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.)
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