Theology is the study of God.
In John Chapter Three we have the highest and the loftiest statement of theology in the entire Bible.
And it is not John 3:16 but rather it is “You must be born again!”
The new birth is the direct and sovereign act of God the Holy Spirit upon a totally helpless sinner. God the Father uses the preaching of the Gospel to draw men and women to Himself. God the Holy Spirit uses the holy law of God to give a person the knowledge of sin. If by the grace of God they are enabled to accept their personal guilt and condemnation the law guides them to Christ. By grace through faith alone the guilty sinner receives the righteousness of God the Son in Christ Jesus. God has chosen them in Christ before the foundation of the world and they are called by God in time and they are justified in the sight of God. Only then can a sinner claim the immeasurable blessing and shout “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus!” [Romans 8:1]
The fact that God must take the initiative in saving a sinner in no way excuses the sinner for his or her unbelief!
The justified person does not become personally righteous but is accounted as righteous in Christ Jesus. At the instant of regeneration a lifelong process of becoming holy begins. This is personal holiness, without which no one will see God [Hebrews 12:14], but it does not create merit for God’s favor but personal holiness is the necessary result of having been born again.
Let me say that this is the sum of my theology and that is what I preach.
If what I just said is not in some degree a description of your Christian experience then you must seriously question whether or not you are in fact a believer in Christ Jesus. “You must be born again!”
The new birth does not come from the mere acceptance of the historical facts about Jesus. You can believe all of the facts about the life of Jesus and still go to hell.
The new birth does not come from the mere acceptance of a proposition such as the “Four Spiritual Laws”.
The new birth does not come from your so-called “decision” to become a Christian.
The new birth is not the result of your having been raised in a Christian home by godly parents.
The new birth is not the result of your having been baptized at any age!
The new birth, if you are born again, will be as much of a shock to you as it was to Nicodemus. Even if you were born again as a very young person you will still have the knowledge of your sinful nature and be continually amazed that God would save such a sinner as yourself.
Last week we looked at the occasion of Nicodemus, a Pharisee, whom Jesus calls “the teacher of Israel”. Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night and questions His authority. It is “night” in Israel and Nicodemus represents the ignorance and unbelief of the Jews.
This man, Nicodemus, who was great in the esteem of all of Judaism, is a “ruler of the Jews”! Nicodemus presumed to challenge this itinerant Rabbi from Nazareth before it was revealed to his lost and sin-dark soul just who this Man is that stands before him.
This Pharisee represents all of Godless religion. He is the “man” of 2:24 and he represents dead, legalistic, literalistic, merciless, prideful, did I leave anything out, men and women who are busy playing church but who are still lost and dead in trespasses and sins.
Nicodemus, and everyone who hears this message or reads this sermon, listen to the Lord Jesus Christ: “You must be born again!”
No one can tell you how to be born again. The reason that no one can tell you how to be born again is because only God knows that. The new birth, says Jesus, is like the wind [3:8]. God is in complete control of the wind and the new birth.
If you place any trust in anything that you believe that have control over and believe that you are born again because of something that you have done you are still a lost person. Is that too hard?
Was Jesus being unkind to Nicodemus because He absolutely trashed all of his “credentials” in religion?
Jesus had mercy on this Pharisee but first Jesus had to strip him of every last bit of self-righteousness. And the same will be true of you!
The Scripture that Jesus used to convert Nicodemus is found in Proverbs 30:
9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, "How can these things be?"
10 Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?
11 Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness.
12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
First Jesus rebukes Nicodemus because as “the teacher of Israel” he should have understood regeneration or the new birth. Regeneration is taught in the OT. Ezekiel and Jeremiah write about regeneration but it is lost on literalists like Nicodemus.
Jesus is here interpreting the OT for Nicodemus and for us.
Jesus says, “We know.” Nicodemus had challenged Jesus with “we know.”
But Jesus turns those very words against Nicodemus with a reference to the Holy Trinity. Whom else can Jesus be referring to as “We”?
In a few words Jesus is going to open the mind and the heart of Nicodemus to the “earthly things” that he was expected to know but did not know.
13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
Look again at Proverbs 30 and see how Jesus opens the mind and heart of this spiritually dead sinner.
Proverbs 30:2-4
2 Surely I am more stupid than any man,
NICODEMUS
And do not have the understanding of a man.
3 I neither learned wisdom
Nor have knowledge of the Holy One.
4 Who has ascended into heaven, or descended?CHRIST
Who has gathered the wind in His fists?
Who has bound the waters in a garment?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is His name, and what is His Son's name,
If you know?
What Scripture has God used to open your mind and heart?
“So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” [Romans 10:17]
Jesus is “the teacher of righteousness” as we saw in the last message. Nicodemus without knowing it quotes from Joel [3:2] and I pointed out that Joel [2:23] prophesied about a “teacher of righteousness”. The words translated “the former rain” should be translated “a teacher of righteousness”.
Now this Teacher of Righteousness who is sent by God is going to teach Nicodemus something that Moses wrote about Him.
The Gospel is based on the OT Scriptures and I repeat my claim that if a preacher cannot preach the Gospel from the OT it is because that preacher does not know the Gospel.
Indulge me in a bit of personal nostalgia. I was born again on September 28, 1968. Less than a year later on August 24, 1969 I preached my very first sermon. My text was Numbers 21:4-9 which is the text that Jesus is referring to when He said:
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
Nicodemus must see the Messiah “lifted up” on a cross – made to be sin!
Numbers 21:4-9
4 Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way.
5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses: "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread."
6 So the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died.
7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD that He take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people.
8 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live."
9 So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
In preparing today’s message I found that first sermon and read it again. I would not change a word of it.
Jim, haven’t you learned anything in 35 years? Yes, but the Gospel was preached in that sermon and the Gospel does not change. I will spare you a repeat of that message but I do want you see what Moses wrote about sin and Substitution that Nicodemus had not yet seen?
There is sin! In this text from Moses sin is manifested in the people murmuring against God and against Moses. God had mercifully delivered the Hebrews from bondage in Egypt and was providing for their every need and they were complaining.
So God sent judgment in the form of fiery serpents, perhaps scorpions, and the serpents bit the people. This is the sting of sin, which is death. And the physical death represented the result of their sin.
And many of the people died.
God gives conviction of sin and the people ask Moses to intercede with God on their behalf. So Moses prayed for the people.
God told Moses to make a serpent out of bronze and raise it up on a pole and whoever looked at the serpent on the pole would live. A sinless Substitute is made to be sin and is raised up on a pole. Look and live!
Now Moses that is too easy. Are you telling me that all I can do is look? If all I can do is look at my sin lifted up on a pole how could I get any credit for that? That is not anything that I would come up with. Then you are in the “way of Cain” trusting in the product of your own hands.
If you will not look you will die in your sins!
Only those who looked lived!
And so Jesus does not leave Nicodemus without the knowledge of the Substitute for sin.
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
Do you see Substitution? Do you see Jesus made to be sin for His people?
Do you see Jesus hanging on a tree? Do you believe that He died for you?
Look and live!
Charles Spurgeon preached a sermon in which he tells of his own conversion. Spurgeon went to a primitive Methodist Church and the regular preacher was not there. The message was from Isaiah 45:22
22 "Look to Me, and be saved,
All you ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.
There is life in a look at the crucified One!
And now the most quoted and most abused verse of Scripture in the Bible.
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Some scholars say that Jesus ended His discourse with Nicodemus at verse 15 and John 3:16-21 is the commentary of John the apostle.
No matter if these are the words of Jesus spoken to Nicodemus or John’s commentary they are still given to us by the Holy Spirit. However, it is my belief that the context is that Jesus is continuing to teach Nicodemus the way of righteousness.
The reason that John 3:16 is misused and abused is because many people bring their preconceived notions about the way of salvation to it and completely miss the context.
Calvinists need have no fear of John 3:16; it was Calvinists who translated your KJV bible.
Did not Jesus make it clear that you must be born again before you can see or enter the kingdom of God? Did not Jesus teach that the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration is sovereign like the wind? You can see the effect of the wind and the effect of regeneration but you are not in control of your being born again!
So when a person believes that Jesus died for all of the sins of the entire human race including Judas whom we know is in hell, and they read, “For God so loved the world…” they falsely conclude that “world” here must mean the entire human race and that it was God’s eternal purpose to save the entire human race. But the verse itself limits the application to those who believe in Him and Jesus has already told us how that faith is created.
John the apostle anticipates the new birth in:
John 1:12-13
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, 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.
Jesus teaches Nicodemus that the gift of the Holy Spirit is entirely up to God. Later in John’s Gospel we will see that Jesus says:
John 6:37-38
37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.
John 6:43-45
43 Jesus therefore answered and said to them, "Do not murmur among yourselves. 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
45 It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.
So please do not violate the clear teaching of the word of God by taking a verse out of context and then try to present Jesus as a beggar who is frustrated because “all-mighty man” will not make a so-called “decision.”
In years past I have labored to show that the NT writers use the word “world” or cosmos in no less than seven ways. It is not necessary to go into all of these uses of “world” because if a person has a stubborn preconceived notion it will not change their mind and anyone who stays with the context of John 3:16 does not need to be convinced of the sovereignty of God in the salvation of sinners.
The confusion and abuse about John 3:16 comes from people who do not understand the condition of everyone who is not in Christ. They simply do not understand what the Bible teaches about just how lost men and women are. They deny that man is totally unable to do anything in the way of a spiritual life unless and until God quickens him.
“We must remember that the human race is not a restored race out of which some will be lost, but the human race is a fallen race out of which some will be saved.” B.B. Warfield
SIN is not so much what we do, but what we are:
"A great many of us need to revise our notions of what it is to be lost. The common conception seems to be that to be in hell is to be lost. The true view is that to be in sin is to be lost. Sin is worse than hell and makes it what it is. Hell would not be the awful place it is if it were not for the sin that is there. And so Jesus came not to save people from a place called hell, but from a state of being and character, and a course of conduct called sin. ‘He shall save His people from their sins.' (Matthew 1:21) It is sin that has cut the cable between God and man, and thus shuts man off from that current of divinity in which alone is life, holiness and peace; and left him to death, misery and ruin."{Author unknown}
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Hear me correctly. There is a sense in which God loves all of mankind. Does God not send the rain on the just and the unjust?
But do not extend the benevolent love of God to His sovereign purpose in election or you will find yourself to be fighting against God.
17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
Does this verse change everything that I have just said?
Is the “world” that God intends to save the entire human race?
Let me help you. Remember that Jesus is dealing with a proud Pharisee who really believed that only the Jews were the children of God.
But Jesus tells Nicodemus that whoever believes in the only begotten Son of God will have everlasting life! Whoever, Nicodemus, not only the Jews!
The children of Abraham by natural descent were never the children of God. That is the error of all those who look for a renewed Jewish kingdom on earth. The Jews, as Jews, were never the children of God and they never will be. This error is the basis of the hugely successful “Left Behind” series of books.
Remember our study of Romans? Who are the children of God?
Romans 9:6-9
6 But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel,
7 nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, "In Isaac your seed shall be called."
8 That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.
9 For this is the word of promise; "AT THIS TIME I WILL COME AND SARAH SHALL HAVE A SON."
Could anything be any clearer? The Jews, as Jews, were never the children of God and they never will be. There is the elect remnant and that number is very small.
To Nicodemus the “world” meant Jews and Gentiles. Jesus is teaching that the Savior is not the Savior of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles. The “world” includes Gentiles as well as Jews.
Romans 3:29-30
29 Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also,
30 since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.
Our text for concludes with two solemn verses that most preachers today will not preach because they will offend lost people.
18 "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
Tell a lost person that they are already condemned because of their unbelief in Jesus as the only way to be saved and they will quickly deny the exclusive claim of Jesus and defend their evil ways.
Well, that is what I have to say today about John 3: 1-21.
There is the sovereignty of God in dispensing the new birth.
And you must have the new birth or you will remain in the state of being lost and condemned.
Will you not look to the One hanging on a pole? Do you love sin and spiritual darkness and your evil deeds more than God?
Whoever believes will be saved!
Can you believe that you are justly condemned and that God would be right if He sent you to everlasting torment in hell? If you cannot agree with that you are still clinging to your own self-righteousness and it will condemn you.
God will only accept the righteousness of His only Son. If you say I believe in Jesus AND …. Whatever you add to faith will condemn you. Brother Craig, our accountant, preached “subtraction by addition.” If you add anything to Christ you subtract from His rightousness.
Ah, you say, I do believe. Then how can you believe?
There is only one way and here it is.
21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God."
The True Light has come into the world and Jesus delights to save sinners.
Does anybody here need a Savior?
Then come to the Light who is Jesus Christ. Look to Jesus as One hanging on a pole made to be sin as the only acceptable Substitute for sinners.
Amen
