7/09/06 You Must Be Born Again: Nick at Night: (New Birth): II
John 3:16-18
“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. [17] For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. [18] He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
There is just way too much theology in Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus to have tried to cover it in one week. Last week, Jesus’ emphasis was on the truth that one can neither understand the God of Creation nor have any experience in the Kingdom of God apart from the Holy Spirit’s bringing new life to one’s heart. In this part of the Lord’s dissertation, He gives insight into how the new birth takes place.
The first thing that Jesus insists that we see is that God is the initiator of our being in relationship with Him. Since we cannot see God, know about Him or know Him unless we are born again, it is vital to understand that the desire or ability to be born again does not emanate from within the heart of man from the point of desiring God. It is initiated by God. John 3:16 does not begin this way: “For man had such a desire to know God that God humbled Himself and loved man.”
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. [21] For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. (Romans 1:20-21)
There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; [12] All have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one." (Romans 3:11-12)
For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6,8)
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, [2] in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. [3] Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. [4] But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, [5] even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), (Ephesians 2:1-5)
This was the condition of man when the Word says, “For God so loved the world.” God is always the initiator. God always acts outwardly to show His love. He doesn’t say, “I love you” and then does not do anything to show His love. What He says, He proves by action. His love is active; His love initiates.
and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. (Genesis 1:15 )
Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should choose. (Psalm 25:12 )
The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He will make them know His covenant. [15] My eyes are continually toward the Lord, for He will pluck my feet out of the net. (Psalm 25:14-15 )
For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle; in the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock. (Psalm 27:5 )
The Lord will give strength to His people; the Lord will bless His people with peace. (Psalm 29:11 )
Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it. [6] And He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noonday. (Psalm 37:5-6)
Wait for the Lord, and keep His way, and He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you will see it. (Psalm 37:34)
Each of the preceding verses reveals God to be an active God. From the earliest communication with man, God has covenanted His love. He created everything, called it good, and gave it all to mankind to enjoy.
But in our—and when I say our, I am referring to the nature of mankind, in total—freedom to enjoy, we made the things given us for enjoyment into idols. As Paul wrote in the verses we looked at earlier, we became worshippers of the “things made” instead of the Creator God (Romans 1:25). We have perverted His sense of love…seeking what we want for ourselves instead of what He wants for us. We went our own way. But we must remember that we are off springs of Adam and Eve, the first sinners. When they sinned, the death of the spirit that worked in them was transferred to us, spiritually, in the same way that biological DNA is transferred to us through our parent’s blood. Though our sinfulness cannot be blamed on our parents sin, it does point to the fact that we were “by nature children of wrath.” (Ephesians 2:3)
The sinfulness, the stark rebellion, the perversion of His image that He carved into our spirits was so great that His love had to be ferociously displayed on an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame on which the Prince of glory “for a world of lost sinners was slain.” We can make so much of His love that we lose sight of why He had to come and die.
Was God mad at us? Was God seeking to bring His wrath upon us? These are very valid questions. Why wouldn’t a righteous, holy, perfect-in-every-way kind of God not be hostile toward those whom He created who, like straying sheep, “turned each to his own way?” In fact, He was angry, but not to the point of destruction, but redemption. (Ephesians 2:4) Agape love, God’s kind, does not stand in the way of judgment. The human response would go something like this when one is caught in the throes of sin: “if God truly is a God of love, how can He bring wrath to bear upon the sinner?” Have you ever heard a child say, or even heard words similar to these coming out of your own mouth, “you don’t love me; you are so hard, so strict. If you truly loved me, you would see my point of view and let me have more freedom. Other parents are so strict or discipline.” What is being implied here is that love should do away with that which is right, or truth, or that which is commanded.
If we don’t see the error of this kind of thinking, we miss the power of the born again experience. God’s love and judgment are not contradictory in nature. We have to see that true agape love always calls us out of ourselves to compensate for the failure of the object of our love. God saw us (the object of His love) as failures (sinners) in reflecting His nature. He compensated by giving out of Himself (His Son) One who will become the object of the Father’s wrath. “For God so loved…that He gave...that we would not perish, but have everlasting life.”
The cross is the perfect demonstration that judgment and love are completely compatible. The cross is a great picture of the intersection of the human and divine. The cross beam is the sinfulness of man. The vertical beam is the injection of the love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness of God into man’s situation that could never be corrected in his own strength. It also represents the a picture of ground level zero where judgment and love collide with such force upon the Son of God, who came to give life, demanding His life blood for payment of our sins and then He died. God accepted the Son’s perfect sacrifice and gave to Him the name that is above every name.
What was the point of the display of the Father? Was it for His wrath to destroy the sinners? No! Verse 17 tells us that “God did not send His Son…to condemn…but that we might through Him be saved.” Jesus spoke these words to all religionists informing them that there is nothing that a person can do that will give them access to the Father. It is only through the efficacious work of the Son on our behalf that we can be saved. There is no condemnation because His perfect sacrifice was accepted by the Father. Jesus, as the “spotless Lamb of God,” broke the “death hold” that our sin held over us to set us free. Condemnation has a way of beating you down so that the concept of hope is unimaginable. Condemnation is always the end result of trying to live a life pleasing to God in your own strength: living a legalistic life, trying to produce righteousness from good works. We have trouble living according to the rules we establish for ourselves (I’ll read more, exercise more, spend more time with family, not eat as much, etc.), much less fulfilling the righteous ordinances of God. Paul comments on this section of Jesus’ teaching in Romans 8:28: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
Reminder: God’s forgiveness of our sin does not infringe or sully His character of justice (“for the wages of sin is death.” {Romans 6:23}) His justice for death. His love, mercy and grace provided for a substitutionary object upon which to meat-out His justice. No one character trait of the Divine Creator can cancel out another.
Though Jesus declares that He did not come to the world for the purpose of condemning the world, He does indicate that we all were under condemnation by God. Those of us who have believed in His name have been released from the condemnation, because the sacrificial death of Christ released us for the penalty of sin…death. Those who do not believe are already condemned. They are not condemned because of what they have done, but rather what they haven’t done. People are not condemned for all of the unrighteous acts they have done. They are condemned for what they have not done. In dealing with people over the years, I have come to see that often times people that people often confuse behavior or actions as condemnable things. First, we are according to the New Testament passages we read earlier, “dead in our trespasses and sins.” The Greek syntax does not support our “death” as a result of our sins, but rather, our “trespasses and sins” are the result of our spiritual deadness. That may seem like an insignificant parlay of words, but in reality it is hugely significant. Second, we are dead because we are not born again. Remember, that is what this section is all about. Because our heart is dead to God, all of the corruption that comes out of our lives is the fruit of the deadness. This is where hope exists.
A person who has done the worst things in the world has hope. Where? In believing in Jesus Christ. When a person believes in Christ, he is born again. When he is born again, there is life. Where there is LIFE there is no death. Where there is no death, there is no condemnation.
The Pharisees, like their ancestors, embraced the concept that the appeasement of our sins by God only demanded sacrifice. They never did come to know (though King David and the great Prophet Samuel had both given clear teaching on the issue) that sacrifice without a change of heart is abominable to God. This is why Jesus hammered the truth of being born again. It was not a physical rebirth, but the rebirth to a new kind of heart…a rebirth that reinstituted a worship of God and submission to Him from the heart and not just an outward show.