We’ve been studying our way through John 3 for the last several weeks.
In this blog, we’re going to see that to receive Christ’s testimony is the same thing as believing in Him for eternal life.
We’re looking at verses 11-15 in this post.
This is right after Nicodemus heard about being born again and being born of water and the Spirit and how the Holy Spirit is like the wind in that He goes wherever and to whomever He wishes. He cannot be controlled or understood, but the proof of His work is apparent.
When Nicodemus heard these things he had never heard before, he marveled and said, “How can these things be?†And Jesus asked, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?†That brings us up to verses 11-15, where Jesus says…
11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. [ESV]
The key word in these verses and all the way through verse 21 is the word “believe.†Jesus uses this word 7 times. The new birth must be appropriated by an act of faith.
While the first 10 verses of this chapter focus on God’s initiative in salvation, these verses focus on the human reaction to the work of God in regeneration.
In verses 11 and 12, Jesus focused on the idea that unbelief is the cause of spiritual blindness. The spiritual blindness of Nicodemus was representative of the spiritual blindness of the entire nation of Israel at the time of Christ.
At heart, Nicodemus’ failure to understand Jesus’ words centered not so much in his intellect but in his failure to believe Jesus’ witness. He was unable to believe.
Nicodemus is just like us in this regard. Apart from God, we are all unable to believe or receive the testimony of Jesus about our lostness and need for salvation.
We’ll continue from this point in the next blog post.
Until then,
Pastor Kevin
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