Elder Kevin Wood preaches on John 3:1-21, where Jesus and Nicodemus “talk shop.”
It is unquestionably the most famous verse in the entire Bible. It is displayed prominently on banners at sporting events. It is on t-shirts and baseball caps and jewelry and bumper stickers. I know people who use it as their computer password, which probably isn’t such a good idea, especially if you’re not shy about being a Christian.
I refer, of course, to John 3:16.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
You probably know it even better in the classic King James Version with its ‘begotten’ and ‘whosoever believeth’ and ‘everlasting’; say it along with me if you want:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
If you can only quote one Bible verse from memory, it’s probably John 3:16. I know it’s the first one I ever memorized, in both English and Spanish. “Porque de tal manera amó Dios al mundo, que dio a su Hijo unigénito, para que todo aquel que cree en Él, no se pierda, mas tenga vida eterna.”
But it’s one thing to know or to memorize this famous verse; it’s another altogether different thing to understand it. And to understand it, we must understand the context in which it was said. And that context involves a phrase and concept which is itself extremely well-known, but perhaps not at all well-understood: to be “born again”.
Last week we talked about the first of seven signs or miracles done by Jesus which John chose to include in his gospel to show that Jesus was indeed the Christ, the Son of God. But I noted that John also includes some interesting conversations which Jesus had with all sorts of people. This week we consider the first of his recorded encounters with people other than his disciples, in which both this idea of being “born again” and this famous verse of John 3:16 make their grand appearance.
Let’s begin by reading the first two verses of John chapter 3:
Now 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.”
It is nighttime and Jesus receives a special visitor, a member of the religious elite, of a group known for their religiosity and their desire to keep themselves pure from any defilement, including defilement through association with certain kinds of undesirable people: prostitutes, tax collectors, and Gentiles, to name just a few.
Up to this point, by contrast, Jesus seems to have been associating almost exclusively with the common people, even choosing his disciples from among them. And the Jewish religious leaders, including the Pharisees, have been hearing about Jesus. They no doubt heard about him going out to be baptized by John and the strange reports of the people about what had happened there, and they would have heard about his miraculous turning of water into wine at a wedding. And then they may have witnessed for themselves something we skipped over, when Jesus went down to the temple in Jerusalem at the Passover, and angrily chased out the money-changers and those selling animals for sacrifices.
The fact that this particular Pharisee, Nicodemus, comes at night, in secret, suggests that the Pharisees as a collective have already formed a negative opinion of Jesus. We know, of course, that later Jesus will have numerous run-ins with the Pharisees and condemn them for their self-righteousness and hypocrisy.
Therefore, when Nicodemus says to Jesus, “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”, we can guess that he really wasn’t speaking on behalf of all of his fellow Pharisees, but only for himself and perhaps a few others of like mind.
He is apparently sincere. He is apparently a seeker of the truth. And he has come to Jesus to find out for himself what this strange new teacher is all about.
He is a respected leader of the Jews. He is no doubt a teacher himself. He no doubt knows the Jewish Scriptures extremely well. He has come to have a face-to-face conversation with Jesus, likewise a teacher and a person who knows the Scriptures very well. We might say that Nicodemus has come to “talk shop” with Jesus, to discuss their mutual profession and mutual interest.
Upon hearing Nicodemus’s flattering words of introduction, Jesus responds, but probably not in the way that Nicodemus expected. We don’t know, of course, whether there was more to the conversation which John did not record; that is entirely possible. But from what John did record, it appears that Jesus does not return the compliment, nor ask Nicodemus what he wants, but instead makes a probing statement. As we go through the book of John, we will see this same pattern. Jesus is not much for small talk; he normally cuts to the chase and goes straight to some point which is of particular relevance to the person or situation in question.
We pick up in verse 3:
Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Let’s pause here for just a moment. Having heard Jesus’s explanation of the need for a person to be ‘born again’ (or ‘born anew’), to be born of water and also the spirit, is it entirely clear to you? Are you satisfied with Jesus’s explanation?
Before you answer that, let me inform you that the church has been arguing about what Jesus meant by these words for the past two thousand years, and still today there is wide disagreement. And as we shall now see, even a learned and apparently sincere man like Nicodemus found himself more confused than ever by Jesus’s explanation. If he had said at this point, “Why, thank you, Rabbi, that clears things up nicely”, it would have been with a huge dose of sarcasm. Nicodemus responded not with sarcasm, however, but rather with a further appeal for understanding.
We pick up in verse 9:
Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
By the way, have you noticed that the element of water has been a part of the last three messages? We had John the Baptist baptizing with water. We had Jesus turning water into wine. And now we have Jesus speaking of being born of water and the Spirit. As we continue this series, we’ll hear Jesus speak of the living water, and heal a lame man at the pool of Bethesda, and walk on water, and heal a blind man using the water in the pool of Siloam, and wash the disciples’ feet with water. This is a unique characteristic of John’s gospel as compared to those of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It turns out that there are as many references to water in the Gospel of John as in the other three gospels put together. Is this intentional? Is John trying to tell us something? It might be something to think about as we continue with our study over the coming weeks.
But back to today’s lesson, which, it turns out, presents plenty of difficulty all by itself.
During my 35 years or so of being a Christian, I have heard a number of sermons on this passage. But I’m not sure that I have ever heard two which interpret it the same way.
The words of Jesus here which present the greatest difficulty for understanding are when he says in verse 5 that a person must be “born of water and the Spirit” in order to enter the kingdom of God. You could go to five different churches over the next five weeks and hear five messages with five different interpretations of what Jesus meant by “born of water and the Spirit”. And in each case, you might hear a carefully constructed explanation which very likely would convince you that that particular interpretation was the right one. That is, until the next week when you were presented with an equally convincing argument for a different interpretation.
All of these interpretations are potentially the correct one. But not all of them can be, because they are mutually exclusive.
The first interpretation considers “water and the Spirit” to be a single unit, that is two words referring to the same thing. It’s like if you were to say “my colleague and friend is retiring”, in which case we would know that your colleague and friend are the same person; otherwise, you would have used the plural and said “my colleague and friend are retiring”.
Thus, those holding this view would say that “water and the Spirit” has the sense of “water, even the Spirit”, or “water, that is, the Spirit”; this type of grammatical construction is perfectly valid in New Testament Greek although fairly uncommon in John [the ascensive or intensive use of ‘kai’]. In other words, they are saying that “water” here refers simply to the Holy Spirit, as a metaphor.
In possible support of this view is the fact that Jesus chided Nicodemus for his lack of understanding: “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” Remember, Nicodemus came to “talk shop” with Jesus; he was a Pharisee, an expert in the Jewish law, and therefore well-versed in the Jewish Scriptures. As such, he would have been familiar with a passage from the book of Ezekiel. Chapter 36, verses 25-27 of that book read:
“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
Here, then, we have the prophet Ezekiel speaking of a future time when God will provide the people with a new start through a cleansing by water – whether real or symbolic – to wash away their impurities and their idols, along with the gift of his indwelling Spirit to transform their hearts from stone to flesh.
Therefore, when Jesus speaks to Nicodemus about “water and the Spirit”, this should have brought this passage from Ezekiel, and perhaps some others, too, to his mind.
The problem with relying on this connection to say that when Jesus spoke of “water and the Spirit”, he was using both terms to refer to the Spirit, is that the passage in Ezekiel doesn’t explicitly say that the water symbolizes the Spirit; they could be separate things there, too.
In addition, Jesus goes on to say to Nicodemus, “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” If “water and the Spirit” both refer to the Spirit, how is it that Jesus has been speaking about earthly things?
This passage from Ezekiel is also cited by those who hold to a second interpretation, that “born of water” refers to baptism. The connection between water and baptism is obvious. And for a connection between water and the spirit, we need look no further back than the first chapter of John’s gospel. Verses 32-34, in reference to John the Baptist, read as follows:
And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”
Here we have baptism with water, and baptism with the Spirit. Could Jesus be speaking of the same thing when he tells Nicodemus that one must be born of water and born of the Spirit? Advocates of this view will point also to Titus 3:4-7, in which Paul links a symbolic or actual ‘washing’ with the Spirit:
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
The interpretation that “born of water” in Jesus’s words to Nicodemus refers to water baptism is the view of the Roman Catholic church as well as other churches which hold either that water baptism is the means by which a person is regenerated or saved, or that water baptism and an accompanying or subsequent spiritual event are the two means by which a person is regenerated or saved.
One significant problem with this view is that in the subsequent verses, when Jesus fleshes out how the new birth actually takes place, he talks only about “believing”, and makes no mention of water or baptism.
Another problem is that one wonders why Nicodemus wouldn’t have understood Jesus. When a Gentile converted to Judaism in the first century, he was considered to be like a newborn child. In addition, he was required to be baptized. Jewish baptism, or immersion, was a ritual washing done in a pool of water and symbolized cleansing and a new beginning. It was done for various reasons, including by priests in the temple before a divine service, by women after menstruation or childbirth, and by all men before Yom Kippur; it was also performed on a dead body before burial. And as already mentioned, it was done by a Gentile when he converted to Judaism, and in fact is still done by Jewish converts in our day. If Jesus was referring to baptism in his conversation with Nicodemus, one wonders why Nicodemus wouldn’t have picked up on this.
There is a third interpretation which is related to the one about baptism. It is that “born of water” refers to repentance. This is just a matter of association, since baptism is a representation of repentance. Remember, that’s what John the Baptist was preaching: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” and “I baptize you with water for repentance” (Matthew 3:2, 11). It’s also what Peter and the other apostles would preach later, as in Acts 2:38: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”.
Still another interpretation is that the ‘water’ in “born of water” refers to the Word of God. There are some New Testament passages which speak of God’s Word as the means or agent used by the Holy Spirit to bring about regeneration, such as 1 Peter 1:23, which even uses the same idea of being “born again” [although a different Greek construction]: “… you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God”.
Then there is Ephesians 5:25-26, which also brings in the idea of water: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word …”. [another passage is James 1:18]
The main problem with this view is that Nicodemus would likely have had no reason to associate water with the Word of God; these other New Testament references obviously weren’t in existence at the time, and there doesn’t seem to be anything in the Old Testament which would suggest such a metaphor.
This brings us to our fifth and final interpretation, which happens to be the simplest and most straightforward one, and that is that “born of water” refers to physical or natural birth.
This view is well supported by the immediate context, the flow of conversation. When Jesus makes his initial statement – “… unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” – Nicodemus clearly thought that he was referring to a second physical birth: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” When Jesus then replied, “… unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God”, the most straightforward interpretation is that “born of water” refers to physical birth and “born of the Spirit” refers to some kind of spiritual experience. This is further bolstered by Jesus’s next words: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”.
“Born of water” as a metaphor for physical birth makes scientific sense because as we all know, a baby in the womb is surrounded by amniotic fluid, which is normally released as part of the birth process, the so-called “breaking of water”. Also, as noted earlier, when a Gentile converted to Judaism, he was considered like a new-born child.
One objection to this view is that it means that Jesus was saying something like “unless one is physically born and then spiritually born, he can’t be saved”. But what human being hasn’t been physically born? Why would Jesus “muddy the waters” by saying it here? Why didn’t he just say, “unless one is spiritually born, he can’t be saved”, and leave the physical birth out of it entirely?
In answer to this objection, it should be pointed out that it was Nicodemus, not Jesus, who brought physical birth into the discussion through his misunderstanding. And as we can see numerous times in John’s gospel, when the people misunderstand the spiritual significance of Jesus’s words and deeds because they are focused on the physical world, Jesus often repeats or rephrases their misunderstanding as part of his clarification. [Other examples: 4:10-14, 20-24, 32-34; 6:31-35; 7:27-28; 8:12-14, 32-36, 39-40, 41-42, 48-49; 9:2-3, 40-41; 13:8-10, 36-38; 14:5-6, 8-9; 16:17-22; 18:36-37; 19:10-11.]
First-century Jews put great confidence in their physical lineage as descendants of Abraham to put them in good standing with God. John the Baptist had already warned them “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham” (Matthew 3:9), and Jesus will confront them later in John’s gospel over this same issue [e.g., chapter 8]. As a Pharisee, Nicodemus no doubt trusted in his Abrahamic lineage, in his physical birth as a Jew, as a stepping-stone if not a guarantee that he would one day enter the kingdom of God. Here in this encounter, Jesus is telling him: your physical birth, even as a descendent of Abraham, is not sufficient to qualify you for heaven; you must also have a spiritual birth. You must be “born of the Spirit” in addition to being “born of water”; you must be “born again”.
Before moving on, let us take a brief look at other New Testament teaching on the new birth. For whatever Jesus meant by being born again, it must be consistent with, or at least not contradictory to, what God has revealed in other parts of the Scriptures.
There is no other place in the entire New Testament where the exact Greek words translated “born again” or “born anew” appear, but there is a very similar Greek word in 1 Peter which is typically translated into English the same way, as “born again”. I already read to you 1 Peter 1:23: “… you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God”. Near the beginning of this same chapter, Peter also wrote, in verses 3-5:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
In these passages from Peter we see that our being born again is an act of mercy on the part of God, not because we deserved or earned it; also, that it is accomplished through the resurrection of Christ; and finally, that it bestows upon us an imperishable, eternal inheritance. What we have surmised from our reading of the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus is consistent with all of this.
And then there is another concept in New Testament teaching which is clearly related to this idea of being “born again”. We find it, for example, in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” This concept of an old man and a new man, an old and new self, an old and new nature, appears in various other passages, too, including Romans 6:3-6, Ephesians 2:4-6, and Colossians 2:13-14. We are born with our old self or nature; we must be re-born or born again with a new self or nature.
Finally, we should point out that John himself, in the first chapter of his gospel, referred to a spiritual birth, too. Verses 12-13 tell us: “But to all who did receive him [that is, Jesus], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God”. Those who believe in Jesus’s name are given the right to be born anew, in a spiritual sense, such that they are considered to be the children of God.
With these last verses in mind, along with the entire context of Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus, we come now to that famous verse, John 3:16. It flows quite naturally from verse 15, in which Jesus said “that whoever believes in [the Son of Man]” – that is, in Jesus himself – “may have eternal life”. Verse 15 marks a transition, in which Jesus begins to boil down the essence of what it means to be “born again”; it means, at its core, to believe in him.
Jesus continues his explanation with those well-known and well-loved words: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Or, maybe not. That is, maybe they weren’t really Jesus’s words.
“What?!”, you say. “Of course they are Jesus’s words. My Bible has them in quotation marks, meaning that they are a continuation of Jesus’s previous comments. Look, it’s that way right here in our pew Bibles.” Or if you have a red-letter edition of the Bible, perhaps of the English Standard Version (the same as our pew Bibles) or the King James Version or the New American Standard, you could point out to me how John 3:16 is written in red, so they must be Jesus’s words, right?
No, not necessarily. When John wrote his gospel, did he switch to red ink whenever he wrote down Jesus’s words? Did he use quotation marks? No, and no. There is no punctuation in the original Greek of the New Testament – not even commas or periods – and there is certainly no red ink.
This normally presents no great problem, because it is usually fairly obvious where a direct quote ends and where the writer’s commentary begins. But with John’s particular style of writing, it is more difficult. And this is one of those passages where it is impossible to know. As a result, some scholars think that Jesus’s words end with verse 15 and that verse 16 begins John’s commentary, while others think that Jesus’s words go all the way through verse 21. Still others think that Jesus’s words end with other verses.
So … either Jesus said those famous words of John 3:16 … or he didn’t, and John wrote them as a commentary. Does it matter? In the end, not really, if we believe that all of John’s gospel is the inspired Word of God. If Jesus said those words, they are most certainly inspired of God, for they are from the mouth of the very Son of God. And if John wrote those words as a commentary, presumably summarizing what he had heard Jesus teach on the subject, we believe that he did so inspired by the Holy Spirit.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
To “believe in Jesus”, this is what is at the core of the new birth, of being “born again”. But what does “believe in Jesus” mean? Do we believe in Jesus in the same way that as children we might have believed in Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy? Is Jesus some character with special powers whom we only think about at selected times of the year or on particular occasions?
I would hope not, because that’s not who Jesus claimed to be, nor the Jesus whom John and the other apostles and disciples witnessed and later testified him to be.
Believing in Santa won’t give you eternal life nor anything which lasts forever; at best it will get you some material possession which if you’re lucky will last a year before breaking. Believing in the Easter Bunny won’t give you the abundant life which Jesus promises; at best it might get you an abundance of Easter candy to fill your belly and probably give you a stomachache. Believing in the Tooth Fairy won’t give you true joy, love, peace, and hope; at most it will get you an extra nickel or dime … well, I suppose today with inflation it might get you a dollar.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Jesus – or perhaps John – continues as follows in verses 17-18:
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
These are words of acceptance or words of condemnation … words of life or words of death … good news or bad news.
Though God did not send Jesus into the world in order to condemn it, still, in the end some are condemned while others are not. But this is not based on our physical lineage, nor our station in life, nor our riches, nor even our works, but rather on whether we have believed or not believed in Jesus Christ.
As Paul would write later in Romans 8:1-2: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”
Some will be condemned, but it won’t be because God rejected them; it will be because they rejected God. Words of life … or words of death.
Do you believe in Jesus? Do you believe that he is the Christ, the Son of God?
Jesus – or again, perhaps John – concludes with verses 19-21:
“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
We have here a return to a theme which marked the beginning of John’s gospel: the opposition of light and darkness. It is a theme which will return time and again. John’s gospel is noteworthy for its dualism: for this contrast between light and darkness, as well as other contrasts, some of which we saw in today’s passage, for example between the flesh and the spirit, between earthly and heavenly things, and between life and death.
The previous verses spoke of words of life and words of death. Likewise, these speak of works of light and works of darkness. Those who love the darkness are like those who reject God, and those who love the light are like those who accept him.
Does this passage teach that only those people who are morally upright will come to the light, come to God? That would put the burden on us, and give us the credit, too. But as we will see later in John’s gospel, in accounts such as that of the Samaritan woman, many of the people who will respond affirmatively to Jesus’s invitation are not the morally upright. Rather, they are people who recognize their own sinfulness and need for a Savior. They are people who, yes, know what it means to live in the darkness, but they have grown tired of such a life, and have come to the light, willing that their deeds be exposed, in order that their life might be transformed.
Likewise, even those whom the world might view as morally upright are in need of a Savior. No matter how good their works might appear to be outwardly, inwardly there will be pride or self-righteousness or envy or lust or any other number of evils. Nicodemus was certainly a man whom the world viewed as morally upright, and yet it appears that he recognized that not all was well, and he came to Jesus to find some answers.
If there are areas of your life which show a love for the darkness rather than the light, will you ask God to help you change them?
We began our story with Nicodemus, and we shall end it with him, too. We saw in the beginning how he seemed to be a sincere seeker of the truth. He came to see Jesus in order to ‘talk shop’, and probably got much more than he bargained for. What he thought of all that Jesus told him about the need to be born again and about believing in him for eternal life, we are not told.
But John does give us some clues later in his gospel. Let us turn first to chapter 7, beginning in verse 43:
So there was a division among the people over him [that is, Jesus]. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.
The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why did you not bring him?” The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!” The Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.” Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”
When all of the other Pharisees have completely rejected Jesus’s claims, Nicodemus courageously defends him before them all.
Then near the end of his gospel, after Jesus has been crucified, John tells us something more. Turn with me to chapter 19, beginning in verse 38:
After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.
Nicodemus, this man who came to Jesus very early in his earthly ministry, has apparently been a secret disciple of his all this time. And here at the end, he comes to lovingly care for Jesus’s body, to prepare it for burial, and, we might say, although Nicodemus wouldn’t have known it, for his resurrection, too.
Jesus explained it all to Nicodemus: you must be “born again”, “born of water” but also “born of the Spirit”. If you believe in me, you will have eternal life.
The evidence suggests that Nicodemus accepted the message, difficult though it was.
The question is, have we?
