John 3:1-17 (Year A, Second Sunday in Lent) continues a reflection upon the relation of Jesus to the Law.
In 3:1-4:3 is the first lengthy discourse that illustrates the fundamental truth that Christ has come to inaugurate a new order in religion. It is the first of the lengthy discourses in John that set his gospel apart from the other three. He does so by reflecting upon the relation of Jesus to the Law. The discourse discloses and brings home the significance of the Christian revelation, but it is also a summons, a strengthening of faith and a moral exhortation. We best understand it as a proclamation composed by the evangelist that makes use of a lofty style such as is usual in a revelation discourse. It contains the whole Johannine preaching in succinct form. Jesus is confronted with a favorable and friendly representative of the old order, a teacher of Israel, that is being superseded. We see Jesus as a patient and learned teacher. Nicodemus plays the part expected from the interlocutors in debates constructed by John. It is not possible to draw a clear line between reported discourse to the reflections of the evangelist. It begins with the typical misunderstanding of the one engaging Jesus. In doing so, it shows human weakness in approaching matters of the Spirit. The background for this discourse is provided by the saying of Jesus that unless you become like little children you will not enter the kingdom of God (Mk 10:15). This rebirth is the condition of entering eternal life (Kingdom of God), here and now, and in doing so, ceases to be conceived as crude miracle and acquires religious significance. Rebirth is necessary because there are two levels of existence, that of flesh and that of spirit. The main theme of the discourse is the passage of human beings out of the lower order of existence, the realm of flesh, into the higher order of existence, the realm of spirit in which alone is eternal life. This echoes the prologue expression in 1:13 of being born of God. It shows the unique relationship between the Father and Jesus as Son. It shows the important work of the Spirit in bringing people to see what God has done in Jesus. It stresses the importance of a transition or transformation in the lives of human beings. The monologue into which the discourse develops after the retirement of Nicodemus in 3:11 works with the ideas of the prologue, where it also refers to the incarnation of the Word, and in this discourse refers to the only son of the Father, the descent and ascent of the Son of Man opens the possibility of eternal life, of moving from the realm of flesh to that of spirit, using the imagery of rebirth. In verse 17, the argument moves from the idea of life to that of light.[1] We need to move from darkness to light and from death to life. It stresses the importance of an event of revelation in Jesus. It also stresses the importance of an event in your life and mine as we hear of the event of revelation in Jesus and respond to it. Yet even our response is because of the work of the Spirit.
This passage provides one of the New Testament sources for reflection upon the Trinity. It hints at the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit. It does so in a way that reminds us of the importance of relationships. In fact, our human experience of relationships may well be the best way for us to think about the Trinity. As soon as we even try to define it in a logical or mathematical way, we run the risk of heresy. It may well be that the doctrine of the Trinity reveals that relationships stand at the heart of the universe. Atoms do not exist unless they are in relationship with other atoms. You and I do not exist unless in relationships with others. Even God exists in relationship. The human soul is not within. The human soul is not without. The human soul is between. This means that we exist personally, communally, and socially in relationship with others. Our identity is as the body of Christ in relationships with this world. If the essence of God is oneness in community, it may well mean that the destiny toward which Christians pray and work is oneness in community with each other and with creation.
Nicodemus in Tal Bab Taanith 20a is a wealthy Jewish resident of Jerusalem before 70 AD, but we have no proof he is the same person of this discourse. He will appear again in 7:45-52 and 19:38-42, a journey that suggests a charitable view of Nicodemus has some justification, in contrast to the negative views we find in Augustine and Calvin. He represents a Jewish leader and teacher who slowly came to discipleship. As such, he is living two lives and needs a new life. His coming to Jesus at night may suggest the need for secrecy. It may acknowledge the rabbinic practice of studying at night and engaging in prolonged discussions at night. It may have the deeper meaning that he is emerging from the spiritual darkness in which the Law has encased him and into the spiritual light Jesus brings. His initial statement, Jesus is a teacher who has come from God, is already a strong confessional one. Jesus is already a distinguished rabbi in his view. His reasoning is that no one can do the signs (σημεῖα) he has done without the presence of God, referring to the turning of water into wine at a wedding and his casting out of the money changers in the Temple. Yet Jesus has already said those who rely upon signs do not merit trust from Jesus (2:23-25). The response of Jesus is a metaphor that contains an allegory:[2] that no one can see the rule of God, which is the essence of salvation, Jesus offering a symbol of a new time, the age of the rule of God, and new place as the domain of God. [3] In a saying that characterizes the piety of the early church,[4] in the form of a circumlocution for the action of God,[5] one will not see this rule of God, occurring often in the synoptic gospels but only here and verse 5, without being born from above or anew (ἄνωθεν), opening a discussion of the possibility of a new life. Spirit is the world of God that remains inaccessible to humanity so long as humanity does not live in the spirit, tracing this life back to a birth of the spirit.[6] With a hint of sarcasm, but also typical of the misunderstanding exhibited at the beginning of most the discourses in John, Nicodemus asks how one can have such birth at his age. Is Jesus suggesting he can enter the womb of his mother again? However, Judaism was acquainted with the notion of the coming of the Spirit bring new hearts and spirits (Ezekiel 26:25-26) and making sons and daughters (Joel 2:28-29). The Lord will give them a holy spirit through which the Lord will be their father, and they will become children of the living God (Jubilee 1:23-25). A time is coming when the children of heaven will receive knowledge of the Most High and wisdom to do what is right (Community Rule of Qumran 1S iv 19-21). Thus, although a teacher himself, Nicodemus seems dense in this matter. His emergence from darkness will mean he needs to see the truth already in the scripture and which Jesus discloses by his teaching. Thus, Jesus says, in a saying that has no parallel in secular literature[7] and characterizes the piety of the early church,[8] that no one can enter the rule of God, a phrasing derived from entrance liturgies like Ps 24,[9] without being born of water and Spirit.
In the background is the biblical witness that the Lord will sprinkle the people with clean water, cleanse them, and give them a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:25-26) and the Lord will pour water on the dry land pour the Spirit of the Lord upon the people (Isaiah 44:3). John is referring to baptism and to the gift of the Spirit. In Chapter 1, John has already suggested that the Incarnation overcomes the alienation from the logos that permeates creation, but here, we do not receive the Logos unless we are born anew/from above the Spirit.[10] It suggests the unity of baptism with regeneration by the Spirit.[11] The reason for the new birth is that humanity is naturally weak and mortal and needs birth through the Spirit to perceive things related to the human spirit. The flesh is the earthly sphere that is inadequate when one is assessing Jesus, who comes from another sphere. Since the earthly sphere has no knowledge of God it cannot mediate such knowledge of God.[12] Humanity cannot see or enter the rule of God on its own, but only through the agency of the presence of the Spirit. Given the scriptural witness, it should not amaze Nicodemus that Jesus said he must birth from above/anew. John utilizes a metaphor that does not have an allegorical interpretation:[13]
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.
The wind (πνεῦμα) is invisible force we hear and see, which is an analogy for the one born of the Spirit (Πνεύματος). If God is Spirit, the sound fills creation, and the power gives life to all creatures.[14] Its blowing illustrates the action of the Spirit, which is not understood in natural terms, but it is also not something abstract.[15] In its incomprehensibility and uncontrollability, wind becomes a metaphor for the one born of the Spirit, the world knowing nothing of the whence and whiter of such a person for such a person is beyond the reach of human perception. The world can no longer measure or evaluate one who has experienced the event of this birth.[16] Jesus is amazed that a teacher of Israel does not understand such things. The association of the Spirit with rebirth is a power to set aside the old and bring to life what is new. The past, as important as it is in shaping us into who we are today, does not determine our future. The agency of the Spirit is the possibility of something new to emerge that will be life-giving and life-sustaining.
The community of John testifies that it speaks of what it knows and testifies, as in a courtroom,[17] to what it has seen, yet you, Nicodemus receding into the background and the Judaism of the latter part of the first century emerging, do not receive its testimony. John is telling us as readers of the experience the community of John had with the Jewish community of the latter part of the first century. Jesus contrasts the things Nicodemus could have known by proper study of scripture with the heavenly things are to come, especially in the crucifixion. Thus, the Son of Man (ὁ υἱὸς τοῦἀνθρώπου) has descended from heaven, suggesting pre-existence as well as exaltation as well as its Hellenistic origin.[18] Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, referring to Numbers 21:4-9, and the Son of Man must also be lifted up in the cross, resurrection, and ascension to bring liberation and healing to suffering humanity. This presupposes that the manifestation of the glory of the Son of Man consists in his assumption to God, the movement being from below upward.[19] We have a counterpart to the passion predictions in the synoptic gospels, its content concentrated on the spatial lifting upon high.[20] The image is not beautiful. Like a snake on a pole, like a criminal on a cross, Jesus offered his life as a sacrifice in a way that makes life for others possible. The point is that whoever believes (πιστεύων) in Jesus as the Son of Man, the Christ, will have eternal life (ζωὴν αἰώνιον). If human beings are to have eternal life, the basis can only be that God wills to live in fellowship with humanity.[21] This work of salvation is the plan of God, the goal of which is the giving of new and eschatological life, which now defines like in the full sense of the term, making earthly life such only with reservations. [22]
In the next verses, John turns from the discourse that ends in verse 15 and addresses his readers directly. He is getting personal with us, becoming the preacher, and offering his witness as one who believes. God in a moment and in an act loved (ἠγάπησεν) the world (κόσμον) in a way that elects, helps, guides, and saves. [23] God moves toward the world God has made through the Word in this event. The will of God is toward fellowship with the world God has made. Such love defines the doctrine of election. This verse demonstrates divine election. Election is the giving of the divine self to the work of God in creation. God has singled out the only Son (of God),[24] Jesus, as the object of divine election that demonstrates divine love for the world. Since the Father is so much with the Son, the Father is also with humanity. God wills to be with the world. Yet, the world responds with opposition, even while God responds with affirmation and salvation. Divine election affirms the divine will in creation. We clearly see the divine Yes toward humanity.[25] It speaks to a unique event that occurs within human history. The object of this love is the world. The world has rejected the light offered in the only Son (of God), but this did not alter the love of God for the world. We see the extraordinary nature of this love in the giving of the only Son (τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ) “of God.”[26] The language of the prologue in 1:14, 18 recurs here. If we think in terms of the divine essence and existence, the only Son reveals the existence of the Father, and by the sending of the only Son, the Father reveals the divine essence, that is, divine love.[27] This sending of the Son originates within Hellenistic Jewish Christianity as a development from Jewish prophetic-servant tradition that became traditional early Christian formulae whose intention is to assert that the historical mission of Jesus rests on the divine initiative.[28] However, given that John presupposes the pre-existent Lord after the pattern of Logos or Wisdom, the formula had its roots in this sphere. The sending of the Son is unique in that it is a sending to the cross and thus salvation of the world and the gift of eternal life.[29] The creation of the world is an expression of the love of God. The love with which God loved the world in the sending of the only Son does not differ in kind from the fatherly love the Creator for the creatures God made.[30] This act of love occurs in the giving of the only and uniquely loved Son. Such giving or gifting to the world the Son, the Father gave the divine self as a gift. Such a gift is a surrendering, a giving up, and an offering up. This type of gift exposes divinity to great danger. God pledges divinity on behalf of those whom God has made. The giving of the Son arises out of the love of God for the world, suggesting that Jesus is truly the human being who is for others.[31] The purpose of this giving is so that one who believes may not perish but receive eternal life. Those who believe become witnesses in this world of this event of divine love. [32] The Christian message consists in the telling of this act of God. In distilling the gospel into a simple statement of the power of divine love, John has served well all of us as readers. The plan of the cross has its root in the immeasurable love of God for the world. The Son is the most cherished gift God had to give. John makes known the greatness of the act of God in the Incarnation and in the mission of bridging the chasm between God and world. God has revealed this love in the historical mission of the Son, to the extent of the cross. The purpose of this giving of the Son is life for others. God bridges the gap caused by human alienation and sin, bringing reconciliation. The sending of the Son into the world, that we might live through him, declares the love of God for us.[33] The sending of the Son has the has the aim of bringing the world into the sphere of divine holiness.[34] We are reading of the love of God in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us, the self-sacrificing of Jesus Christ is the embodiment and revelation of divine love for humanity, and that this occurs through the Holy Spirit.[35] Such love bridges a vast chasm. What God sees God loves, even though what God sees is on the way to death. God makes a bridge to that which, on its own, is moving toward abandonment and death. God becomes the light that shines darkness. Such is the miracle of divine love.[36]
John makes things clearer by saying that God sent the Son, a notion that presupposes his pre-existence,[37] in such a way that his earthly path as the Son was from the beginning a journey to his passion and death. The saving work of the Son is the purpose of the Father in the sending of the Son. [38] The goal of the sending of the Son is others. [39] The world (κόσμος) is on its way to perishing, but the Father does not condemn the world for that but reaches out to save and redeem it through the giving of the Son. John gives an example of realized eschatology when he says that those who do not believe are under condemnation already, since they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. Judgment reserved for the future is already present. Since the desire of God is toward salvation, unbelief brings self-condemnation. Future judgment is acknowledgment of the self-condemnation made during one’s life. John shifts to using the metaphor of light and darkness to express the realities concerning the revelation of God. He defines the judgment as recognizing that the light of the Word has come into the world, but people loved darkness more than light, since their deeds were evil. What we love becomes the organizing principle of our lives. We can love the wrong things. We can love good things in the wrong way. The reason for judgment is that people love darkness. Since humanity is not darkness itself, we have the responsibility to the opportunities given us to respond to the light. God attacks the darkness but does not attack humanity. God does so for the flourishing of human beings.[40] The Word that has come in the flesh is the light, while the deeds or unbelief of humanity unmasks humanity for what it is. Hatred of the light suggests a preference to remain blind to the truth and light that Jesus brings. However, those who do what is true come to the light and reveal their deeds as of divine origin.
Practical application
Nicodemus has captured the attention of many in the history of interpretation. Jesus as sympathetic to Nicodemus’ inquiry, but for Augustine, Nicodemus was stuck at the literal sense of the text, and as a teacher of Israel, he should have known better. Calvin had no patience with Nicodemus and thought him a proud man on whom Jesus was wasting his time. Matthew Henry points out that, “Not many mighty and noble are called; yet some are, and here was one.” His charitable view of Nicodemus seems justified by Nicodemus’ later behavior when he defends Jesus, at John 7:50-52. He is also with Joseph of Arimathea as he confers upon Jesus the final dignity of burial after crucifixion. Henry Vaughan’s poem “The Night” says of him:
Wise Nicodemus saw such light
As made him know his God by night,
Most blest believer he!
It is easy to make a straw man, even a villain, of Nicodemus, and to use him as either a symbol of morally arthritic Judaism or the limits of an intellectual approach to faith. In yielding to the temptation, we lose a wonderful opportunity. There are lots of secret disciples of Jesus who need their questions answered, and who themselves need followers of Jesus to take them seriously. John 3:16 applies to Nicodemus as much as to anybody.[41]
In a sense, Nicodemus was leading two lives, one as a Pharisee and the other as a having a secret curiosity concerning Jesus. What Jesus says is that Nicodemus did need a new life. Nicodemus is already leading two lives. He needs a new life. If there is one thing in life we do not do on our own, it is birth. We burst into this world screaming and kicking. We have confused perceptions, blurred eyesight, and thoroughly depend upon others for everything. How can we ourselves arrange to be reborn in the Spirit? Such new birth is not our doing. Such rebirth is a holy mystery, an awe-inspiring gift. That is why we have a whole sacrament to commemorate it: the marvelous, grace-filled sacrament of water and the Spirit called baptism. Receiving the gift of new birth is the work of the Spirit. Whether it happens suddenly or gradually, we cannot make it happen, either by fervent desire and determination or by learning and believing the right beliefs. However, we can be intentional about receiving new birth. Though we cannot make it happen, we can midwife the process. This is the purpose of spirituality: to help birth the new self and nourish the new life. Spirituality is midwifery.[42]
I share a brief analogy of the remaking, rebirthing, in which the Spirit is at work in the world. I am thinking of Michelangelo's statue of David, made in marble. We note that back of David has a slight bent, as if in the act of hurling the fatal stone at Goliath. An artist had a cut that piece of marble a century before who thought he had cut too large a slice out of the side. He thought he could not use it, so he went on to something else. However, a hundred years later Michelangelo caught a glimpse of the possibilities. That same cut, which was supposed to be too large, became the curve in David's back. What one artist saw as ruined another artist saw as having possibilities for redemption.
I think the hymnologist Daniel Iverson had a good understanding of the Holy Spirit and what it does in the lives of believers. In what we can view as a supplication, Iverson’s hymn Spirit of the Living God implores the Holy Spirit to melt him, to mold him, to fill him, and to use him. Jesus’ words to Nicodemus relay similar qualities about God’s Spirit. The Spirit’s association with rebirth denotes its power to destroy the old and bring about a new thing. The Spirit has the power to reshape one’s character, one’s persona. We often hear people speak of wanting to be a different person. They say, “If only I could change,” “If only I could just not be this way anymore.” Of course, if we allow the Spirit to reshape us, a word of caution is in order. You might not like the result.
I have tried to discuss the significance of the cross, but just one more thing.
At the heart of the gospel is the blood of Christ. Such an image is far from pretty. Such an image is messy. His body, broken for us. His blood, the blood of the new covenant. It is central to our identity as Christians and our relationship with God. That is why some of the old hymns are not afraid to address the "blood-theology" of the cross.
What can wash away our sins?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins.
This passage also inspires a discussion of believing. Some people believe and therefore become witnesses to the love that God has for the world.[43] Some people experience this as a one-time, bursting experience of newness, like a conversion experience. William James used the example of a shed roof in a snowstorm. Snow builds up until the stress on the roof reaches the last point beyond which it will not remain intact. Then one flake of snow, almost imperceptible in and of itself, acts as the final weight and the roof collapses. In conversion, any life experience may be that last snowflake. It is an illness, or a sunrise, or an inspiring worship experience, or an addiction which has finally become too much. Then the Holy Spirit breaks through to the person. For other people it may be more subtle, a slowly developing realization that Christ is real, that God does indeed work within us to heal and give life. Then in a moment of realization, one accepts Christ. Eternal life brings stability in life. It means that as we suffer and struggle, and as we laugh and feel good, we learn that in all things God is with us as God empowers and loves us, the divine presence when needed.
Bishop Ruediger Minor, from former East Germany, tells the following story. Two years before their collapse, the Communist Party called a special meeting. For 55 minutes a Marxist philosopher lectured on why communism was officially atheistic and why there is no God. When the official finished, most of the people simply stood with folded arms. A few applauded nervously. Then, Communist Party officials led a Russian Orthodox priest to the podium and told him he had three minutes for his response. The priest began his response by saying he did not need three minutes. He only needed three words. The three words were these, shouted at the top of his lungs: "Christ is risen." The people in that meeting shouted back, "Christ is risen indeed!" They did this three times. With that the priest turned from the podium and returned to his seat.
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[6] Schweizer, TDNT, VI, 439.
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[12] Schweizer, TDNT, VII, 138.
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[15] Schweizer, TDNT, VI, 452.
[16] Schweizer, TDNT, VI, 440-41
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[20] Colpe, TDNT, VIII, 466-7.
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[29] Schweizer, TDNT, VIII, 374-5, 386.
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[41] – Peter J. Gomes, Proclamation: Interpreting the Lessons of the Church Year, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995, pp. 38–39
[42] — Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith, HarperOne, 2004.
[43] Barth, CD, IV.2, 66.2, 511.
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