The Life We Cannot Give Ourselves

Nicodemus is a Pharisee and a Jewish leader. He comes to Jesus at night and recognizes that His signs show God's presence with Him. We are not told why he chooses nighttime. Jesus moves straight to his deepest need: new birth. Nicodemus thinks about physical birth, but Jesus is speaking about life given by God's Spirit. The expression translated as being born again can also mean being born from above. This is not a better version of the old life. It is life that God gives. Jesus' words about water and the Spirit point toward God's promise of cleansing and a changed heart in Ezekiel 36:25-27. Human birth gives human life; the Spirit gives spiritual life. Like the wind, the Spirit cannot be controlled, though His work has real effects. I find comfort here: our hope rests on God's power, not our ability to remake ourselves.

Nicodemus still does not understand. Jesus challenges him because, as a teacher of Israel, he should recognize the need for the heart change God had promised. Yet Nicodemus struggles to receive what Jesus says. Jesus alone can speak with full authority about heavenly things because He came from heaven. Then He points to an event in Israel's wilderness journey. When poisonous snakes struck the people, God provided a bronze snake that Moses raised on a pole. Those who looked at it lived, as recorded in Numbers 21:4-9. In a greater way, the Son of Man, Jesus, must be lifted up. This points ahead to His death on the cross. Eternal life comes through believing in Him. The answer to our deepest need is not greater religious skill. It is the Savior God provides.

These verses show the heart behind God's gift: He loves the world. His love reaches a world that has turned away from Him, and He gives His only Son so that those who believe may have eternal life. Jesus' mission is to save, not to bring a fresh sentence of guilt upon people who were innocent before He came. Unbelief leaves people under judgment. That is why this promise is both wonderfully kind and deeply serious. John then explains unbelief through the picture of light and darkness. People often resist the light because they do not want their evil deeds exposed. Those who live by the truth come into the light, where God's work in them becomes clear. Don't rush past this: God's grace does not help us hide our sin. It brings us into the open, where His saving work can be seen.

Jesus and His disciples spend time in the Judean countryside, where baptisms take place. John the Baptist is also baptizing at Aenon near Salim because there is plenty of water. This happens before John's imprisonment. John 4:2 later makes clear that Jesus' disciples perform the baptisms. A discussion about washing for religious purity leads John's followers to worry that people are now going to Jesus. John refuses to treat Jesus as a rival. Whatever place he has was given by heaven. He had already told them that he was not the Messiah, God's promised Savior, but the one sent ahead of Him. John compares himself to the bridegroom's friend, whose joy comes from the bridegroom's arrival. Jesus is the bridegroom. John's growing joy, not wounded pride, explains his willingness to become less prominent. His work succeeds when people turn to Jesus.

The chapter closes by showing why Jesus deserves the central place. He comes from above and is above all. His message is not a human guess about God. He bears witness to what He knows from heaven, though His witness meets widespread rejection. Those who receive it affirm that God tells the truth. The One God sends speaks God's words, and God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in His hands. These truths lead to a clear choice. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life now. Whoever rejects Him remains under God's wrath, His settled and right anger against sin. I do not want to soften that warning or miss the promise beside it. Life is freely offered in the Son, but there is no life apart from Him.