Jn. 2:23 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs that He did.
It is at this point that His miracles go public. They are for the purpose of authenticating His person and His message. What is His person? He is the Messiah. What is His message? He is offering the Kingdom of God spoken of by the prophets of Israel in the Hebrew Scriptures. These miracles serve as signs for the nation of Israel to come to a decision regarding His claims.
Jn. 2:24 But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men.
Human nature tends to forget miraculous happenings after a period of time. It will take more than just a few miracles to really start convincing people of who He is. These people’s hearts have been hardened and it will take a lot of convincing. Matter of fact, at the end of three and one half years of ministry, including four Messianic Miracles, a lot of people will still not be convinced.
Jn. 2:25 And had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.
Jn. 3:1 There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
One who has observed His miracles and is impressed by them is a man by the name of Nicodemus. The first thing to notice about Nicodemus is that he is a Pharisee and a “ruler” of the people. What this simply means is that Nicodemus is a member of the Sanhedrin, so he is a very important person in Jewish society. He is also mentioned in Talmudic literature as Nakdimon ben Bonai. Nicodemus is the Greek rendering of the name. According to the Talmud, he was one of the three richest men in Jerusalem who helped accumulate stones for the siege of the Romans in 70 C.E. We know by this information four things about him. By profession he was a digger of wells. He was one of the wealthiest men in Jerusalem. His real name was not Nicodemus, but Gorion. After he became a believer in Yeshua, he and his family somehow lost their wealth. According to the Mishnah, using an alternate name the rabbis gave him, Bonai was a disciple of Yeshua.
Sources: BT:Taanith 19b, 20b, 21a; Gittin 56a; M:Sanhedrin 43:1
What is about to happen will challenge one of the pivotal points of doctrine for the Pharisees. According to the Mishnah, “All of Israel has a share in the world to come (Olam haBa). If you were born a Jew that is sufficient for entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven (Malkut Shammayim). Another quotation from Pharisaic sources reads, “Abraham sits at the gate of Gehenna to snatch any Israelite consigned thereto.” If inadvertently some Jew was consigned to hell, not to worry. Abraham sits at the gates of Gehenna to prevent him from going on in. This teaching by the Pharisees will be contradicted by Yeshua to the “teacher of Israel” this night.
Source: M:Sanhedrin 10:1
Jn. 3:2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with Him.”
Many Pharisees served God faithfully in genuine devotion. Where the Gospels charge the Pharisees with hypocrisy, this must not be viewed as a summary of the entire movement. Later, when Christianity left Judaism and became a Gentile religion, the word “Pharisee” became a negative term to those who did not realize both the good and the bad. In fact, Yeshua, believing all the bible, would have aligned Himself with this group more than any other group of His day. Like the fundamentalist groups that are most critical of each other, so Yeshua pointed out the errors of His own group. We also have to remember that the Pharisees loved to argue doctrine with each other. Many of the instances that we see in the Gospels where we think the Pharisees are trying to trip up Yeshua is a typical doctrinal argument that went on all the time. All of the Pharisees, and even Yeshua, enjoyed these types of discussions. We see this even when He was twelve years old in the Temple.
Understandably this is a difficult situation for Nicodemus. Acknowledging the works of God or someone doing the works of God was not something to be taken lightly by the Jews, especially someone with Nicodemus’ background. On the other hand, there was a lot of people running around in those days making the same claims that Yeshua was. A man of Nicodemus’ stature had to be very careful who he was seen associating with.
Jn. 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
Jn. 3:4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born again when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
Now the way that Nicodemus responded to Yeshua has been missed too many times. Notice what Nicodemus says: “How can a man be born again when he is old?” The way this text is expounded by so many preachers is that Nicodemus does not understand anything about what Yeshua says. That is not the problem that Nicodemus has. He does understand something about the express “born again” because it is a very important expression in rabbinic theology. His problem is: “How can a man be born again when he is old?” If the question was merely how a man be born again, what difference does age make? Nicodemus’ problem is not understanding what it is to be born again, but rather, how can it happen when one is old.?
In Pharisaic Judaism there are six different way a man could be “born again.” Nicodemus qualified for four of them and did not qualify for two of them. The first one he did not qualify for was when a Gentile converted to Judaism. Since Nicodemus was a Jew, this was not an option for him. The second that he did not qualify for was when a man was crowned king of Israel. Nothing in this text says anything about the membership of Nicodemus in the house of David, and if he was, it would have been significant enough to mention. And even supposing that he was a member of the house of David, with the Jews under Roman domination there was no possibility of him being crowned king. So, this was not an option to him, either.
The four ways that were open to him he had already accomplished. When a Jew was Bar Mitzvah at age thirteen, he was said to be born again. Nicodemus was clearly well past the age of thirteen, and therefore, was already born again in this way. A second way that was open to him was when a Jew was married he was considered to be born again. Now, nothing is said about his wife, so how do we know that he was married? We are told that he was a “ruler of the Jews,” which meant that he was a member of the Sanhedrin. One of the prerequisites for membership in the Sanhedrin was that you had to be married. A single man could not be a member of the Sanhedrin. The third way that was available to him was when one was ordained as a rabbi. Since he was a ruler of the Jews and a Pharisee, that tells us that at some point he was ordained as a rabbi. The last way that was available to him was to be appointed as the head of a Rabbinic Academy. One who was merely a rabbi was given the title “rav,” meaning a “teacher.” One who was the head of a Rabbinic Academy was given the title “haRav,” meaning “the teacher.” The fact that Yeshua calls him “the teacher of Israel” tells us that he is the head of a Rabbinic Academy. So, Nicodemus had used up every way that he thought was available to him to be “born again” according to Jewish theology. That was the reason he phrased the question “How can a man be born again when he is old?” It was not that he misunderstood the term, but he simply felt that he had already used up his options. Yeshua was about to add another option for him that would be available to everyone regardless of race, gender, or creed.
Jn. 3:5 Jesus answered: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.”
Jn. 3:6 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
Jn. 3:7 “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’”
The concept of ritual immersion in the Mishnah and rabbinic literature is referred to as “new birth.” The baptismal water in rabbinic literature is referred to as the “womb of the world,” and as a convert came out of the water he was considered a “new creature,” separating him from the pagan world. As the convert came out of the water his status changed and he was referred to as a “little child just born,” or “a child of one day.” Rabbinic literature uses the term “born again” when a Gentile converts to Judaism.
Source: BT:Yevamoth 22a; 48b; 97b
Jn. 3:8 “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Jn. 3:9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”
Jn. 3:10 Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?”
Jn. 3:11 “Most assuredly, I say to you, we speak what we know and testify what we have seen, and you do not receive our witness.”
Jn. 3:12 “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you Heavenly things?”
Jn. 3:13 “No one has ascended to Heaven but He who came down from Heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in Heaven.”
Jn. 3:14 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”
Here He mentions the brass serpent. We have a reference to this also in the Talmud. “Is it possible for the serpent that killed to make alive? No! But, the case is that when the Israelites looked upward for help and subjected themselves to the will of their Father in Heaven, they were healed. When they did not, they perished.” Yeshua was using this example to let the people know that they could look to Him for healing and salvation. In Hebraic manner, this is another instance where He claims to be God Himself.
Sources: BT:Rosh HaShanah 3:8; Numbers 21:8, 9
Jn. 3:15 “That whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Jn. 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Here we have what might be a somewhat controversial interpretation of this verse. Christianity down through the years has always interpreted the “him” in this verse to mean Jesus Christ. A word study using the “Interlinear’s Bible” may suggest a different view. The word “him” in the Strong’s Concordance is #846, which according to the Strong’s and Thayer’s Greek Lexicon suggests that this word has the inherit meaning of “self,” meaning this word is referring to God. In other words, the interpretation of this verse would seem to indicate that one would receive eternal life simply through a belief in God. This interpretation would be confirmed by John 5:24 where the Lord makes the statement “he who believes on the One who sent Me has eternal life.” Since the Jewish people believe on YHVH the same as Christians, this would include them also. This would contradict a teaching in Christianity that has come down through the centuries that was probably originally based on early church anti-Semitism anyway.
Jn. 3:17 “For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
It is significant to note that the New Testament writers stressed that a Jew was to represent all of humanity. Yeshua would not have been chosen by vote or democratic process, but would be sent by God.
Jn. 3:18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
Jn. 3:19 “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because his deeds were evil.”
Jn. 3:20 “For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light. Lest his deeds be exposed.”
Jn. 3:21 “But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
