John 3:1-8 Breaking it down - Pt. 3

I have sought to show that which is true of our Lord's word's to Nicodemus, and to us, in the initial installments of this short series; in this last part, we will end up with observations about how the natural man views such things, and how those who have literally experienced the new birth,  by our Lord and God's gracious mercy and love, are to view these things, beginning with verse 6, and finishing on verse 8.

There is more to be said for this chapter, and perhaps I shall put the study up for the entirety of it; that, however, remains to be seen.

As for now, we will simply go through what was brought out during the delivery of the study in these last 3 verses of John 3:1-8.

V. 6: That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Our Lord puts emphasis on the misunderstanding of Nicodemus in thinking the new birth He has spoken of to him about has anything whatsoever to do with the natural life of men born from the womb – again, we hear the echo of John 1:12-13 in these words.

That any aspect of natural birth has to do with the child is the same error as any aspect of the new birth having to do with anything other than receiving from God, by His Spirit, that work which is complete in Christ; other teaching than this is a fundamental error, and the same error which leads to the wrong teaching concerning God’s sovereignty and man’s radical depravity before such reception of eternal, or everlasting, life. The only thing we bring to the table is the fact that we are sinners, in need of the merciful grace of God, and such is intended by “that which is born of the flesh is flesh.” It must be the free action of God the Holy Spirit which brings one into the kingdom of God, or it is not that which is born of the Spirit of God.

The flesh – the carnal, sin-laden nature housed within the body of those same traits, or characteristics, is not fit or able to make itself into that which is of service of God, and it has been thus throughout the entirety of Scriptures.

Did Moses call God, or did God call Moses (Exodus 3:1-6)?

If there are those who tell us that Moses turned aside, and that was His free will choice, we may answer that God has assured us, in the entirety of His Scriptures and the further light the New Testament shines upon the Old Testament, that only enablement by the Lord would give Moses to turn aside to see – this was not a matter of curiosity by Moses, but of wonderment, which ended in His right attitude of fear of the One who had redeemed him to lead Israel out of bondage to the Egyptians.

What man of God in the Scriptures do we see who makes himself holy by application of the things of God, rather than appeal to the lack of those things in admission of that one’s, and those others who are to  be God’s people, sinfulness (Nehemiah 1)?

As it was, so it is: those who are called of God will respond, for His grace is irresistible to His own, and they will know of themselves as sinners, and cry out for their sin, forgiveness and repentance, and call on God to remember His promises to His people, who fear Him, and love to keep His commandments – that we are privileged to see this very thing explained to us by the Lord as being of the Lord alone, in our present passage, is great light indeed, and should cause us to continually respond in like manner.

We have been blessed, without any cause but His grace, to be born again of God’s Spirit, to have Christ our Lord take our sins upon His holy Self, and to have His righteousness accounted to us, though we lack anything which would cause God to give such – and this is of Him who alone is good.

Vs. 7-8: Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 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.”

Nicodemus is indeed marveling that our Lord has told him, “You must be born again.” He expressed this in verse 4; he will again express it in an upcoming verse.

There are sermons on the freedom of the wind, and so must be understood what our Lord is saying to the learned Pharisee here. There is no gauging the wind, though we measure it with many instruments; there is no discerning where it comes from, though we may say it originates in this or that longitude and latitude. The truth of the matter when our Lord spoke these words over two thousand years ago remains the truth today – what man cannot fathom is that, though his knowledge increase, he will no more understand the nature of the wind to act independently of his control than he will understand his sinful nature and need of the rebirth of the Holy Spirit which comes about independently of man’s will and knowledge. It is true that science reveals to us more and more, yet what we are most often not told – indeed, forbid, in most cases, among secular, and even some “Christian” schools, is the fact that every true discovery of Science vindicates the divine record of He who created Science.

Nicodemus was as the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-26), trusting in his observance of the law to make himself righteous before God, teaching those under him that such must be the case, and so had no understanding of the lack of the law of grace and life (Romans 8:1-2) that must replace the stone heart with a fleshly one, and the dead spirit with a resurrected one. There is no reason for us to suppose otherwise, for his questions reveal his understanding, which comes from the nature of a man. To comprehend what Jesus was saying to him, he would have need of the very miraculous birth of which our Lord spoke, for only the knowledge that comes from God can give birth to that which is of God; only those brought face-to-face with their own inability to perceive and receive the gospel can understand that no amount of external law keeping will suffice, in the face of the most Holy God of all that exists, who Himself stands beyond that He created, yet interacts within it. The God who causes all to come to pass must surely be as sovereign over the salvation of His people as He is over the very fabric of that which He created man from; from which He hung the planets; today, we can still ask man, mighty man, “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion (Job 38:31)?

The answer will no doubt proudly return, “No, but one day we shall conquer the stars.” Man, who cannot even conquer the lusts of his own body, so righteous in his own sight, whether of a moralistic religious nature, or the negative assent of God in the statement that God does not exist, thereby proving themselves fools, in stating that which they deny (for the fool says in their heart “there is no God,” yet what is it they are objecting too?), thinks himself able to rise to the station of He who created him from the dust of the ground, which He created out of literally nothing – such is the pride that God’s completely effective grace absolutely and irresistibly overcomes, and yet we have legions of those who say they overcome such by seeing this grace from a nature which houses this very pride.

Nicodemus was one who would assert that he was of God, and he was a much more religious man than those who, today, insist on this cooperative effort between their dead moral nature and the most holy “effort” of trying to convince them they say God puts forth to all men – we have but to look at the record of the Scriptures to know that such is not true, and we can say, in effect, one might as likely try to catch the wind, as the old Donavan song stated. This is the import of our Lord’s statement to Nicodemus which we just read.

To God be the glory - Bill Hier