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The Gospel of John, The Interview with Nicodemus, John 3:7,8 in the Period of Consideration or the Object of Belief, Part III - Lesson 16
Read John 3:7, Marvel not that I say unto you, Ye must be born again.
Jesus then sees Nicodemus startled look and his marveling at such a thought.
Nicodemus is startled because he has invested his whole life in a way that seemed right to him but it is the way of death.
The best rule of investment is to get out as soon as you realize that it is a losing investment.
Take your losses and get out.
Don't hang on to a certain loss because of pride and a false hope that things will turn out alright.
But Jesus says, Marvel not!
This is a self evident truth.
The sinful nature of man makes him blind to the things of God and he cannot see anything or understand his own blindness.
No amount of education or religious cultivation can change the basic nature of man.
Jesus is saying to Nicodemus that God must intervene in his life if he is to see the kingdom of God.
Jesus is telling Nicodemus that the natural man is devoid of understanding spiritual things because he must have a spiritual nature to understand.
Quit trying to understand spiritual things without the nature to understand!
If you lack a musical nature can you gain one?
If you lack an artistic nature can you learn one.
No, those natures are given to some people but not all.
Likewise if you are to understand the kingdom of God, then Ye must be born again.
God has to do a work of grace in you, a work of unmerited favor in you in order for you to be fit for the kingdom of God.
Why does one wait?
Why does one hesitate?
Admit that what God says is true and that what you say in false.
Humble yourself in the sight of God and He will lift you up.
When I was a little boy and couldn't see at a parade I would admit that I had a problem and call out to my Dad to lift me up.
He easily took me in his arms and put me on his shoulders and I was high and lifted up, way above the crowd and I could see better than most of the crowd.
Down at my level, without the lifting of my Father, it was hopeless for me to even try to see.
I could pretend that I could see.
Perhaps I got a glimpse of the marching band, the baton twirlers, and the drill team through the legs of the onlookers but certainly not anything near to a clear view or an understanding of the parade.
Just the shadows of movement.
Enough to peak the interest.
I needed someone outside myself to help me see the parade.
In this child's example, pride does not get in the way.
There was a need and the child knows that the Father will provide for that need.
He cries out to the Father in trust and the Father responds, lifts him up to the right height and supports him so he may see.
Sinners are in the same position that the little boy or the little girl is at a parade.
They are helpless and must call upon someone bigger than they are in order to see the Kingdom of God.
They must have a Father that can lift them up.
But pride can get in the way.
Jesus said that the sinner must come to him as a little child.
A trusting child who realizes his helplessness and must have help to see the things God wants him to see.
That helper is God.
He, and he alone, can boost you high enough to see the Kingdom of God, the everlasting Kingdom prepared for a prepared people.
That is why Jesus Christ said to Nicodemus, Ye must be born again!
Verse John 3:8, The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou heareth the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that it born of the Spirit.
Here we see our Lord, who made all things including the forces of nature, use the nature of wind to describe one who is born of the Spirit.
The wind bloweth where it listeth.
Wind cannot be seen but the effects of wind can be seen.
When a tree moves, we hear sound whistle through the leaves.
We know by experience that the wind is acting upon the tree.
Wind is, of course merely the movement of air, caused by the expansion and contraction of air molecules caused by temperature changes.
When the sun heats up the air the air expands and requires more space than previously and this increased space requirement causes movement of the air, hence we have wind.
Great concentrated temperature changes occur in the warm waters near the equator and the air at the equator heats rapidly and rises rapidly and causes great air masses to move over the earth.
This causes the movement of clouds and establishes weather patterns throughout the earth. Generally the patterns worldwide are predictable.
Wind is not of itself.
It listeth, which means that it leans or inclines, toward a prescribed direction due to temperature differences or pressure differences.
Wind is not haphazard but follows laws that God has established.
It is so complex to us that we assume that the wind goes where it pleases.
Jesus Christ made the wind and he does not use words lightly.
He uses the word listeth.
A ship lists due to unbalanced weight in the hold; perhaps water shifted to one side.
In other words the ship does not list in and of itself.
Likewise the wind does not go in a certain direction in and of itself.
It follows natural laws in its course.
Jesus Christ is saying here that the new birth is of water and of the Spirit.
The Spirit is like the wind.
It reacts in response to the working of the water of the Word like the wind reacts in response to the temperature changes.
The Spirit gives birth to those who have responded to the Word of God.
He does not act alone in the new birth.
A man is born of water and of the Spirit, not the Spirit only.
The new birth is much like the pattern of the physical birth.
The Word of God is sent forth by the Father to be planted in good soil, and the Holy Spirit is the agent whereby the new person, the child of God, is brought forth.
We, with our limitations, can only see the effects of the new birth.
We cannot see the wind but we know it is there by what it affects.
We see the results of the wind.
No one will argue with you that wind causes damage in a hurricane of tornado.
That is obvious.
Jesus Christ is saying that the results of the Spirit should be just as much a proof of the fact that the Spirit exists as the effects of the wind are.
He is also saying that the Spirit works in mysterious ways much like the wind but those ways are not mysterious to God because the Spirit follows and honors God's word and brings forth the fruit of the Word.
The Lord uses this analogy of the wind to the Spirit so wisely.
The Spirit is not answerable to human demands, neither the wind.
The Spirits paths are mysterious, so is the wind.
The Spirit is not seen but his effects are, so too the wind.
Both can be sensed and both have a great range of power.
The wind can blow gently or with gale force.
It can bring rain, tempest, and storm, or it can drive the clouds away, so too the Spirit. |