Reading this chapter yesterday at the care group, I learned a couple of things.
First, Nicodemus coming in the night was due to the peer pressure from his fellow Pharisees and rulers who would not consider Jesus as being sent by God. Nicodemus on the other hand at least believe this point. And like what John said in the previous chapter, Nicodemus was one of those who believed in Jesus because of the signs he saw, particularly, the temple cleansing as only the Messiah was expected to do it.
However, further reading of the discourse between Nicodemus and Jesus showed that he's not necessary the positive believer of the Lord that I had come to think of him previously. It's as if this discourse at night was to describe how Jesus knew the hearts of man and how he would not commit himself to those who believed superficially or at surface level only.
The discourse itself was interesting cause Jesus already knew what Nicodemus was going to ask even before he asked it. Jesus immediately answered Nicodemus' need to understand how one could be accepted into God's kingdom when it finally arrives, how he could be counted righteous and worthy to enter into God's kingdom.
At this point, the understanding of God's kingdom was not a heavenly place in eternity and in spiritual form. God's kingdom was understood as God freeing Israel from the Romans and establishes again the independent nation of Israel under the rule of God's appointed king, the Messiah, the Christ.
Jesus' answer for Nicodemus was that he must repent in baptism and be renewed by the Spirit whom God was going to give upon repentance. Rebirth in symbolic sense, by water and by the Spirit. But Nicodemus could not get pass this concept. Either he was too focused on the natural rebirth which was impossible, which also caused him to question whether Jesus was really from God because it seemed absurd to him, and someone from God could not have spoken such things, or he understood the symbolic language and could not accept that his way of following Jewish laws and traditions were totally left out of the equation.
Whatever the reason, Nicodemus demonstrated himself as the example of those described by John in the previous chapter, one who believed in Jesus upon seeing the signs, but was not ready to believe in totality what Jesus was going to say and teach about God's kingdom.
Upon rejecting this 'earthly teaching', Nicodemus totally disappeared from the discourse as Jesus continued teaching about the 'heavenly things' in which the famous John 3:16 was embedded. Thus, this verse which is so often used to demonstrate God's grace and love to unbelievers actually originated from a discourse between Jesus and a Jewish ruler who in the end did not believe, hence the continuation in which Jesus pronounced judgement on those who did not believe in his teachings.
In the second part of the chapter, when John the Baptist was again questioned on his authority to baptise since the one whom he baptised earlier now seemed to baptise even more people than him, he openly acknowledged that the one whom he baptised was indeed the one who had the higher authority. The question to him was to challenge his authority by making Jesus' growing reputation and popularity as a weapon. John's response was that he gladly surrendered the authority to the One whom indeed the authority belonged.
By referring Jesus as the bridegroom and the people as the bride, John was bringing the imagery of God reconciling His wayward wife, Israel, to him thus pointing to the fact that Jesus was representing God in bringing His people back. Jesus was embodying God's authority and God Himself, something that the Lord symbolically alluded to frequently to those who heard him in the dangerous revolutionary environment of first century Israel.
Comments