Our Predicament

In the last post, I closed by asking some questions. What did Nicodemus need? and what do all spiritually dead people need which Jesus said must come from above?

Have you thought about what Nicodemus needed that he didn’t have? Have you thought about what all spiritually dead people need which Jesus said must come from above? The answer is spiritual regeneration… which is another word for new birth.

But this is our predicament. We can’t give birth to ourselves. It must come from outside of us and be done for us and to us.

When Nicodemus asked Jesus, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” that was a reference to natural birth.

Nicodemus didn’t need to be urged to be physically born. He had done that.

But “born of water” we saw in verse 5 was something that an OT teacher like Nicodemus was expected to know. It’s an OT reference to cleansing.

It likely referred to the passage in Ezekiel 36:25-27 about the inner cleansing from sin that comes with a new heart and a new spirit.

It’s an OT reference to being born again through spiritual regeneration. But Nicodemus was spiritually blind to the meaning of this OT passage despite the fact that he was called the teacher of Israel!

Jesus says that being born of water and the Spirit (which isn’t two separate events, but one act that God performs at regeneration) is necessary for entrance into the kingdom of God.

Then in verse 6 Jesus says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

If all you have is a natural birth, then all you are is natural and nothing more. No spiritual birth comes as a result of being born of the flesh.  But, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. So there is a spiritual birth that must come after physical birth

The only way to enter heaven is to be born of the Spirit. As the old couplet says, “Born once, die twice; born twice, die once.”

The way God has arranged for people to be saved from sin and judgment and hell is by hearing the true gospel and believing it. God enables His sheep, like Nicodemus, to savingly hear His voice in the gospel call and to respond with obedience.

In the next blog, we’ll go further by considering how Christ’s sheep hear His voice in a way that leads to new life in Him.

Until then,
Pastor Kevin

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