On This Day: When Today’s Nicodemus Meets Jesus

   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? (John 3:9-12)

   For a long time, I have pondered how different modern “apologetics” is from what I read in Scripture. The whole idea of apologetics comes from the Greek word “apologia”, which means to make a defense. Peter spoke of this when he wrote about “always being prepared to make a defense (apologia) to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15).

   As I have considered that Peter was writing to persecuted Christians, not contemporary Bible students, and that the New Testament is full of examples of what it means to give a defense for the reason we have hope, it has stood out that the biblical focus is not proofs for creation, proofs for the worldwide flood, proofs for the divine authorship of any particular book of the Bible (all good things), but on explaining what God has done for us in Jesus Christ and then watching how it divides the “few” from the “many”.

   Quite recently, when I went through the book of Acts, I was drawn to the way Paul shared the good news in Athens where the people had no knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures or what Jesus of Nazareth had done to secure our redemption. It was very instructive to see what Paul did and did not emphasize. I could see that he stated the truth of what we all must deal with in relation to God, and then met with those who believed.

   Now I am in John 3 where Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus is showing me how the Messiah addressed what this “teacher of Israel” needed to hear. And what I conclude today is that Jesus wasn’t doing left-brain apologetics. He wasn’t matching proofs to challenges.

   Instead, he was seeing the soul-condition of a man who was not alive. This teacher of Israel was still dead in his trespasses and sins.

   And THAT attracts my attention. How did Jesus speak to a man who saw nothing more than signs that proved Jesus must be from God in some way he couldn’t figure out?

   Answer: Nicodemus, “You must be born again”!

   How does that explain the hope that is within me?

   The reason for the hope within me is that I have been born again!

   How have I been born again?

   Well, let me tell you a story…

   And on we go into the “good news of great joy” that God has given us “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

   Let me tell you what Jesus Christ did for us through his sinless life, his horrifying death, and his liberating resurrection. 

    Let me tell you about how “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” and how the Good Shepherd of Psalm 23 came “to seek and to save the lost”.

   Let me tell you how “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (II Corinthians 5:21), and how “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14).

   And let me share the wonder that “God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27) so that my hope is perfectly defensible. It makes perfect sense that I would have hope in Jesus’ return, in my resurrection, in me becoming like him when I see him as he is, when you list all the things that God did for us through Jesus Christ so that the faith I have in the present time is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

   Which brings me back to this whole soul-condition stuff. Jesus came to give “rest to our souls”. That rest includes the justification by grace through faith I have already experienced upon being born again by the Spirit. It rests on the sanctification by grace through faith whereby I am presently being “transformed into the same image (as Jesus) from one degree of glory to another” (II Corinthians 3:18). And it rests on the promised glorification by grace through faith by which I will finally be “glorified with him” who secured our so great salvation.

   How do I see Jesus doing this with Nicodemus?

   The central thing is that Jesus spoke exactly what Nicodemus needed to hear to be born again. We can’t improve on that.

   What do our present-day Nicodemuses need to hear? “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

   And when they complain that this doesn’t make sense, what do we say? “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

   And how do we explain why we aren’t going to argue in earthly ways? Because “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Which means, arguing in the flesh only produces fleshliness. Earthly thinking. It goes nowhere. That’s why Paul warned Timothy not to waste time in such things.

   And when the Nicodemuses still defend their right to unbelief, we echo Jesus’ words, “You must be born again.”

   This continues into Nicodemus asking, “How can these things be?” Isn’t that a perfect time to go into contemporary apologetics and explain all the reasons we know the Bible is true? There may be some room for this, considering most people we will talk with don’t know their Bibles like Nicodemus did.

   However, while contemporary apologetics seems to aim at helping people understand, Jesus’ focus was on helping Nicodemus see that in his soul-condition he did not understand. Jesus made a point of it. He made Nicodemus admit, at least in his mind, that he was a teacher of Israel and did “not understand these things”. He pointed out that his problem was, “you do not receive our testimony”.

   And today, I have been meditating on this: “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (John 3:12).

   What stands out is that Jesus did not try telling Nicodemus earthly things to help him accept heavenly things. Rather, he exposed the sinner’s soul, that his inability to understand the earthly things made the heavenly things impossible.

   This wasn’t to show him it was impossible, but that it was impossible for HIM, for Nicodemus, for the man who was not born again!

   And just in case anyone is wondering if I would turn this into a system whereby I develop my own brand of apologetics, no, I’m not interested in that. Neither am I suggesting that the apologetics that can explain all the background information to other religions, to atheists, agnostics, and skeptics is without value.

   All I am sharing is that, when we look at how Jesus did things, his work was to address people’s soul-condition in a Beatitudinal way that would cause them to feel poverty of spirit, to mourn their sin and ignorance, and to meekly resign to their own helplessness and the authority of Jesus Christ. Why? So they would hunger and thirst for righteousness that is satisfied while every man-centered quest for righteousness is constantly denied.

   Ever since I began factoring in the Beatitudes into everything God is doing with me and others, it is apparent that Jesus was doing this all the time. He wanted Nicodemus to feel his poverty of spirit. This would not come from earthly arguments about how we know the Bible is true, but from the admission in a sinner’s heart that he or she does not have eternal life.

   I am eager to see how John 3:16 will sound to me a few verses from now when I get to it. But right now, do any of us need to admit that we are not born again and that is why we are always looking for signs instead of attaching to Jesus’ words?

   Do we need to agree with Jesus’ assessment that, for all our searching, our problem is that we do not understand (because we are not born again)?

   Do we need a reminder that we have already repeatedly NOT received the testimony of Jesus, John the Baptist, and the apostles in what they have written of the kingdom of God?

   And do we need to admit that we have struggled to understand the earthly things (like evidence for the Bible’s divine authorship), and that is why we are having so much trouble accepting the heavenly things?

   I know I have a propensity to say far too much. But I hope this little bit explains how Jesus seems to focus on exposing people’s soul-condition rather than giving left-brain evidences that prove the Bible can be trusted. If people aren’t born again, they cannot see beyond the “signs”, the external evidences of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

   As I’m watching Jesus’ ministry to Nicodemus, I have in mind that there is good reason to believe he did become a disciple in the end. He was one of the men who took Jesus’ body down from the cross and placed it in the tomb. But I’m also watching how Jesus shared the good news with him in a Beatitudinal way so that, instead of left-brain arguments, he gave right-brain attachment to show that Nicodemus did not have attachment to God. And Jesus’ signs weren’t enough to give him that. He needed to be born again.

   Centuries ago, Augustine described how he had to believe to understand rather than understand to believe. He was expressing the new birth. He had to be born again to “get it” about everything else, and that is what we see Jesus doing for Nicodemus back in the day, and us in our time.

   If none of this is clear to you, take the time to read the first two chapters of John to see how they lead to Jesus’ visit with Nicodemus in chapter 3. Perhaps you need the same journey he took to come to know Jesus for real.

 

 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 

On This Day: The Crucified Savior Who Resurrects Himself

   So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. (John 2:18-22)

   I recently heard someone refer to this verse where Jesus said he would raise himself. Then I was watching some Gary Habermas videos yesterday (I highly recommend the guy) about Jesus' resurrection.

   So, when I came today to Jesus' own words on the matter, that he would raise himself, I considered the whole thing going on with Jesus' body/soul/spirit humanity and his eternal deity.

   I would remind you that my focus in getting to know God through his word is not on forming doctrinal statements, but on understanding his word and growing to know him better each day than I have ever known him before.

   In the brain science view, I don’t just want a left-brain belief; I also want a right-brain bond with God. I want to know the truth about him, but I also want to know him in his truth.

   As I pondered all these things this morning, I found myself wandering into a field of thoughts I had never really considered: What happened to Jesus in his body/soul/spirit/deity when he died?

   First off, the only “part” of Jesus that died on the cross was his body. Like any other human, his soul/spirit was still alive, and this was in union with his divine nature. I do not want to do an injustice to this by reducing it down to words, but to invite you into what G. Campbell Morgan once said, that “out of wonder, worship is born.”

   Yes, this is about feeling wonder about Jesus as “the Word” who “became flesh” to live among us. This is the wonder of considering the union of Jesus’ humanity and his deity during his 30+ years of living among us. We don’t need to reduce it to a perfectly worded statement; we need to let ourselves be the children who stand in awe of our glorious Savior in his place in the glory of the Triune God and delight in the feelings, and thoughts, and desires that come with that. The wonder of having a Father whose thoughts are so far above us that we cannot contain them all, but what we can contain causes us to delight in him, and rejoice in his love, and praise him for our security in Jesus Christ.

   Which brings us back to Jesus' claim that he himself would raise himself from the dead. Yes, Jesus, fully alive and fully himself, raised his human body from the dead, re-entering it in some way that seems mindboggling to me, and in his glorified body made so many appearances to his disciples that even unbelievers and skeptics admit that the early church absolutely believed that Jesus was divine, and that he was raised from the dead.

   Two dozen years of watching what children are like with us in our home has helped me immensely in appreciating why God wants me to come to him like a child, rest in his love, feel the reverence and awe and wonder of his presence, and, today, marvel at how Jesus now lives forever in his glorified human and glorious divine existence because he raised himself from the dead.

   And I really look forward to seeing him as he is!

 

 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 

Today's Short: "Watching Disciples Being Discipled"

 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: A Sign of Glory for a Disciple’s Faith

   Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him. (John 2:6-11)

   Today was one of those “domino” kind of experiences in the word. One thought kept leading to another until I found myself somewhere that felt both brand new and familiar at the same time.

   When I consider what a sign meant in John’s writing, I relate it to what signs do today. They point us somewhere we are intended to go. So, where are we going with this sign?

   When I read about how the sign “manifested” Jesus’ glory, I want to let myself see this. I want to be real with it, like I don’t want to miss anything it is showing me.

   And that means that it isn’t first and foremost about what I see, or what I am getting out of my devotions, or what I have time for today, but what God is manifesting to us today in what he manifested about his Son back in the day.

   It is standing out that what Jesus manifested in that sign was his glory, and that John’s prologue has already told us to expect this. Our guide for the journey (the apostle John in this case) has already told us something about how to think about what we are seeing.

   Which begs the question, are we the people who won’t be convinced of Jesus’ glory until we have seen every sign and come to a conclusion about them? Or are we the ones who already know that the whole gospel account of John will be revealing and manifesting the glory of the Word who became flesh, the Word who was God, and was with God, and was the Life that is the Light of men to this day, and we are ready for it, watching for it, receiving it, delighting in it?

   The biggest part of this seemed to be where I ended up in my journey, that a disciple is someone who has attached to a specific teacher for the purpose of learning that teacher’s way of life. At least two of Jesus’ first disciples had already been disciples of John the Baptist, which meant they had attached to him as a teacher and were learning from him. But as soon as John pointed them to Jesus as “the Lamb of God”, they became disciples of Jesus instead, exactly as John had wanted.

   The part of discipleship that really stood out to me was the attaching to a teacher part. Disciples had purposefully attached to a teacher they believed in as a good teacher, a good role model, a good example of living as a human being. This was the common way of educating oneself, to become a disciple of a teacher.

   Lately, I have seen so many cheap grace pop-ups that focus on proving to people that there is nothing expected of us except to believe. They believe that anything more than that is a work in progress. But they leave out what the gospel calls us to, and that believing means fully attaching to what the gospel says. It is all of faith, but as the two disciples had first attached to John the Baptist as their teacher, and then they switched to attaching to Jesus as their teacher, when we are told by Jesus to “go and make disciples,” we are already under obligation to Jesus as our teacher that we put into practice what he says, which means making disciples who from the first breath of salvation are eager to attach to Jesus as their teacher.

   You know, like we want to learn from him.

   Or more precisely, that we want to be filled with the Holy Spirit who “will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26).

   Why are we to be taught all things?

   So we will be the “wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock” instead of the “foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it” (Matthew 7:24-27).

   I keep coming to the way Paul introduced and concluded Romans with the aim “to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations” (Romans 1:5) and “according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith” (Romans 16:26).

   Does your personal discipleship under Jesus Christ your Lord look like you are eagerly learning whatever Jesus is teaching you through his word and his Spirit every day? Do you describe your response to God’s word each day as “the obedience of faith”? If our belief in Jesus is no better than what the demons believe, we can’t even be sure we are saved!

   But if our faith in Jesus looks like sheep following their Shepherd, like children following their firstborn brother, like disciples learning from their teacher, with everyone watching knowing we are disciples by our love for one another, it is likely that the fruit is proving the tree good.

   Where are the dominos of God’s word leading you today? And are you already to do whatever it takes to keep in step with the Spirit?

 

 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)