This will be is the last article on the evangelism of Jesus in the conversion of Nicodemus. We often see John 3:3-8 and 3:16 as stand alone texts, but we must realize that John 3:1-21 is a passage devoted to the evangelism of Jesus to a lost man who was converted at some point. This is how Jesus practiced evangelism or how He preached to a lost man. It would behoove us to pay close attention to the whole text and not just a part here and there.
In our day we are told that we must believe in Jesus so that when we die we not go to hell but have eternal life. We are told that we must believe in order to do this. This forces us to look at ourselves to see if we believe. But that is not the biblical pattern which is that we must be born from above (a spiritual birth) in order to see and have faith in spiritual things. It should be clear that before a person is spiritually born that person can only have a belief or faith in natural things. This is why Nicodemus and many in John could see the miracles of Jesus, have some type of belief, and yet not be converted. Their belief or faith did not come from a believing heart which had been born of the Spirit. Unless a person is born of the Spirit that person will not have spiritual eyes and be a truly believing soul. The person may be a great religious scholar or a great preacher, but that person is not converted to a believing soul.
Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born again to see the kingdom of God (John 3:3). Now He is saying that one must be a believing soul in Christ to have eternal life. When a person is born from above that person is a believing soul that has eternal life. Eternal life is not some abstract thing, but it is to have the life of God in the soul which is to have Jesus Christ who is the life of God as the life of a person’s soul. We behold Christ when Christ is in us and He is our life. We behold Christ when the power of the devil’s deceitfulness is broken and we “see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (II Cor 4:4). We behold Christ when God shines “the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (II Cor 4:6). We do not behold Christ when we simply hear some historical truths about Him, but it is only when we see the glory of God in them that we behold Him.
Jesus Christ proclaimed the Gospel of the kingdom to Nicodemus and not that if he would pray a prayer or make a decision he would be saved from hell. He told him that God sent the Son so that “all those believing would not perish but have eternal life” (literal). Who are the believing ones? Those who have been born into the kingdom and now they can see and enter the kingdom (reign and rule) of God. This is a kingdom in their soul. Nicodemus was then faced with some monumental truths. He would have to turn his back on his religious ways and position in the earthly kingdom to enter the kingdom of God. He would have to stop trusting in his Jewish birth and look to the Spirit to blow for a spiritual birth. He had to turn from looking or focusing on this life to be a believing one in Christ who had eternal life and the kingdom of God in his soul. These are a few reasons why he was so astonished.
Surely Nicodemus thought of Ezekiel 37 when he heard Jesus teach on the Spirit as the wind and the new birth. There the winds were called upon by the prophet to give life to the slain. Ezekiel 37:14 says this: “I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken and done it,” declares the LORD.'” Ezekiel 36:27 then says this: “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” He would have thought of the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31: “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them” (verses 33-34). To that man who knew his Old Testament it came alive with new meaning at some point.
The Gospel Jesus preached to Nicodemus was really good news. It did not depend on man to believe or do, but on God to make a believing soul. Man must turn from all hope in himself and die to his self, pride, and life. If not, the life of Christ is not in him. Nicodemus had that in John 19 when he claimed the body of the Messiah. Now he was believing in Christ rather than just believe that Jesus did a miracle. John 3:16 tells us that one must be believing (continuous) in Christ and a believer is a person that continually believes. When one is a believing one that shows that the person has been born from above and has eternal life in the soul, which shows that the Spirit has blown and that one is now a spiritual person that believes spiritual truths. The Gospel that Nicodemus heard and believed is that God will make a sinner a believing soul and give that person eternal life. At some point between John 3 and John 19 Nicodemus was made a believing person who looked to Christ and had eternal life in his soul.
In John 1:12-13 we are given the order of life. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” What we want to focus in on at this point is the connection between “those who believe in His name” of v. 12 which is present tense. Verse 13 points to the new birth as past tense. This is to say that the grammar points to the new birth as having happened before the belief. This fits very well with John 3:3 and 5 where Jesus says that a person must be born from above to see or enter the kingdom of God. This fits with John 3:8 which says the Spirit does as He pleases. John 3:16, therefore, cannot be a contradiction to the teachings of John 1:12-13 nor the teachings of Jesus in John 3:1-8. Those who are believing souls are the souls that have been born from above and of the Spirit. A believing soul is a soul that is a new creation in Christ Jesus.
The words of Jesus to Nicodemus in His evangelism were not wasted but to the point. Indeed they were not apart from the words of John in giving the purpose of the Gospel of John. We find that in verse 31 of John 20: “but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” Once again John points to a believing soul rather than one act of faith. The word “believing” is once again a present active participle. It is the believing soul that has life in His name. The words of the new birth preceded the teaching in John 3:16 and tell us what it takes to be a believing soul. A believing soul is not a soul that has one act of faith and then all is settled, but a believing soul is one that has been converted and is now a new creature in Christ Jesus. A soul that has been born from above is a soul that is a believing soul. Souls are spiritually dead in their unbelief, but when God makes them alive they become believing souls.
A believing soul is a spiritual soul. Jesus taught this in different words in John 3:1-8. A soul that has eternal life is a soul that has the life of God in that soul. We can see that in verses 4-6 and 8 in the teaching of the new birth. It is the soul that is born of the Spirit that enters the kingdom of God and we know that is a spiritual kingdom. It is a soul that is born of the Spirit that is spirit. A soul that has the kingdom of God in it is a soul that has eternal life and is sharing in the life of God. A soul that is born of the Spirit and is spirit is now a believing soul. Jesus is not really teaching anything different in John 3:14-16 than He was in verses 3-8. But in 14-16 He has added a new point and that is of the cross. He is bringing the cross to bear on the Gospel of the new life that He is teaching. It is the wrath that Jesus Christ bore on that cross that enables a soul to have his or her sins taken away so that the soul may now have the life of God in it. The Son came and went to the cross so that the sins would not cause believers to perish but instead take those sins away. The soul that has sin taken away may now have the life of Christ in it and that is eternal life. Christ takes away sin at the cross, gives a perfect righteousness as a gift, and then becomes the life of the believer. Jesus taught of the glory of the Gospel and does not just tell people to believe on their own.
It is urgent that our evangelism be more like that of Jesus in this passage so that human beings will be truly converted as Nicodemus was. If we just tell them to believe we are telling them no more than what a natural man can do and what many who were still lost in the Gospel of John did. We must tell them that a truly converted person must be born of the Spirit so that the person may have a spiritual nature and so be a believing soul. Sinners are born dead in sins and trespasses which is to be dead in unbelief. If the Spirit blows on them they become believing souls and as such they have eternal life which is the life of God in their souls. We must teach them about the cross of Jesus which takes away sin and that it is only the work of Christ that will take away their sin.
This means we teach them what it takes to be a believing soul and what eternal life really is. That is how Jesus did it and Nicodemus became a truly converted man and received eternal life. However, we have fallen into the ways of Finney in calling for intellectual decisions and commitments. That is what so many did in the days of Jesus when they saw miracles. But despite their intellectual decisions and commitments, they were not born of the Spirit and they were not spiritual men who were believing souls with eternal life. If we truly want men to believe, we must tell them what it will take for them to be believing souls. They must be made believing souls by the work of the Holy Spirit who causes men to be born again which is to say that they are believing souls. To say that a person must be born from above and enter the kingdom of God is to say that a person must become a believing soul with eternal life. For a person to truly be a believing soul that person has been born from above and has the kingdom of God in his or her soul. This is to share in the life of God in the soul which is eternal life. John 17:3 tells us that eternal life is to know God and His Son. A believing soul and only believing souls know God and that is eternal life. This is the Gospel of the glory of God found and seen in the face of Christ. We have no right to water it down.
God Loves... Himself 
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