Scripture Reading: John 3:1-16
At the beginning of this chapter I would call your attention to John 3:16, a very familiar verse to us all: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.” Please notice that this verse begins with the little word for. The Greek word rendered “for” here, gar, is often used in a very significant way, especially in the writings of Paul. Paul’s Epistles show that he was a very logical and reasonable person. Often he uses the word for to explain his thought. For example, in Romans 8:1-27, twelve verses begin with this word.
The use of the word for at the beginning of John 3:16 indicates that this is not an isolated verse. On the contrary, this is a verse that depends upon the foregoing word. Based upon what is covered in 3:1-15, verse 16 explains, “For God so loved the world...”
Before considering this matter further, I would like to speak concerning grace. Grace refers to a gift, to something given freely. If you were to give someone a free gift, that gift may be regarded as grace. The Greek word for grace, charis, may be rendered either “grace” or “gift.” A gift is always a grace. According to the common understanding among Christians, grace denotes unmerited favor.
The Gospel of John uses the word grace in a very emphatic way. John 1:14 says that the Word, which is God, became flesh and tabernacled among us, full of grace. Then in 1:16 and 17 John goes on to say, “Of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and reality came through Jesus Christ.” The law is lifeless; hence, it was given. Grace, however, is a person; hence, we are told that grace came. Students of the Bible know that the law is a great matter, but grace is an even greater matter. We may say that the Bible teaches two main things: the law of the old dispensation and the grace of the new dispensation. No other book in the New Testament emphasizes grace in the way the Gospel of John does. If we would know what grace is, we need to come to this Gospel, a Gospel that emphasizes grace to the uttermost, and inquire of the apostle John what he means by grace.
In chapter 3 of John we have a definition of grace, even though the word grace is not used in this chapter. John 3:16 says that God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son. We are not told here that God gave us some kind of unmerited favor; we are told that He gave us a person, His Son. This person whom God gave is the gift, and this gift is grace.
In John 3 we have a link that connects this chapter with John 1. In chapter 1 of John we have grace, and in chapter 3 we have God’s gift. Grace is the giving, and this giving is grace.
We have seen that 3:16 begins with for and that this indicates that here we have an explanation of the foregoing word. Therefore, we need to consider what verse 15 says. Here we are told “that everyone who believes into Him may have eternal life.” The word that at the beginning of verse 15 indicates that this verse also is a continuation of the preceding word. Both verse 15 and verse 16 end with the words eternal life. This is a further indication that verse 16 is an explanation of verse 15. However, the fact that verse 15 begins with that indicates that this verse also is a continuation. Therefore, in order to understand verse 15, we must read verse 14.
John 3:14 says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” Notice that this verse begins with and. This is an indication that verse 14 does not stand by itself. If we read verses 14 and 15 together, we will see that the Son of Man was lifted up so that everyone who believes into Him may have eternal life. This proves that the lifting up of the Son of Man issues in eternal life. If the Son of Man had not been lifted up in the form of a bronze serpent, it would not be possible for eternal life to be given to anyone. But because Christ has been lifted up as the bronze serpent, we may now receive eternal life by believing into Him.
We have pointed out that because verse 14 begins with and, this verse does not stand alone. It is the continuation of verse 13. But verse 13 also begins with and, and verse 12 begins with if. This makes it necessary for us to go back to verse 11: “Truly, truly, I say to you, We speak that which we know and testify of that which we have seen, and yet you do not receive our testimony.” Here the Lord Jesus did not say, “I speak”; He said, “We speak.” Who is this “we”? This refers to John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus. If we read chapters 1 and 3 of John, we will see that John the Baptist came before the Lord Jesus came. According to Matthew 3:11, John the Baptist said to the Pharisees and Sadducees, “I baptize you in water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is stronger than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He Himself will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire.” According to John 1:33, John the Baptist said, “He who sent me to baptize in water, He said to me, He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and abiding upon Him, this is He who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.” Therefore, John made it clear that he had come to baptize in water, but the One who was coming would baptize His believers in the Spirit. John seemed to be saying, “The One who is greater than I, He who is coming after me, will baptize you in the Spirit. Because you are sinful, I baptize you in water unto repentance. The purpose of my baptism is to bury you. You are good only for burying. I call upon you to repent. Do you really mean business to repent? Do you know what it means to repent? To repent is to realize that you are sinful and good for nothing except death and burial. If you truly desire to repent, then let me bury you in water. The only thing I can do is terminate you by burying you. I cannot give you life. But death brings in resurrection. After I bury you in water, the One who is coming after me will raise you up and put you into the Spirit. Then you will become a new creation, a new race.” Do you know what this is? This is regeneration.
Verses 1 through 16 of John 3 are a complete section. This means that verse 16 is the conclusion of this section. However, for centuries Christians have paid attention to this conclusion as if it were something separate from the foregoing verses. Of course, many have paid attention to the matter of regeneration. Nevertheless, there is still the need for us to see the whole picture presented in these sixteen verses.
Verses 1 and 2 say, “There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This one 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 him.” Here we see that Nicodemus was a Pharisee. In his day there were certain qualifications to be a Pharisee. Not only was Nicodemus a Pharisee; he was also a ruler of the Jews. Why did such a person come to the Lord Jesus by night? It was because of pride that Nicodemus came to Him at night. He was a Pharisee with a high position in society. Furthermore, according to 3:10, he was a teacher of Israel. In addition, Nicodemus was an elderly man and a gentleman. We may say that he was a Pharisee, a ruler, a teacher, an elderly man, and a gentleman.
It is possible that at that time Nicodemus was more than sixty years old. The Lord Jesus was probably only a little over thirty. Nicodemus was at least one generation older than the Lord Jesus. Yet he came to a young man from Nazareth to be taught by Him. Nicodemus knew that if he were seen talking to the Lord Jesus, he might be condemned and put to shame by the other Pharisees. This was the reason he came to the Lord by night.
When Nicodemus came to the Lord, he called Him a rabbi, an honorable title that denotes a teacher. Nicodemus also said that no one could do the signs that the Lord was doing unless God was with him. It is significant that Nicodemus had such a recognition of Jesus, the Nazarene. Because Nicodemus knew that God was with this Nazarene, he was willing to come to Him to receive His teaching.
According to 3:3, the Lord answered Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Here the Lord seemed to be saying, “The fact that you call Me a rabbi indicates that you want to receive more teachings, more doctrines. But I have not come that you may have doctrine. Nicodemus, I have come that you may have life and that you may have it abundantly. I have come to impart life to you. I’m not here as a rabbi to give you more teachings. Nicodemus, I am not your rabbi — I am your Life-giver. Even I want to be your life. I want to give Myself to you as life. What you need is to be born anew. Unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God, much less enter into it. Nicodemus, you are now in man’s kingdom. But there is another kingdom, another realm, and this is God’s realm. How can you, a human being, know the things in God’s realm? If you would know the things in this realm, you need to have God’s life. Therefore, if you would see the kingdom of God and enter into it, you must be born again.”
Every kingdom has a particular kind of life. The plants in the plant kingdom have the plant life, and the animals in the animal kingdom have animal life. In the same principle, human beings in the human kingdom have a human life. From the Lord’s word to Nicodemus we see that we need another life, the divine life, God’s life, if we would know the things of the divine kingdom.
When the Lord told him of the necessity to be born anew, Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” (v. 4). This indicates that Nicodemus thought that to be born again required that a person enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born. This was his understanding of the Lord’s word.
In verse 5 the Lord Jesus went on to say to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Notice that the Lord did not explain to Nicodemus what it means to be born of water and the Spirit; neither did Nicodemus ask about this. This indicates that Nicodemus understood the Lord’s word about being born of water and the Spirit. As we have already mentioned, Nicodemus must have known the word of John the Baptist. John the Baptist had said that he baptized in water but that the One coming after him would baptize in the Spirit. Therefore, we need two kinds of baptism — a baptism in water and a baptism in the Spirit.
In verses 6 through 7 the Lord continued by saying that that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Then He told Nicodemus not to marvel that He said to him, “You must be born anew.” Then in verse 8 the Lord said, “The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
According to verse 9, Nicodemus said to the Lord, “How can these things be?” This indicates that he understood what the Lord was talking about and that now he wanted to know how these things could be.
The Lord answered, “You are a teacher of Israel, and you do not know these things?” (v. 10). Here and in the following verses the Lord seemed to be saying, “Nicodemus, as a teacher of Israel, have you never taught from chapter 21 of Numbers? You know from that chapter that the children of Israel were rebellious, and they were bitten by serpents. Many of the people died. When the children of Israel cried out to Moses about the situation, Moses prayed to the Lord on their behalf. God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and lift it up on a pole. He also said that anyone who was bitten by a poisonous serpent should look at the bronze serpent on the pole, and whoever looked at that serpent would live. Most of the children of Israel did this, and in this way they did not die. Nicodemus, as one who has been a teacher for years, you must know this story.”
In verse 11 the Lord went on to say, “Truly, truly, I say to you, We speak that which we know and testify of that which we have seen, and yet you do not receive our testimony.” In this verse the pronouns we and our refer to John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus.
In verse 12 the Lord continued, “If I told you of the things on earth and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you of the things in heaven?” The things on earth here do not refer to things of an earthly nature but to things that take place on earth, including redemption and regeneration. Regeneration is not something that occurs in heaven but something that happens on earth. In the same principle, the “things in heaven” in this verse are not things of a heavenly nature but things that take place in heaven. Hence, in the following verse the Lord said that He is the One who descended out of heaven and who is still in heaven. This indicates that He knows the things that take place in heaven because He is the One who is in heaven all the time.
As we have seen, verses 14 and 15 say that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that everyone who believes into Him may have eternal life. Then verse 16 explains that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son in order that those who believe into Him would not perish but would have eternal life.
Chapter 1 of the Gospel of John reveals that Christ came as the tabernacle (v. 14), and that tabernacle was actually the incarnated God into whom the believers may enter. But what is the entrance, the way, into the tabernacle? The entrance is Christ as the offerings. Therefore, after the tabernacle in 1:14, we have the Lamb of God in 1:29. This Lamb signifies Christ as all the offerings. It is by these offerings that we may enter into the tabernacle. Therefore, in chapter 1 we have the tabernacle and the offerings as the way to enter into this tabernacle, the incarnated God.
In John 1 we see that God came in incarnation to be the tabernacle and also came as the offerings for us to enjoy. If we would enjoy Him and partake of Him as the offerings, we may enter into Him as the tabernacle.
In chapters 3 through 11 of John we have a number of cases as illustrations. The first case is that of Nicodemus. According to John 3, Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a ruler, a teacher, an elderly man, a gentleman, and a man seeking God, came to the One who is the tabernacle and the offerings. The One whom Nicodemus contacted that night was the incarnated God to be received by us so that we may enter into Him. Moreover, this One was also all the offerings. How could Nicodemus, a needy one, partake of this incarnated God? How could he enjoy God and enter into God? Who is able to answer this question? Was it answered by the ancient philosophers in Greece, Babylon, and Egypt? Certainly not. Neither was it answered by Confucius. But the Bible reveals the answer to this most difficult question. According to what is portrayed in John 3, Nicodemus needed the incarnated God to be his offerings. In order to understand this, we need the types of the tabernacle and the offerings in the Old Testament, and we also need the cases in the New Testament.
When Nicodemus referred to the Lord Jesus as a teacher sent from God, the Lord told him that he needed to be born again. Then He went on to help Nicodemus to be clear concerning this. Nicodemus asked, “How can these things be?” He seemed to be saying, “Now I understand what it means to be born again. But how can this be?” In answer to Nicodemus’s question, the Lord compared Himself to the bronze serpent lifted up on the pole: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” Here the Lord Jesus seemed to be telling him, “I have come to be a bronze serpent, and one day I will be lifted up on the cross. Nicodemus, this indicates that no matter how good, gentle, and qualified you may be, you must realize that you have a serpentine nature. Do not think that those who commit gross sins are serpentine and that you are not. Nicodemus, you have a serpentine nature. In your forefather and ancestor Adam, you were bitten by the old serpent. When Adam was bitten by the serpent, you also were bitten. Because you were born of Adam, you inherited his serpentine nature. Outwardly, you do not appear to be serpentine. Rather, you are a gentleman. But inwardly, according to your nature, you are serpentine. Therefore, it is necessary that I die for you. Just as the bronze serpent was lifted up by Moses, I need to be lifted up on the cross and judged by God for you. Nicodemus, you have been teaching the children of Israel for years. Have you never taught them the story about the serpents in Numbers 21? You need to realize, Nicodemus, that you are serpentine and that I must die for you as your Substitute. You have the serpentine poison, but I am merely a bronze serpent. I have the form of a serpent but not the poisonous nature of a serpent. Although I am sinless, God has made Me to be sin for you (2 Cor. 5:21). I do not know sin, but God sent Me in the likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3), in the form of a bronze serpent.”
Christians today appreciate John 3:16 very much, but not many of them understand 3:14. However, 3:16 is the issue of 3:14; that is, the receiving of eternal life is the issue of the uplifting of the bronze serpent. The Lord was telling Nicodemus that if he realized that he was serpentine and believed in the Lord Jesus as the bronze serpent lifted up as his Substitute, he would have eternal life. This is to be regenerated, to receive another life, the divine life. When the divine life came into us, we received another life. To have this new life is what it means to be born again.
In chapters 1 and 3 of John we see the way to enjoy the incarnated God. Genesis 1 reveals that God is the Creator. But in John 1 and 3 God is not merely the Creator; He has become incarnated to be the tabernacle into which we may enter. Furthermore, this incarnated God is all the offerings. He became flesh in order to be the tabernacle and the offerings. If the Lord had not become flesh, how could He have been the Lamb with blood to shed for our redemption? Apart from His incarnation He would not have had the blood to shed for us. But because He became flesh, on the one hand, He became the tabernacle for us to enter and, on the other hand, He became the offerings that qualify us to enter into Him.
Today Christ still presents Himself to us as the tabernacle and the offerings. But how can we partake of Him? In order to partake of Him, we must realize that we have a serpentine nature. Sin is the poison of the serpent, the devil, Satan. Through Adam this sinful nature was put into us, and now we have the serpentine poison in our nature. In order to enjoy the incarnated God, we must realize that we are such serpentine beings. We must also realize that Christ was made sin for us and died on the cross as a bronze serpent so that the serpentine nature within us might be judged. If we realize that we are sinful people, serpentine beings, and confess this, immediately this dear, incarnated One will become our sin offering and enter into us. Then we will have Him as eternal life. This is the way for us to partake of the incarnated God for our enjoyment. It is when we admit that we are serpentine that we are qualified to experience eternal life and enjoy Him.
This is not a once-for-all matter. On the contrary, it should be a daily experience. John the Baptist preached repentance, and in the seven epistles to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3 the Lord Jesus again and again tells us to repent. This indicates that throughout our entire Christian life we need to repent. Daily we need to say, “Lord, I am serpentine. But I thank You, Lord, that You became the bronze serpent lifted up to be judged in my place. Lord, I confess that I am sinful. Even though You did not know sin, You were made sin for me, and You died on the cross to condemn sin. Now, Lord, I take You as my sin offering.” Whenever we do this, He once again becomes our enjoyment.
