Nic at Night
Tom Shrader walks through Jesus' nighttime dialogue with Nicodemus in John 3:1-10, focusing on the necessity and nature of being born again. He explains that regeneration is wholly the work of the Holy Spirit, not religious effort or moral achievement, drawing on Ezekiel 36 and John Piper's contrast between natural and spiritual birth. The teaching calls both the religious and the self-sufficient to recognize their need for the radical, God-initiated transformation that alone transfers a person from spiritual death to life in God's kingdom.
“Jesus did not come to earth and die on the cross to make bad people good. He came and died to make dead people come to life.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: A Study Of The Life Of Jesus Christ (2003/2004)
Recorded: 2004 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 1 hr 19 min
Themes: born again, salvation, new birth, Holy Spirit, spiritual transformation, religious pride, self-sufficiency, eternal life, seeking answers about faith, religious but not saved, self-reliant, new believer, questioning salvation, spiritually dead, young adult, someone considering Christianity
Scripture: John 2:23-24, John 3:1-21, Ezekiel 36:25-27, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 2:1-9
Theological Themes: regeneration, new birth, soteriology, salvation, pneumatology, work of the Holy Spirit, spiritual death, kingdom of God
Full Transcript
Introducing Nicodemus
Bibles, if you would please, to John chapter 3. Our study this morning is titled "Nic at Night," as we see Nicodemus coming to Jesus with questions, and Jesus has answers for him. Looking at the first ten verses of this twenty-one verse chapter, we find that chapter 3 is easily divided into two sections. The first ten verses speak to Jesus' dialogue with Nicodemus. The second ten verses, verses 11 through 21, record Jesus' discourse on God's plan of salvation. We will look at the first ten verses this week.
J.C. Ryle gives us perspective here. He writes: "The conversation between Christ and Nicodemus, which begins with these verses, is one of the most important passages in the whole Bible. Nowhere else do we find stronger statements about those two mighty subjects, the new birth and salvation by faith in the Son of God. The servant of Christ will do well to make himself thoroughly acquainted with this chapter. A man may be ignorant of many things in religion and yet be saved, but to be ignorant of the matters handled in this chapter is to be in the broad way which leads to destruction."
In other words, if you get this wrong, you have serious issues. This is the foundation of the Christian faith. This is how a person moves from sinner to saint, how your destination is changed from hell to heaven. This is about the radical change that takes place in the life of a believer.
Connecting to Chapter 2
When you look at Scripture, you see chapter numbers and verse numbers. Those were not present in the original manuscripts — they have been added for our convenience. So what appears to be a new beginning at chapter 3 verse 1 is really a continuation of what John had already recorded.
Look at chapter 2, verse 24: "But Jesus on His part was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men." Remember what was happening: Jesus had performed great signs and wonders, and many were believing in Him, but Jesus was not responding to them. He knew their hearts. He knew what was in their minds. And Nicodemus is exhibit A of that.
Look at chapter 3, verse 1: "Now." That word is the language that connects the previous verses with the ones we are looking at right now. "Now there was a man." You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that there are three things we immediately discover about this man. We discover that he is a Pharisee. We discover that his name is Nicodemus. And we discover that he is a ruler of the Jews.
Who Were the Pharisees?
The word "Pharisee" literally means "to separate" or "separated ones." They were typically from the Jewish middle class — not priests or Levites, but, if you will, the laity, businessmen. There were about 6,000 of them. They were zealous for ritual and religious piety, and they made a vow before three witnesses that they would do everything within their power, around the clock, to observe the law. They were committed to pleasing God.
Now that sounds strange to our ears, because we have a relatively sinister view of the Pharisees. We see them as what Jesus called them: hypocrites. Jesus condemned them for being hypocritical. Since He knows all men, He was able to look at their hearts and say, "You are like a whitewashed tomb — you look great on the outside, but inside you are filled with dead men's bones." That understanding is obviously helpful to us and allows us to see them as Jesus saw them.
But when we think only that way, we miss who these men really were in terms of the respect they commanded — not only from their peers, but from the people. They knew the Scriptures and they knew them well. They acknowledged the supernatural. They were supernaturalists who believed in the resurrection and looked forward to the coming Messiah. They missed who He really was, of course — their expectation was more of an earthly, political, military, and economic Messiah. But by worldly standards, these were significant men.
James Boice helps with that. He writes: "If we had lived in Christ's day and had been forced for some reason to choose a man to represent us, a man who would embody the best of our culture, education, ethics, and piety, Nicodemus would have been a good choice. We wouldn't have picked a Roman emperor — they were corrupt. We wouldn't have picked a Greek philosopher — they didn't know religion. We wouldn't have chosen a common, ignorant person. We would have chosen Nicodemus. Nicodemus had everything, yet — this is the point of John's account — he was a failure spiritually. He had never found God."
Nicodemus the Ruler
Returning to verse 1, his name, Nicodemus, means literally "victor over the people." He is a prominent man. He is also a ruler of the Jews — a member of the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was the Jewish Supreme Court, composed of the high priests, chief priests, elders, and scribes, with a total of 71 members. They executed civil and criminal law according to Jewish authority. In matters of capital punishment, that required Roman participation and approval.
Nicodemus Comes to Jesus
We see the importance of this in Jesus' death. If you watched *The Passion*, here is what you see: the Jews are dealing with Pilate. Why are they dealing with Pilate? Because capital punishment is involved, and they need Roman participation in the midst of that.
So we go back to the verse. Here is what we know. We have Nicodemus. He is a Pharisee. He is a ruler of the Jews. Verse 2: "And he came to him by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with them." Look back at verse 23 of chapter 2: "When he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in his name, beholding the signs that he's doing." Signs are taking place — healings, miracles. Many are responding.
Nicodemus knows that he himself has never performed such things. The other Pharisees have not done it either. He knows this is not something that is simply taking place among them. This is something extraordinary, and his conclusion is that God must be involved somehow. So he comes to Jesus.
Why Nicodemus Came at Night
Two points stand out. First, he comes at night. What is the significance of that? Some suggest it is a picture of Nicodemus' spiritual darkness — that his eyes are closed and he cannot see the truth. That is indeed true, though it may or may not be what is meant here. Others suggest he came at night because he understood how busy Jesus was. Sometimes we forget that. Jesus is very, very busy, and the thought was: if I want real dialogue, real conversation, we are going to need time. At night, there will be time. It will make more sense.
Or it may be — and this is where I tend to land — that he came at night because he was afraid. He was afraid of what his peers would think. He was afraid of being seen during the day, of being associated with Jesus, of the implications that association would carry. It could be any of those reasons, or all of them. He comes at night.
The Question Behind the Question
He says, "Rabbi, we know that you are from God." We might ask: what is the "we," Nicodemus? What do you mean, we? We can only speculate. It may be that he is speaking as a representative of the Pharisees, perhaps some of the Sanhedrin — saying, in effect, we see what is happening and it is undeniable, and I am here on behalf of that group. Or it may refer to the group in verse 23 of chapter 2, those who saw the signs. Or it may simply be that he speaks in the plural as a habit. Some people do that. The point is, he may be deliberately vague — cautious, even coy.
But that caution is obviously a waste of time, is it not? Look at verse 24 of chapter 2: Jesus knows all men. You are not going to fool Him. You cannot hide anything from Him. That is a fruitless effort, and He knows it.
Verse 3 says Jesus answered — but answered what? No question has been posed yet. Because He knows all men and knows their hearts, He is answering what is truly in Nicodemus' heart. He is answering the real question. One author writes this: "Jesus sensed in Nicodemus a deep hunger, an emptiness. Here was a man who was doing his level best to obey what he thought God wanted, yet he had an empty, unsatisfied heart that led him to seek out Jesus by night at the risk of the displeasure of his peers, to talk with him about the kingdom of God. Sensing this, our Lord immediately puts him on the right track, saying, in effect, you're wasting your time if you think you can enter the kingdom of God the way you are. You cannot do it. You must be born again."
You Must Be Born Again
"You must be born again" was John Wesley's favorite text, which he preached all through England, Wales, and Scotland. Someone once asked him why he preached it so often. Wesley's answer was simply: because you must be born again. This is an important truth. You must be born again. If you are not born again, you are not going to see the kingdom of God. As the text says in verse 5, unless you are born of water and the Spirit, you are not going to enter the kingdom of God.
I want to stop for a moment on this: here is Nicodemus, a prominent leader, an important figure, someone people would stop and take notice of — and Jesus understands that beneath all of that there is emptiness, hunger, a lack of satisfaction. So let me speak to those of you who may be here who are, like Nicodemus, religious people — but empty. Your religion just leaves you empty. You are going through all the ritual. You may be a visitor from another church, perhaps one heavy in liturgy, and you are going through it over and over again, and yet at the end of the day it is not making any difference. You have checked the box and said —
The Empty Religious Life
Perhaps you are here at a church like East Valley Bible Church, and you read scripture just like Nicodemus did, and you go to church just like Nicodemus did, and you are serving just like Nicodemus did. Maybe you have taken your own version of a vow that says, "I am going to live this every day." You really meant it, and yet there is something missing. You are very religious. You are checking boxes off like mad — quiet time, all of those things. If somebody asks how you are doing spiritually, you can rattle off everything you have learned, everything you know.
Nicodemus' problem was not information, was it? His heart was not changed. Maybe you find yourself describing yourself as a religious person, but an empty person — an unsatisfied person. What do you need? You need to be born again.
Maybe you were here and did not take communion. They said that if you are not a Christian, do not take communion, and you did not take it — and yet you are here, and you are miserable, dissatisfied. What makes this really aggravating is that your friends are saying, "Man, I wish I had your life. I would love to be you. You have everything." And indeed, when you are sitting there by yourself, you say, "You know what? I have everything." You sit down at the beginning of every year and you are checking boxes again like mad. Goal set. Accomplished. Accomplished. Accomplished. Salesperson of the year, salesperson of the decade, salesperson of the century, salesperson of the millennium, salesperson of humankind — and yet you are miserable.
Something Is Always Missing
You sang this: *"All of You is more than enough for all of me, for every thirst and every need, You satisfy me with Your love, and all I have in You is more than enough. You're my supply, my breath of life, still more awesome than I know. You're my reward worth living for, still more awesome than I know."* We were singing this to the Lord.
Maybe you go home at night and you walk into the garage and there is your new car, and you are singing, "You're all I need." Or you have a television screen bigger than that one up there. Or you sit out in the backyard around the pool, the candles are lit, and you look across — and there is something missing. Something is empty. Something is wrong. And it always will be, unless you are born again. There is no deal you can close, no accomplishment you can achieve that will fill it.
And that is the conflict, because the world is saying, "Get this, grab this." While doing research for the ladies' study, reading Glamour magazine and several others, you can see why ladies might have a distorted view of what they really should be. If you have read one of those magazines, you have read them all, and if you have read one of them once, you have read them all for all time — they are all the same. But that is what the world says: get this, lose this, grab this, snort this, smoke this, touch this, and you will be satisfied. Maybe you are, for a moment — but then it is fleeting.
Spiritually, we do the same thing. Read this, listen to this tape, grab this, go to that seminar. You can be very, very busy and yet empty. So what does it take? You must be born again.
The Term We Should Not Run From
That is a good term, and we do not need to run away from it. On Saturday afternoon I was watching television — flipping around after finishing my lesson — and there was a man talking about great thrills. He was bungee jumping at Circus Circus in Las Vegas, jumping 170 feet. They filmed it in slow motion as he went down, and when they got him back up and asked how it was, he said, "It was incredible." And then, literally — I am quoting him — he said, "It's just like being born again, if you know what I mean."
No, I do not know what you mean. He lost me there. But the term is out there. And sometimes because the culture has hijacked it, we are uncomfortable with it — but it is a good term. Jesus said it: *you must be born again.*
If you are not born again, if you are not a new creature, that is what Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17: *"If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature, and the old things have passed away."* The phrase "born again" literally means born from above. It speaks of our need — your need, my need, the need every person has as they come into this world — to experience a life change. When we come into this world, we are separated from God.
Transferred Into a New Kingdom
What comes as shattering news to Nicodemus, and to virtually every other person, is this: there is nothing you can do about it. It is entirely a work of God. If you are not born again, you cannot — as the text says — see the kingdom of God.
What does Jesus mean when He speaks of the kingdom of God? Ray Stedman writes this: "To be in the kingdom of God, of course, is to belong to God, to be part of His rule, His reign, His domain." Paul speaks of being transferred from the kingdom of darkness ruled by the gods of this world into the kingdom of the Son of His love. So Jesus is referring to a transfer of citizenship — a radical departure from what we once were.
You Must Be Born Again
You were dead in your trespasses and sins. Every once in a while, when I'm going through this, I'll try to describe us as natural men and natural women as pious pond scum. Every time I do it, I start getting emails, and I always get one that says I have a very low self-esteem. Well, my friends tell me I have a very healthy, in fact maybe overly high self-esteem, so I don't think that's it. Pond scum is too flattering a term. I can't get it low enough.
We're dead. Jesus did not come to earth and die on the cross to make bad people good. He came and died to make dead people come to life. There's the difference. You were dead in your sins and trespasses. There was nothing you could do, nothing you can do to save yourself. It is totally, entirely, completely an act of God.
If I am going to see the kingdom of God, then in verse 5, if I'm going to enter the kingdom of God, if I'm going to be part of this kingdom of God, I must be born again. Nicodemus doesn't get this at all. Verse 4: "How can a man be born when he's old? He can't enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?" Nicodemus misses this entirely. He is thinking on a physical plane while Jesus is using physical language to describe a spiritual truth.
Born of Water and the Spirit
So Jesus answers, and in a sense turns up the heat a bit in verse 5. "Truly, truly" — the same introduction used in verse 3, amen, amen. He is serious about this; He is emphasizing it. "Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." Verse 3 says he can't see it. Verse 5 says he cannot enter it. He must be born of water and the Spirit.
The translators help us when they capitalize the S to indicate that the Holy Spirit is involved in this. But what is the water about? I was surprised how many commentators talked about this water representing natural birth — for example, when a woman's water breaks, that is natural birth, and that you must be born naturally before you can be born spiritually. That seems self-evident. Or it may refer to baptism, some idea like that. I think it carries the idea of cleansing, a purification that is to take place, a spiritual renewal. And how does that take place? By the Holy Spirit.
It is what Ezekiel wrote about in Ezekiel 36. God said this: "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes." The Holy Spirit is going to do this work. The Holy Spirit is going to invade a life.
Nothing You Can Do
If you are here and you are a religious person, this rattles your whole world. It shakes everything up, because there is nothing you can do. Our instinct is always to ask what we can do. As we read through Jesus' life, as we get into Paul's epistles, as Peter delivers his powerful sermon in the book of Acts, our immediate reaction is: How can I be saved? What should I do? Where do I go?
Nicodemus is saying, listen, I'm doing everything. I really am a good man by the evaluation of the Pharisees. I'm a member of the Sanhedrin. Look at verse 10 — Jesus said to him, "Are you the teacher?" He may be the preeminent teacher in Israel. He has all of this, and yet something is wrong. There is no connection. He doesn't understand it. And now he has to be born again? That makes no sense to him.
Jesus says you must be born of water — you need to be cleansed — and it is an act of the Spirit. Unless you are born of the Holy Spirit, unless you are regenerated by God Himself, the person of the Holy Spirit, unless that takes place, you will not see and you will not enter the kingdom of God.
Flesh Begets Flesh, Spirit Begets Spirit
How do we know this? Verse 6: "That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit." The flesh begets flesh, and the Spirit begets Spirit. John Piper paraphrases verse 6 this way: "When you are conceived and born by human parents, you share in a human nature. When you are conceived and born by divine Spirit, you share in a divine nature. Your first birth makes you come alive to human life. Your second birth makes you come alive to spiritual life. Our first birth knits our hearts affectionately to our earthly father. Our second birth knits our hearts affectionately to our heavenly Father. Our first birth imparts a natural impulse to save our lives. Our second birth imparts a supernatural impulse to lose our lives for Christ's sake."
We don't need to be born of human effort. We can work and work and work and work, and all we produce is more flesh. We don't need to live naturally. We need to live supernaturally. We need to be delivered from the bondage of sin, and there is nothing we can do to participate in that act of deliverance. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves.
That is what Paul writes in Ephesians 2. You were dead in your sins and trespasses. Now you are alive. Why? Because Jesus didn't come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people come to life. You were children of wrath. You are now sons of God. A change has taken place. My destination has changed, and my destiny — the way I live here — has changed. What drives me is different. What is important is different. There was affection toward my natural father; now there should be in me affection toward my heavenly Father.
Nicodemus could have become a Jew very simply by birth. That was easy for him. But Jesus is talking about something deeper than flesh. He is talking about the Spirit. Again, J.C. Ryle writes this,
The Radical Nature of New Birth
The change which our Lord here declares needful to salvation is evidently no slight or superficial one. It is not merely reformation or amendment or moral change or outward alteration of life. It is a thorough change of heart, will, and character. It is a resurrection. It is a new creation. It is passing from death to life. It is the implanting of our dead hearts with a new principle from above. It is calling into existence a new creature, a new nature, new habits of life, new tastes, new desires, new appetites, new judgments, new opinions, new hopes, and new fears. All this and nothing less is what is implied when Jesus declares that we need a new birth.
So I ask the question: have you been born again? Has there been this radical change? Is it evident to those around you? Is it evident in your own life? And that all starts by understanding the need.
Amazing Grace and the Word "Wretch"
I was at a funeral a while ago, and we were going through the hymnals and these books — it was a mainline denomination, their liturgy. I said, we are all going to sing number 21, Amazing Grace. I thought, well, I do not need to turn to that. I can sing Amazing Grace. So we all start singing along, and all of a sudden I blurt out a word that is different than everybody else's.
I sang, "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me." The rest of the people were looking at number 21 in the hymnal: "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a soul like mine." They could not even write the word "wretch."
If you do not understand that you are beneath contempt — if I do not understand that — if I do not understand that while I may have merit in your eyes and may do good in your eyes, and you may do good in my eyes, in God's eyes those deeds are as filthy rags — if I do not understand that need, I am never going to respond to the gospel. That is where it all begins. I need to understand that you must be born again.
What Human Effort Can and Cannot Do
Now, let me add that this does not mean we cannot accomplish some significant things on a human level. There was a man in church this morning at the 8 o'clock service whose grandson had a brain tumor. Almost a year ago they did the surgery, eradicated the tumor, the last chemotherapy is this week, and the prognosis is very good. That is great news. They said fifteen years ago they could not have done that surgery — that is real progress.
Yesterday they were trying to get a plane flying seven times the speed of sound. We can do some significant things. I was watching a story this week on Apollo and the landing on the moon, and I had not really thought about it in a long time — that is an amazing feat. To take a man, put him in a capsule, send him to the moon, watch him get out and walk around, get back in, push a button, take off, reunite with a capsule, and come back to Earth — that is an extraordinary thing.
I was stuck in traffic the other day watching planes roll into Sky Harbor, and they absolutely amaze me. I do not understand how those things fly. I do not understand television at all. We can do some pretty amazing things. But we cannot make a sinner a saint. There is nothing we can do, and there is nothing you can do.
You may be sitting there saying, "I feel so hopeless at this point. I feel so helpless." Good — that is the point. The gospel is the good news, and I cannot embrace the good news until I understand the bad news: that I am separated, that I am lost.
The Wind and the Spirit
That is the flesh producing flesh, the Spirit producing spirit. "Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again." He said, you want an illustration of this? It is almost as if He is quoting Bob Dylan at this point — though we know He is not. He said, it is like the wind.
"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." He said, you want to talk about the wind? We cannot control it, we have no idea where it comes from, we do not know where it is going, we cannot understand it — but the effects of it are undeniable. And so it is with people who are born of the Spirit. It is entirely an act of God that we cannot control and cannot explain.
Our Responsibility to Share the Gospel
At least I hope that for the last month or so you have really been praying about Good Friday and Easter — praying that God would bring people into your life, people you can bring to church, people you can share with. You are doing that diligently. After service you are going to go out patiently and stand in line to grab tickets to invite them and bring them. You are going to share, you are going to study, you are going to learn how to explain the gospel. You may take classes in that.
And yet it entirely depends upon whether God works — not on you. That does not relieve us from our responsibility, our obligation, or our privilege to share the gospel. It simply means we share, and we have no idea what God is going to do.
Does it not absolutely fascinate you who God saves and how He saves them? It is an amazing thing — who He saves and how He saves them. I used to work with a manager. We had a bullpen and he was in his little office, and every so often he would call out, "Schrader!" So I would go in there, and one day — "Schrader!"
The Mystery of Who God Saves
I went in there one day, and he said, "You watch TV last night?" I said, "No." He said, "War of Remembrance was on. Germans slaughtering these Jews. Six, seven million Jews dead. Explain to me how your God allows that to take place. How does your God — your God of love, your sovereign God, your God that has no maverick molecule — explain to me how that God lets that take place." We had had enough conversations for him to get right to it like that. I said, "I don't have any idea, a clue. I don't know. Maybe He did it so we'd have this conversation. I don't know. I don't understand it." He said, "I'm not interested in that. I don't need a God like that." I said, "Well, I don't need the conversation, so I can go back to my cube, I guess."
Then comes another day — Schrader closes the door. He says, "Hey, sit down." I said, "Yeah." He said, "Last night I was born again." I'm telling you, there is not a way on the planet that you would have picked this guy. There is not a way that you would have ever in a million years thought, "Well, God's going to save that guy."
And the flip side of that coin is this: you have people in your life who for five years have been reading the books you give them, listening to the tapes, coming here periodically. You pray for them diligently, your friends pray for them, you share everything. And they are this close — they have been this close their whole lives — and probably many of them are going to die this close. And if you are this close, you might as well be the Grand Canyon away.
You cannot explain it, can you? It is like the wind. It is beyond your control. It is beyond even your understanding, or mine. But I can sure see the effects of it. I can see where He has been. I can see the lives He has touched. I can see the change that takes place. I can see men who absolutely hated everything in life who are now in love with life itself. I can see people who hated God, and the things of God, and hated this Word, and now they cannot get enough of it.
How do you explain it? You do not. The Spirit does it. God does it. It is not a human thing. It is a God thing. God saves sinners. We do not. We do not contrive it. We cannot put together a campaign to make it happen. God does it in His timing, in His way.
God's Sovereignty Is Not About You
I have watched so many situations where you talk about an event, you prepare for an event, you get everything in place, and the band shows up, the speaker shows up, the people show up — but God does not show up. And you want to sit there asking, "Was the lighting off?" No. God just decided, not today. That is not His deal. Why? I do not know. I do not need to know.
I wish one time — and I should say this, I do not know if I have ever said it publicly — I wish one time Billy Graham would have a crusade and nobody came forward. Not one person. And I guarantee you they would be back there debriefing a thousand things. The answer is simple: God just did not do His thing that day. God decided not to save anybody that day.
Do you understand it is not about you? It is not about your message. That does not mean you do not prepare. That does not mean you do not study. That does not mean you do not share. That does not mean you do not live an obedient life. That does not mean you do not pray for people. It just means that God ultimately is going to decide who God is going to save.
By the way, if you are here and you are not saved, do not give me this: "Well, I guess I am just not one of His." This does not relieve you of your responsibility either. You have heard this truth — take the whole thing. You will be judged. The wage of sin is death. If you do not respond, if you do not come in repentance and faith, if you do not accept that gift, if you do not respond with faith — which in itself is a gift from God — you spend eternity separated from God in a place called hell. Salvation is entirely of Him, and yet the responsibility to respond is entirely yours.
Nicodemus Still Does Not Understand
So how is our friend Nicodemus doing? Not so well. Look at verse nine. He is saying, in effect, "How can this be? This makes no sense. I did not fully understand the other thing, and I really do not get this at all. How can salvation be totally of the Spirit? And all of this effort does not matter? And all these things do not matter? Is God like the wind in this?"
Then Jesus says in verse ten: "You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand these things?" You know the Scripture inside and out. You have studied the Old Testament your whole life. You know the book of Ezekiel and Isaiah and Jeremiah. You know that God is going to take out the heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh. You know all of this throughout the Old Testament. You are the teacher, you are the man — and you do not get it.
God's Plan of Salvation
So then Jesus says, let me explain it to you. In verses eleven through twenty-one, Jesus now talks about God's plan and God's way of salvation. And it is different. It is different than religion. It is the truth of how God works in a life — how God works to change the destination of a sinner, making a sinner a saint and sending them to heaven. And then, just as importantly, giving us a life on this earth that is worth living. That is a great truth.
---
*Let us pray. Father, thank You for Your Son Jesus. For those of us who know Him in a personal way, thank You for the work that You have done in our lives. Thank You that we can sing.*