Born of God, Part III

John 3:1-3: "There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, 'Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.' Jesus answered and said to him, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'"

Jesus taught the truth about the new birth to Nicodemus and there is much we can glean about the new birth from that lesson. Jesus' teaching on the new birth to Nicodemus highlights the bankruptcy of fallen humanity, even in their utmost religious zeal, to contribute anything to the new birth. Therefore, it presents the new birth as an outcome of the active grace of God in the transformation of a sinner into a child of God. Furthermore, it emphasizes the necessity for every human being, religious or not, to be born again of God in order to understand and enter the Kingdom of God to fulfil God's righteousness.

Nicodemus was a member of the Pharisees, who were a separated and very zealous religious sect among the Jews. They placed great emphasis on the exactness and discipline of the performance of the Law. But as is characteristic of all fallen humanity, their inside remained corrupt and void of the true righteousness of God. So to cover up their inward corruption, they pretentiously followed zealously a strict outward, mechanical, and formal observance of the Law. Their system of religion was a mere form which lacked genuine substance on the inside.

Jesus time and again denounced the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in His teachings. He clearly did not dilute His words in exposing the hypocrisy of the Pharisaic religion. The following Scripture passage tells it all. Here Jesus lamented in Matthew 23:25-28: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee; first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

The Pharisees were classical examples of the extent of pretensions that religious man can engage in to cover up their true inability to attain to God's righteousness. Although sometimes people are convinced that these outward religious forms are all that are needed to attain to true righteousness before God, the truth is no amount of these outward religious practices, as sincere as they may be, can change a sinful man into a righteous man before God.

It is from this background that Nicodemus emerged to secretly seek counsel from the Lord and to finally hear the true message of the Gospel and find the way to true righteous living. He had seen in Jesus the genuine righteousness he had pursued in vain all his life. And he wanted to find out how Jesus did it.

Nicodemus was a victim of the same old religious mindset which has crept into the Christian religion and has left many professing Christians and devout church-goers with a desperate sense of emptiness and lack of the true righteousness of God. They are taught, some of them from childhood, all they need to do to be righteous, to enter the Kingdom of God, is to try their best to follow the rules and precepts of their religion. They are told that, as time goes on, with discipline and perseverance, they will gradually grow out of their sinful habits and nature into godly persons fit for the Kingdom of God. But time has come and gone, they have attended church seminars, they read books, they say many prayers, and they have kept trying harder and harder, and yet just when they think they have mastered their sinful vices, they find themselves floored again.

This is the result of the distortion of the true Gospel into a message of human philosophy and psychology that makes salvation more a product of a legalist self-righteous effort and human reformation than a fruit of God’s grace by which God and God alone effectively changes sinners into saints by the miracle of the new birth. Paul testifies: “I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die” (Galatians 2:21).

We will see in the next part how Jesus explained the truth of the new birth to Nicodemus as an outcome of the grace of God.

Father, in Jesus' name, help me to see and understand the role that your grace actively plays in me becoming your child. Amen.