit in vv. 5-8. So being born again is emerging out from the flesh-dominated life to being born into a Spirit-dominated life. The senses and abilities of our bodies are disregarded in favor of the leading of the Spirit. He doesn’t guide us according to normal ways and means.

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.