John 3:4, commentary and pictures

Nicodemus took the demand for a new birth in a literal, physical sense, asking how an old man could be born a second time from his mother's womb. His puzzled, troubled reply revealed unbelief, pride in his own piety and moral respectability, and a mind unable to discern spiritual things. The new birth is no second natural birth but a spiritual change from above, an inward conversion of the heart by water and the Spirit that makes a person a new creature in Christ. It cannot be produced by human power or outward religion, but comes only through the Holy Spirit as the sinner repents, surrenders self, and looks to Christ in living faith. Without this entire renewal no one can see or enter the kingdom of God, and where it has taken place the life is changed to holiness, obedience, and the fruits of the Spirit.

Night Meeting Setting

The question belongs to a secret, private night interview in which Nicodemus came to learn from Jesus the way of life. The truths taught in that night meeting remain important. That interview unfolds the plan of salvation and the work needed in the hearts of those who will inherit heaven.

The one who asked it was a Pharisee, an honored rabbi, rich and influential, learned in the law and holding high position among the rulers, a wealthy and cultured man. Jesus deliberately sought the acquaintance of such rich men, accepting their invitations, attending their feasts, and becoming familiar with their interests and occupations. He did so to gain access to their hearts and reveal to them imperishable riches.

The testimony Jesus gave in that interview almost matches the testimony John gave about Jesus. It is almost the counterpart of John the Baptist's testimony defending Jesus as the Promised One of Israel who comes from above and is above all. The two correspond because the same Spirit controlled Jesus and John in the same reformatory work. At the time of the question Nicodemus was awakened and convicted yet held by influences, asking how an old man can be born again. Jesus did not enter into controversy with him but presented new light that brings into contact with all light, giving practical points showing he needed not learning nor controversy but truth and a new heart.

Until a man's heart is changed, reasoning upon points of difference produces no saving results but strengthens the spirit of resistance. God's workers must therefore study and practice the same method, keeping to the affirmative on the great questions involved and refusing to be led away by opponents into controversy on false theories. Nicodemus kept the teaching in his heart, and it later helped him recognize Jesus as the world's Redeemer at the cross. He received the lesson about spiritual life and became a true believer. He began to see the kingdom of heaven as he submitted to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and seeking life rather than debating a new theory changed how he searched the Scriptures. He afterward spoke out boldly in the council for a just hearing for Jesus. The Holy Spirit's daily shaping work in the heart gives insight to perceive the spiritual character of God's kingdom.

Literal Question Asked

Nicodemus took being born again as a physical birth, asking how a man can be born when he is old and whether he can enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born. His question shows he had not yet understood the spiritual change Jesus was describing and his failure to understand the inward spiritual new birth necessary to see God's kingdom. That new birth is instead an inward work of God's Spirit, invisible in operation but visible in results, when evil thoughts and deeds are put away and love, peace and humility take their place.

His reply was a questioning, literal-minded challenge to the teaching about the new birth. It was ironic and puzzled, troubled more by how the new birth could happen than by why it was necessary. It reveals unbelief and difficulty accepting conversion because he could not understand how God's power works. In this light the natural person does not receive spiritual things because spiritual things are discerned spiritually.

His literal treatment of a figure is like the rabbis' question about eating Christ's flesh, which likewise treated figurative words literally, showing how misunderstanding a figure can obscure the truth it conveys. In this view people understood the meaning but were unwilling to acknowledge it, and such deliberate misinterpretation obscures the truth the figure conveys.

He answered with surprise, startlement, irritation and humiliation. His literal response came as he was startled and irritated by the words' personal application. Though he had long seen the Jews' lack of spirituality, his pride in his good works and piety had led him to think his own life was perfect before God, and despite confidence in his own piety Jesus' words exposed that his present state was not fit for the kingdom and too impure to see it.

His response revealed pride in good works, piety, moral respectability and Israelite birth, leading him to think his life was perfect before God and that he did not need to humble himself like an ordinary sinner. He believed his Israelite birth and good works secured his place in God's kingdom, and his answer showed resistance to personal change and the need for personal change. Entering life requires the same surrender from him as from the greatest sinner: renouncing personal righteousness and depending wholly on Christ for imputed righteousness and strength. No one enters life by relying on personal righteousness, since human righteousness cannot cleanse sin and only Christ's blood can cleanse and renew the heart, while Christ's light exposes the impurity, selfish motives and enmity against God hidden in every human life.

His question proves he was not spiritually minded enough to discern spiritual meaning, that he needed a changed heart and new purposes rather than physical birth. The natural person does not receive the things of God's Spirit because spiritual things are discerned spiritually, for being born again is an inward spiritual change that must be experienced. Even a respected, greatly educated teacher and master in Israel may lack understanding, need new ideas, need humility, a teachable spirit and a new heart to understand conversion and divine life and to enter God's kingdom. He needed to learn the meaning of conversion and spiritual life, that God is present in all true science.

Spiritual Birth Explained

The new birth is not a return to the mother's womb and not a second physical birth, but a spiritual change, being born from above, born of water and of the Spirit, born of the Spirit, and partaking of the Holy Spirit. That spiritual birth is genuine Christianity with transforming, reformative power that changes character and separates from worldly influences, where mere religious form does not, and it is shown in a life filled with the Holy Spirit following personal confession and humility before God. The newness required is new life connected with purifying the soul by obeying the truth and living in harmony with Christ's instruction, changing a person through the agency of the Holy Spirit to become like Christ and pure in character through His grace and righteousness. For one who must be reconverted in speech and spirit, this spiritual transformation is what enables discernment of light from darkness.

It is an inward conversion of the heart by the Holy Spirit, not merely outward religious observance, strict observance, religious forms, or reform of outward conduct, because external reform cannot bring the life into harmony with God. The question about how an old person could be born again takes the teaching in physical terms and introduces the teaching that explains conversion and the way to heaven, that to see the kingdom a man must be born from above and must be born again, since that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. God's truth in the heart sanctifies life and character, the Spirit renews the heart and transforms the life from within, and the heart is subdued and made contrite, given a new mind, new purposes and new life, becoming a new creature through Christ, with sins pardoned and Christ dwelling within as a life-giving power. This change can be brought about only by the Holy Spirit as the Spirit shapes the heart daily, giving insight to perceive the spiritual character of God's kingdom, leading from self-importance and pride and self-love resisting the Spirit to Christlike meekness and lowliness, with divine light and the cooperation of heavenly beings enabling discernment of the kingdom and duty to others. Salvation in this new creaturehood comes as faith takes hold of God's love, tracing to the Father's love in giving His Son to die so that people may be saved and inherit the kingdom of Heaven, and the same conversation points to Christ being lifted up in His crucifixion and resurrection.

It is a new moral birth of cleansing from defilement of flesh and spirit and from sin, laying aside hereditary tendencies to wrong, putting away all selfishness and crucifying self, and dying to self and to the old sinful self-indulgent character. With changed purposes there is renewal in true knowledge and holiness and perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord so as to be pure and holy as God is holy, with the moral image of God restored and the heart changed for Christ's spiritual kingdom. This is an inward work of God's Spirit whose operation is invisible but whose results are visible, when evil thoughts and deeds are put away and love, peace, and humility take their place, and when God's Spirit gives a new mind, purifies the life, and changes the character so a person can live in harmony with God's holy kingdom. The answer concerns neither bodily resurrection nor a nation being born in a day, but the inward cleansing and renewal of the sinful heart by the Spirit of God, which outward righteousness, strict observance, and religious forms cannot replace, and which comes not by human effort to cure sin but through repentance, humility, and submission to God. Through faith in Christ as Saviour, as those who looked in faith at the bronze serpent were healed, the burden of sin is lifted and the soul delivered from bondage, becoming a new creature overcoming the world and sin, brought to the Father into a kingdom of peace and love and not an earthly kingdom of worldly display.

The Spirit's working in the new birth is like the wind blowing where it wishes, its sound heard but its coming and going unseen, invisible in operation but visible in transforming effects and actions, and so it is with everyone born of the Spirit. That transforming effect is seen in a changed life and in a person's actions, evidencing the inward cleansing from sin and renewal in true knowledge and holiness brought about by the Holy Spirit. The cleansing of the temple illustrates the same purification needed by everyone who would receive eternal life and belong to God's sacred service, that sin must be removed from those who would belong to God.

Regeneration is a mystery too deep for the human mind to explain or fully understand, and the limits of human understanding are no reason to doubt God's Word.

Way New Birth Comes

The change Nicodemus asked about comes only by the Holy Spirit, who shapes the heart day by day until a person gains insight to perceive the spiritual character of God's kingdom. The heart is subdued and made contrite under that working, and the part of the person is to cooperate with the Spirit rather than attempt to control its work, moving from self-importance and pride to Christlike meekness and lowliness. Pride and self-love resist this operation, while submission lets the Spirit work in mind, heart, and will as the beholder is changed by Christ's grace and glory and shows the reality of divine life by its fruits. The church is therefore to plead for the Spirit's life-giving power so that souls may be born again through partaking of the Spirit and then labor in unity for perishing souls.

It comes through genuine faith that receives Christ as Saviour and takes hold of God's love, looking to Christ in faith for healing from sin and eternal life just as the Israelites who looked at the bronze serpent were healed. Salvation begins in the Father's love in giving His Son to die so that people may be saved and inherit the kingdom of heaven. Merely hearing divine truth is not enough, for it must be accepted and applied in a pure, obedient, loving life that overcomes the world, subdues human nature, and defeats Satan. God's truth in the heart in this way sanctifies life and character, and the same teaching points to Christ lifted up in crucifixion and resurrection as the way to heaven.

It requires repentance and confession after sin is recognized, with surrender of mind and will to God, falling upon the Rock Christ Jesus and being broken. The person sees clearly where the course has hindered God's work and confesses errors instead of venturing to justify self, since no falsehood or self-shielding misstatement can cleanse wrong. Dying to self means supreme selfishness cut away, leaving former defective ideas, education, and training, ceasing to study self and looking instead to the unselfish life of the Lamb of God. Reproaches alone cannot bring spiritual health, and without this entire conversion and new heart the heart is not right with God, the Spirit is not working the person, and spiritual blindness remains. Without this new birth one cannot receive heaven's blessing, be acquitted in judgment, or be trusted as a leader, but continues in the same wrong spirit, injures God's cause, misleads many, and leaves Bible religion behind in private and public.

Those who receive the Son become God's sons and daughters, members of His family by adoption into the household of faith. Human beings are as infants in comparison with God, yet Christ makes it possible for them to become His children, renewed in righteousness and true holiness with changed minds and affections made increasingly like God. Christ takes the believer's sins upon Himself and gives the believer His righteousness, so that real faith brings cleansing, change of character, and conversion rather than mere profession. Receiving Christ as personal Saviour means believing the character needs His transforming grace, rendering obedience to His lessons, yielding will and way to Him, and cutting away corrupting traits such as covetousness, for one may show interest and in a sense believe yet never receive cleansing and never be among His chosen. Paul's turning from opposition to devotion shows the complete change of life this adoption makes possible.

Believers profess this spiritual experience through baptism, declaring themselves dead with the former life regarded as dead and the life hidden with Christ in God, committing to walk with Christ in newness of life in obedience to God's law and seeking things above. In true conversion a new spirit takes possession, a new life begins, and Christ is revealed in the character by God's power and grace cleansing the heart. Yet church membership or baptism without conversion does not make a person Christian nor prove that one has joined Christ, and without cleansing no one enters God's kingdom. Baptism without the death of self is like being buried alive, buried without rising to new life in Christ, while the genuine new birth is shown by a changed life bearing the Spirit's fruits.

A man when old cannot be born again by his own power or by any second natural birth, for regeneration of self is impossible to man and must be done by God. Human nature cannot be trusted, human effort cannot cure sin, and unless nature is regenerated and transformed through Christ there is no hope. Attempts to gain holiness by one's own strength achieve nothing, and grasping responsibilities without divine capability or orders from Christ is vain labor springing from mistaken duty and supposed fitness.

Necessity And Changed Life

To see the kingdom of God a man must be born again, and to enter it he must be born of water and of the Spirit, for the question about entering a mother's womb a second time belongs to that teaching and reveals failure to understand the spiritual birth that is necessary. That new birth is not a literal return to the womb but God's converting power changing the heart, cleansing from defilement of flesh and spirit, laying aside hereditary tendencies to wrong, putting away selfishness, crucifying self, and perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord so as to be pure and holy as God is holy. Without this renewal no one can be saved or enter the holy city, for the whole mind and soul must be renewed to be made righteous, and without reconversion a man fixed in a wrong course, joined to evil and deceived so he cannot discern truth from falsehood, cannot see the kingdom of heaven. It must be an entire and lasting renewal of mind, soul and whole person, without which no one can be counted complete in Christ, be a child of God or a practical Christian, and unless the change takes place even heaven's exercises would remain distasteful.

This requirement presses upon those in responsible places who lack a new heart, for the new heart sends pure spiritual blood through the system, creating new life and consecrating the will to the Master's service. Though a master in Israel, Nicodemus did not know the alphabet of conversion, what constitutes a disciple and sincere follower of Christ, or the first principles of divine life and true Christian experience, and his ignorance exposes all who hold positions as teachers while neglecting the essential work of conversion. That neglect unfits teachers, physicians, and ministers of the gospel to deal with human minds in a Christlike manner, and if Christ's words were received into the soul there would be much higher intelligence and deeper spiritual knowledge of discipleship. Without this new birth of falling upon the Rock and being broken, seeing clearly one's hindering course and confessing errors instead of justifying self, one cannot receive heaven's blessing, will not be acquitted in judgment, and cannot be trusted as a leader, because following imaginative impulses as wisdom injures God's cause and misleads many. Many church members and workers have never experienced this real conversion of leaving defective ideas, education and training, and bringing self largely into the new life with unchanged unsanctified disposition and defective character only mars God's work and drags down the standard of truth, so they must be converted to stand the test of judgment.

The renewal is needed both by those who have never experienced it and by those who have turned back to old sinful habits, calling for conversion and a life reshaped by God. Those now first but untrue must speedily repent, fall upon the Rock and be broken, and be born again, or they will soon be last, cherish the same wrong spirit, fail to recognize mercy's voice, and leave Bible religion behind in private and public. For church members this new birth is still needed as reconversion, a renewal of the Holy Spirit's power making them children of God and members of His family, in which crooked characters are made over by taking self in hand, conquering wicked feelings rising in the heart, refusing to let their venom flow in words that help Satan, humbling the heart and confessing sins. It must be a reconversion of speech and spirit so changed as to discern light from darkness, a repeated and deep conversion transforming the whole nature.

It is a real and thorough change of character and not merely outward conduct, profession of faith, or superficial change of habits, wrought by God's power and grace cleansing the heart, in which the heart is purified, affections sanctified, sin hated, and life grows in righteousness shown in daily conduct, pure speech and good fruit. In genuine conversion a new spirit takes possession of the soul, a new life begins, and Christ is revealed in the character through love for fellow believers and valuing of God's work. Words and spirit remaining marked by resentment, bitterness, malice, unholiness and downward tendencies show the person has not been born again, and church membership or baptism without conversion does not make a person Christian. Baptism without the death of self is like being buried alive without rising to newness of life in Christ, and God calls for complete consecration with every part of life under His rule rather than bringing an unchanged disposition into the new life.

The newborn life appears in a changed, sanctified life bearing the Spirit's fruits of love, peace, humility, forbearance, unselfishness, tenderness, sympathy, patience, confidence and kindness, with evil thoughts and deeds put away. The heart is subdued and made contrite, given a new mind, purified in life and changed in character to live in harmony with God's holy kingdom, moving from unrighteousness to righteousness in obedience and service to Christ as people cooperate with the Spirit rather than trying to control its work. When the heart is sanctified, actions are directed to God's glory with humility and distrust of self, and valuable traits become useful in Christian service, while without a sound conversion through genuine faith receiving Christ as Saviour neither words nor actions can be depended on. This is shown in obedience to truth and God's law, faith working by love, upright honest conduct, faithful service, and speech that honors the Master without discouraging, accusing or abusing others, as the believer cooperates with Father, Son and Holy Spirit and reveals righteousness to the world.

The lesson to Nicodemus sets out the terms of salvation and is a guide for every soul, especially those responsible for counseling and dealing with others, to be understood through diligent study of God's Word. Anyone not born again is urged to read John 3 and humble himself before God, for human beings are as infants compared with God and Christ makes it possible for them to become God's sons and daughters. Being born again means being converted in soul and body and spirit by coming to the light in Christ Jesus and understanding His sacrifice, and without it a person remains in darkness with darkened understanding and plans that will not win welcome in the courts above. It must be experienced in the home by fathers and mothers as well as ministers and teachers, as advancement in the divine life testified in words and acts and proved by asking whether one can now be called an overcomer. That requires beginning now to throw off lethargy, humbling the heart, arousing to solemn responsibilities, and putting away pride and weakness of faith, for faith must not stop with theory but have the oil of Christ's grace feeding the lamp so the light of life shines to those in darkness.