You Must Be Born Again

Nicodemus comes at night. He is a Pharisee, one of the most educated, most respected, most religiously accomplished men in Jerusalem. He has studied the Scriptures his whole life. He has kept the law with scrupulous care. And yet something in him will not let him rest. He comes in the dark, perhaps to avoid being seen, perhaps because the questions burning in him can no longer wait for daylight. Whatever his reason, Jesus receives him without a word of rebuke. The door is open, even at midnight.

Jesus cuts straight to the heart of what Nicodemus needs: "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus, the scholar, stumbles at the plain language. Born again? How can a grown man enter his mother's womb a second time? He is thinking physically when Jesus is speaking spiritually, and that confusion is not unique to Nicodemus. Many people today hear "born again" as a religious label rather than a living reality. Jesus means something radical: the life of God must be planted in you from above. You cannot reason your way in, earn your way in, or inherit your way in. You must be made new.

Then comes the verse that has been called the gospel in miniature: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Read it slowly. The scope is staggering, the whole world. The motive is love, not obligation, not strategy, but love. The method is giving, the most costly gift imaginable. And the offer is open, whosoever. That word leaves no one out.

For the first-time reader, this is the heartbeat of everything John will show you over the next eighteen chapters. For the believer who has quoted John 3:16 a thousand times, linger on the word "so", it speaks not just of the fact of God's love but the measure of it. How much did God love the world? So much that He gave. The cross was not a reluctant necessity. It was love, measured out to the last drop.

Nicodemus came in the dark. He left carrying a light he could not yet fully explain. The same light is offered to you today.