Nicodemus and the Birthing

“There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus” (John 3:1)

Nicodemus was the first person ever to hear the ultimate message of how the Father would place another life in the human being. His story and more – particularly his reaction to Christ’s message – are imperative to the believer’s understanding of the difference between true Christianity and “religion”.

By all worldly standards, Nicodemus was a wise man. Our Lord had discerned that such a man as this should be the recipient of the introduction of the concept of a new race of human beings on this earth. Nicodemus was highly trained, well-educated, and heavily entrenched in Jewish religion.

The message that Christ was to bring to this man, as well as to the whole world, was not a message of doctrinal points, nor ecclesiastic rituals and ideas, nor laws, but it was a message of LIFE. The time was at hand when God the Father would proceed with His original and ultimate intention which was the placing of His own nature, by the person of Christ, into human beings (Ephesians 1:4).

For 1700 years, God had dealt only with Jews through the Law and had proven during that period of time that they could not keep the whole Law and, therefore, could not please God. Now it was time to tell Israel, as well as the whole world, that the only way human beings can ever have the fullness of God’s righteousness would be to have another life placed in them – a life which was in total union and obedience to the Father.

Thus, Nicodemus is chosen by Jesus as a representative character. He is religion personified. He is the epitome of all that men do to try to please God by religion. Jesus is revealing to Nicodemus that God does not want man to do anything to prove himself pleasing to Him, but rather God will do something in man which will cause man only to have “to be” rather than “to do.”

“He came to Jesus by night, and said to Him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that you do except God be with him’” (John 3:2).

This statement shows that Nicodemus was not ready to put himself on the line as a knower or believer in Christ because he used the general term “we”. He was still holding back a little – he could not embrace the Savior fully and completely because the authorization had not come from his peer group or governing body. We also see that Nicodemus, with all of his knowledge, is still bent on do-er religion since he had only seen what Jesus had done and not who He was. What Jesus wanted Nicodemus to see was that Jesus had been birthed by God as God’s firstborn Son on this earth (with many more sons to follow) and was Israel’s Messiah.

“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God’” (John 3:3).

It is no time to talk about how Jesus is a teacher or a miracle-worker, or to talk about Israel and her needs. The only thing that is going to make a difference in this world is the core message which Jesus must bring at this time. Not only is it the only hope for mankind to be saved and to gain eternal life, but it holds in its truth the seed which rules the whole universe. Ephesians 1:4 declares, “According as He has chosen us IN CHRIST before the foundation of the world.”

At this very moment, there stood before Nicodemus this One Who had been supernaturally birthed by God the Father, and it was now time for Christ to announce to the world the unbelievable message that would radically transcend the third dimension and bring about God’s original intention.

It is announced, with finality over Moses’ Law, over Judaism, and over all God’s dealings with religious Israel, that the only way anyone can ever please God is to be BORN AGAIN.

The whole idea of a new birth is beyond the comprehension of Nicodemus. But now and forever, the message is brought to the world and to the governing seat of religion, that it is not works that we do, nor any doing at all that will bring about the plan of God, but rather, “You must be born again.”

The thought goes beyond all finite comprehension because this is the first time in the history of creation that there has ever been any break in God’s operation of life and nature. Up until this time, every birthing that had taken place had required a natural father placing his sperm into a mother’s ovum; by the union of the two, there was produced another person. Every seed had brought forth fruit of its kind. But now, for the first time in history, the God-Son has announced to all creatures that God intends that there must be another kind of birthing. This new birthing would have a new father, not of this earth, not of natural men, but solely from the Spirit of God.

This meant that no creature had true life until that birthing took place, for sinners were dead in their sin. The reason for the universe and its creation was to bring about this new creature, a believer in whom Christ is the only life. The way and means for this whole new people to come about would be “another birthing”. These people were to be a new race with a new Father, able to live a new kind of life upon this earth.

It is necessary that men be born again; otherwise, they will keep extending what God had previously done in the Scriptures, which is the basis for manmade religion. Neither Abraham nor Moses nor David nor anyone else in the Old Testament ever knew or understood this concept that God was going to birth His own children on earth. God was going to place His very own nature in the creature. From that time on, He would depend on His own nature rather than anything the creature could produce by himself.

Finally, we can summarize the character of the birthing very simply. It is not reformation of the outer man. It is not education of the natural man. It is not purification of the old man. But it is the creation of a whole new man, a new race.

The phrase Jesus used, “You must be born again,” is used outside of this context with Nicodemus only one other time in the Scriptures: Peter makes the same statement in 1 Peter 1:23. It is mentioned nowhere else in the Scripture.

However, the greatest teacher and enunciator of what it meant to be born again was the apostle Paul. Paul coined another term concerning what it meant to be born again: “…in Christ”. Paul uses the phrase “in Christ” or its equivalent over 50 times in his letters. And Paul stresses that “in Christ” is also equivalent to the “mystery of Christ in you” (Colossians 1:27); and to “…Christ lives in me…” (Galatians 2:20).

Ultimately, what the birthing afforded was the bringing about of a whole new race of people. The great difference between this new race and religionists is that religionists are still trying to perfect the old race while Christ in believers is bringing about a new creation life utterly above and beyond religious living.

“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” (John 3:16).

Ironically, the most often-quoted verse of Scripture in all religious circles is John 3:16. Yet so often religion, which has glossed over the birthing, is ignorant of the fact that this very verse was spoken to the greatest personification of religion in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.

What was it that made the Father come up with such an unbelievable plan in the first place? It was love. He wanted to bestow His love upon His own birthed sons and daughters – members by birth of His own Family containing His very divine nature.

This is why true Christianity (the birthing of a new race) stands over and above the religions of the world. These religions can only pursue love by means of law. Religion would confine the message of the love of God to those who believe the collection of scriptures which constitute its singular doctrines.

When Jesus speaks the message of love to Nicodemus, He says it plainly, “God so loved [loves] the world”, not just a few, not just Jews, not just Gentiles, but God so loves everyone who has come into the world.

It must have been a very solemn life for Nicodemus after the confrontation with Jesus – solemn by the fact that he now had certain information put into him by Jesus which was contrary to everything he believed and had been taught. Prior to this time, the only way men could please God was by their obeying the law and, in sin, offering the sacrifice of an innocent substitute of lamb, goat, bullock, or turtle-dove. Divine purpose was now unfolding for him. The love of Christ flows at this point because He lets Nicodemus know that, even though this is a whole new plan of God to go into operation by the birthing, His purpose in this world is not to condemn Nicodemus, the Jews, Israel, or religion, but rather to bring about eternal salvation for all people.

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