The Teacher

My son is a professional musician who also teaches guitar lessons. One of his older students was surprised to find out that my son also goes to guitar lessons. “Even teachers need to be taught”, was his response.

Nicodemus was a teacher in Israel (John 3:10), and not just any teacher; he was considered the teacher. But even teachers in Judea must be taught. In John chapter 3, we enter Jesus’s classroom where He systematically educates us in matters pertaining to eternal life.

Nicodemus was a Pharisee, meaning that he would have been among some of the most well-studied men of that day. He approached Jesus at night (John 3:2) seeking some clarification as to who He really is. The text gives no indication why he would do this at night, but it could be that he didn’t want his fellow Pharisees to find out. The Pharisees were zealous for God’s law but had turned everything into externalism. They were hypocrites. Jesus Himself called them “blind guides of the blind” (Matthew 15:14). But Nicodemus needed some clarification, and although he went to meet up with Jesus at night, at least he went instead of immersing himself in his own self-righteousness.

He opened up the conversation with Jesus by immediately acknowledging that Jesus is a teacher and has come from God. “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him”. What signs? Tossing the wicked money-changers from the temple. Making good wine out of water. Revealing some things about Nathaniel. Nicodemus recognized that Jesus was no ordinary person.

Jesus teaches the curious Nicodemus that in order for someone to inherit eternal life, they must be born again. He doesn’t use unrecognizable rhetoric to make his case. He uses terms that a Hebrew teacher of the Law would understand. Jews in that day knew what ‘born again’ meant, but they used it in several different contexts:

A Gentile converted to Judaism.
A Jewish man became king.
Ritual cleanliness by virtue of baptism by immersion.
Repentance (At least once a year on Yom Kippur).
When a boy is bar-mitzvahed at 13 years of age.
When a man is married.
When a man becomes the head of a rabbinic seminary or academy.

All of these have this in common: they are all physical representations of a distinct change of life. So Nicodemus would have understood a drastic change would be necessary in being ‘born again’. But Jesus takes it much further than physical when He continued His lesson with the teacher of Israel: a person must be born of the Spirit (John 3:5-8) if he or she would inherit eternal life.

In short, Jesus was telling Nicodemus that all those things he could do in his own strength or by family situation or through religious status… those things don’t grant anybody eternal life.

Pastor John MacArthur comments on Nicodemus by stating, “Entrance to God’s salvation was not a matter of adding something to all his efforts, not topping off his religious devotion, but rather canceling everything and starting over. Jesus was asking for something that was not humanly possible (to be born again); He was making entrance into the kingdom contingent on something that could not be obtained through human effort. By calling him to be born again, Jesus challenged this most religious Jew to admit his spiritual bankruptcy and abandon everything he was trusting for salvation.”¹

1 The MacArthur New Testament Commentary John 1-11, John MacArthur, Jr., Moody Publishers, Chicago, IL, 2006, page 104.