John 3.9-13.
Being born again is a deep, challenging idea. Which Nicodemus balked at… as people will do when they’re confronted with something which demands real, transformative change of them. He began with the typical skeptic’s joke of “What,
But Jesus, who’s far wiser than most people realize, didn’t take the bait.
John 3.9-13 KWL - 9 In reply Nicodemus tells him, “How can these things happen?”
- 10 In reply Jesus tells him, “You’re Israel’s teacher.
- You don’t already know these things?
- 11 Amen amen! I promise you:
- We’ve known what we’re talking about.
- We’ve seen what we’re testifying about.
- You people don’t receive our testimony.
- 12 If you don’t trust me when I tell you earthly things,
- how will you trust me when I tell you heavenly things?
- 13 Nobody’s risen up to heaven
- except the one who comes down from heaven:
- The Son of Man.” {Who’s in heaven.}
Text that was added to the New Testament by
And yet we have Christians who think the Textus and
Anyway. There’s a regular theme we see throughout John where Jesus tries to teach people something, but they can’t handle his teaching. This’d be one of those times.
Not because it’s impossible to understand Jesus! We give newbies the gospel of John, and they read it, and understand Jesus just fine. He’s deep, but he’s intelligible. John wrote most of his gospel in pretty basic Greek too, so most of the time it’s really easy to translate. Jesus uses tons of metaphors, but big deal; every culture has metaphors, and the ancient Hebrews were thoroughly familiar with metaphor; read Psalms and the Prophets sometime. Metaphor-a-rama.
The issue isn’t that Jesus goes over people’s heads. He doesn’t. The issue is people don’t want him in their heads. He’s too challenging! Too antithetical to the stuff people prefer to believe. Too contradictory to the stuff they grow up with, and take for granted. Too convicting.
And there’s another theme seen throughout John, which we also see right here in this passage: Jesus finds this rampant closed-mindedness really annoying.
Back to the idea Nicodemus was dumb.
As I said, Christians read this passage and understand the basics of it right away. If you wanna experience God’s kingdom, you gotta become a new person. Not a complicated idea! But Nicodemus appears to struggle with it… so we presume Nicodemus is an idiot.
Or sometimes we claim it’s because Nicodemus didn’t have
But here’s what’s really happening. Whenever you show
Because it’s painfully clear what Jesus is getting at: If we wanna see God’s kingdom, something in us has to change. We gotta have some sort of “born again” experience. We gotta start from the top, and become very different people. And if we’re mighty comfortable with the people we currently are, we don’t wanna do that. We will fight doing that.
So no, skeptics aren’t dumb; Nicodemus wasn’t dumb. These guys are only playing dumb.
But man alive, do certain Christians love to imagine they’re dumb! And love to imagine we’re so smart. It’s a pride thing! We like to think we’re smarter, we’re special, we have supernatural insight, we have secret knowledge. Whatever form it takes, we wanna think we’re better than skeptics and pagans: We can understand Jesus just fine, but somehow they just can’t.
It’s not
Clever, but thick.
Remember when the L
Isaiah 6.9-10 KJV - 9 And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. 10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.
By “the heart of this people,” God meant their minds.
And no, it’s not because God was making them stupid. He sent them Isaiah, after all. The problem is the people didn’t wanna repent and be saved and get healed. They didn’t want knowledge and understanding. They chose to be unthinking and apathetic. People choose this behavior.
Jesus quotes this bit of Isaiah when he explained to his students
Nicodemus was a smart guy. But when he met with Jesus, he only brought one insight with him: Jesus came from God. It’s a start! But it’s all Nicodemus had, and I don’t think he expected Jesus to actually teach him stuff. It’s why he struggled with Jesus’s teaching. Likely he still had an attitude of “Wait, I’m the teacher, and Jesus is just some miracle-worker.” In fact Nicodemus, thanks to a lifetime of flawed Pharisee traditions, had to start over from scratch under a new Master. It’s not at all what he was expecting. He was used to his old ideas, the stuff the Pharisee elders taught. He was used to being right—
Hence Jesus’s quick diagnosis of Nicodemus: “I know what I’m talking about. I was there. Yet none of you accept it. And I have so much more to teach you!”
Yeah, Jesus has infinite patience. It’s why he didn’t give up on Pharisees altogether, didn’t quit teaching in synagogue, didn’t decide not to die for their sins, and didn’t instruct his students before he ascended, “Don’t bother with Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. They wouldn’t listen to me, so they can all go to hell.”
In this passage Jesus uses the plural—“we’ve known what we’re talking about.” No, this isn’t a reference to
Yep, exactly like American Christians. Too often we’re too busy listening to the more famous preachers, authors, bloggers, even politicians. Not so much the bona fide prophets, who are trying to get us to repent and follow Jesus. Who are, like their Master, too challenging, too contrary, too convicting.
Some things never do change.
