CHAPTER 3 You Must Be Born Again

Not everyone who claims to be a Christian really is. Unbelievers do make false professions of faith in Christ, and people who are not truly Christians can be deceived into thinking they are.

Jesus said He came “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). But in his dealings with sinners, He never encouraged a quick, easy, or shallow response. He turned away far more prospects than He won, refusing to proclaim a message that would give anyone false hope.

Jesus’ meeting with Nicodemus in John 3 is an example of this. It is the earliest of His one-on-one evangelistic encounters recorded in the Gospels. It’s ironic that Jesus, who so often confronted the Pharisees’ unbelief and outright antagonism, began His evangelistic ministry by answering a leading Pharisee who approached Him. We might expect Jesus to welcome Nicodemus warmly, but Jesus knew the unbelief and self-righteousness of Nicodemus’s heart.

Nicodemus begins the conversation with this confession of faith: “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” (John 3:2). He was intrigued with Christ. There had not been a prophet for four hundred years.

Jesus, who “knew all men” (John 2:24), understood what was really on Nicodemus’s heart. He ignored Nicodemus’s profession of faith and instead answered a question Nicodemus didn’t even ask: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

Nicodemus was clearly stunned by Jesus’ answer. It included four critical truths that must have astonished him.

The Futility of Religion

Nicodemus was “a ruler of the Jews” (John 3:1), a member of the Sanhedrin, the highest ruling body of the Jewish nation. Perhaps he came by night because he didn’t want the whole world to see him and think he was representing all the Sanhedrin. Or maybe he was afraid of what the other Pharisees would think. They were known to put people out of the synagogue for believing in Jesus (John 9:22). Nevertheless, he came unlike his colleagues with a sincere desire to learn.

The Pharisees were hyper-legalists who externalized religion. Although they were deeply religious, they were no nearer the kingdom of God than a prostitute. Their credo included fastidious adherence to more than six hundred laws, many of which were simply their own inventions. They seemed to believe their severe, burdensome rules and rigorous codes of conduct made them holier than if they simply followed Scripture alone. Nicodemus may have expected Christ to commend him for his strict legalism. Instead, Jesus confronted him with the futility of his religion: “You must be born again” (John 3:7).

Nicodemus’s reply has often been misunderstood: “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?” (John 3:4). Nicodemus was not speaking in literal terms. We must give him credit for a little common sense. A teacher himself, Nicodemus understood the rabbinical method of using figurative language to teach spiritual truth, and he was merely picking up Jesus’ symbolism. He was really saying, “I can’t start all over. It’s too late. I’ve gone too far in my religious system to start over. There’s no hope for me if I must begin from the beginning.”

Jesus was demanding that Nicodemus forsake everything he stood for, and Nicodemus knew it. Christ was challenging him with the most difficult demand He could make. Nicodemus would gladly have given money, fasted, or performed any ritual Jesus could have prescribed. But to call him to a spiritual rebirth was asking him to acknowledge his own insufficiency and to turn away from everything he was committed to.

Nicodemus got the message, and it’s clear that he was staggered by it. He asked Jesus, “How can these things be?” (v. 9).

The Unity of Revelation

“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?’” (v. 10). That rebuke from the Lord completely silenced Nicodemus. If Nicodemus said any more, John does not record it. The silence is understandable. Jesus’ challenge of Nicodemus’s aptitude as a spiritual teacher was a devastating putdown.

Jesus’ comeback also made an important doctrinal point. The clear implication is that the Old Testament plainly taught the way of salvation (cf. 2 Tim. 3:15). Jesus was not announcing a new or distinct means of redemption (cf. Matt. 5:17). Even in the Old Testament, eternal life was never a payoff for those who observed the law; it was a gift to those who humbly and by faith sought redemption from their sin. Yet it always meant a new start, a rebirth, a turning from sin to God. Nicodemus, as a teacher of the law, should have understood that. He should have been familiar with the words of the Lord recorded by Isaiah:

“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;
Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight.
Cease to do evil,
Learn to do good….
Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the,
“Though your sins are as scarlet,
They will be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They will be like wool.”

– ISAIAH 1:16-18

The central theme of the Old Testament is redemption by grace. But incredibly, the Pharisees entirely missed it. In their rigid emphasis on religious works, they deemphasized the truth of God’s grace and forgiveness to sinners a theme that runs through the Old Testament. They stressed obedience to law, not conversion to the Lord, as the way to gain eternal life.

They were so determined to earn a righteousness of their own (Rom. 10:3) that they neglected the marvelous truth of Habakkuk 2:4: “The righteous will live by his faith.” They looked to Abraham as their father but overlooked the key lesson of his life: “He believed in the; and [the] reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). They scoured the psalms for laws they could add to their list, but they ignored the most sublime truth of all—that God forgives sins, covers transgressions, and refuses to impute iniquity to sinners who turn to Him (Ps. 32:1-2). They anticipated the coming of their Messiah but closed their eyes to the fact that He would come to die as a sacrifice for sin (Isa. 53:4-9). They were confident that they were guides to the blind, lights to those in darkness, correctors of the foolish, and teachers of the immature (cf. Rom. 2:19- 20), but they missed the most basic lesson of God’s law: that they themselves were sinners in need of redemption.

People have always stumbled at the simplicity of salvation. That is why there are so many cults. Each one has a unique slant on the doctrine of salvation-and each one corrupts the simplicity of the gospel revealed in God’s Word (cf. 2 Cor. 11:3) by espousing salvation by human works. Each one of the major cults claims to have a key that unlocks the secret of salvation, yet they are all alike in propagating self-righteous achievement as the way to God.

From start to finish, God’s Word disproves them all, and in a wonderfully consistent way. Its message, woven through sixty-six books, written over a span of fifteen hundred years by more than forty different authors, is marvelously unified and congruous. The message is simply that God graciously saves repentant sinners who come to Him in faith. There is no secret there, no mystery, no obscurity, and no complexity. If Nicodemus had truly understood God’s Word, he would have known that much.

The Necessity of Regeneration

Despite his great ability as a teacher and his obsession with the details of the law, Nicodemus had fallen short. Jesus did not try to mask or soften that fact. Nicodemus was nurturing a great sin he was not even aware of the sin of unbelief. When Nicodemus said, “I don’t understand,” what he really meant was, “I don’t believe.” Unbelief always begets ignorance.

Verses 11-12 confirm that unbelief was the real issue. There Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” Nicodemus claimed he didn’t understand. Jesus wanted him to know that faith comes before full understanding. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” Spiritual truth does not register in the mind of one who does not believe; unbelief understands nothing.

What a blow this was to Nicodemus’s self-righteousness! He had come to Jesus with a smug profession of faith: “We know that you have come from God as a teacher” (John 3:2). In essence, Jesus responded, “No you don’t. You don’t understand Scripture. You don’t know the basics about salvation. You don’t even understand earthly things. What good would it do for Me to expound heavenly truth to you?”

Like most religious unbelievers, Nicodemus did not want to confess that he was a helpless sinner. Jesus knew the truth. Nicodemus thought of himself as a great spiritual leader. Jesus had reduced him to nothing.

“No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man” (John 3:13). With that statement of His divine origin, Jesus rebuked Nicodemus’s shallow faith and destroyed his system of religion by works. No one can ascend to heaven; that is, no one can earn his way there. God has come down from heaven and spoken to us by His Son (Heb. 1:1-2). We could never climb to heaven and find the answers for ourselves. The only person who has that kind of access to God is the One who descended from heaven. He is not merely a teacher sent by God; He is in fact God in human flesh. We either accept what He says, or we are left with our sin.

This, then, is His message: “You must be born again” (John 3:7). Regeneration is no option, but rather an absolute necessity. No one-not even the most religious Pharisee is exempt from the divine call to a new birth. And thus we have the starting point of all gospel truth: salvation is impossible apart from divinely wrought regeneration.

The Reality of Redemption

When Nicodemus offered no further response, Jesus lovingly and graciously explained to him the new birth in all its simplicity. Beginning in John 3:14, Jesus introduced the details of the way of salvation. He chose an Old Testament illustration of salvation, as if to underscore His rebuke to Nicodemus for not understanding the truth of Scripture: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life” (vv. 14-15). Surely Nicodemus knew that story. Why hadn’t he ever understood its truth?

Numbers 21 gives the full account of the serpent in the wilderness. The Israelites were wandering around, having left Egypt but having not yet entered the Promised Land. They had been complaining incessantly-grumbling about the food, muttering about Moses, and whining about how bad their condition was. Finally, when God had enough, He sent a plague in the form of hundreds of poisonous snakes. The snakes overran the camp, and the rebellious people were bitten. When they realized they were dying, they repented. They came to Moses, asking him to intercede on their behalf. God in His mercy forgave them and told Moses to construct a pole with a bronze serpent at the top. He was to erect it in the center of the camp. The Lord gave this promise: “Everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live” (Num. 21:8). He did not prescribe a ritual or a chant. Just so, salvation doesn’t happen by religious ceremony. That was true when the Israelites were in the wilderness; it was true for Nicodemus; it is true today.

Jesus was not, however, painting a picture of easy faith. He was showing Nicodemus the necessity of repentance. In fact, Jesus used this particular illustration precisely because it challenged Nicodemus’s Pharisaism. Nicodemus knew the story of the bronze serpent well. As a leader of the Jewish nation, no doubt he identified with Moses. Jesus was showing him instead that he must identify with the sinning, rebellious Israelites.

Nicodemus knew well the helpless state of the Israelites for whom the bronze serpent was erected. They were sinful, defiant rebels against God. They had been judged, and they were dying. They came to Moses in absolute shame and utter repentance, saying, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the and you” (Num. 21:7). Undoubtedly many were already sick and dying, fast losing their strength. They were in no position to glance flippantly at the pole and then proceed with lives of rebellion. It is noteworthy that Moses records no further occurrence of the kind of rebellion that had brought about their judgment. They turned to God in desperation and with genuine repentance. Jesus was demanding that Nicodemus do the same.

The issue was sin. Jesus was challenging this great teacher of the law to acknowledge that he had been bitten by the great serpent, Satan, and to come to the Lord for salvation. The very concept would have been repugnant to a Pharisee. It cut at the core of his self-righteousness. Far from giving Nicodemus an illustration of the ease of belief, our Lord established a painful condition for Nicodemus’s salvation: he must acknowledge his sinfulness and repent. He must be willing to include himself among the sinful, snake-bitten, repentant Israelites.

The illustration of the bronze serpent also pictured Jesus’ death as the price of redemption. Just as Moses lifted up that serpent, so the Son of Man would be lifted up on a pole the cross of crucifixion. The word “must” in verse 14 is significant; Christ had to die. “Without shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness” (Heb. 9:22). God’s sacrificial system demanded a blood atonement, for “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Someone must die to pay the price of sin.

That truth leads into what is undoubtedly the most familiar and magnificent statement in all of Scripture: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). What does it mean to believe in Christ? It means more than accepting and affirming the truth of who He is God in human flesh and believing what He says. Real faith has at its heart a full surrender to Christ. There is no way to eliminate that truth from this passage. Jesus does not allow for “faith” that gives lip service to the truth and then goes ahead in sin. Look at verses 20-21: “Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”

Verse 36 goes even further, equating disobedience with unbelief: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” Thus the test of true faith is this: Does it produce obedience? If not, it is not saving faith. Disobedience is unbelief. Real faith obeys.

John 3:17 is another rebuke to the religious system Nicodemus represented. The Pharisees were looking for a Messiah who would come to destroy the Gentiles and set up a utopia for the Jews. But Jesus said, “God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” Those who thought the coming of the Messiah meant glory for Israel and destruction for everybody else were going to be disappointed. He came to bring salvation not just to Israel, but to the whole world. That is the reality of redemption. It is offered not just to Pharisees, not just to the Jews, but to “whoever believes in Him” (v. 16).

Jesus made this wonderful promise to sinners: “He who believes in Him is not judged” (John 3:18). He balanced it with a chilling warning to the Pharisees and all others who reject Christ: “He who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” Condemnation for unbelievers is not relegated to the future. What will be consummated in the final judgment has already begun. “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light; for their deeds were evil” (v. 19). Having hated and rejected the light, those whose deeds are evil consign themselves to eternal darkness.

Don’t miss the exclusivity of the gospel. There is only one way to gain a right standing with God. You cannot earn it for yourself. Jesus-only Jesus is the sole source of salvation. Those who do not believe in His name are condemned, excluded from eternal life. No matter how sincere, how religious, how immersed in good works, everyone must be born again. There is no promise of life-only a guarantee of condemnation for those who will not identify with the sinful, dying Israelites and turn from sin in obedient faith to the One who was lifted up so that they would not have to perish.