NICODEMUS

THE BELIEVER AND THE RELIGIOUS NEED TO BE BORN AGAIN

The story of the experience of the meeting of Nicodemus with Jesus is one of the most relevant and privileged of all the ones told in the Gospels. A conversation between the Master and the master, between the Messiah of Israel, and one principal pharisee amongst the Jews. That conversation is almost known by hard by the majority of Christians, at least by those who read the Bible daily in their lives. The inspiration that it provides and the intimate spirituality with God which emanates is of great depth, and of unsoundable joy for the soul thirsty of the truth of God, which wants to know Him in a profound and intimate way, joyful of knowing the Messiah personally, even though his mind, that of the believer, still doubts. The teaching of this conversation about the need to be born again has been rumbling in history for around 2000 years, and it is the key to know God. If you want to know more about being born again and how Nicodemus’ relationship with Jesus Christ was, if you too want to know Jesus Christ – Yahshua more and better, keep reading…

THE TEXT: GOSPEL OF JOHN – CHAPTER 3

3Jesus answered and said: Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.

Nicodemus begins his questions about how a man can be born again being old, how could he return to the womb of his mother to be born again, but Jesus answers him in verse 5 that the birth He is talking about is spiritual, because what is born of the flesh, is flesh, but what is born of the Holy Spirit, is spirit.

9Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be? 10Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not know these things?

Jesus is confronting Nicodemus, who represents the great spiritual knowledge of the Jewish religion, of the people of God, for he has been qualified in verse 1 of chapter 3 as: “…a man of the Pharisees, a ruler of the Jews, who came by night to talk with Jesus in private.” It is not that Nicodemus did not have a great spiritual knowledge, or of the religious tradition, or of the theology of the Jews, of the Torah and of the Tanaj, but that this knowledge, the greatest there was, does not know the Lord the way God wants if one is not born again of the Spirit of God. Neither for being a Pharisee, who believed in resurrection, eternal life, the existence of the Holy Spirit, of the angels, of miracles, in signs, against the others on the other branch, the Sadducees. So, now, the principal Pharisees did not know God personally in the way Jesus teaches Nicodemus, because they need to be born again, the same way as we all need. He needed to know the Spirit, and not the letter of the Word of God. And there is more: he needed to hear the voice of God in his heart, for which one needs to continue growing in spirit.

But what I mean is, that if a Pharisee of high grade, in Jerusalem, with the Temple, and with Jesus Christ alive among them, could not see the Kingdom of God, “how could those who know nothing about the message of God see it, those of other cultures? Therefore, Jesus commanded the Great Commission. So, if Nicodemus represents every man, or woman, of faith, of real approaching to God, but limited by his religion, by his church, by his denomination, who cannot reach to see the Kingdom of God, or does not see it clearly, because he needs to be born again of the Spirit.

BORN AGAIN

What is to be born again? How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born? The answer from Jesus, the true Master of God made Man, goes another way, and it is available to everyone. It refers to the spirit, it refers to us receiving the Holy Spirit, and the message of God, the Gospel, and if we believe the message of the good news of Jesus Christ – Yahshua, if we know the cross, His death and resurrection, if truly from our heart we want to love God because He loved us before and gave us live, then God is ready to give us what we are missing. After the change of mind “metanoia” a Greek word used in the Bible for repentance, which means change of mind, it takes us to understand that, by our merits, good deeds, or religious efforts, we cannot reach the divine justice, to the standard of God, because we see that our flesh, mind, and heart are of the world. This is why God reconciles us with Him through His Son, giving us salvation through His grace through faith in the work of Christ. Only if we accept His plan of salvation, which means, the justice achieved by the “Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world” giving His live on the cross for our sins, for the principal which is to live by ourselves, apart from God, which all humanity does, and then we justify ourselves with our own justice, moral, etc. He also talks of water, which takes us to the baptism, and this does not mean that it makes us born again, but represents that, when we fulfil this ritual we declare to the world what happened before, that we have been born again, that we have believed in the Son of God, that we have believed in the work of salvation of Jesus Christ – Yahshua on the cross. So how are babies going to be born again before their baptism in water?

We must renounce to ego, to I, and receive God in Christ Jesus, for the Holy Spirit to come and dwell in us and start to purify our inner temple of the soul and of the body, for we are temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). If we believe that and we live it, we are born again, and the Holy Spirit will be teaching us the Way and making us mature as disciples of Jesus Christ. Depending on Him is that we will be able to live the Christian life, and persevere until the end, to receive the eternal life in the Kingdom of God.

Talking of the Kingdom of God, this is precisely the objective of Jesus in the conversation with Nicodemus, that he could see and enter the Kingdom of God, which is not possible through religion, or by personal efforts, but only through Christ. A clear objective the one Jesus has in mind, that we may see the Kingdom of God, but “how will we see that Kingdom, here and now, or when it comes at the end of time? Jesus is the Kingdom of God among us with power, (Luke 17:21) and Nicodemus had it/Him before him, but could not see it, until he understood through the Spirit. Therefore, the Kingdom of God is here and now and has not come jet in a universal way which we wait for its final and permanent establishment.

ARE YOU BORN AGAIN?

If you have believed this message of Jesus Christ to Nicodemus, if truly in your heart you love God and are willing to live the Christian life, to seek Him, and want to hear His voice to follow Him, you pray to the Father in the name of Jesus to reconcile with God and beat your flesh and your mind, and that He reigns in your life to serve Him as a disciple, and to others in every good deed, and you do it for His glory, and not for yours, God is faithful and His Spirit will keep you until the return of Christ. Tests will come, abundance, tribulations, long awaiting, and God will test you in all, so you can trust Him, so you can learn to trust in you God and depend on Him in all things. There you will know that you are born again, of the Spirit, and He will talk to your heart, for His Word, the Bible, by dreams, for voice inside you, through the world, through others, you will recognize the voice of God in different ways, but you will have a conversation with God as long as you seek Him. Verse 3:8 provides us the life of who has been born again, who is moved and sent by the Spirit, and is like the wind, does not know where he comes from, nor where it is going. This is not that the one born again does not know where he goes, but that it is no longer his carnal mind of the old man, which rules his acts, but a new mind, the mind of Christ, which makes his mind to be blessed and guided by the love of God to do the good works that God wants, to do for the neighbour that which would not do before, to take the Gospel of Christ even risking his own life or to help others in their lives.

NICODEMUS

Not only in John 3, but in John 7:50, and in John 19:39, Nicodemus not only appears in the conversation about being born again to be able to see the Kingdom of God, but it also does it two more times. One, to defend the cause of Jesus before the Sanhedrin who wanted to condemn Him without listening to Him first. Also, and in a very relevant way, in the burial of the Lord Jesus, together with Joseph of Arimathea ( https://www.yahshua.net/joseph-of-arimathea/ ), and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and bound it in strips of linen with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury. These two rich, in charge since before time was by the prophecy of the Spirit of God, to give sepulchre to His beloved begotten Son, (Isaiah 53:9 – Matthew 27:57-30) represent the Law and the Tradition of Israel, which, together with Jesus, are buried for a spiritual resurrection, a new way of Christian life, a new heart that loves like the one of God, even though we are sinners, (Roman 5:8) He loved us, before the foundation of the world.

CONCLUSION

Nicodemus has taken us to a fascinating story of a man of faith, a principal of the established religion who finds himself before the challenge of Christ, who has the privilege of knowing the Messiah in His first coming to the world to offer Himself as the Lamb of God, to fulfil the Law and to offer us through faith the forgiveness of sins, and eternal life. A whole message that impacted everyone who was waiting for the prophesized Messiah, the God sent, that is why Nicodemus could not let the opportunity go of having a personal encounter with Him.

To go deeper into how to be Born Again: https://www.yahshua.net/basic-questions-of-christianity/

To be born again is the key message we are taught in this crucial encounter of every believer with Christ, outside space-time, in the intimacy, where we understand with a new mind, that of Christ in us, that our being cannot see the Kingdom of God, cannot receive Jesus Christ as saviour, because it seeks justification by is own justice and moral, by his own merits and works before God, which is impossible, because we cannot fulfil the moral of God, the Law of God of 613 Commandments and precepts, for which we are all found faulty, sinners, unjust, but God loved us before and seeks a repented heart, open to receiving His grace to come to know the Father, through He who is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. The Kingdom of God is among us because Jesus lives. “Can you see the Kingdom of God now? Amen.