Cameo 6 – The healing at the pool

¹ Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. ² Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. ³ Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralysed^[1]. ⁵ One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"

⁷ "Sir, " the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."

⁸ Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, ¹⁰ and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed," It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat."

¹¹ But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’"

¹² So they asked him, "Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?"

¹³ The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

¹⁴ Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." ¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well. ¹⁶ For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath.

Contents

• Contents
• Introduction
• The miracle
  • The location
  • The invalid
• The use of religious law
• The definition of work
  • The clarification by Jesus
• The beginning of persecutions
• The defence
  • 1. Work is defined spiritually
  • 2. God is defined by relationship
  • The relationship between the Father and the Son
  • Testimonies about Jesus

Introduction

In this cameo of Jesus interacting one-on-one with an individual in extreme need, John is not as precise to state the time or precipitating cause of the interaction, as he has been in his previous cameos. He begins,

¹ Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.

All we know is that this cameo occurred sometime after Jesus stretched the faith of the Capernaum official to understand that distance was not the limiting factor in his power to heal his son, but trust that he would fulfil his promise was^[2].

The disciples, who had been chosen to journey with Jesus in these early days of his ministry, and the people in the crowds following them, were finding their understanding of the identity of Jesus being challenged with each miracle they saw him perform. They were about to see another. They already had come to appreciate that Jesus was a miracle worker, and through those miracles they were seeing more of his sinless approach of love to a variety of people. Nevertheless, it was early days in his ministry, and the disciples had not yet grasped that the identity of this extraordinary man they had begun to follow was the heavenly Son of Man prophesied in Daniel, who had come from God, and had chosen to live with them.

Could you imagine a person with an eternal pre-existence, who was destined to rule every nation and person on earth, choosing you to journey with him as a close friend? Totally incomprehensible! It would have been to them also. Just as well. Their pride may have gone wild. It took another two years of daily close-up exposure to Jesus for his disciples to comprehend the divine origin and earthly mission of their friend. They finally did, just before he went to the Cross and exclaimed:

"Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God."

(John 16:30)

In this particular cameo, John is not only vague about the time Jesus trekked up to Jerusalem for one of the festivals, he is also imprecise about the festival Jesus planned to attend. Therefore, John’s focus in this cameo is not on its timing but more on the various people who would be engaged with the miracle Jesus was about to perform, viz., the recipient of the miracle, his parents, other invalids gathered at the pool, and the religious ‘police’, whose power over the people was being threatened increasingly with each miracle Jesus performed as a sign of his divine identity.

The time had arrived on his journey for Jesus to confront the corrupted authority of the religious class and state the basis for his authority over them. Consequently, after John provides a record of the miracle Jesus performed in this cameo, he follows it immediately with a relatively detailed account of the ensuing collision it precipitated with the Jewish authorities. Sooner or later this collision was certain to explode. It had been festering since their attempt to control John the Baptist, who after seeing Jesus approaching him, began preaching that their prophesied Messiah had come. This new leading claim in his preaching heightened the urgency of baptism for repentance and the forgiveness of sins to gain favourable acceptance by the long awaited Ruler of all, who had now arrived on earth. The crowds kept coming with a new urgency for baptism. The religious hierarchy needed to kill off John the Baptist as soon as possible promoting to the crowds that Jesus is the prophesied Messiah, and re-focus the masses onto their religious authority.

These religious ‘police’ were now facing two challengers to their authority over the people, viz., John the Baptist originally, and now Jesus, whose followers were rapidly increasing. They sought to douse the influence of John the Baptist by locking him in prison for execution. Now they sought out Jesus as their second threat to remove him from the people. Where he went they followed among the gathering crowds seeking to find a justifiable reason to kill him.

The miracle

The location

² Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda^[3], and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.

³ Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralysed.

The image above shows that the location of this pool, where the disabled gathered. It was close to the Temple and the nearby Sheep Gate that enabled easy access to the Temple Mount with animals chosen for sacrifices.^[4]

² Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda, and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.

³ Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralysed.

The artist impression below of the pool is scant in its depiction of the number of sick surrounding it. John describes the number of disabled people as a multitude, using the word πλῆθος (pléthos).^[5] It was a ‘full house’! Therefore, many sick present around the pool would have witnessed the impending healing of the lame man by Jesus.

The invalid

⁵ One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.

John is careful to note the degree of the invalid’s disability by emphasising the length of his suffering, not just the nature of it – 38 years of losing hope. His need was great. His expectation of a miracle was most likely low. His hope for a normal life enjoyed by all ages of healthy people had probably faded into nothingness. The watching disciples possibly felt pity for him being like that for the rest of his life. Hopeless. Have you ever seen a disabled person with a look of hopelessness on their face and felt pity for them in their struggle to gain purpose in their life?

The miracles of Jesus the disciples had witnessed so far had short time horizons, e.g., turning water into wine as soon as the supply of wine needed to be replenished to maintain wedding festivities, and the instant healing of the son of the desperate official the moment he believed. In this case, the long timeframe of the invalid’s suffering would have made his healing even more stunning to the fledging disciples and the multitude of his sick companions watching on.

The unexpected healing

 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"

To the disciples and the invalid this question by Jesus would have sounded like a no-brainer. Of course this invalid would want to get well. Isn’t that obvious? Maybe not. There are many sick people who stay in their condition to extract sympathy and care they would not receive otherwise. They become mentally and emotionally familiar with their lot and dependent on it for attention and material support. It may be all they have ever known. With his question, Jesus addressed the invalid’s mindset before alerting him to the possibility of being miraculously healed. Did he want to get well? If he wanted to stay in his sad state, Jesus most likely would have moved on. The invalid’s response to the question by Jesus provided enough indication that he did not want to stay in his current condition. He was still trying for the seemingly impossible. Do you want to get well?

⁷ "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."^[6]

The invalid’s response shows that he was ready for a miracle. He was still trying. He had not given up hope. We all face a need in our life at some time that seems impossible to fix. We can give up hope or look to Jesus to make possible the impossible just as this man did.

The stricken invalid was about to receive three life-changing commands from the stranger that would birth into reality the miracle he desperately needed.

⁸ Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat^[7] and walk." ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

How did John witnessing this astounding miracle know that the man was healed at once? He saw him (1) get up, (2) pick up his pallet and begin to (3) walk. The three physical action commands of Jesus were for those witnessing the miracle, as well as for the man receiving it.

Those who witnessed it fell into two camps in their opinion of the miracle worker. We still do today: those for Jesus, and those against; those wanting to clutch onto control of their life, and those willing to release it into the trust to Jesus. John immediately records the reaction of those who had developed a religious control identity and needed to maintain it. Hence, they were against the miracle, or, more specifically, against Jesus who performed it. He was an increasing challenge to their power, when doing life-changing miracles like this. Nevertheless, on this occasion the religious leaders believed they had concrete, widely recognised evidence to nail Jesus. He had commanded a vulnerable invalid to do ‘work’ on the Sabbath.

The religious attack

Standing up and walking was not punishable as ‘work’ on the Sabbath. Picking up a pallet and walking off with it was. This act fell outside the boundary of the religious authorities’ definition of permissible ‘work’. It was therefore forbidden and punishable. The authorities went after the healed invalid, who would have feared their judgement, but it was Jesus who was their real target.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, ¹⁰ and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat."

¹¹ But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’"

¹² So they asked him, "Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?"

¹³ The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

The warning by Jesus

Jesus had no desire to be adored or questioned about the spectacular physical miracle that had just happened. He disappeared to avoid those who witnessed it and the crowd which would rapidly build. He had not yet finished addressing the need of the invalid. His focus was not primarily on the physical condition of the invalid but on his spiritual state, as is true for all of us. So Jesus went searching for him^[8].

We cannot imagine the impact on the mind and emotions the healed man must have experienced at the instance of suddenly being able to walk after 38 years of seeming hopelessness. No wonder he went to the Temple full of amazement, extreme excitement and inexpressible gratitude. I doubt that he would have slowly strolled through the Sheep Gate to the Temple. It is more likely that he would rushed and drawn the attention of many on the way. No doubt, he went to give exuberant thanks to God. Jesus knew that is where he would find him.

¹⁴ Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you."

John records the essence of what Jesus wanted to say to the healed invalid to secure his future. Firstly, he affirmed for the invalid that he was now miraculously whole and healthy.

"See, you are well^[9] again".

This was his new state. Now he could look forward to a new life with family and friends and pursue long-held dreams. What a gift to be healthy and whole again! That was secured.

Then Jesus swiftly switched the healed man’s focus from high elation to the core focus he had to face head on, in order to maintain his new life. Jesus commanded,

"Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you."

Jesus could not have been clearer with the shock treatment needed to switch the man’s focus from his emotions to his actions. This is why Jesus went searching for him. He wanted to be clear that the miracle should not be the man’s focus. His sin should.

We sin every day. We cannot stop it, yet Jesus here is commanding the man to stop. Was this a particular habitual sin that had controlled the man and had physical impacts that turned him into a cripple, and hence this firm warning? Alternatively, was Jesus addressing a common pattern that follows an unexpected encounter of our spirit or body with him. Instant amazement and heightened feelings of excitement and appreciation usually accompany our awareness of being touched and embraced by the love of God. These can fade over time as we journey back into our daily routine and mundane social interactions. Our miracle can lose its effect overtime in building a close relationship with God, if we are not focused on doing so.

Whatever the reason behind this command by Jesus, it clearly linked the man’s spiritual condition with his future physical welfare. The man could not escape the direct link between spiritual health and physical status. Nor can anyone. Sin brings various problems in every life when committed by us or against us. We all experience this reality of cause and effect between our spiritual and physical states. Over time unconfessed daily sin dulls and kills off devotion to God and open communication with him. Then spiritual sickness creates multiple expressions of physical suffering. We see it in our families, neighbourhoods, nation and the world.

How did the healed man respond to this instruction by Jesus. John is silent about that. Instead he notes that,

¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

Unaware of the impact it would have on Jesus, the healed invalid provided the information the religious leaders needed to charge Jesus specifically with what they considered to be a crime.

The use of religious law

Every religion has a power structure to control its adherents and apply its laws. The Jewish leaders were quick off the mark to use this miracle to pit their authority against the rapidly growing popularity of Jesus.

Documented laws and edicts given on the fly to address a threatening situation are often used to reinforce the authority of the leaders of any religion or government. Religious laws in Israel controlled by the Pharisees and Sadducees had accumulated over centuries. Laws can even emerge from a movement that focused on love in its beginnings when a self-seeking, charismatic leader emerges with the desire to expand his influence over the adherents. A cult emerges. Love turns to control.

In this case, the Jewish leaders could draw upon an ancient law, given by God to Moses over a millennium ago to govern the twelve tribes Israel, when they were transitioning from the hardship and bitterness of forced labour under Egyptian taskmasters^[10] to the freedom of emerging nationhood under the leadership of Moses. This fourth law of the Ten Commandments engraved on stone tablets by God and given to Moses was very clear:

Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work — you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

(Exodus 20:8-11)

The lengthy description of this law, compared to the other nine commandments engraved by God heightened its importance, which has continued through the centuries. Many Jews are particular in keeping it, even while being careless about some of the other nine commandments given by God to Moses. The Sabbath law in the Ten Commandments is carefully honoured today by Jewish families in Israel and around the world. I observed this in the 2 weeks I spent in Israel. With no work on the Sabbath, families gathered in parks having fun together. On Friday night I was approached by the young husband and father of the Jewish family with whom I found lodging for a week. He instructed me to decide what light I wanted on during Saturday. I had to switch it on before Friday ended, because to use a switch on Saturday was ‘work’ and breaking the Law. Thus even the smallest physical effort is apparently still considered ‘work’ by Jews today living in Jerusalem.

But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work.

The definition of work

How ‘work’ is defined by the different branches of Judaism and its households has varied a little over time.

The critical question about the invalid’s healing is: "Did the definition of work in the 4th commandment, as understood at the time of Jesus, preclude an invalid of 38 years being healed and commanded to pick up his sole possession to walk into a new future? Definitely so according to the religious power structure, but apparently not so to Jesus. Clearly, he did not see picking up a camp-bed to be ‘work’, otherwise he would not have commanded the healed invalid to do it.

So what else did Jesus exclude from the 4^th commandment’s definition of the work that the religious leaders would not permit on the Sabbath?

The clarification by Jesus

The answer is found in a later deliberate challenge to the Pharisees’ definition of work made by Jesus performing another healing. This time he chose a synagogue where the exercise of the rulers’ religious authority over devout Jews was preeminent. Since the healing of the lame man on the Sabbath, the rulers had begun a concerted effort to hound Jesus wherever he went to build their case for his death.

Jesus could not have chosen a more confronting place to challenge the definition of ‘work’ by religious leaders assigned to tag him for the day. Mark 3:1-6 records the confrontation and its result:

¹ Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shrivelled hand was there.. ² Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. ³ Jesus said to the man with the shrivelled hand, "Stand up in front of everyone."

⁴ Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained silent.

⁵ He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. ⁶ Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

This public miracle set the stage for the authorities to justify hatching a plan to murder Jesus that ended at the Cross.

What then do we learn from this encounter with the religious authorities how Jesus viewed ‘work’ on the Sabbath?

1. Focus on your heart not law

   The passage shows how the deliberate and very public face-to-face public challenge made by Jesus to the Pharisees exposed their hardened religious hearts to the devout worshippers present in the synagogue. It shows that for Jesus the issue was not about the physical boundaries of the definition of work in the 4th Law commandment, but rather about the state of the hearts of those seeking to honour God by keeping this commandment. This is true for any behavioural rule we may set for ourself. Think of a rule you have set to feel good about achieving it, then ask the question, " Where is my heart when obeying my rule?" Is it applauding my self-righteousness or alert to any negative impacts on others?

2. Love triumphs over law

   Jesus intensified his synagogue challenge to the Pharisees’ motivations by heightening the visibility and presence of the man with a shrivelled hand. He commanded him to stand up, not in a second or third row but in front of everyone. Then using the man’s condition, which was not life threatening, Jesus set up a theoretical test for the Pharisees that would expose their lust for power over people and public self-aggrandisement. His theoretical test posed two examples that set in juxtaposition opposing choices for acting lawfully on the Sabbath. The choices were between unmistakable extremes of action: good or evil, rescue or murder.

   ⁴ "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?"

   It was clear what a righteous and loving heart would choose, and what an evil self-centred heart would choose. No wonder the Pharisees would not answer the question. They were caught in no man’s land between affirming healing as ‘work’ on the Sabbath or denying it. They were focused on themselves and not the man in need. Mark records that the state of their heart angered and deeply distressed Jesus – possibly because Jesus saw that they had no love for anyone but themselves – so he took action.

   ⁵ He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand."

   The miraculous healing of the shrivelled hand in the synagogue demonstrated to all present the supremacy of healing love over law. The test set up by Jesus aimed to show that healing love triumphs over law.

3. Pride empowers law and divides

   When ego power is embedded in the administration of religious or governmental law, acts of love are consistently dismissed, as illustrated by the instant response of the Pharisees:

   ⁶ Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

   The immediate response of the Pharisees to plot the death of Jesus demonstrated that their hearts were encased in evil that would kill. The laws they controlled held supremacy over love, It enabled them to control a large range of activities, which they included in their ever expanding definition of ‘work’. Any challenge to their control over the people through the administration of their laws had to be removed, viz., Jesus in this case. By association, the man with the shrivelled hand became a pawn in the Pharisees’ plan to remove Jesus as a threat to their authority. They had no heart for the invalid. They had no capability to share in his exploding joy. Entrenched investment in their power as the ‘police’ of their laws had long destroyed any ability to empathise with the miraculous happening in their full view. Their elevated pride as protectors of their laws had killed off compassion. It can also kill off ours. Elevated pride in our journey’s successes always does.

   Pride will cast love aside and use anyone who is suitable to be used to demonstrate and reinforce authority in politics, and even in the smallest group in society. One example is people who become pawns in the power struggle of debates. Fracturing power-seeking debates in any religion, political forum or group will continue so long as pride exists in the human race. Examples run through history until the present day.

   One of the most distressing cases of this phenomenon is its occurrences in church leaders, who extol Jesus as the Saviour of the world, yet continually seek to expand their power base using their flock in a variety of ways over a variety of issues. Why is this distressing? Because Jesus came to serve and not to use, to die for the least of all, and he commanded his followers to love the least just as he had demonstrated in his life:

   My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you

   (John 15:12)

   Jesus commands to love measured by the benchmark of his consistently demonstrated love. His pinnacle act of love submitting himself to the sufferings of the Cross became the benchmark for the behaviour of all humanity. It triumphs over any other law or purpose. The law of love demonstrated by Jesus is the measure that must be applied to my behaviour and that of every ambitious leader.

   John now shifts his focus to record the growing warfare of religious law against love.

The beginning of persecutions

¹⁶ So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him.

John uses the imperfect tense of the Greek word διώkω (diókó), which translated means to pursue continuously. To pursue a person continuously, with the aim of putting them to flight, is by implication, to persecute. Sometimes media can be described as persecutors of their targets, who they hound to capture the latest story that sells. John’s description of the Jewish leaders’ behaviour towards Jesus after viewing the healing of the man at the pool is that of continual harassment and hounding of Jesus wherever he went. They put him under constant watch so that they could use his every move to build the case against him needed to justify their kill.

Jesus used diókó to describe the persecution of any who choose to be associated with him, as well as the persecution of the prophets by the power structure of their day that ended in their kill.

¹¹ "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute (diókó) you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted (diókó) the prophets who were before you.

(Matthew 5:11-12)

Therefore, διώkω (diókó) could be applied to every martyr of the Gospel since the death of Jesus. They were all persecuted, Death culminated their persecution for declaring that Jesus is the Lord of creation. Ejection from our social group and persistent rejection is the ‘death’ many followers of Jesus face today from those who won’t entrust the control of their lives to Jesus.

diókó underlay Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s understanding of ‘costly’ grace versus the ‘cheap’ grace that was being preached from Germany’s pulpits leading up to the rise of Hitler. Bonhoeffer proclaimed that we are called to ‘costly’ grace when we choose to follow Jesus. For him, ‘costly’ grace leads to persecution, It formed the basis of his saying,

"When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die"^[11]

He chose to die rather than preach ‘cheap’ grace that fosters applause from followers and accumulation of wealth as displayed grossly by some current preachers.

Preachers of ‘cheap’ grace today build their following and personal wealth by focusing their teaching on material prosperity promised by God to those who give their lives and finances to him believing they will be rewarded, Bonhoeffer would ask, "Where is costly grace in your preaching?" Bonhoeffer’s understanding of ‘costly’ sustained his unequivocable speaking out against Hitler until his martyrdom on 9 April 1945 by the Gestapo as they hurriedly executed their prisoners as the Allied forces approached and ended the war 29 days later.

The possibility of persecution continues to test the strength of every person’s commitment to Jesus today. Am I willing to be persecuted in my various social groups for the sake of promoting Jesus as Lord of all? Am I prepared to die to popularity and acceptance? Do I revert to sharing forms of ‘cheap’ grace in my social network, while others are literally dying for preaching Jesus. The potential of diókó for followers of Jesus tests whether or not we cower to opposition of the Gospel by promoting a ‘cheap ‘ grace or maintain a clear declaration of Jesus as the Saviour and Judge of all mankind. In his parting instructions to his disciple Timothy, Paul summarises to Timothy his persecutions as an example of ‘costly’ grace. He reinforces the truth to Timothy what will happen to the person who lives for Jesus.

¹² In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted…

(2 Timothy 3)

Bonhoeffer would say this similar to Paul,

…everyone who wants to live a life of costly grace in Christ Jesus will be persecuted…

Satan does not want his deluded captives to hear the message of Jesus that can set them free. As it was for Jesus, so persecution continues for his followers. It continues today for every follower of Jesus who does not slide into silent ‘cheap’ grace but commits his life to ‘costly’ grace.

¹⁶ So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him.

The defence

John records how Jesus responded to his persecutions by the religious leaders so that future disciples see how to respond to the attacks of those who reject Jesus as the Lord and Saviour of all mankind. Notice the defence by Jesus:

¹⁷ In his defence Jesus said to them, "My Father is working to this very day, and I am working."

1. Work is defined spiritually

Jesus did not avoid the topic of ‘work’ on the Sabbath for which he was being accused. He defended his command to the invalid to take up his mat and walk by elevating the definitionof work from the physical realm to the spiritual. To the Pharisees, work was fully defined in the physical realm. They could measure that work and police it to maintain their control of the people. They had jettisoned any spiritual meaning of ‘work’.

To Jesus, however, work is more than lifting a mat on the Sabbath. He defines it as the continual release of the Father’s life-giving power into his creation. It is life-giving work that originates in the Father.

¹⁷ … "My Father is at his work to this very day, and I too am working."

The Father is working every moment and every Sabbath. His work is the eternal release of the creative life of his Spirit throughout humanity. Thus, it is Spirit-empowered, life-giving work that is initiated by the Father and sustained by him. He is still working today releasing his Spirit and power into humanity to bring dead spirits alive and always will.

2. God is defined by relationship

"… and I too am working."

The life of the Father as the eternal Spirit dwelt in Jesus the Son as indivisibly one with the Father from eternity past. This creative spiritual life of the Father empowered the obedience of Jesus the Son to follow the workings of the Father in him, As the Father does his Spirit-empowered life-giving work, so Jesus the Son also does, being empowered by the Spirit of the Father acting as one with him releasing his spiritual life into his creation. In this manner, Jesus is the face of the Father to creation and the channel of his Spirit releasing the Father’s creative life energy into creation.

Hence, just as the Father is still working, so too Jesus is still working and always will be. His life-giving work has always been, and continues to be, released uninterrupted by the Spirit of the Father in him. The Father initiates that work, the Son imitates by always doing what the Father is doing. They are intimately and indivisibly one at work. They invite us into that spiritual work in unity with them. The Father initiates, the Son imitates, and so too many sons who are born by the Spirit imitate the Father and his Son Jesus as the Spirit empowers it all.

Consequently, the Spirit today is still releasing the promises of the Father and Jesus into those followers, who are fostering intimate relationships with God through Jesus. God’s work of releasing his life has no end, even in the new heaven and new earth created to displace the current creation flawed by sin. He will release his life for eternity, because he is life and he is eternal.

This eternal spiritual work of God is way above and beyond any physical work. Therefore, no law can define it. No law can contain it. This spiritual work eternally preceded physical creation, including the physical creation of the 4th commandment in the Law etched by God at a moment in time on tablets of stone given to Moses. Hence, the Pharisees could never define this spiritual work of God in physical terms nor police it. Their hunger for power made them blind to it.

¹⁸ For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

The Pharisees now had the ultimate blasphemy handed to them on a plate, which they could pin on Jesus and justify his execution. He had not only broken the 4th commandment by directing the healed invalid to do work picking up his pallet on the Sabbath, he was also breaking the 1st and 3rd commandments by claiming Yahweh as his Father.

The 1st commandment: "You shall have no other gods before Me." (Exodus 20:3)

Jesus did not challenge the Pharisees’ accusation that he was making himself equal to God, because he was God from eternity past. The Pharisees had no idea that Jesus was divine, even though he was constantly performing astounding miracles. They were blind to his deity. Hence, they would have also considered him guilty of the 3rd commandment.

The 3rd commandment: "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who misuses His name." (Exodus 20:7)

Likewise, Jesus had not misused the name of the LORD^[12] in vain, because he was Yahweh. He later declared emphatically to the Pharisees that he was the eternal I AM. (John 8:58) Some of them would discover that reality one day and turn to trust in him. The religious zealot Saul, (renamed Paul), was one, Nicodemus another. They were prepared to die for that truth. People are still dying for it today. Others are trying to displace it or kill it.

The relationship between the Father and the Son

¹⁸ For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Having given the Pharisees ammunition to kill him by making himself equal to God, Jesus now clarifies the relationship between himself and God, who the Pharisees believed they were representing, and whose name they claimed to be protecting.

Jesus begins his explanation forcefully.

¹⁹ …"Very truly I tell you…"

In today’s vernacular, "Pay attention. I am speaking truth to you", which implies, "So listen carefully and put all your rushed false judgements of me aside". Every person debating the identity of Jesus must take heed of his claim to speak the truth. Few do. Most give a flippant look at Jesus rather than carefully investigate his identity defined over 1,500 years of revelations prior to his time, and those documented over three years interacting with his followers every day. There is much evidence to review to form an accurate picture of Jesus. Because of its importance, for 40 days after his resurrection and before his ascension into heaven, Jesus took his disciples through that 1,500 years of evidence in their scriptures. There is no valid excuse for ignoring it.

So what is the fundamental description Jesus himself gives to his identity? He is the Son of the God of history as revealed in the Old Testament scriptures. This God is his Father, and he is his Son. This was an astounding blasphemy to the Pharisees just as it is to major religions today. So how does Jesus proceed to describe how this supposed Father-Son relationship operates?

Every person seeking to understand the identity of Jesus must take into account his following claim,

¹⁹ … the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

We have to consider carefully this claim by Jesus on how his relationship as the Son worked with his Father. Jesus characterises this eternal relationship as:

1. Perfect imitation

The first truth Jesus revealed to the Pharisees about his relationship to their God is that he is not the initiator of his actions and teaching, which they were judging. The God of their history is the sole initiator, as he has been of all existence. Therefore, in judging Jesus, the Pharisees were uttering blasphemy judging the actions of their God Yahweh and not those of Jesus. What they were seeing done by Jesus was initiated by their God. He creates life and raises the dead.

…the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

If the Father creates all life, what does the Son do? Jesus describes himself as a Son who merely imitates what his Father initiates, To paraphrase his teaching,

"Pharisees, whatever miracles you see me doing, and whatever teachings you hear me giving are not initiated by me. I am an imitator. I am a perfectly accurate imitator of Yahweh. I can do nothing by myself: ‘whatever the Father does the Son also does‘ forever. Therefore Pharisees, carefully review what I have been saying and doing, and you will begin to gain an accurate image of the God of your venerated leader Moses, who carried the commandments given by my Father down from the mountain. Look at me and you will see your God, who gave those commandments and you claim to follow".

The same is true for every person today who wants to make a worthy assessment of the identity of Jesus. Time must be given in our journey to truth to investigating his historically verifiable actions and teachings and arrive at a conclusion about his full identity. This is to study him as revealed in both Old and New Testaments of the Bible. It is why the individual or religion that rejects Jesus, as revealed in the Bible’s prophecies and records of his life, cannot claim to love the God of creation as recorded in the history of salvation in the Bible^[13]. They love a god created into an image that suites them.

Jesus is the perfect imitator of God. Hence, to reject Jesus the Son is to reject the Father he imitates accurately and obeys fully. To honour and obey Jesus the Son above any personal philosophy or devotion to any other entity is to honour the Father who he imitates. To honour and venerate any other religious leader or philosophy above Jesus and excluding him is to dishonour the Father and Creator of all existence with whom his Son Jesus is one. Therefore, it is paramount that we test who we honour and have chosen to follow, and test our basis for doing so.

2. Unlimited intimacy

What made his perfect imitation of the Father possible? Jesus explained,

²⁰ For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.

The perfect imitation of the nature, works and teachings of the Father by Jesus was driven by his Father’s eternal love for him. Jesus explained that the Father loves the Son and continues to show^[14] all he does from his love for the Son. He holds nothing back. Nothing is hidden from the Son, including the Father’s plan for each person. The process is a continuous journey and never stops.

Therefore, if we want to know God’s plan of love for our life each moment, we have to seek intimacy with Jesus, because the Father has revealed all of the plan for our life journey to him. Every person is part of the total revelation of all God’s plans shown to Jesus. When we seek the intimacy with Jesus that he has with the Father, he enacts the Father’s plan for us put into his trust by the Father.

Divine intimacy is, therefore, at the heart of all that God does on earth through Jesus. The result was that the miraculous physical works of Jesus amazed those who witnessed them. They came from the heart of the Father who releases his creative power to control the quanta in all creation unbounded by time and location. Amazing!

Jesus has already sacrificed his life on the Cross to create the pathway for our unlimited intimacy with God. He has already taken the judgement of his Father on our sin, so that his Spirit can dwell within us to develop intimacy with our spirit. We have access to unlimited intimacy with the Father through the Spirit of Jesus dwelling within us. Through him, we have access to God’s plan for our journey each day, which has been revealed to Jesus. Miracles result as we focus on increasing our intimacy with the Father and the Son through his Spirit dwelling in us, because then he implements his plan in us and through us. His plan is to renew life and beauty in his creation corrupted by Satan. We join in this renewal by seeking intimacy with the Father, the Son and the Spirit via the pathway established by him, Then he does works in and through us that amaze us.

For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.

3. Amazing resurrections

²¹ For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.

Jesus continues to explain that the result of the unlimited intimacy of the Father with the Son is the giving of life to the dead. He gives life to whoever he chooses. Is Jesus describing a physical or spiritual act by the Father? In other words, are the ‘dead’ physically dead or spiritually dead? Are they physically raised to life or spiritually? Hence, is the life that Jesus gives to whomever he is pleased to give it, physical or spiritual?

Physical resurrections

When we look into prior history we find examples where God physically raised the dead through his servants. Elijah brought the dead son of the widow at Zarephath to life (1 Kings 17:17-24), and Elisha, as the successor of Elijah, some years later, brought the dead son of the Shunammite woman back to life (2 Kings 4:28-20). If these Old Testament prophets were used for physical resurrections, why not Jesus?

National resurrections

Ezekiel, the prophet of Israel in his day, is given a vision by God of a valley of dry bones representing wayward Israel and told to prophesy that God will resurrect them from their graves and return them to their promised land. (Ezekiel 37:12-14)

¹² Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³ Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. ¹⁴ I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.

Certainly, Israel has returned and settled in their land since this prophecy was given. Their return was not an individual physical resurrection, however, but a national restoration to their land promised by God to Abraham. It was a physical in-gathering from their diaspora in the ancient world implemented by the Allied forces in 1948. The ingathering could not be described literally as a resurrection from burial sites, although metaphorically it could be seen as a national resurrection to its previous land to re-establish its own governance and institutions.

Spiritual resurrections

Daniel prophesied the final resurrection at the end of time of those who sleep in the dust of the earth with some resurrected to everlasting life and others resurrected to everlasting contempt.

² And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. ³ And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.

(12:2-3)

This prophecy describes a spiritual resurrection to a new state of existence never before experienced. The two different destinations described are everlasting. Therefore the prophecy describes a mutually exclusive spiritual state that never ends, viz., life or contempt. In this new state there is an eternal shining of beings to a brightness level never before seen except by Moses on Mount Sinai, the angel sitting at the tomb of Jesus, who dazzled all who saw him, and the brilliant light of Jesus seen by Peter, James and John on the mountain when he was transfigured.

Untainted spirit is spirit imbued with infinite energy. The untainted spirit of Jesus was spirit imbued with everlasting infinite energy. He chose the extent and timing in his journey of revealing the life of God when he would allow it to shine among observers.

Resurrections by Jesus

How was raising the dead and giving life manifested by Jesus on earth? Was it performing physical resurrections or giving new spiritual life?

Jesus raised physically:

• a widow’s only son (Luke 7:11-14),
• the daughter of Jairus (Luke 8:49-56) and
• his friend Lazarus of Bethany four days after being put in his tomb (John 11).

When he chose the moment of his own death, many were raised physically from the dead.

⁵⁰ And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. ⁵¹ At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split ⁵² and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life.

⁵³ They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

(Matthew 27:50-53)

No wonder the centurion on guard with this soldiers at the Cross, upon hearing the cry of Jesus and immediately experiencing the shaking of the earth and sound of splitting rocks, declared in terror, "Surely, he was the Son of God".

²¹ For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.

This life of Jesus operating in and through the lives of his early believers, was marked by multiple miracles. It still is today. The perfect imitation of God, as revealed by Jesus in his work and unlimited intimacy with him, created a life with miracles in the early disciples, who sought to imitate Jesus in their daily lives and build intimacy with him. Then as fellowships of believers gathered in different geographical locations, healing gifts and miraculous powers continued among them (1 Corinthians 12:7-11).

There is no greater calling than to be a life-giver, to be a rescuer from death. Once one has tasted this vocation, all others are the daily going through the motions of a lower order of purpose and existence. And when this is experienced, one’s bearing tells the story. There is no study which seeks to extend one’s mind to its outer limits, no creative expression that can equal the thrill of dispelling spiritual death and sickness from a person with the life of Jesus Christ.

4. Delegated authority

Jesus continues explaining his relationship with his Father as having entrusted to him all authority to judge every human.

²² Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, ²³ that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father. Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father, who sent him.

²⁴ "Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. ²⁵ Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. ²⁶ For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.

²⁷ And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

²⁸ "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice ²⁹ and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.

³⁰ By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

Its scope and divine purpose

²² Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son

Note that Jesus claims emphatically that it is him before whom we will appear to give account of our life, not any other religious leader or philosopher, and not even his Father. The judgement of every person on earth has been delegated to him, regardless of their culture and belief in other gods. No matter what drives the code of a particular religion, no matter what authority it gives to one or a group of leaders, all of its adherents, including its leaders, will be judged by no one but Jesus alone. They will be accountable to him.

Comprehensively, all judgement of our life will be given by him and not just certain aspects of it. The most critical question, therefore, to ask myself is, "How am I relating to Jesus today?"

Notice the reason why the Father has entrusted all of our judgement to Jesus,

^23a that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father.

This is the eternal purpose designed into the relationship of the initiating Father and the imitating Son. It will never be changed. We live or die eternally according to our alignment with honouring Jesus to the same extent as honouring his Father, Therefore, the most critical question I can ask myself for all time is, "Am I seeking to honour the Son Jesus each moment of my life and in every decision as highly as I seek to honour the Father or any other person? Am I?"

The indivisible unity of the Father and the Son, at the heart of God’s identity, is the basis for this unchangeable fact claimed by Jesus:

^23b  Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father, who sent him.

Fact! This claim by Jesus is a clear acid test for each person to apply to their life regardless of their current adherence to a religion or philosophy about existence and the meaning of life. The acid test is to be applied to every global or tribal religion and personal philosophy of life we have invented for ourselves, e.g., "Good blokes go to heaven, and I’m a good bloke"; "I’m OK, I have never robbed anyone" etc. The test is for those who have heard about Jesus and the saving purpose of his birth, life, death and resurrection. We can personalise it with these questions, "What is Jesus to me?" "Am I honouring him with my life?" "To what extent do my vision and purpose for life, my plans and my morals honour the Son, Jesus?" Each of us needs to ask and listen to our answers. It is easy to say that we honour Jesus without giving much thought or self-examination, simply because we consider ourself to be a good person.

Therefore, we need a sharper test to assess clearly if we are honouring him. This is the ‘trust test’:

Where there is no trust in a relationship, there is no honour.

Every person knows that to be true for their relationships in family and society. When I break trust, I dishonour. When I won’t trust another, I cannot honour them. So the pointed question to ask ourself about Jesus becomes:

"Have I entrusted my life – past, present and future – to Jesus?

"Do I trust him enough to ask him to guide my day and answer my needs?

"Have I marked out areas of my life where he is not to tread because I won’t let go of what I suspect is dishonouring behaviour?

"Do I trust his love for me enough to follow his examples of taking the least position in social relationships and conflicts? Will I be a servant to many?

If I will not entrust my life to Jesus, I cannot claim to honour him and consequently claim to honour the Father, who sent him. What is clear, none of this is talking about choosing between religions. It is solely talking about relationships, The Father has entrusted all judgement of us to the Son, so that we might entrust all our life to him and live continuously in relationship with him serving him.

Therefore, in order to shine the light on whether or not we honour God, it is critical for each one of us to examine how we have chosen to relate to Jesus. This is the immovable fact that exposes whether or not my religious words and practices of any description in any religion are a great deception to myself and others:

Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father, who sent him.

Its human purpose – divine life

Having been clear about the divine purpose of the Father in giving all authority for judgement to the Son, Jesus turns his attention to the Father’s purpose for humanity in giving his life to the Son.

²⁴ "Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. ²⁵ Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.

²⁶ For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. ²⁷ And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

The Father has designed our existence so that we cannot avoid relating to the Son. I cannot. You cannot. He has all authority for our judgement in his control. With the inescapable certainty of having to face him in judgement, we would not want to avoid him in this life. That would be madness. Nevertheless, pride lacks common sense and madly marches us to eternal judgement while living in denial of it. It is paramount for every person to pay attention to the words of Jesus as the way to eternal life, in order to receive eternal life from him. How does Jesus describe paying attention to his word?

Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word…

When it comes to spiritual truth, there is a difference between listening to it and hearing it. We can listen with closed ears. We close our mental ears to what does not suit our journey shape created to satisfy our senses and bolster our pride. Many people attend religious meetings with closed ears supported by their pride. They listen but to not hear a thing about spiritual life. They stay comfortable and immovable in their religious practice. So the wise question to ask is, "Am I open to hearing the words of Jesus?" We must be open to hear the word of Jesus then to trust the Father who sent him. Jesus stressed this critical need,

²⁴ "Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes (trusts) him who sent me has eternal life…

When we hear and trust, we become the immediate possessors of eternal life by crossing over from our current state of spiritual death to spiritual life with the guarantee never to face judgement,

…and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.

When we hear and trust, we become one of the millions who have already crossed over from death to life. If we won’t trust, we won’t hear and cross over from death to life. We stay dead. John uses the Koine Greek Perfect Indicative Active tense to convey a completed action with lasting results in the present^[15]. In other words, we have crossed over from our old life of spiritual deadness and separation from God’s life and now live continuously in the new spiritual realm filled with his life. We start seeing and experiencing spiritual life in all its richness. Before, we operated from a dead religion and philosophy that cannot create God’s life. By hearing and trusting we now we have God’s life within us producing its spiritual fruits, as described by Paul,

…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

(Galatians 5:22-23)

Imagine those qualities growing in your life simply because the Spirit of God within you is producing them. This is so significant that Jesus reiterates with strong emphasis how we gain spiritual life:

²⁵ Very truly I tell you, (in other words, pay attention, this is significant!) a time is coming, and has now come, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. ²⁶ For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.

We are in the time now when Jesus is exercising his power to give the divine life of the Father, which has been given to him, to those who hear and trust in Jesus. The immediate effect is that they come alive as sons of God with the life of the Creator within.

Having reiterated how we receive spiritual life through hearing and trusting him, Jesus reiterates his authority to judge.

²⁷ And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man^[16].

So as to validate his authority to judge all mankind, Jesus claims to be the Son of Man. He draws upon this title because of its origin in Daniel 7:13-14 that prophesies the authority over all nations given by the Ancient of Days to a heavenly human.

"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man^[17], coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed".

The Son of Man described by the vision given to the prophet Daniel is not only a human being, He is also, and most importantly for us, the eternal King of a kingdom that lasts forever. When we put our hopes in any earthly government or current ruler, we are short-sighted. We limit the range of our sight by imagining the safety and quality of our life only up to our death, rather than raising our sight to an eternal timeline. The kingdom of Jesus is one that will never be destroyed, It is eternal. It began with his coming as he announced when he began his ministry in Galilee, "The kingdom of God has come near^[18]. Repent and believe the good news!" (Mark 1:15)

Therefore, the time has come, and continues now, that we can choose for our journey in life to enter the kingdom where God rules in hearts and minds with love and justice. The question for every person is whether to choose to hear and trust Jesus, in order to enter his eternal kingdom now, or whether to keep rigidly the boundaries of their pride’s control, which will be taken from them at death. The choice is personal and the ramifications eternal.

Its guaranteed reliability

²⁸ "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice ²⁹ and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.

³⁰ By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

Jesus concludes his claim to be the delegated Judge of all at the end of this current creation, and to be theGiver of divine life for all who are prepared to trust him with their life, by assuring us that his judgement is just, We can depend upon his judgement not to be capricious or pernicious. We can trust it to be just, because his desire is to please his righteous Father and not himself.

…I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

Therefore, to please his Father, he went to the Cross and stayed there being judged for all the sins of all time until he had created a clear pathway for his righteous Father to forgive us freely and give eternal life to any sinner, who is prepared to trust him enough to live within them with his grace and truth. Accordingly, every person, regardless of their past sins, now has the option to entrust their life to Jesus confidently, because he wants to please his righteous Father in how he exercises judgement and how he gives life, This aim of Jesus strips the world of all excuses for rejecting him. No excuse will be accepted by him at our judgement.

How then did Jesus make sure that his aim was to please the Father and never himself in every administration of judgement and gift of divine life? He mentally reminded himself that even as the Son of God he could do nothing that did not come from his Father.

³⁰ By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear…

Jesus modelled the pathway of how eternal and restorative life operates in humanity. Its origin is the Father. Jesus positioned himself as having no power within, but only that which begins with hearing and obeying the Father’s instruction. The Father’s will was the source of his creative power, Jesus first wanted to hear his Father’s will for every situation and then obey it with full trust in him. He lived every moment in a listening posture ready to do his Father’s will.

In stark contrast, our ego will never position itself as having no power and wait for God’s instruction from a listening posture. Ego will never walk in unity with a relationship that requires surrendering what ego wants in order to listen, because it will not submit its power to another. This is why many reject Jesus before placing themselves in a place of listening. Their examination of his identity through the spectacles of beliefs developed from inputs through their physical senses remains limited and unable to see past the physical to the divine. To them, Jesus remains as merely a man who appeared in history for a time. They remain blind to him as the source of eternal life with all its spiritual qualities of love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, meekness and self-control. Their unsurrendered ego continues to assert its desires fed by inputs from the physical world through the senses. It remains blind to the spiritual world all around it expressing the life of the Spirit of God that only an enlivened spirit can see.

By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

Testimonies about Jesus

Having established his trustworthy authority to judge and to give life, Jesus now points his listeners to his validation by other sources.

³¹ "If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true."

He admits that such lofty claims of identity need validation by other dependable sources. He lists them as: 1) John the Baptist, 2) his miracles, 3) the Father, and 4) the Scriptures.

Every person who wants to understand the identity and life of Jesus has the same sources today to validate that he is the Son of God, who came from heaven on a mission of God to take the judgement for our sins, offer full forgiveness and begin a relationship of trust in God by inviting him to take full control of our life.

John the Baptist

³² There is another who testifies in my favour, and I know that his testimony about me is true.

³³ "You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. ³⁴ Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. ³⁵ John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.

The historical record of John the Baptist is still available for anyone to read today. The angel Gabriel predicted his birth just as the same angel announced the coming birth of Jesus. The two miraculous births entwined the identity and purpose of John and Jesus in announcing to the chosen people of God the arriving kingdom of God. John validated the identity of Jesus.

The Miracles

³⁶ "I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me.

History had never before, and has never since, witnessed such a multitude of miracles as enacted by Jesus as a sign of his deity. We have the biographies of Jesus by his early disciples to read about these works given to Jesus to finish on his first coming.

The Father

³⁷ And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, ³⁸ nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent.

Jesus consistently presented himself as sent by the Father to do his will. He claimed to dwell with the Father, have seen the Father, obey the Father’s voice to do his will at all times etc. The clearly and consistently seen result was that his words and actions demonstrated the miraculous intervention of God in the lives of people.

The Scriptures

³⁹ You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, ⁴⁰ yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

Jesus then concludes this confrontation by the Pharisees with a pointed challenge to their flawed claim to believe Moses and to be the anointed guardians of what he wrote.

⁴⁷ But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?"

With this simple direct question, preceded by an assertive claim that went to the heart of their motivation, Jesus turns the attacks of the religious leaders back upon themselves. "You do not believe what he wrote". He unequivocally accuses them as being unbelievers of the revelations of God through Moses. He had already laid the charge against them that they refused to come to him. He exposed the intentions of their will…They were set in the cement of using their religious posturing to garrison the control of their egos from having to put their trust in God. At the core, they were alienated from God no matter how strongly they presented themselves as the guardians of the Scriptures and avid researchers of them. Jesus makes it clear to those listening that although their religious authorities were posturing as followers of the teachings of Moses, they were disbelievers of his teachings about the coming Messiah. With that evident disbelief operating in them, Jesus questioned how they could believe anything he claimed about himself from the writings of Moses. The choice of their wills was set against Jesus. They would never submit and trust. They were dead set against him. DEAD!

---

1. Some manuscripts include here, wholly or in part, "and they waited for the moving of the waters. From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had". ↩︎

2. This is one of the many promises made by Jesus recorded by John that provide every reader, who has an open mind, a solid foundation upon which to place the weight of their daily life and eternal destiny. ↩︎

3. Bethesda means, house of pity or mercy. Other forms occur as Bethzatha and Bethsaida. ↩︎

4. This is the gate where that led out to the sheep markets where lambs were sold for sacrifice in the Temple. They were washed in a pool (later called the Pool of Bethesda) before entering the Temple through only one door never to return. ↩︎

5. pléthos (πλῆθος) meaning a multitude, crowd, great number, assemblage derived the word pléthó (to be full) ↩︎

6. Some manuscripts include here, wholly or in part,"… paralysed—and they waited for the moving of the waters. From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had" ↩︎

7. This was not like a thin mat we place on the floor of a room. It was more bulky. It was a small bed used by the poor and more like a thick padded quilt. It was a camp-bed or pallet. ↩︎

8. John uses the word εὑρίσκω (heuriskó) which means to find or discover especially after searching. ↩︎

9. The word used by Jesus is ὑγιὴς (hygiēs healthy, i.e. Well; figuratively, true.)) meaning sound, healthy, pure, whole, wholesome. ↩︎

10. Exodus 1:8-14 ↩︎

11. The Cost of Discipleship (London: SCM Press, 1948/2001), p. 44 ↩︎

12. LORD is the English translation of ‘Yahweh’ = I AM in Hebrew ↩︎

13. For example, Muhammad’s teaching that Allah "neither begets nor is born", in Surah Al-Ikhlas (112). Therefore he is not a father and has no son. This is a direct rejection of the claims of Jesus. (Refer to Nabeel Qureshi, Seeking Allah Finding Jesus, copyright 2014, Zondervan, p. 39) ↩︎

14. Δείκνυσιν (deiknusin) the present indicative active form of deiknumi (to show) used to describe actions that are ongoing or habitual in the present time. ↩︎

15. Μεταβέβηκεν, perfect indicative active tense of metabainó (μεταβαίνω) meaning ‘to pass over, withdraw, depart. ↩︎

16. There are 82 incidences in the Synoptic Gospels where Jesus is recorded using this title. It was his way of identifying himself as both human and divine. It is the most frequent title he gave to himself. ↩︎

17. Son of man = human ↩︎

18. Jesus used the Greek verb ἐγγίζω meaning, "to make near, to come near" In this statement, he used the Greek Perfect Tense (indicative mood) which, according to Strong’s Concordance, expresses extreme closeness, or immediate imminence, even a presence, e.g., "it is here" In other words, Jesus was announcing at the beginning of his Galilean ministry, "the kingdom of God described by the prophets is right at your doorstep!" It remains at the doorstep of every life today. We either open the door of our life to let Jesus the King come in, or shut the door of our life to keep him out. ↩︎

• Introduction
• The meeting background
  • Its initiating cause
  • Its targeted cause
• The arresting question
  • If you knew the gift of God
• Missed identity
• Missed message
• Timed message
• The wakeup call
• The true worshippers
• The true Jesus

Meeting the Samaritan woman

Introduction

John now switches his account of the journey of Jesus from Jesus teaching Nicodemus, a ruler and scholar, to a cameo of Jesus interacting with a person of opposites in several ways. Nicodemus initiated contact with Jesus in the dark so as not to be seen with him and risk losing his social status as a member of the ruling council of Israel. In this cameo, chosen by John to be a stark contrast in his journey with Jesus, Jesus initiates contact in the exposed brightness of the intense midday sun with a woman of no social status with her own people and the Jews. She had fallen with shame off the bottom rung of the religious and social ladders of her people. Consequently, she chose to draw water each day alone in the midday heat, rather than be rejected and humiliated by the women of her township drawing water at the well in the cool of the day, as was their custom. Such isolation is the lot of many used women today, particularly those homeless with young mouths to feed.

This cameo is for every person who feels disenfranchised by a specific individual, group, or even by themselves hiding the heavy burden of shame they carry within from breaking a moral standard publicly or in secret. For such a person, this cameo brings great hope. It enables us to watch how Jesus restored this isolated Samaritan woman, and then to open our heart to him for the restoration of our own dignity, purpose and fulfillment.

Hidden shame is endemic in the fallen human race. It is our primary blockage to being open to Jesus to enable him to remove it and set us free to journey in life with him. In the previous cameo, Jesus identified to Nicodemus this common blocking pattern, when he said,

Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. (John 3:20)

These are intense words used by Jesus. They match the power of the blocking pattern operating within every human. We can use his precise statement to test our own stance with Jesus and test our buried reason for it. What is your stance? Is it hatred expressed by outright bigotry about him? Is it passive avoidance to avoid facing what is hidden from your past, or is it openness? Jesus does not present our reaction to him as an academic issue to debate, but a fear-driven response to admit and correct. Test if the name of Jesus raises your defence hackles and intellectual arguments, registers nothing or draws you to find out more about him. We are either attracted to his pure light or repelled by a fear and hatred of it that leads us to become bound up in our gaping net of false excuses and feel-good diversionary philosophies. This was the inner conflict being played out in the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman.

This cameo shows how Jesus had to extract the Samaritan woman from her emotional prison of isolating fear and coax her into the light in order to set her free to journey again with confidence and honour. The result was that she became the first evangelist to the Gentile world. Many of her towns folk listened to her testimony about Jesus, sought him out for themselves and came to know with certainty that Jesus is the Saviour of the world (verse 42). She became an example of how stepping into the light from our hiddenness results in the light of Jesus expanding its reach further in us and then through us to free other hiding prisoners of moral failures.

The meeting background

Its initiating cause

¹ The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

It is this situation that resulted in Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman.

Jesus was hugely popular by this time. John the Baptist had large crowds flock to him in the desert to hear his preaching of repentance, and of baptism as the public declaration of one’s inner decision to reject sins. Now his popularity with the people was being eclipsed by the representatives of his cousin Jesus. The Pharisees noticed this swift growth in popularity of the message of repentance and did not like it, even though it was prophesied in the last verse of their scriptures to be the necessary precursor to the coming of their long awaited, promised Messiah.

⁵ "See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.6He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction." (Malachi 4:5-6)

Religious leaders are well aware that popularity driven by the heart has power to create and control new beliefs in the next generation that can displace old beliefs, and new leaders that can displace existing. Popularity fuelled by positive emotional, inspirational and aspirational change wins every time over the controls imposed by unpopular religious hierarchies and politicians. We see it in the daily news reports of global, regional and local politics.

Hope for a better future is a powerful driver in the human psyche causing it to follow new pathways. The internet stirs up many followers of a variety of gurus promising a better future. The masses will grow quickly following a charismatic personality, who presents a new vision with hope of a better future. Putin knew that. Hence he jailed and then executed Alexi Navalny. Trump knows that with his MAGA movement. The Pharisees knew that. Hence, they were becoming increasingly threatened by the wind of spiritual change inspired by John the Baptist, and now by the followers of Jesus, who also were preaching the need for personal repentance.

Jesus knew that the only strategy available to the Pharisees to recapture religious control of the people was for them to remove both John the Baptist and himself from the crowds.

³ So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

Jesus controlled his destiny and not the Pharisees. This was not the time for a showdown with them attempting to remove him from the crowds. He had only just begun his purpose for coming to earth. He had more spiritual reality to reveal to the people and his disciples before being captured and put to death. His disciples were not ready to grasp and declare his divine identity to the world. They were only just beginning to gain some understanding of it. So he withdrew from the enthusiastic crowds hungry for spiritual truth and the spectacle of his miraculous healings. John the Baptist, however, stayed where the religious leaders could find him engaging in his public ministry of declaring that Jesus was the Messiah and baptising for repentance. As a result, he was soon imprisoned by the religious power structure to remove him from the crowds. There he met his death.

The choice of Jesus to disappear was as deliberate as his later reverse choice to return to Jerusalem when the time was ripe to create a confrontation with the religious power structure (see John 5). His return ended in crucifixion. By then he was ready to step towards it and his disciples were ready to learn from it.

Its targeted cause

⁴ Now he had to go through Samaria.

Instead of by-passing Samaria – the avoidance strategy often used by the Jews of the day – Jesus chose the shorter route home to Galilee in the north. The necessity of him having to go through Samaria, however, was not primarily due to reducing his travel time and distance by-passing Samaria. Rather, it was due to the woman his Father wanted him to meet drawing water alone from Jacob’s well.

The Father’s love will take any route necessary to meet with us in our need and reveal himself as our Saviour and Helper. There are countless stories today of how his divine love has targeted individuals who have met Jesus in unusual, unplanned situations. The Father will direct his Son today to detour for any person with an open heart ready to receive him as the promised Messiah and personal Saviour. In this case, he detoured for a rejected woman. He will also for you when you open your heart.

⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph, ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

In other words, it was scorching hot. It is an interesting picture to imagine the Creator of the universe sitting down by a well in the heat of the day, because he was weary from a long trek. Yet the Creator of every mathematically governed quantum detail of the smallest structure to the largest in all creation never wearies. He still sustains it all.

Sitting for a rest at the well is a vivid example that the human body, with which God clothed himself in Jesus, succumbed to the same weariness that we do. The Creator did not clothe the sinless seed he implanted in Mary’s womb with a body possessing superhuman characteristics. He clothed his divine seed with our physical humanity fully, Walking in the mid-day sun brought on his thirst as it would anyone. This makes the previous survival of Jesus forty days in the desert without food an incredible feat of determination to achieve a goal. It required unyielding commitment to his mission to defeat every temptation of Satan and keep himself sinless for the even greater trial of his later crucifixion, which he had to endure to the end. For this higher purpose, he chose to endure his testing in the desert.

Now, in this situation as a traveller passing through, Jesus could have sat somewhere in the shade and waited for the disciples to return with food provisions from Shechem^[1]. His decision to rest at Jacob’s well was, therefore, as much for the sake of the woman he was about to encounter, as it was to quench his thirst. She became his higher purpose to sit at the well and rest. She was his targeted cause for being there. So also are we, however and whenever Jesus comes to our attention. We are ‘the many’ that form his higher purpose, as he later made clear to his disciples,

"For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45)

He came to ransom us, to pay the price of judgement on our sins by a righteous God. Because sin cannot be separated from the perpetrator, he came to stand in our place by becoming our sin. Our sin became him, in order to ransom us from God’s judgement of the sin in us that has become us, and gift us fully with his perfect righteousness to become us.

The arresting question

⁶ … When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ⁷ Will you give me a drink? ⁸ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

Jesus began his dialogue with the outcast woman with a simple request to challenge her.

This might seem like a natural and necessary question from a thirsty traveller who stops at a well for a rest. For this woman, however, it was a shocking opening question: firstly, because of her race (Jews avoided Samaritans and despised them^[2]) and secondly, because she consciously carried the stigma of being a woman of shame rejected by her own Samaritan community. Yet here was a Jewish male talking to her and asking for a drink. She did not know who he was. Accordingly, she responded,

9 "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Her response to the request from Jesus was to disqualify herself for what she considered to be a valid reason. As is usually the case, Satan puts superficial barriers between us and the giver of eternal life. He erects them in our soul, i.e., in our mind and emotions. As a result, we may see Jesus as superior and unapproachable and ourselves as low and outcast. We may see our very being as unacceptable by any measure of consistent goodness, whether that be in Jesus, or in any person we perceive to be consistently honourable and potentially shocked by our failures. This woman would have felt this intensely, because, without a doubt, she would have felt three counts were against her in this coincidental meeting with a Jewish stranger, i.e., (1) her race, (2) her gender and (3) her corrupted personal history marked by the repeated visible failures of her heart choices of a husband.

Jesus was fully aware of these factors intersecting this woman’s thoughts and emotions and how they caused her to consider herself having no dignity or value in her society, and certainly none to a male Jewish stranger. Jesus cut through these barriers of unacceptability she had erected with a jolting statement.

¹⁰ If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.

He offered her a gift with life in it, when she felt that she had no life. He also does so for us.

If you knew the gift of God

The woman may have received this confronting comment by Jesus as a derogatory judgement of the extent of her knowledge about God, viz., it was deficient! "If you knew…you would have asked".

1. If only we knew the gift of God… we would instantly discard our fears and prejudices against God and receive his gift with open arms, or more correctly, with and open heart. We would also stop repeating to ourselves all the barriers we consider disqualify us for any good fortune from God. We would no longer consider ourselves more unworthy in comparison to others who claim to have received his gift.
   

   How so? Because the gift of God to know about is his enduring love and his offer of it to everyone regardless of race, status in life or moral history. All of us qualify until we disqualify ourselves by rejecting him.

   His love is a gift of living water forever quenching our thirst for meaning. How can this be? It quenches forever, because his love is empowered by his life, which is forever, It has no boundaries in time. Furthermore, remember that it has no boundaries of choice. His love is for all races and all individuals. It has no favourites. It is full of grace, No one is lower than the person they perceive to be the highest. You are not. Certainly this Samaritan woman was not. Jesus stopped to give her time. He lived what he taught his disciples: "the last will be first, and the first will be last" (Matthew 2:16).

2. If only we knew who it was that offered us this gift … we would not hesitate to ask for it urgently and enthusiastically. Who is this stranger called Jesus making this statement? How well have I examined his identity? To what extent does he remain a stranger to me? Here is the penetrating question calling for our honest response: "Why does he remain a stranger?" If we prioritised some time to investigate who he is, if we examined how he gave his love, which culminated in taking upon himself the judgement for our sins, we would stop holding up a barrier of distinction between our sinful failures and his sacrificial love for every one of us, with none excluded.

   Typically, we don’t know who is offering us the living water of eternal life, because we know little about God’s character of love pursuing us, and we know little about Jesus as God’s love in pursuit of us. Most people have spent little time reading God’s Word to learn of the character of God and the depth and relentlessness of his love searching throughout the human race from its beginning searching for those who will love him. The Bible traces the relentless search of God’s love from past centuries into the prophesied future for those open to receive it, culminating in the creation of a new heaven and earth, where sin will no longer exist to divide, and only love will reign. Who in their right mind would reject such love? Who would reject such a free gift? Who would choose a destiny absent of all love and filled with chaos instead? Are you for some unjustifiable emotion-based prejudice?

   Furthermore, if we had exposed ourselves to investigating God’s many expressions of relentless love found in the current journeys of a vast array of individuals, who were in self-made dire straits until the love of Jesus reached them, then we would no longer consider ourselves unworthy to receive his love. In short, because we have scanty knowledge of the character of the one who is offering living water as a free gift of his love, we hesitate to trust him and doubt his acceptance of us. The cause of our misguided opinion rests with us failing to investigate Jesus with an open mind. It does not rest with him. Tragically, we choose far lesser temporary substitutes to find meaning and fulfillment for our journey instead of choosing the only eternal love that can continually quench the thirst of our heart.

   Look closely at the weary Jesus, and remember that all his weariness and all his sufferings were for you as much as any previous or current follower of him. He earnestly wants to give each of us the eternal water of life and save us from our path of ultimate destruction at death. We can therefore urgently ask for his free offer of living water to quench our deepest thirst. All of us can. There are no barriers at all within him to give it. The barriers are within us, not him, He urgently wants to give us his living water of life and to free us from our burden of sin and the consequential separation from God and others it has caused. He wants to give us eternal life now, his life to our spirit now, spiritual life to our spirit now, so that we can live abundant life now, for which he made us and intended us to enjoy. This is what he wanted for the Samaritan woman.

   ¹⁰ If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.

Missed identity

The woman completely missed the spiritual reality of the gift of living water Jesus was offering her, possibly because of her shamed mind-set. Instead she remained focused on the physical reality confronting Jesus to be able to draw water from Jacob’s well.

¹¹ "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep".

Her physical observations were correct. Jesus did not have a receptacle to fill with water, and the well was potentially up to 55 meters deep at the time^[3]. That is deep! Who was this stranger making such a bold claim of recovering water from this depth with no means of doing so? The impossibility of his claim naturally led her to search for alternatives.

Where can you get this living water?

If she really wanted an answer, she would have waited for Jesus to respond, but instead she pivoted to turn the claim of Jesus into a competitive comparison of his identity with Jacob as the revered father of both Samaritans and Jews. She switched from the focus being on her spiritual state to have a religious debate.

¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?"

Jesus ignored her attempted diversion, as he does with every person who takes a quick step sideways to avoid confronting who they are before the eyes of the Holy One. Our intellectual debates serve the purpose of side-stepping. We are each very conscious of our diversions and attempts to keep our distance from Jesus. We retreat from our heart and its fears of exposure into our head, He is fully aware of our closed heart’s direct rejection of his offers to come to him for eternal life. Nevertheless, as with this woman, Jesus stays on message with us until we surrender our will to his, or we die devoid of eternal life and love.

Missed message

Staying on message, Jesus answered,

¹³ "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

What a message! What an offer! Who would not want a perpetual quenching of their inner thirst for meaning and relevance in their life, particularly if it continues into eternal life? Who would not want this quenching arising perpetually from within themselves, to be there when they awake and when they switch out the bedside light at night?

Who would not want this? The answer is simple: those not ready for it. So who are they?

These are individuals who want to stay living in their self-controlled physical world of reality, which they mistakenly believe they can control. In that physical world, however, where we seek answers to satisfy our hunger for meaning and purpose that are assembled solely by inputs from our physical senses, we continually thirst. None of our attempts to satisfy our thirst drinking from "physical" wells ever lasts. When the capacity of the well we have chosen to satisfy our inner needs dries up, our only option is to find another, which also finally loses its capacity to satisfy the thirst of our soul. Then we go looking for the next well to stimulate or ease our life, e.g., a new job, a new relationship, a new investment, new pub, new club, new sports team, new drug, new good cause, new religion etc. We never arrive at eternal life welling up from within us providing a constant stream of inner satisfaction. Rather, our thinking, feeling and understanding remain encased within physical descriptions of cause and effect in our life and those we may seek to help, e.g., psychological explanations of causes in our childhood affecting mental and emotional health in our adulthood etc. As a result, we function in family and social life with bland physically-based explanations but not with the living water of a drinking spirit that can bring us alive perpetually. We miss out on never thirsting again, because we will not go to Jesus, who is the sole source of water that wells up into eternal life. He is that eternal life offering to forge a union within us, bound to our spirit by his perfect love.

The Samaritan woman missed the message, because her focus remained on her physical self, viz., on her physical thirst and on the repetitive physical effort she had to exert to acquire physical water.

¹⁵ The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water".

She missed entirely that Jesus was talking about a spiritual phenomenon not a physical need requiring physical effort to access. She seemed deaf to the reality of eternal life welling up from within one’s being perpetually quenching inner spiritual thirst for meaning and growth.

The question for each of us is: "Am I stuck in my comfort zone of being in sole control of my physical world, while missing the free offer from Jesus of everlasting life he wants to release from within my spirit now and throughout eternity?" This must be the biggest miss in life that anyone can make. Are you making it? For this reason, Jesus picks his timing to jolt us into becoming aware of our need to find living water that lasts perpetually and quenches the depths of our inner being. It is then that he reveals himself as the living water for our thirsty soul and our source of inner rest.

²⁸ "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)

Timed message

Now was the time to jolt the Samaritan woman into new awareness of who was talking to her. Now was the time to shift her from surface physical thinking to buried inner need. Therefore, Jesus suddenly threw out a challenge that went to the state of her soul and opened up the possibility for honest dialogue about her core identity. A large component of our identity formation is the health of our closest relationships. Accordingly, Jesus threw out the challenge,

¹⁶ "Go, call your husband and come back."

¹⁷ "I have no husband, " she replied.

It would be interesting to know what was in her mind as she gave this instant response. Was it, "I have to dodge this one. I don’t want him finding out the failures in my private life. I am not married to my current partner according to the standard definition of my society. On that score, I can answer truthfully that I have no husband". This was a half-truth, however. The other half exposed her moral failure, which she kept hidden. She was in a relationship with a male, presumably an intimate one, if her marital history was any indication of that likelihood. Her answer was an attempted deception. How easy this is to do about any matter where we try to hide our wrong from others and ourselves!

Note the response of Jesus. It was time to give this woman a wakeup call, viz., an instant exposure of her private life to a stranger that left her nowhere to hide.

The wakeup call

¹⁷ Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸ The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."

Jesus did not mince words. He jolted her suddenly with the facts, He shattered her mirage. It was the time in their interaction to expose the truth of her situation. "How does he know these facts about my personal life?" Imagine being drawn by a total stranger into a discussion where they first of all insult your lack of knowledge about an unfamiliar topic,

If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink…

Then you respond defensively to their apparent boast by attacking their status,

Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?"

Then they apparently offer a way to lighten your physical and social stress,

¹³ Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

That sounds appealing to you, so you respond accordingly focused on its physical benefits unaware of its spiritual nature,

¹⁵ "Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water"

Then, before you know it, they suddenly tell you more about yourself than you want known,

¹⁷ "You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸ The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."

Totally exposed. No escape. "The fact is." That is how it is with Jesus. The time comes for everyone when he decides to shine his light on our hidden life. Jesus turns our preoccupation with physical existence to focus us on spiritual necessities. We are unexpectedly hit with conviction and guilt about specific acts and attitudes, which he exposes. We are faced with a point of decision that will affect our eternal destiny. We either choose to run and hide under fake excuses we give to ourselves and others, or stay in the presence of his pure light shining on our inner being. The woman stayed. She attempted to flatter Jesus by affirming his spiritual anointing.

¹⁹ "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet".

Only prophets, priests and kings of Israel received the gift of anointing by of the Holy Spirit upon them. She claimed to see this anointing operating in his knowledge of her as a stranger. Then in a flash she turned her spiritual affirmation into a religious debate to avoid more exposure of her spiritual state. She raised the matter of worship, which is the core expression of devotion to any god. She, however, put the focus on its physical location and not on the heart from which devotion comes. She was not ready for her heart to be seen.

²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain^[4], but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."

The Samaritan woman knew full well that this would take the focus of the Jewish stranger off herself. She raised the very reason why Jews and Samaritans hated each other, viz., where is the authentic centre for carrying out the instructions in the five books of Moses. Religious debates invoke passion and continue up to this day breaking friendships, dividing groups, sometimes leading to physical attack and national wars. There was no better way for her to take the focus of Jesus off her personal life.

The true worshippers

Now let’s look how Jesus handled the woman’s attempted diversion from her marital performance to a debate on where to worship.

Jesus immediately made it clear to the woman that true worship has nothing to do with place. Similarly, it has nothing to do with how much we know, or how determined we are to build our own righteousness by doing good works as we define good works, nor keeping religious rituals and commands e.g., regularly attending Mass, not eating during Ramadan.

Who then are true worshippers according to Jesus? Do they worship in a mosque, or synagogue, or temple, or cathedral, or a church hall, or office, or pub, or living room? Are they defined by religion, ‘correct’ theologies or practices of them? Here is how Jesus defined them. There is no worship outside of his definition, Here is his measure of whether or not you are a true worshipper:

²³ the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

There is no alternative to that source of worship as Jesus defined it here. Worship comes from our spirit when we commit to live the truth about God and ourselves as revealed by God himself in his words and actions. I cannot lay claim to being a true worshipper on my life journey, if my spirit is dead and unyielded to him, while I seek to utter words of praise solely from my mind or emotions. I cannot lay claim to being a true worshipper, if choose beliefs that are comfortable for me but blur the truth revealed by God in his Word. I am not a true worshipper if I won’t worship God from my spirit surrendered to him in trust and completely open to listen and obey the truth he wants to teach me at each moment of my journey. That means conversing with God about the truth revealed in his Word regarding who He is and who His Saviour is, and conversing in truth from his Word about who I am relative to his plan for me.

Firstly then, to enter into the worship God desires means putting aside all falsehood and coming clean. God is out searching for people who will do that. He wants an honest relationship. He enjoys an honest relationship. How can there be a relationship of enjoyment unless it is built on being honest with each other, and relaxing in the intimacy of that honesty? The irony is that God already knows everything about us anyhow. To attempt to hide is to suffer from the same delusion as our ancestors Adam and Eve. How can one hide from the all-knowing God? He knows of all the sin I have committed, even the sin I do not see, my sin before I commit it, while I am committing it, and when I see it unmasked fully. He certainly knew all about the journey of the woman at the well.

Jesus told her what she was trying to forget and avoid, just as he will show you and me if we are open for it. But this is not condemnation. He speaks directly to our sin by his resurrected Spirit abiding in us, in order to free us from the weight of the past.He makes clean the person who will come clean, because he has already taken the judgement of their sin in full on the Cross. He became our sin so that it could be judged completely and enable him to gift his perfect and complete righteousness to us by living in us.

It is a waste of time to try to worship while keeping my innermost Self hiding behind religious duties, or trying to bury my true Self in the hyper-activity of doing good works, as I choose to define them, attempting to create my own righteousness, or seeking to hide my inner Self in self-deception. As soon as we commit to the truth about our inner selves, God activates the spiritual capacity to see Jesus as the Truth of all life and the Saviour who gives us his perfect righteousness when we trust ourselves to him.

Secondly, to enter into true worship of the Father and the Son requires being prepared to accept the full truth about his Son Jesus. God is continually searching for such people.

God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth, (John 4:24)

God is searching for those who will worship Him by putting full trust in the truth about his salvation provided in Jesus. We can each embrace the prayer,

Lord, give me your Spirit, the desire, the honesty and the courage to worship you in spirit and in the truth about Jesus and myself as you continue to show this to me.

We need to be aware of the need to allow our spirit to be touched and come alive. Our challenge is not to let the dialogue of truth stay only on the level of doctrinal discussion. Jesus was not interested in debating theology with the woman just as he would consider debating philosophy with an atheist a waste of time. For the atheist need is the same as for an agnostic. It is to open up and allow God to confront us on the truth about hidden things in our soul. Only then will we gain any sight of the spiritual reality of God and ourselves. It is to admit our sins to him and allow him to show us the truth about his righteousness that he offers to place within us. It is to invite him to dwell within us with his righteousness. It is to ask him to show us the spiritual gifts he has given us and the ways he wants to use them to bring life to others. Then we become a true worshipper.

²³ the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

The true Jesus

Now that Jesus had shifted the woman’s attempted religious debate about the correct location for worship to the nature of true worship, she left the debate in order to refer to the coming Messiah as the ultimate authority on spiritual truth. She sought to leave the debate by pushing its solution somewhere into the future coming of the Messiah.

²⁵ The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."

She was, nevertheless, at last ready for Jesus to reveal his true identity, because he had exposed details about her life that a stranger could never have known. He was more than a tired and thirsty Jewish traveller. She knew that now by personal experience. Accordingly,

²⁶ Then Jesus declared, "I, the one speaking to you — I am he."

The moment had come. She had been sought out by Jesus as the anointed One, the stranger was the prophesied Messiah of the Jews. He was here now, not in the future. He had stopped by to introduce himself to her and elevate her sense of worth from the lowest of her society to the height of God’s full acceptance. Now she had gained enough restored dignity needed to cast her soiled reputation aside and go public in her community to announce Jesus as a Jewish stranger who was potentially the long awaited prophesied Messiah who had told her everything she ever did.

²⁸ Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ²⁹ "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?" ³⁰ They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

Thousands of martyrs have since followed this woman with their sense of value elevated to the extent of being prepared to die for the sake of declaring the identity of Jesus and his restorative, enduring love. Through them, many have come out of their familiar setting and begun their journey towards him.

While this spiritual phenomenon was happening, the disciples remained stuck in their physical world. With well-meaning intent and care they urged him,

³¹ "Rabbi, eat something."

³² But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about."

³³ Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"

Jesus then used their focus on physical food to teach them a much more enduring focus for their life. He had just finished teaching the Samaritan woman about living water that lasts forever quenching her thirst for meaning. Now he taught his relatively new disciples about a food that lasts forever. His statement was true. They knew absolutely nothing about this food Jesus ate. What was this food?

³⁴ "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

³⁵ Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. ³⁶ Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. ³⁷ Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. ³⁸ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labour."

The few disciples were about to witness the food that satisfied Jesus when the Samaritans from the woman’s village arrived, and when after two days of interaction with him reached the conviction that Jesus is the Saviour of the world. The hated enemies of his Jewish disciples reached this conclusion faster than them.

³⁹ Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. ⁴¹ And because of his words many more became believers.

⁴² They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world."

They took time to investigate the identity of Jesus firsthand. He took time to teach them. He always does for honest investigators of his identity. As a result, they came to know firsthand that his identity is the Saviour of the world. Then they took the step of putting their whole trust in him. They became believers of him. The same process is essential for every person. We never arrive at a place of full trust in Jesus for our journey of life without taking the time to investigate him. The process of being able to trust what Jesus says is quick for some. For others it is a slow path to full trust in him. Our history of hurt and self-aggrandizement takes time to face, which influences the length of our journey to trust.

The disciples saw the power of living water in Jesus turning Samaritans into believers of him. Simultaneously they saw the food reward gained by Jesus from harvesting the Samaritans. Our challenge from these events is to take the steps necessary to know for ourselves that Jesus is our Saviour offering living water that quenches our thirst for meaning forever. Later we come to understand that Jesus also offers us food to nourish and sustains us forever when we join him in reaping the harvest all around us. Then we see with spiritual eyes that the field of humanity in our neighbourhood or workplace is ripe for harvest.

³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. ³⁸ Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." (Matthew 9:37-38)

We become an answer to this prayer we are asked to pray. We now drink and eat.

---

1. For the location of Jacob’s well at the time of Christ, see the article on Sychar in the Encyclopedia of the Bible based on the research of W.F.Albright and G.E. Wright, Schechem: the Biography of a Biblical City (1965). The well is historically one of the best attested sites in Palestine. It was sitting on an impermeable layer of basalt that provided quality water flows being located at the Eastern side of the valley between Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim. It was about half a mile from the village of Balatah. ↩︎

2. The Samaritans were Jews descended from the ten tribes of Israel that separated to the north from the remaining two in the south, who continued to worship in the temple originally built by King Solomon in Jerusalem in response to the desire of his father David. The northern tribes became the Northern Kingdom, later called Israel, with Samaria as its capital city. The southern two tribes of Judah and Benjamin later became known as Judah with Jerusalem as its capital. The Jews in the Northern Kingdom without the Temple had to set up a new worship centre, which they located on Mount Gerizim. The Southern Kingdom continue to worship in the Temple rebuilt by Herod the Great.

   In 721 BC, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was invaded by the Assyrians. Many Israelites were taken as captives to Assyria. Simultaneously, Assyria transplanted many foreigners in Israel. As a result, a syncretistic religion emerged based on the Pentateuch to accommodate non-Jews and Jews. This mixture of Jews and foreigners later became known as Samaritans, named after their capital Samaria.

   In 586 BC the Southern Kingdom, comprising the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, was conquered by the Babylonians. Solomon’s Temple was destroyed, and many leading Jews were exiled in Babylon. When these Jews later returned to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, the Samaritans, whose worship centre was on Mount Gerizim, caused problems attempting to stop the rebuild. This began the long-lasting hatred between Jews and Samaritans, which continued at the time of Jesus. This woman would have assumed it was in Jesus.^[2:1]: ↩︎ ↩︎

3. As per the research of G.E. Wright referenced in the previous footnote. ↩︎

4. Mount Gerizim ↩︎

Jesus and a scholar (cameo 3)

• Introduction
• Teaching overview
  • Spiritual birth
  • Spiritual belief
  • Teaching 1 –You must be born again
  • Teaching 2 – You must believe in the Son of God
• Nicodemus Conversation
  • The opening gambit
  • Missing it
  • Human incapacity
  • The imperative second birth
  • The Wind
  • Clarifying question
  • The answer
  • Comments on the answer
• The endorsement by John the Baptist
  • The circumstantial setting
  • The role of John the Baptist
  • The identity and role of Jesus
• Personal response – surrender or pride-control

Introduction

John Chapter 3 is the third cameo John uses to unfold the identity of Jesus he was discovering. It relates an encounter of Jesus with a high status academic and religious leader, not someone with whom John would have regularly rubbed shoulders. No doubt, what Jesus had to say to this elite member of Jewish society would have fascinated John. The highlights of John’s record of their interaction is possibly one of the most referenced chapters of the Bible. Its popularity comes from creating life-changing impacts in the lives of millions, who previously were confused or had lost all hope for their life until they read and grasped the comments on the life Jesus offered to Nicodemus. Through it, many have entered into a relationship with God that has brought new hope and freedom from a dreary and aimless life of controlling moods and habits. By taking this advice given by Jesus in his encounter with a scholar seeking truth, many have discovered a new world of spiritual understanding and experienced the progressive freedom from negative aspects of oneself becoming supplanted by the joys of a growing focus on loving others. By taking your time to ponder this very personal teaching, may you experience the same result.

Jesus lived among the superstitions and religious rituals of the ancient world. The Greeks groped for the unknown god and an understanding of life after death through their schools of philosophy and the creation of a pantheon of gods, which they sought to appease to gain protection and favours. Every civilisation before them had done the same. Superstition had reigned. The Jews sought out their one God by combing through their scriptures for understanding, rehearsing their history on sacred days, adhering to their laws and religiously offering up ritual blood sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins. In addition, they tried diligently to obey an accumulating stack of added ritual requirements placed on their daily routine by a religious caste that needed to justify its existence and increase its control. Yet none of this activity brought their spirits alive and set them free. Every Jew was trapped in the maxim of their laws, "if you are guilty of one, you are guilty of all".

Jesus came into these two confused and burdened worlds of Gentiles and Jews with his message of freedom available to all. In this chapter and the next, Jesus speaks to the Jewish and Gentile mind-sets controlling two individuals who could not have been more starkly different. In Chapter 3, he interacts with a Jewish male at the pinnacle of his nation’s government and scholarship, esteemed by his society for both achievements. In Chapter 4, he interacts with a Samaritan female at the bottom rung of her society – a despised outcast to both her society and the Jews, who were banned from interacting with any Samaritan, particularly a woman. John does not even address her by name in his account of her meeting Jesus. She remains as an incognito Samaritan woman throughout his account. Her race practiced a syncretistic religion worshipping Yahweh the God of Moses, the God who broke their ancestors free from slavery in Egypt, plus a mixture of pagan gods adopted by their forefathers when Assyria transplanted other races among the northern regions of Israel to replace the Israelites he had taken into captivity in 721 B.C. (2 Kings 17:24-33). Consequently, the Jews classified Samaritans as Gentiles rather than accepting them as half-brothers with a commonality in inheritance. Jesus ignored the entrenched cultural and religious animosity between Jews and the Samaritans and engaged the woman in conversation.

Both the Jewish ruler and this Gentile outcast were deeply impacted for life by their one encounter with Jesus. Every person since, who has embraced his teaching in these two chapters, has likewise been impacted for the rest of their life. The Jewish ruler later came out of from hiding within his socially esteemed ruling council and guardians of Jewish law to take the criminal Jesus down from his cross, whom they had put to death by their law. He associated himself fully with Jesus upon whom they had applied the highest penalty of their law. In so doing, he put at jeopardy all the prestige that he had attained in his life. He had clearly become a follower of the Teacher he originally sought out by this encounter at night.

By comparison, the Samaritan woman had no fame to put at jeopardy. The only fame she carried was the fame of her shame. Nevertheless, she made a life changing decision to step into the glare of her society’s condemnation to tell how Jesus miraculously knew all about her disgraced life and claimed to be the Messiah, to whom both the Jews and Samaritans looked for their national restoration. She brought an entire people group to Jesus by her simple testimony and so became the first evangelist of Jesus to the Gentile world. Because of her, many Samaritans believed in him and gained eternal life. John learned much watching how Jesus on his journey related to these two very different individuals with very different journeys in their past and very different potential journeys in their future. Carefully observing and recording these two interactions enriched John’s journey.

When taken together, these two encounters with Jesus show his intention from the outset to make the good news of his kingdom open to all peoples – both Jew and Gentile at any strata in their society, from the highest and honoured to the lowest and despised. He intends for his kingdom to be open to all people. The continued global relevance of these two encounters is that they show that none of us is excluded from God’s love and salvation regardless of our race, gender, position in society, personal history, religious belief (personally constructed or institutionalised) and the degree of our adherence to it. The profile of our pedigree is irrelevant to Jesus. He leaves the choice to us whether or not we want to be part of his kingdom and journey with him under his rule or avoid him.

The personal questions that confront each reader in chapters 3 and 4 are: To what extent do I trust in my pedigree of birth and achievements, religious or otherwise, to believe that they give me a right to receive eternal life? Conversely, to what extent have my failures brought me to believe I will never gain entrance to heaven and am destined to be an eternal castaway in hell? These are personal questions not to be brushed aside but considered carefully on your journey through life. We need to do ourselves the favour of asking them and not avoiding or burying them. Our personal value to Jesus warrants it.

Teaching overview

John chapter 3 contains two clear teachings by Jesus for Nicodemus that were completely new in all ancient religious thought in its various attempts to know God. They were also revolutionary. They remain so today among the multitudinous variety of quests to find God made in every civilisation on earth. These teachings abolish all religious and moral practices as valid methods to gain eternal life. They set people free from the laws and expectations of their religion, and if necessary, their culture. These are momentous, life destiny claims worth your testing. The revolutionary teachings are:

1. "Unless you are born again you cannot see the kingdom of God!" (v. 3). Jesus then expanded this into, "no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit." (v. 5)
2. "God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already,because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son." (v. 16, 18)

Spiritual birth

The first teaching is about birth. The second is about belief with Jesus making himself the central identity for every person to face with belief or disbelief, i.e., trust or distrust ^[1]. When taken together, these two teachings of Jesus summarise how we enter the kingdom of God and gain eternal life, i.e., by means of: 1) birth by the Spirit of God, and 2) placing our trust in Jesus. They teach that we cannot sidestep the need for a spiritual birth, and we cannot by-pass placing our trust in Jesus to gain any certainty of having eternal life. This assumes of course that we have tested and accepted his historical validity as presented to us in ancient history and by his followers.

My understanding of the first teaching has grown throughout my journey with Jesus over the years. I have come to learn by reflecting on my inner self that without this second birth initiating spirit life and growth within me, I see nothing of spiritual reality, know nothing of it, hear nothing and have nothing of eternal worth. It remains true for me every day. That may sound dramatic, but Jesus throughout his teaching claimed it is true for life in the kingdom of God. I may see, know, hear, and have plenty in this world yet be bereft of everything that gives me the sight, knowledge, hearing and possessions needed for eternal life. Said another way, I am blind, ignorant, deaf and bankrupt of the spiritual essentials which I need to gain eternal life. In short, I am a spiritual fool though I may consider myself worldly wise. I remain stuck in the kingdom of this physical world unable to see and have any experiential knowledge of the kingdom of God. I cannot even analyse it, nor do I have any basis from which to criticise it. No amount of success, education, good works or money can change that fact, whether or not this suits my current beliefs and the image my pride seeks to portray to others. This is what I am discovering on my journey through my life as John did journeying with Jesus.

Only God, reaching out in grace, regardless of my profile, can change my condition by the second birth. I have discovered that the duration of extending this grace to me is under His control, not mine. This teaching by Jesus on the need for new birth is revolutionary. It departs from hopes we can have of a pleasant existence now and in the hereafter as determined by how we choose to measure our performance against religious laws, shifting social trends, or personal goals and our moral code.

Spiritual belief

Concerning the second teaching about belief, I have progressively come to understand how critical it is to grasp and trust these words of Jesus to be certain about my eternal destiny and face every situation with that confidence. A corollary of his teaching is: deny the identity of the Son of God as the Creator of all spiritual existence, then the beliefs developed for one’s eternal destiny evaporate, no matter how broadly one has searched other philosophies or religions. Peter saw this and stayed,

"Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life".

(John 6:68)

The challenge by Jesus in his second teaching is to trust him. Jesus gives this teaching in the second half of his explanation to Nicodemus about what a person can do to be born again. The person owns the control of whether to choose and to trust. When any person chooses to trust the promise of Jesus to give eternal life based on trusting in his claimed identity, the guaranteed promise of eternal life begins to take effect. Eternal life is not future but immediate when connected to the Life. The promise of his love is we will never be disconnected from Life again. Our fear-driven behaviours diminish as trust grows and God’s love is experienced in a growing number of tangible ways.

We need to take note that these two teachings of birth and belief fit together and cannot be separated. God enacts the first by a super-natural act – birth of our spirit by the Holy Spirit. The individual enacts the second by a natural act – the decision to trust. Both are operative in any person living in the eternal kingdom of God on earth now and in heaven. I pray that those with whom I converse will discover these truths revealed by Jesus with powerful immediate and eternal effect. There are millions of testimonies given by people from multiple cultures across the world and multiple situations in life, which each have accounts of specific miracles of love implemented by God in their lives, many of which are verifiable by authentic witnesses. Their only explanation is that each miracle they experience is an act of God’s love reaching out in response to faith reaching out to God.

Teaching 1 –You must be born again

The first teaching by Jesus places personal entrance into the realm of God beyond the capability of any and all religious practice and personal efforts to do "good", no matter one’s religion or its rigorous practices. It switches the hope of gaining eternal life from our self-assessed moral, religious or other achievements to an essential sight-giving second birth.

"Unless you are born again you cannot see the kingdom of God!" (v. 3)

Efforts are action. Birth is a state. When a person is born physically, they gain entrance into the state of life on earth without personal effort. We are all delivered powerlessly into it this life by a medical practitioner. Then we begin to see and live in a whole new environment. Without the birth, we will never enter or see the physical world. It is likewise true of Life in the kingdom of God. We can never enter or see it without being delivered powerlessly into it by God himself. The difference between the two births is that the second must be spiritual in order to deliver us into the spiritual environment where God, who is Spirit, exists and imparts his Life, love, wisdom and righteousness. This birth, therefore, has nothing to do with my physical efforts or achievements. It cannot. It is a spiritual birth, which only the Spirit of God can initiate and deliver. He brings into Life our spirit previously disengaged from the Source of all Life. Then we see what we have never seen before. We suddenly begin to see the kingdom of God operating in situations where previously we would have been oblivious of them. The most intelligent sociologists cannot see these operations. They can only measure, see and analyse physical trends, such as a surging drug epidemic, increased family violence and so on. They devise plans hoping to reverse these trends while knowing these plans will never eliminate the societal ills completely. It is the best the kingdom of this world can do. They miss entirely the kingdom of God that is operating unrecognised within society rescuing many from the same cultural and personal behaviour trends by empowering them with new spiritual life from within, which is God’s Life, which is Life that existed eternally before any physical entities were created.

In his second directive on this birth into the kingdom of God, Jesus switches his term from "seeing" to "entering" the kingdom of God.

…"unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." (v. 5)

All who have been born physically of water need to be born spiritually by the Spirit to enter the kingdom of God. Without the Spirit giving spiritual birth to us we cannot see, and we cannot enter. To enter the kingdom of God is to see it. That is how we become aware that we have entered it. We now possess the faculty of spiritual sight given by the Holy Spirit. Our spiritual sight is given by continuous revelations from our spiritual Teacher within showing us multiple aspects of the Rule of God operating within us and the world. Jesus foretold of this coming internal Teacher of the kingdom of God in his parting meeting with his disciples:

"I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever — the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you". (John 14:16-17)

"… the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name,will teach you all things…" (14:26)

So the Spirit of truth teaches us truth, which cannot be intellectually reasoned or debated. Firstly, our internal Teacher points out truths about our sins we had not seen before. Then with our clearer eyes, he gives insights about life we had never known before, no matter how smart or simple we thought we were. We are now walking in Truth. He exposes how much of our thinking has been upside down when we thought it was right side up. We see how much Satan, The Master of Deception and the Father of Lies, has deceived our minds to shift our thoughts from what is true. We see this displacement of absolute truths by our selfish, subjective and shifting beliefs. With clearer perception of ourselves stemming from the new birth of our spirit, we can then see the operations of the kingdom of God all around us bringing to spiritual life those who are dead and establishing its rule in their hearts.They belong to no religion, race or socio-economic class. They become our newly recognised companions of second birth. We recognise them immediately, not by a label but by the Spirit within them, which our spirit recognises because we now know Him.

The destiny-critical question this raises then is: how is one born by the Spirit? Jesus uses the rest of his interaction with Nicodemus to explain. After talking about the how the Spirit operates, he spells out in clear terms in his second major teaching how we operate in order to gain eternal life.

Teaching 2 – You must believe in the Son of God

This teaching of Jesus offers anabsolute guarantee of entrance into the eternal kingdom of God to the person who believes in him according to how he identifies himself, viz., as the Son of God and the way to eternal life:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life".

Be careful to note that Jesus teaches here that receiving the promised gift of everlasting life requires that we believe in his identity according to his claim to be the only begotten Son of God. Any religion or person that seeks to discredit Jesus as the Son of God has nothing to offer except a dead end to this life without any validated certainty for the hereafter. They are labelled "false" teachers.

It is important to note that believing in this identity of Jesus is not solely the result of an intellectual search, although a person does need to pursue a responsible assessment of the life of Jesus until satisfied to their requirements that he is who he said he is authenticated by his character, knowledge and actions. Otherwise their belief is fabricated or merely mystical. Beyond that exercise, intelligence has no part to play in choosing whether or not to trust one’s life to Jesus. Willingness to trust him fully with our life is what completes our understanding. The Greek word used for trust and belief is the same. There can be no belief in a person without trust, or trust in a person without belief in their character. Jesus cannot be known without belief and trust just as a prospective spouse cannot shift from knowing about their partner to knowing them intimately without choosing to believe in their character and placing relationship trust in them fully.

Jesus later asserted that, "unless you turn around and become like little children you certainly will not enter the kingdom of heaven". (Matt 18:3) A little child who puts their life trust in Jesus sees and enters the kingdom of God easily when a person trusting in self cannot. Pride in self must ultimately give way to complete trust in Jesus. Consequently, the constant appeal of Jesus is for us to bank our entire life on his claim to be the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. Our response to his claim becomes the central turning point of our history. We can choose whether or not to bank on him for guaranteed eternal life and his support in every situation we face during every day, or we can ignore his claim and invitation to us to begin a relationship with him.

In summary, these two teachings of ‘birth’ and ‘belief’ when taken together shift the hope of eternal life frompersonal philosophies to trust ina person, from religious practices to his promises, from our determined efforts to resting in his gift of Divine love, and from wistful hope to certainty.

Nicodemus Conversation

The setting that Jesus chose to announce his two explosive teachings to the world was a night conversation with Nicodemus, who sought him out because of powers of God he had observed being displayed by this Galilean carpenter. The miracles of Jesus earned the respect of Nicodemus sufficiently to address him with the title, "Teacher", which was used in his culture for, "One who walks with God". The miracles also raised significant questions Nicodemus wanted Jesus to satisfy.

The opening gambit

Flattery or recognition

Nicodemus opened the conversation he wanted with Jesus with the leading statement,

"We know you are a teacher come from God because no one can do these signs you do unless God is with him." (v.2)

This was either flattery, hoping to lead into a list of questions to test Jesus, or an honest recognition of Jesus’ identity as a man anointed by the Spirit of God, which was something his colleagues chose to ignore and resist. Academics often begin their debates with flattery as they circle each other readying for an intellectual contest that seeks to expose points of superior knowledge or weakness. It is most likely, however, that Nicodemus came as a genuine enquirer for two reasons: 1) if he had wanted to trap Jesus in questioning, he would have chosen to lay his trap in the full glare of onlookers as other professionals had done, and 2) the fact that he sought out Jesus in the undercover of darkness gives hint of his desire to push beyond the adversarial stance taken to Jesus by his colleagues, and to find out more about the way in which Jesus was related to God’s wisdom and power. Nicodemus sought out Jesus to resolve the unavoidable question: How did this carpenter from rural Nazareth come to possess the revolutionary wisdom of his teachings and the countless miracles that have demonstrated his control over the natural world?

To resolve this question, Nicodemus was not yet ready to risk his reputation and status among his colleagues in the ruling council by being seen in the company of the itinerant preacher, who they wanted to remove from Israeli society to stop the erosion of their power.

Direct response – to the heart

Whatever the intention of Nicodemus’ opening greeting, Jesus ignored it. He by-passed the analytical brain of Nicodemus and immediately responded with a direct challenge to his heart.

"Truly, truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again". (v.3)

Or paraphrasing, we can expand his direct challenge to:

"Pay very careful attention to what I am about to say. No one, including you, can see anything about the kingdom of God unless they are brought to life by a second birth."

By implication, Jesus was teaching that a person is blind to the kingdom of God before this second birth. They cannot see it no matter what religious, mystical or academic ways they are using to try to find it.

The immediate response by Jesus was the crux of what needed to be discussed with Nicodemus, who would have been hit by it as a sudden jab beneath his intellectual defences. Leading statements made by Jesus to catch our initial attention are always the crux of what we need to confront in our thinking and attitude about truth. God already knows our every thought, attitudes and past actions. He knows the composite profile we have built over the years progressively losing our innocence and building our pride. We don’t. I have no idea of the myriad of sensory inputs that forged who I am today. He knows our blockages to seeing truth and coming to know him. He knows how to break through these blockages to gain our attention. So we need to listen to him carefully. Each time we read his Word, the Spirit of God goes straight to what we need to hear like a sword thrusting through our defences and shining light on our blindness. All genuine seekers of God receive the sudden jab of God’s word like Nicodemus. If we heed that word, we see more of his kingdom. If not, we remain blind to it.

Jesus knew that the occupation of Nicodemus was to study, teach and fulfil the whole Jewish Law meticulously, in order to be sure that he would enter into the kingdom (rule) of God on earth, which he believed would one day be established by the rule of the coming Messiah and the return of the currently absent Spirit. Accordingly, Nicodemus had no significant intellectual or knowledge deficit, but he possessed the major spiritual deficit of having no connection of his spirit with the Spirit of God. That is the starting point of all humans. It is for you.

There had been no direct impartation of supernatural revelation and life to Nicodemus from the God of his scriptures. He did not expect to receive any as a scholar. Why? Only the prophets, priests, judges, and kings of Israel historically had a spiritual connection with their God Yahweh through the Holy Spirit coming upon them, i.e., anointing them. These anointed offices provided the God-directed functions used to keep Israel on track to fulfil its Divine purpose of one day producing the One anointed by the Spirit to rule and redeem mankind. With these Holy Spirit anointed offices operating, the people only had to focus on obeying the Law given to Moses by God. Nevertheless they didn’t.

As a consequence, the Holy Spirit departed from the nation (Ezekiel 10:17-18). Supernatural power was stripped from kings, judges, prophets and priests and the military power of other nations imposed on them instead. For 400 years before Jesus, there had been no prophet, priest or king anointed by the Holy Spirit. So a teaching class of rabbis arose to teach in synagogues the application of the Law to personal life. Israelites sought to relate to God solely by obedience to the Law, and the accretion of laws added by the rabbis, as the measure of their love for God, by which they would be judged. The feasts and holy days they continued to keep degenerated into ineffectual ritual with the Spirit of God absent.

Nevertheless, the teachers and people of Israel continued to cling with expectation to the words of the prophets that in the latter days the Messiah would usher in the earthly Messianic rule of God and the new Era of the Spirit as prophesied (e.g., Joel Chapter 2). As part of this new Era, they looked forward to the day when God would establish a New Covenant with them, and when he would internalise their Law within their being so that each person, regardless of their status in society, would know him intimately, as prophesied by Jeremiah 600 years beforehand:

"I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts…they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, for I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more", declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 31:33-34)

The Law written in their minds and on their hearts would be the embodiment of God himself in a way that they would know him within. Nicodemus knew this prophecy and had studied it. The Anointing of the Spirit that had once been upon chosen offices would be replaced with the dwelling of the Spirit within any who chose to live in this New Covenant and receive its blessings. This indwelling of the Spirit would be the new spiritual birth accompanied by the full forgiveness of the Nation. All that Nicodemus had to do was to connect the new state described in this prophecy with the new birth proclaimed by Jesus. The missing sign he needed was tangible evidence that the Messiah had come.

Missing it

The way Nicodemus responded to the challenge of Jesus shows that he had missed entirely the reality of needing a spiritual birth in order to know God intimately in his mind and on his heart as prophesied by Jeremiah. Nicodemus instead gave a sceptical response:

"How can someone be born when they are old? Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born again!" (v.4)

The mind of lawyer Nicodemus remained fixed on physical birth, which blocked him from recognising that Jesus was talking of a whole new kind of birth. His interpretation that Jesus was asserting the incredulous necessity of entering his mother’s womb again showed that Nicodemus was still thinking from his physical framework of understanding. This was as far as his brain could take him. "How can a man like me enter a second time into my mother’s womb? Your claim is not only impossible, it is ridiculous and delusional!" (Any person operating from a physical framework of reference, while remaining spiritually blind, would give a similar response.)

Consequently, Nicodemus was blind to the spiritual drama playing out in front of his eyes in the lives of John the Baptist as the forerunner of the coming Messiah and Jesus as the Messiah. He and his colleagues had already witnessed and listened to John the Baptist in the wilderness, but they had not associated him with Isaiah’s prophecy,

"A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God… Say to the cities of Judah, "Here is your God!" See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and he rules with a mighty arm’" (Isa 40:3, 9, 10).

Because Nicodemus had made no connection between the ministry of John and Isaiah’s prophecy, he was not aware that the kingdom of the Messiah was right at his doorstep, as heralded by the forerunner, "Here is your God!"

Failed connections

Nicodemus had not only failed to make the connection of John the Baptist with the prophecy, neither had he at this stage in the conversation appear to have connected the miracles of Jesus with the identity of the Anointed One. He only attributed to him the title, Teacher, or one who walked with God. He certainly was sufficiently impressed by the miracles of Jesus to cause him to search him out under the cover of darkness. If he had understood who John was, his mind would have been alerted to the fact that the Messiah’s appearing must be near at hand. Nevertheless, he had failed to see the Messiah in Jesus even though he continued to witness his dramatic miracles of love, his demonstrated grace and teachings of love that removed all ability of the Jews to use their law to condemn the weak in the name of preserving the purity of their religion. In other words, Nicodemus had missed the full expression of God revealed in human flesh as described by the prophets, i.e., the God of justice and love. The prophets heralded a Messiah who demonstrated great love and compassion carrying his people close to his heart just as much as a Messiah, who imposes his visible global rule on all nations.For example:

"He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young" (Isa 40:11)

Nicodemus had also made no connection between the compassionate works of Jesus and the Messianic prophecy of compassion, which Jesus chose to apply to himself at the beginning of his ministry given in his first synagogue reading in his home town (Isa 61:1).

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind… Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing". (Luke 4:18, 21)

Jesus could not have made his claim clearer. He fulfilled the prophecy of the anticipated Messiah. He pointed out the connection. His hometown people and Nicodemus missed it as many still do.

Looking in wrong directions

Why did Nicodemus miss the connections? He was searching for physical power as evidence for the Messiah and not the power of love directed at the poor, the prisoners and the blind. In his elite role, he was not journeying on the road of humble, all-embracing love. His missed that the greatest and enduring liberation of Israel would be in the power of love and not in the power of the Messiah’s sword. He was caught up in the political expectation of the Jews of his time that the Messiah would begin his rule from Jerusalem by breaking and casting off the shackles of Rome. He first needed to see this physical power of the Messiah as evidence of his identity. Then he could believe that the New Covenant was now operating and intimacy with God’s Spirit within one’s being was possible.

Accordingly, Nicodemus was a classic example of the Jewish leaders, who Jesus later rebuked as having a will and heart problem rather than a brain problem.

"You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me,yet you refuse to come to me to have life" (John 5:39)

Jesus pointedly highlights to Nicodemus this refusal by his colleagues to accept him (v.11) because their one aim was to retain their power over the people using the multitude of daily ritual requirements that they had added to the Law of Moses. Jesus was seen as their adversary, who was diverting the attention of the masses from their laws of control to himself. They refused to accept his teachings and miracles blinded by their hunger for power. They were unable to see that the coming Messiah and the New Covenant were right at their doorstep about to be launched as God’s new way of relating to his beloved creation. 2,000 years later, personal pride can block us from seeing Jesus at the doorstep of our life wanting to enter and journey with us.

Although Nicodemus missed the connection between being born again by the Spirit of God and Jeremiah’s prophecy about the New Covenant of knowing God within one’s heart, he did recognise that Jesus was the first person after 400 years to demonstrate the power of God. This may have raised questions in his mind, "Could this Teacher be our long awaited Anointed One? Has the Spirit returned?" If so, he would have wanted to stay in the conversation to examine Jesus closer.

Human incapacity

Nicodemus nevertheless demonstrated that had no ability within himself to understand new birth from a spiritual framework in order to have his questions answered. How could he? His spirit was dead. It remained unborn and unable to see, while his brain remained stuck in the physical dimensions of religious history, rituals, rites and practices of religion that operate from unborn hearts. Nicodemus had never stepped beyond the rituals of his religion into dimensions of the Spirit where a whole different reality of life operates. Likewise, your personal belief system can be your blindfold keeping your pride stuck on a fruitless journey trying to live up to the image it wants.

Nicodemus was typical of every individual whose spirit is dead. There are many like him today practicing their institutional, or personally constructed, religions that are incapable of seeing the kingdom of God. Our brain can be very competent and active, while our spirit is dead, but it has no spiritual insight or wisdom. In the realm of constructing spiritual reality, the most it can achieve is foolishness. Our emotions may seek to experience the ethereal, but they too have no spiritual insight. They can never open the kingdom of God to our sight.

As indicated previously,Nicodemus was an expert in religious knowledge and practice. He ardently pursued his Jewish path of scholarship and practice believing that this would lead to eternal life. It didn’t. He was intellectually and religiously fine-tuned but spiritually dead and blind to the kingdom of God that he sought. Prostitutes saw this kingdom before he did, even though he had been admitted to the ruling council of the Jews, because of his brilliance. Likewise today, there are many engaged in erudite academic debates attempting to show their brilliance in understanding the meanings of life and death. These are as blind as Nicodemus. Yet even today, broken-hearted prostitutes, who have lost all purpose for living, and who cry out to God to deliver them from the life they have become, are welcomed by the God of compassion, enter and see the kingdom of God.

Personal implications

For our own life, then, it is imperative that we observe how the teaching of Jesus, "You must be born anew", applies to us at this moment.If our instant reaction is to be offended or recoil in any way, it is almost certain that we have not been born anew and have no idea what that means in experience. The one option available to us is to seek to be brought to life by the Spirit of God, in order to gain a whole new framework of understanding. We cannot sidestep this truth and believe that we can make our own way to heaven by our own self-defined system of beliefs and our performance against its moral code. Without the character of God as our benchmark, our personal assessment of our level of morality is flawed and relatively delusional. Without acceptance that our spirit is dead until the Spirit who created life gives it life, it remains dead. Consequently, the truth Nicodemus had to face was that no amount of personal discipline, goal setting, studies or religious practices in the physical realm could ever bring him into the spiritual realm of the kingdom of God, where God, who is Spirit, exists in unlimited dimensions. He remained as a spiritually dead educated mind.

Nevertheless, we must not dismiss that Nicodemus did seek out Jesus with good intentions, because his mind was searching for answers. In his heart of hearts, he wanted to live in the kingdom of God for eternity. Otherwise he would not have spent his life searching the Scriptures as Jesus later said was his motive and that of his colleagues. The heart’s desire of most religious people is the same. We must come, however, to recognise and admit that spiritual desire translated into religious activity does not create spiritual life and sight of the kingdom of God. Nicodemus was, therefore, as dead as the state of any religious person, who is fastidiously keeping the practices of their religion as their means of justifying a right to eternal life while rejecting the terms of the One who gives it.

The one thing Nicodemus did have going for him was that his desire to meet with Jesus was driven by a heart which yearned for the coming of the Messiah and the return of the Spirit to usher in a whole new world order. Possibly Nicodemus sought out Jesus with the thought, "Maybe this Teacher knows something that could shed more light on the coming new order, because he could not do the miracles he is doing without the workings of the Spirit of God".

Critical life questions

We need to take time out at this point from the interaction between Jesus and Nicodemus to ask ourselves this fundamental question that demands answers from our own life:

How can one who is spiritually dead suddenly expect to have spiritual life after death without being brought alive spiritually by the Spirit of God in this life?

We have to be very honest and clear about our answers because our eternal future depends on them. We should not ignore them. This question is worthy of the time and thought it warrants. We need to arrive at the place of accepting that: only the state of our spirit in this life determines its state after death. Nothing else does – not the state of our intelligence, or emotions, or morals or body or self-satisfaction with our personal religion and diligence in keeping its requirements.

The imperative second birth

The state of our spirit is either dead or alive. There is no middle ground. Our spirit does not slowly come alive with every good work we define as "good", because we cannot give it life. Only God can.

To make this clear, Jesus reiterated the essential importance of the second birth for Nicodemus with a more emphatic tone. In this case, he changed his choice of words from "unless" to "must" and using a plural form of "you" to make his statement apply to all.

"Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.  You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’" (v.5-7)

In order to catch the tone of this step in this teaching, we can paraphrase and elaborate:

"Nicodemus, you should know from studying your scriptures intricately that clearly flesh can only give birth to flesh and Spirit to spirit. That is, flesh cannot give birth to spirit. No amount of flesh activity, such as your studies and religious practices, can give birth to your spirit.

You should not at all be surprised, therefore, that I am claiming that you and your colleagues, in fact everybody, must be born anew by the Spirit. Take careful note that I am saying ‘must’. It is imperative for you to be born anew by the Spirit to enter the kingdom of God. There are no alternatives and no one is exempt." (v.6 -7)

Thus, Jesus made it clear. We cannot confuse physical birth with spiritual. A physical process and a physical person give birth to a physical identity. Flesh births flesh. Only a spiritual process guided by the Spirit of God can birth a new spiritual identity, which we need in order to enter the spiritual kingdom of God. Spirit births spirit.

The Wind

So the question arising on the table for Nicodemus now became: if being born anew by the Spirit is so crucial to my eternal destiny, how does it happen?

Nicodemus would have been itching to know the answer to the new phenomenon of this second birth that Jesus introduced to unsettle him and grab his attention. Jesus, however, did not immediately give Nicodemus a clear and simple formula for how he can be born a second time without entering his mother’s womb. Nicodemus was used to slicing and dicing theology. Had Jesus immediately made his identity as the Son of God to be the crux of being born spiritually, Nicodemus would have launched into debate using his knowledge of his monotheistic theology to dismiss any possibility that this Teacher was Divine. Islamic scholars will quickly do the same today to protect their monotheistic belief in their god Allah promoted by Mohammed. Nicodemus was not ready yet to receive the second teaching of Jesus that the kingdom of God was where the Messiah ruled as the Son of God, even though scriptures he had studied pointed to that fact, such as:

"’I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain’. He said to me, ‘You are my son; today I have become your father… Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance,
the ends of the earth your possession… Kiss his son, or he will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him."

(Psalm 2:6-8, 12)

Another scripture, which the Pharisees considered to be a Messianic prophecy inspired by the Spirit, was used by Jesus towards the end of his public life to challenge their understanding of the Messiah’s identity:

"The Yahweh says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’…If then, David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?"

(Matt 22:45)

In other words, if God had promised David an eternal kingdom that would be ruled by one of his descendants, why would David call him his Lord? They were left speechless. "No one could say a word in reply".

Even though Nicodemus would have read these scriptures on the identity of the Messiah, he had missed his deity. For Jesus to introduce at this stage of the conversation the need for Nicodemus to believe he was the Son of God in order to receive the second birth, he would have scrambled the mind of his listener and killed off any mental engagement with the discussion. Instead, Jesus took Nicodemus on a religiously less threatening journey to keep him engaged in the conversation before giving Nicodemus a reason to dismiss him. Jesus knew Nicodemus would have had to make an impossible mental and religious jump to place him on par with Yahweh, the Holy One, the Creator and Redeemer of Israel. His brain saturated in monotheism presented an immovable barrier. Therefore, Jesus turned the attention of Nicodemus to the role of the Spirit in bringing spiritual birth rather than focusing on himself as the gateway to entering the eternal kingdom of God. That came later. For now, the indefinable Spirit would do. People are happy to talk about spirit. Therefore Jesus began there with Nicodemus.

Talking about spirit is easy because we cannot define it. Consequently, discussions on spirit are a "large tent" where all are accommodated, whether they follow a world religion or practice their own New Age means of inner peace to arrive at some higher spiritual level. It is popular today to claim to be "spiritual" in stark contrast to being "religious". It is perceived as being superior. "Christianity" and "Islam", for example, have become terms that carry disdain for the secular critic. Switch from a nebulous "spiritual" discussion to talk about Jesus as the Son of God and Saviour and the arguments quickly line up in the listener’s mind to reject the historical identity of Jesus as claimed. The discussion switches from learning to an ego warfare that puts forward poorly researched reasons to justify one’s position relative to God. For this reason, Jesus illustrated how the Spirit works by using the metaphor of wind. This metaphor is most appropriate because the word "spirit" in the language of the Jews and the Greeks is "wind" or "breath". So here is how the Spirit, i.e. the "Breath/Wind" of God, works:

"The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." (v. 5)

What does this explain about being born anew of water and the Spirit? Anything? On first hearing, it seems to say nothing tangible and does nothing except leave an ethereal impression in our mind. It sounds too nebulous for me to grasp with the hands of my brain for me to do anything about being born anew. That was probably true for Nicodemus also. What a frustrating answer! It forces a second look to see what aspect of the wind Jesus was raising here that he wanted Nicodemus to grasp in order to understand the process of being born anew.

Jesus highlighted one main characteristic of the wind to teach about the Spirit of God, who brings spiritual birth. It blows wherever it pleases. So what? That is self-evident about the wind. Jesus taught that being born anew by the Spirit is just like that. "So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." Apparently, that too should be self-evident. Who can tell the Spirit what to do, how to do it and when for a person to receive a spiritual new birth? What could Nicodemus conclude from this one characteristic of the wind Jesus pointed out to him? We can think a little about the wind to understand this characteristic a little more and why Jesus used it.

Lesson 1: We cannot formularise our engagement with the variegated Wind of God.

"It blows wherever it pleases". There is nothing more elusive than the wind, nothing so varied and unpredictable in creation with its endless currents, its swiftness, its starts and stops, caressing and whippings. Man can never view the wind as a static object nor create a simple formula to determine where and what it will be at any moment. Likewise, Nicodemus could not consider the Spirit – the initiator of him being born spiritually – to be a static theological construct that he could package in a precise description using his finely tuned theological language. This is why it is ironical, and perhaps blasphemous, for churches to run courses like, "10 steps to being filled with the Holy Spirit".

Lesson 2: We can’t capture, control or use the Wind of God for our own ends.

Man does not know where to go to find the wind, and if he finds it he cannot locate its source. We can find almost everything else – objects man has made and all the creation that God has made, even the water in the rivers, lakes and oceans. But ask us to find the wind and we are stumped. We can go to where it is blowing or stand still and know that sooner or later that the wind will blow on us. Either way, when we yell out "I’ve got it!" it will have changed. And in the end we won’t have it at all. We can scoop up some water and know that we can keep it in our container, but not the wind. Scoop it up, slam on the lid, and it is gone. So it is with the Wind of God. We cannot slam a lid on the Spirit and put him on display to use for our ends.God chooses to breathe his life on individuals when and how he pleases. That is a key lesson which Jesus is making to Nicodemus. It might be possible to go to where someone says the Spirit is blowing. Some people catch international flights to do that hoping to be caught up in the Wind operating with power in a particular gathering, but when they arrive there they are not able to capture, nor control, nor bottle up the Spirit in their lives to take him home and put him on display by giving testimonies of their experience gilded with the promotion of self.

Lesson 3: We can never describe or predict the Spirit

What more can we say about the Spirit? Can we describe him, what he looks like? Of course we can’t. Can we chart his every movement, where and in what manner he is moving now, and three minutes from now? We cannot even determine where the Spirit will blow in the next second, and exactly how. Will he be gentle or forceful? Will he bring laughter? Will he bring a vision, or wisdom or crashing conviction? We never know. That is what makes opening ourselves to the Wind of God a forever changing adventure. I sit in my back yard and feel the wind caressing my body. I hear its rustle in the crowns of the large gum trees. Its sound drops to a lull. I wait. Then I hear the first sign of what becomes a loud roar as it tears through the top of the trees pulling the crowns and branches like some stretched out elastic. Yet it swirls around my sheltered courtyard with a gentler stroking, and at my feet a leaf or two suddenly join in a waltz with the wind on the patio tiles. This is the wind: so full of different expressions within such a short distance from the tree-tops to my courtyard. Who could ever predict its multitudinous currents?

Lesson 4: We need to sit still and confidently wait for the Spirit to bring us alive

Those who sit still long enough observe that the Spirit of God is also like this as Jesus taught. No one person or Christian group can claim to have described and experienced all his sovereign variations. He comes as the Divine Wind – the Breath of God – and whenever he breathes on us our inner spirit comes to life. We do not know how he will breathe on us with his life. All we can know is that he will certainly blow in his way and time to fulfil his purpose at that time. He may come at first as a faint breath which, when recognised and welcomed, begins to blow with stronger and stronger stirrings of our spirit until our whole inner being dances with the joy of his presence. He may suddenly come stirring conviction about a sin we have committed or releasing exhilaration from intimate connection with him. Regardless of how his presence manifests, he will come to the one who waits and invites.

Although we cannot command the natural wind when, where and how it should blow, we can observe and work with it once it is blowing. We can trim the sails of our vessels, set course to our desired destination and the wind takes us there. Even then the wind remains in full control. It could disappear in an instant to leave us stranded in the millpond of the ocean or destroy all trace of our vessel through its fury. Remember that man is purely a recipient of the wind, not its producer. So it is with the Wind of God,who always retains His sovereign position as the producer of spiritual life in us. We can only bow to him, be open to His breathings and allow his life-giving wind to propel us.

Lesson 5: God prepares us to want and receive his Spirit

Everyone who asks receives from the Father, who delights to give us the good gifts of his life far more than our earthly fathers desire to please us with their gifts. Paul and John had this confidence,

"He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" (Rom 8:32)

"… this is the confidence that we have before Him: If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.  And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we already possess what we have asked of Him". (1 John 5:14-15)

Therefore he will come when we ask, sent by the Father and in his timing. So we wait with patience. We wait with expectation. We wait in trustthat God has already heard our prayer and is readying us to receive a new manifestation of his Wind. All the experiences which we have from the day of our prayer of invitation are readying us to receive. Some may appear harsh. Some may be painful. Some may test us to our limit to the point that we will wonder if God has forgotten us. No. He is readying us to receive new life. He is breaking down the walls of our resistance. He is softening our heart for obedience. He is building our trust in him. He is answering our prayer.

The certainty that the Spirit will blow on us is not determined by how well we try to create our spirit’s activity or his. We cannot whip up a feverish current of religious group excitement to provoke his coming. That is the noise of a simulated wind that has no power. All that we can do is ask and make sure that our sails are hoisted and waiting, that our spirit of repentance continues, not striving but trusting. Then we will set sail when He blows. We will be ready to receive and be caught up by His breath. Then we will enter and traverse the kingdom of God. Then we will see new realms, news seas, new islands and new lands of the Spirit. That is what Nicodemus needed and for which he hungered, whether or not he had allowed his consciousness to receive it as truth.

When the Body of Christ allows the variations of the Wind of the Spirit to be, when any local expression of it sits still to listen and resists the temptation to take control using its organisation skills, then the Wind of God swirls through its various parts accomplishing what he wills. The power of different gifts comes alive with all the creativity of God. Dead religion becomes Pentecost.

Clarifying question

Jesus had told Nicodemus that he should not be surprised that he said he must be born again, but by using the metaphor of the wind he had still not made it clear to Nicodemus how that happens. Nicodemus was left with a knowledge gap that he wanted satisfied never having experienced the Spirit/Wind/Breath of God that he read about in Israel’s history. Therefore it was important to him to question further to clarify how the Breath of God brought about the new birth, if he was to gain an answer that he could understand to apply to himself. Now he was at the place where he needed to ask a genuine searching question for his own sake and not for the sake of a debate:

How can this be?" (v.9)

The tone of his question differed significantly from the scoffing tone of his first. Its genuine, enquiring nature was not followed by a critical comment as was the first.

"How can someone be born when they are old? Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born again!" (v.4)

His open question showed that he was now ready to consider openly the next teaching of Jesus. He was ready in his mind and heart. Accordingly, he was now ready to be pointed by Jesus to a tangible answer in his physical world that he could understand just as Jesus his Teacher was also now ready to answer more precisely, "How this can be?" The role of a teacher is to prepare the learner’s background knowledge and attitude to receive the main thrust of his teaching; otherwise explanations are a waste of words. When he judges that has been accomplished, he too is ready to open up the answer that will change his pupil’s understanding. Nicodemus was now on the cusp of that happening.

Jesus chose a tangible event from the history of Israel about which Nicodemus had studied and could grasp – the lifting up of a serpent on a pole in the wilderness as the physical object chosen by God to re-focus the faith of each individual on his method to avert death from deadly snake bites brought upon the Israelites as God’s judgement on their persistent disobedience.

"The LORD said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.’  And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if any man was bitten, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived". (Numbers 21:8-9)

The event contained the need for a spiritual act of faith to restore physical life within the context of a physical crisis. Jesus was about to use it to show Nicodemus that to restore spiritual life an individual likewise had to look to the specific physical object chosen by God to re-focus faith on God’s method of averting eternal death and away from self or any other spiritual guru.

Qualifying statement

Before answering the genuine question of Nicodemus using the crisis of the Israelites in the desert, Jesus needed to made it clear to him: 1) how their knowledge and their sources compared, and 2) the fact that the cause for his lack of knowledge of spiritual things was due to not believing what Jesus said and what the source of his clearly seen spiritual knowledge was. Jesus needed to do this to open up the mind of Nicodemus to the heavenly component of his identity. To do so, Jesus exposed the deficiency of Nicodemus’ knowledge with a rhetorical question that would dismantle any scholar’s academic pride:

"You are Israel’s teacher, and do you not understand these things?" (v.10)

Nicodemus could give only one admission in his own mind, to that question, in order to maintain his integrity, "No. I don’t understand." Jesus did not expect an answer to his rhetorical question. It was simply to destabilise the confidence that Nicodemus had in his knowledge, and to open his mind to the basis of Jesus’ knowledge. We could surmise that the tone behind his rhetorical question to Nicodemus could go something like this:

"What I am implying by my question Nicodemus is that you ought to understand these things, if you want to carry the title, ‘Teacher’ in Israel. Before I give you the answer to your question, however, let me make it clear to you why I understand these things".

So Jesus answered,

"Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.  I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?" (v. 11-12)

Now Jesus stated that his knowledge of how the kingdom of God works came directly from what he had seen. His knowledge was not merely intellectually based like the knowledge Nicodemus possessed. His knowledge was from spiritual sight with its source being heaven itself. He could speak of heavenly things having seen them. This is an astounding inference for any person to make. The implication Nicodemus would not have missed was that Jesus was claiming to have been in heaven to see these things. He was, therefore, indirectly claiming to be a heavenly descended man. This could not but raise the question in the mind of Nicodemus, "Was Jesus the descended Son of Man of the prophet Daniel? To anticipate his question, Jesus stated unequivocally,

"No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven — the Son of Man". (v. 13)

There it is! This was an explosive claim made by Jesus. He was virtually inferring that he was the Son of Man of Daniel’s prophecy (Daniel 7:13), who could speak of heavenly things because he had ascended into heaven, seen and heard heavenly things firsthand and descended to earth to relate his knowledge. The difference in their knowledge was stark. Jesus was inferring that he was the descended Son of Man, who could speak of heavenly things that were beyond the earth-bound sight and scholastic knowledge of Nicodemus. Therefore Nicodemus could not dodge giving serious consideration to what Jesus was about to explain on how a person could receive their second birth from the Spirit. His answer would carry first hand heavenly authority compared to the restricted earth-bound knowledge of Nicodemus and his colleagues. More than that, it would confront Nicodemus, the monotheist, with the need to grapple with the heavenly component of the identity of Jesus. If he could speak heavenly things, which he claimed to know from seeing them, was he more than a Teacher and none other than the Son of Man to come, who had now descended?

With these thoughts sewn into the mind of Nicodemus, Jesus tackled head-on the core reason why Nicodemus had not accepted his testimony. He made clear to Nicodemus that the problem blocking his understanding of the spiritual new birth was that he did not believe in his claims. Unbelief was a shocking response for anyone to give to Jesus, if he was the Son of Man demonstrating the knowledge of the Kingdom of God in his teaching and its power in his miracles. Then it was serial unbelief in the identity of Jesus as the Son of Man that barred Nicodemus from seeing and entering the kingdom of God and not his thorough study of his scripture. In short, Jesus challenged the absence of belief in Nicodemus before giving him the heavenly answer on how he could be born anew.

We could paraphrase,

"If you have not believed what you have heard and seen of me on earth, how could you ever believe that I have the heavenly answer to your question?"

So it is with anyone. If we are unclear about how to receive spiritual birth in order to enter the spiritual realm of God, we need to focus honestly on whom we think Jesus is and investigate him more closely until we can say with integrity that we have searched the question of his identity as much as warranted.

The answer

The Son of man

Now with the question of the identity of the Teacher stirring in the mind of Nicodemus, and having been confronted with his unbelief, Jesus pointed him directly to the heart of God’s plan for him to be born anew. He swung the conversation from a discussion about the indefinable Spirit of God to direct engagement with the specific identity of the Son of Man in prophecy. The Jewish scholars considered this heavenly man to be as close to Deity as possible without being Deity. He was man yet heavenly. He was given authority to rule all the nations. He accepted their worship as a global ruler. The Jews had to recognise this made him almost divine, but they did not know how in relationship to Yahweh, who alone was worthy of worship as their one God. To worship another was blasphemy. And the rule of this Son of Man would be eternal.

"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence.  He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed".

(Daniel 7:13)

Nicodemus no doubt had studied previously this Son of Man and equated him with the Messiah prophesied in his scriptures. There is a strong possibility that Nicodemus had also heard Jesus taking the title Son of Man upon himself again and again. That would have been disturbing to this scholar. Son of Man was the term Jesus used predominantly for himself throughout his ministry. He avoided the politically charged and distorted title of Messiah at that time. There had been many messiahs in his day, who had raised expectations then come to naught. To claim to be the Messiah, as he later did with the Samaritan woman, would have distracted this political ruler of the Jews.

Jesus therefore restricted his answer to Nicodemus’ question, "How can these things be?" to the role of the Son of Man as the one who can bring about his spiritual birth into the kingdom of God.

"Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: so that whoever believes in him (trusts wholly in him) should not perish, but have eternal life". (v. 14-15)

Using this statement, Jesus expanded on the revelation of the Heavenly Man. He was more than a global ruler to come. He was to be lifted up as the focus for the faith of Nicodemus and all people to gain eternal life. Could Nicodemus stay with the conversation and accept this expansion by Jesus of all that he had studied?

Nicodemus was well schooled on Moses. He most likely could quote his full writings by heart. He knew of the incident Jesus referenced of Moses being commanded by God to lift up a brass serpent on a pole in the midst of the tribes of Israel who had been smitten with the deadly poison of snakes sent by God into their midst because of their rebellion. Simply obeying God’s command to look at the serpent was all that was needed to be healed and saved from death. That’s all it took to be forgiven and saved – trust in God’s promise. The claims of Jesus now could not be clearer. To paraphrase:

Nicodemus, if you believed that I am the Son of Man, as I have called myself in public over and over again, then you need to trust in my heavenly identity in order to be born anew and receive eternal life.

Jesus presented a new purpose of the Son of Man – not just as the Messiah to come and exercise global physical rule but as the One who gives spiritual life, viz.,

"…whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life". (v. 14-15)

Could Nicodemus accept this interpretation of how the Messiah would rule as the Son of Man? Was he ready for Jesus to link this tangible event in Israel’s redemptive history to some future lifting up of the Son of Man chosen by God to be the focus of the faith needed to bring spiritual healing and life? Could he now see that his own spiritual birth was directly linked to how he personally responded to the heavenly Son of Man being lifted up as the object of the faith he needed to exercise to bring about his spiritual salvation? The lifting up of the Son of Man provided for Nicodemus the intersection of the heavenly with the physical – a heavenly act of God on earth requiring his earthly response. Could he now see and accept that belief in Jesus as the Son of Man was the key that released the Wind of God needed to bring about the new spiritual birth? His beliefs were being stretched and his knowledge of his scriptures stretched.

The Son of God

Making the Son of Man the object of the faith that is needed to receive the new birth stretched Nicodemus’ past understanding of the Son of Man. But that did not challenge the monotheistic beliefs of Nicodemus. Therefore at this point, building on the role of the Son of Man in receiving eternal life, Jesus now pushed Nicodemus all the way to grasping his full identity. Now he stretched Nicodemus’ understanding of monotheism. At this crescendo of his teaching, Jesus equated the Son of Man, who descended from heaven, with the fully divine Son of God. Both were one offering the same free gift of salvation by the same means of faith. By deduction, they were one and the same identity.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes (trust wholly) in him (and his identity) shall not perish, but have everlasting life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world to save the world through him. He that believes on him is not condemned: but whoever does not believe in him is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son". (v. 16)

There it is Nicodemus. This Son of Man is the Son of God sent from eternity. He was not just a son of man born to an earthly mother but the only begotten Son of God who came from above to reveal heavenly things about the kingdom of God and to be mankind’s sole God-sent Saviour from the eternal condemnation of God. That is the only deduction Nicodemus could draw from Jesus’ statements.

The understanding of Nicodemus had now been pushed all the way from believing that the Son of Man was almost divine to having to believe that he was fully Divine and critical to him gaining new birth and the certainty of eternal life. How could Nicodemus, as a devout Pharisees and ruler of Israel, who worshipped only one God, Yahweh, come close to embracing these linked statements of Jesus? Worshipping, trusting and obeying the one God Yahweh was the very reason behind his life and nation. How could Nicodemus reconcile the scriptures he had made his life’s work with these explosive claims of Jesus being the Son of Man and Son of God, whom he had to trust? Memorised scriptures on God being the one and only god would have shot through his mind, such as these:

"Before me no god was formed,
    nor will there be one after me.
I, even I, am the Yahweh,
    and apart from me there is no saviour". (Isa 43:11)

"This is what the Yahweh says —
    Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty:
I am the first and I am the last;apart from me there is no God…

You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me?
    No, there is no other Rock; I know not one." (Isa 44:6,8)

To summarise:

"There is no other God besides me. No other saviour apart from me".

We can imagine the turmoil this generated in the mind of Nicodemus:

"Who then is this Son of God when there is no other God? Who is this saviour when there is no saviour apart from Yahweh? Who is this god and saviour that this Teacher, who claims to have seen and to speak heavenly things, is saying I must trust fully in order to receive my spiritual birth by the Spirit into everlasting life? Who is this saviour of the world that condemns me, if I will not place my trust in him? Are his claims the greatest of blasphemies, or have I missed seeing a Son of God in my studies of the scriptures? If I have, how do I reconcile a Son of God with Yahweh the first and the last and the only God?

With such questions whirling in Nicodemus’ mind, could he stay with the culmination of the mind-expanding journey on which Jesus had taken him? Could he marry up what he saw in Jesus with how Jesus interpreted the scriptures? Was Jesus, as he presented himself, present in all the scriptures? Did his observed life flawlessly match the astronomical claims he was making. If not, he deserved execution in haste. If it did, he deserved the life commitment of Nicodemus against all the attacks he might face from his monotheistic compatriots, who were hungry for the blood of Jesus. Jesus left Nicodemus with no alternative but to come to an authentic decision about his identity as the Son of God.

At this point of challenging all the past intellectual efforts of Nicodemus’ search for eternal life, and with Nicodemus reeling from trying to grasp the validity of an identity called, "Son of God", Jesus turned the mind of Nicodemus from his mind back to his heart, from his intellectual concepts to the true issue blocking his search for finding eternal life:

¹⁹ "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God".

To paraphrase:

"So this is the verdict we arrive at, Nicodemus. Light has now come into the world exposing the hearts of those who love their sins and those who genuinely seek to live by truth. The response of each person’s heart to the Light makes public their true motivation towards God – hate or acceptance; preference to live a lie or to seek truth; love of self over God, or love of God over self. The Light exposes the actual moral state of the heart hidden under self-righteous facades. The Light highlights that trust in God’s love, and in the gift of his one and only Son, is the path to spiritual birth".

The evil doer still knows what is wrong. He still knows that he commits evil. The evidence of this is that he lives daily with the fear of exposure. He hides what he does. He hides from his family. He even tries to hide from himself using habits to distract and elaborate rationalisations to justify his behaviour. And thus he sinks even further into a cesspool of deception. He becomes lies through and through. Shine the light of truth into whatever space is left in his heart and he recoils with intense pain. There is horror in having an entire web of deception exposed all at once. But God has mercy to the one who comes to the light.

Again, Jesus had made a claim that linked directly into a Messianic prophecy with which Nicodemus would have been familiar:

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness
    from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. (Isa 9:1, 6-7)

Now Nicodemus was confronted with the linkage of the Light Jesus claimed had come into the world with the light prophesied over 700 years previously that was a child who would rule forever and have titles only worthy of Yahweh. This was a huge and apparently blasphemous leap for Nicodemus to embrace. Yet the claim of Jesus was that the genuine seeker of the truth about spiritual birth and eternal life, in this case Nicodemus, could not avoid accepting his words and coming to the light in full trust of him.

In a short interview, Jesus had taken Nicodemus from the mandatory requirement to be born anew to enter the kingdom of God, to the role of the Spirit/Wind in creating spiritual birth, to the identity and role of the Son of Man, and the identity and role of the Son of God to give spiritual birth, who is the Son of Man, the Light and the Messiah. His mind must have been reeling. How could he, and when could he, resolve these new and apparently contradicting claims of a Teacher, whose power and endorsement by God he could not deny because of his miracles?

The subsequent actions of Nicodemus show how he resolved these questions. He stood up among his hostile colleagues in defence of Jesus receiving a fair trial (John 7:50-2). With Joseph of Arimathea, he took the body of Jesus down from the cross, prepared it for burial and placed it in Joseph’s tomb. (John 19: 39-40) Nicodemus, therefore, became a prominent example in early Christian history of a leading scholar and ruler, who weighed the evidence about Jesus against his life and the prophecies about the coming Messiah and concluded that he was the Son of God and the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 redeeming mankind from their sins. We cannot dismiss his example when considering our own position relative to Jesus 2,000 years later. Nicodemus had firsthand experience with Jesus observing him on many occasions, whereas we do not. Moreover, his knowledge of the historical events and prophecies that Jesus fulfilled was much more thorough than our own. What convinced Nicodemus to place his full trust in Jesus? What in addition to reviewing the encounter of Jesus with Nicodemus do we need to convince us? How do you plan to journey?

Comments on the answer

Uniqueness

Were the claims of Jesus to Nicodemus about his identity unique in history?

They certainly were. Do they have any validation? They certainly do. The fulfilments by Jesus of the many prophecies about the coming Messiah testify to his authenticity. His widely witnessed miracles and sinless character further validate his authenticity. Then, his witnessed resurrection and living presence teaching his disciples his identity for the following one and a half months validate his claim to be the sole avenue to eternal life provided by God. The quality of his apostles writings add to this certainty along with the power and testimony of their own subsequent lives, which were marked by miracles, courage, and joy to be considered worthy to suffer with Jesus and to die for his name. Did they die for a lie against this unparalleled weight of evidence? What is your honest assessment?

Exclusiveness

Is the claim of Jesus exclusive?

Yes, it is exclusive of other philosophies and religious claims of ways to gain eternal life. No other historical figure has demonstrated any validity to be able to promise eternal life. Hence, this claim of Jesus is exclusive of other philosophical and religious claims, but it is not exclusive of any person. The claim is exclusive but its offer is universal. The offer in his claim is that whoever chooses to believe in his identity receives the guarantee of eternal life as promised. This offer is the cause of powerful transformations in the lives of prisoners around the world and those trapped in their own prison.

Those who object to Jesus making a claim that is exclusively focused on him as the Son of God make no rational sense and base their objections on other factors. It is only common sense that the Son of God, who is fully God, is the way to God. What other way to God is there but God? In other words, the way to God is God. That should not be surprising. This should not been seen solely as a matter of exclusivity but also as a matter of identity. He has to invite us to him (no one else can). He has to provide the way (no one else can), and he has to take us to himself (no one else can). The only way back to God for the human race that has broken trust in God is the restoration of trust in him. Jesus came to show us God so that we could trust him. To trust in the Son of God is to trust in God the Spirit, who initiates the miraculous gift of the second birth when he comes to dwell within our hearts, as prophesied by Jeremiah and Jesus. This is Spirit giving birth to spirit just as flesh gives birth to flesh. To know God spiritually is to know the Spirit and the Son. To trust God is to trust the Son and the Spirit. We should not be surprised that the way to enter the eternal presence of God is by trusting all who the Son is. What other option is there? Seriously, is it to trust in someone who has no identity other than being a man?

Evidence

Every day someone in the world comes back from the dead and comes to life by embracing these emphatic teachings ofJesus to Nicodemus. Are you crazy?" you say. "No resurrections have hit the daily media cycle to my knowledge. Where is the evidence?" I simply reply, "You are sounding like Nicodemus. You can only think in physical terms".

1. Evidence from the life of Jesus

Firstly, much evidence is found in the words of Jesus backed up by his life, death, resurrection and exaltation – all being witnessed by many. The evidence confirms his power to bring our spirit to life forever. To take just one example, Jesus elevated the trust in him by grief stricken Martha with the clear statement,

"I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes (trusts)  in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.Do you believe this?"

This was the critical issue for Martha – could she trust in Jesus as the Giver of Life when her brother had died, because Jesus had not turned up in time to heal him? Jesus then confirmed this claim to her by bringing her brother back from the dead.  So it is today. Those who believe are spiritually resurrected. Then Jesus confirms to each trusting person his identity as their Resurrection and Life by a succession of miracles in their lives, for which there are no words except praise and gratitude. Spiritually born people will tell of these miracles, and there are some who have been physically resurrected in our era.^[2]

2. Evidence all around us

Secondly, we see resurrection evidence all around us in people with whom we interact. Have you ever seen or talked with someone whose whole persona, values and interests have changed dramatically from a look of death to the look of one brought alive from the dead? Have you ever asked them what changed in their life? Have you seen a stark difference between this newly alive person and the blank-eyed faces of the walking dead in our city streets, in our workplaces, in our clubs and in our homes?" We interact with the walking dead every day – people stuck in some achievement of the past upon which they hang their whole identity trying to gain some sense of value; those who live by a belief system that is propped up by handed down prejudices and has never thoroughly been examined; others who live by superstition of their own making or found in their religion. These are the walking dead.

It does not take us long to become aware of the walking dead, if over time we take care to observe body language and listen to the quality of life that comes out of a person’s mouth and actions of love. Observe the person trying to suck meaning out of a bottle of alcohol day after day, because no meaning comes from within. Notice the one trying to establish some meaning out of an endless pursuit of sexual encounters, sporting achievements and boasting in the pub. Listen to the person rehashing, in a dreary monotone, experiences long gone as they try to convince others, and perhaps even themselves, that some life still remains in their deadened existence.

3. Evidence within

Thirdly, we can observe the death of our own spirit when we experience the sensation of just going through the motions wondering, "What is the purpose of it all?" It is then that we need to be brought back from the dead through a new birth of our spirit.

The one who has lost all hope in life is dead already. We can easily detect this in ourselves. It is a symptom of death. It is a heavy weight that is forever with a person as they plod out each day unable to extract any meaning or life from it. As a result, they display a dead, self-centred cavalier attitude to people and events around them. Ceaseless gossipers are dead, already bound by their habitual addiction of needing to tear down the reputations of others to camouflage their own vacuous centre. Ever been there? Surprisingly, the great achiever basking in fame can be dead already, just as much as the person who lives in daily drudgery. They indulge in their dreams of applause, in order to avoid confronting themselves, yet fearful all the time that they will be found out for how empty they really are. Hence, they hide in the glitz of a constant social whirl projecting a superficial physical image for an applause that has no life in itself. The dead applauding the dead can never bring life.

So we need to test ourselves. Has our life come to the place of sensing it has no meaning? Then don’t miss the fact that a dead spirit creates a meaningless and plodding existence and not the reverse. Meaningless, boredom and never-ending routine do not kill the spirit. They are symptoms of a spirit that is already dead. We need to face the fact that we must start looking for the causes of our symptoms from the inside out, rather than from the outside in. This deadness is not done to us. We choose to perpetuate it and live in it when eternal Life is on offer.

The decision to escape this death rests solely with each of us. Our choice is between existence with a dead spirit, or our spirit brought alive by the One who resurrects dead spirits by dwelling within with his resurrected life. It is only common sense to choose our Creator’s life that lasts forever. Insecure pride will block it. That is the sustained choice of the fool. The humility of personal honesty with God about oneself will release it. The wise choose to trust and invite everlasting Divine Life to live within as the living Spirit of Jesus. Wise or a fool as assessed by the statements of Jesus?

The endorsement by John the Baptist

Having recorded the lengthy encounter of Jesus with Nicodemus, John follows up with a public endorsement of Jesus by John the Baptist as the prophesied forerunner to the coming Messiah (Isaiah 40:3). His endorsement of Jesus concludes,

³⁶ Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

This endorsement closely echoes the claim Jesus made to Nicodemus,

"…he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life… : but whoever does not believe in him is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son". (3:16-18)

Both statements are about the Son of God, both about possessing eternal/everlasting life through belief/trust in him, and both about the condemnation and wrath of God sitting on the person who is rejecting the Son.

The circumstantial setting

The precise time of the endorsement of Jesus by John the Baptist is not clear other than John giving a general sequencing of time,

²² After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized.

John indicates that Jesus split his time between his disciples and baptising. While giving personalised time in building the relationship between himself and his disciples, Jesus continued his ministry to the masses.

John precedes the endorsement of Jesus by with an account of the disciples of John the Baptist becoming protective of his unique ministry and concerned that Jesus was siphoning off people seeking baptism from John the Baptist making his popularity grow greater.

²³ Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized. ²⁴ (This was before John was put in prison.) ²⁵ An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. ²⁶ They came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan — the one you testified about — look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him."

John the Baptist used their concern of dwindling popularity to explain the different roles he and Jesus had relative to each other. Then he reinforced the unique role of Jesus in determining each person’s eternal salvation or judgement.

The role of John the Baptist

²⁷ To this John replied, "A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. ²⁸ You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ ²⁹ The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. ³⁰ He must become greater; I must become less."

John the Baptist could not have been clearer. He knew the identity of Jesus as soon as he encountered him. In particular, he knew his role relative to Jesus that God had given to him in his plan of salvation for the human race. He clearly knew that he was not the bridegroom. Consequently, he knew that he did not own any person who responded to his preaching on the need for repentance and baptism. Therefore, he was free to focus his joy on the coming of Jesus and immediately point his followers away from himself to Jesus. He had already identified Jesus to his disciples as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (1:29), and God’s Chosen One, who will baptize seekers with the long-awaited Holy Spirit (1:33). Now with the coming of Jesus, John the Baptist knew that his God-ordained service was completed. He knew clearly that from now on Jesus would become greater, and he would become less. He knew that his role now was to point away from himself and point to Jesus the Divine source of all salvation.

So should it be with every church leader, who believes they have been chosen to teach their followers how to relate to Jesus in their daily lives. False teachers are quickly seen. They seek to become greater by using the unique appeal of Jesus to shift the focus artfully from Jesus to point to themselves. Their control increases, often accompanied by wealth, and teaching becomes marketing. They show no comparison with John the Baptist, who instantly pointed away from himself to Jesus, lived in the desert with no permanent dwelling, ate locusts and wild honey, and was clothed in a garment made of camel’s hair strapped on with a leather belt.

The identity and role of Jesus

Having clarified his God-given role relative to Jesus, John the Baptist proceeded to explain further the divine identity and role of Jesus. With his followers eyes directed away from him, he could now focus them on the unique aspects of the identity of Jesus.

1. His origin and status is unrivalled

³¹ The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all.

The heavenly origin of Jesus automatically places him above all humanity and therefore above all other leaders and teachers in any religion, who all speak from learning experiences, which are limited in time and place to earth. There are no exceptions. The claim of John the Baptist is that Jesus is above all humans.

2. His witness is first-hand

³² He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony.

A first-hand witness must be in sufficient proximity to see an event or hear a person clearly, in order for their witness to be valid and not distorted. Otherwise, it cannot be accepted as valid and undistorted. In addition, if the listener distrusts the impartiality of the witness, they cannot accept unreservedly their testimony as authentic and accurate.

Even if the authenticity and accuracy of a witness’ account is proven, this still do not guarantee acceptance of it by the listener. This has always been the case, because every listener filters all new information through their own created reality. Hence, the intellectual, emotional and spiritual composition of reality developed by many over their lifetime causes them to reject aspects of Jesus that do not suit, even though the historical accuracy of the biographies of him by his disciples have been proven. That is why Jesus warned that only a few will enter the narrow door that leads to eternal life.

If we do not take time to conduct an open review of the life of Jesus until we discover the authenticity of his claims about himself, we will reject him and his offer of eternal life. We will continue to hold tightly onto our view of reality that has been forged by sensory inputs bound to our physical realm on earth, while rejecting the teachings of Jesus that originate in heaven. We will not trust him with the control of our life. Our pride will not let go.

John the Baptist considered the witness of Jesus to be authentic, because it was first hand, i.e. what he had seen and heard. He claimed that the words of Jesus originate from the direct witness of a heavenly reality above, which no human has seen or heard. Accordingly, this witness of Jesus was accurate and unable to be matched by any human.

It is not surprising that John the Baptist claimed from his perspective that no one accepted the authentic testimony of Jesus. It was early days. The entrenched religious status quo still stood and held the nation captive.

3. His words are Divine truth

³³ Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. ³⁴ For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit.

John the Baptist then claims that the person who accepts the testimony of Jesus has certified that God is truth. How so? The reason is that the words of Jesus spoken on earth are the direct words of God accurately describing the reality he has created in heaven, and heard undistorted first hand by Jesus in heaven. Jesus continues to speak the words of God accurately today, because he has been given the Spirit of God as a limitless gift. He only speaks truth. On that basis Jesus could later claim to be the Truth (all truth) and the Life (all spiritual and creative life). (John 14:6)

Since this claim of John the Baptist, every earnest seeker of truth has discovered that Jesus is the Truth needed to understand life, make meaning of their own life, and be guided in living out its unique purpose. They also receive the Spirit without limit.

4. He has authority over all creation

John the Baptist now affirms the kingship of Jesus over all God’s creative work including each human. He explains that this comprehensive authority has been, and continues to be, an act of Divine Love.

The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.

Each of us have been placed before our birth in the domain of this Divine love and judgement exercised by Jesus. Paul says it this way,

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. (Ephesians 1:3-4)

Note that the choice has a purpose, i.e., to be holy (set apart) and blameless in his sight. That is the desired destiny of each person. Our task is to align ourself continually with this purpose.

5. Our eternal destiny hinges on him

³⁶ Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

It only takes a moment for each person to test if they are surrendering their daily life to Jesus in full trust and seeking to build their relationship with him, or if they are holding onto the control of their life refusing to open themselves to his control. John the Baptist made it clear that such a person lives under the wrath of God. They will never see life.

Personal response – surrender or pride-control

How have you assessed your own relationship with Jesus?

Jesus made it clear that he offered no middle ground option to his control of our life versus ours. Either we trust in him with our whole life, or our pride holds onto the decision-making role in our life. Trust in his demonstrated divine identity is what activates full surrender of our life to him. Then a relationship starts by him in response choosing to give his life to us. We now enter the super natural realm from our natural realm with his life in us. We now live by his life, which shines light upon the source of our emotions at any moment and the thoughts and choices they are producing. Now we see more clearly the division between our self-interest set against the need of another. Now our trust in Jesus opens us up to the choice of God’s Spirit in the moment and to let go of the competing desire of our pride’s self-preservation. Without his light shining within us we remain the ignorant pawn of our pride using our mind and will to justify any desire. We live in darkness creating convincing explanations and excuses for our behaviours and plans. We take self-glory in our spiritually dead accomplishments and insights instead of giving glory to the one who created us.

Each person knows if they are seeking to build their life according to their wishes, or if they trust Jesus enough to build their life according to his wishes. Those wishes are an expression of Infinite love that seeks out the highest good for the one loved. His wishes for each person are higher than our capability to imagine. They are inaccessible, however, to a pride that will not let go of control.

Therefore, assessing your relationship with Jesus begins and ends with elevating to self-awareness where your pride has placed its trust. Look at that honestly. As seen above, Nicodemus had much about which his pride could boast, yet he decided to risk it by going public before his ruling colleagues to defend Jesus in their forum and later assist in taking him down from his cross and placing him in a tomb. He let go of his pride to do so. He had chosen to trust Jesus, in order to receive spiritual life and live by his spirit united with the Spirit of God rather than by his academic knowledge. He heard and grasped what Jesus said to him,

"Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.  Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’

Nicodemus is an example of our need to look closely at whose desires are controlling us: our own or those of the Spirit of Jesus? It is critical for each person to look honestly at who controls who. Our eternal destiny is at stake in this assessment. Blatant and stupid pride will laugh this need away and never seriously approach understanding the identity of Jesus with an open mind. Fools do so.

How have you assessed your relationship with Jesus?

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1. The Greek word, πιςτέω (pisteo), used by John for ‘believe’, is more than intellectual assent of a person’s identity. It can also be translated, ‘trust’. It is a relationship term of engagement with trust in the person being believed. Each couple facing marriage is faced with this meaning of belief. Can I trust what I believe I can see? Attempts to love based on flawed trust lead to breakdown. Trust without love cannot create a marriage. ↩︎

2. For example see, A glimpse of eternity: One man’s story of life beyond death, as told by Jenny Sharkey (Sjöbergs Förlag AB, 2008) – the story of New Zealander Ian McCormick’s return from death after swimming into a school of box jelly fish in Mauritius. ↩︎