“How Can This Be? (John 3:14-21)

Who Am I?

There was a bright and promising young man. He loved God. He was so earnest and serious about his faith. So he became a Pharisee – a prominent religious group in the Jewish community at that time. Since he was outstanding, he was able to go up the ladder and became a leader of a Jewish ruling council. He also became a respected scholar and teacher of his people. But when he thought he knew everything, when he thought he had reached the pinnacle of his life, he felt miserable. He felt lost. It was quite an embarrassing experience. All of sudden, so many questions were bubbling up inside. Finally, after much struggle he came to see Jesus at night seeking answers and guidance.   

Nicodemus and Jesus

Who is this person? Nicodemus. He desired to change. He wanted to have a new sense of purpose, a new sense of calling, a new sense of wholeness. He wanted new mind and new personality. But he didn’t know HOW. Jesus went straight to the heart of the matter, “Nicodemus, unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus was perplexed. Jesus continued, “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water (repentance) and the Spirit.” Nicodemus was even more astonished. Jesus graciously helped him understand with the wind metaphor. We don’t know where the wind comes from or where it is going. But we can’t deny there is the wind. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Their new birth, their “fruits of the Spirit” cannot be hidden. But Nicodemus was still perplexed, “How can this be?”

Are you like Nicodemus? Do you want to change? Do you want your life renewed? Do you want to know your calling? Do you want to be born from above and understand how it can really happen? Nicodemus is a representative of humanity. Nicodemus is you and me. That’s why in today’s passage Jesus uses a second person plural (vv. 7, 11, 12). He was talking to Nicodemus, but at the same time, he was talking to all of us. Nicodemus asked Jesus, “How can this be?” Today we ask, “How can this be?” “How can we have this new birth?”

 

The Serpent on the Pole

Now we move on to the most glorious part of the Bible. Jesus says, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (v. 15). In numbers 21, as the Israelites made a detour around the land of Edom, they became discouraged and impatient. They spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is nothing to eat here and nothing to drink. And we hate this horrible manna!” So God sent poisonous serpents among the people, and many were bitten and died. The people came to Moses and asked, “We have sinned! Please pray to God to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. God said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent and put it on a pole. Whoever is bitten and looks at it will live.”

Here the serpents are symbolic of sin. It was a serpent that tempted Adam and Eve in the garden, thereby bringing sin into the world. Since then, our very natures – our affections and wills – have been polluted. The Bible says, “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10). Then we see a replica of a serpent lifted up on a pole. What does this mean? It means our Lord became sin (a serpent) for us. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”” This story of the serpent foreshadows looking to Jesus for our salvation.

Moses raised that serpent up high, and anyone who was bitten and looked at the bronze serpent, that person lived.” No matter how horribly they were bitten, no matter how many times they had been bitten, no matter how serious they were sick, they were healed and saved. The worst sinner who looks to Christ will be saved. The new birth, the radical change, is available and possible only when Christ Jesus takes our infected natures upon himself, bears the venom, and imparts a new nature to us. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, that person is a new creation; the old life has gone, the new life has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

 

Look to Jesus

Corrie Ten Boom rightly said, “If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. If you look at God (Christ), you'll be at rest.” The Spirit exhorts us through John 3, “Don’t try to find a cure for the venom for yourselves. Give up your dependence on yourselves – your cleverness, your self-help, your self-improvement. Do not look within and without, but just look to Jesus and live!” God says in Isaiah 45:22, “Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.” So look to Christ lifted up on high on the cross, and believe, and have eternal life.

We need this saving grace – not only at the very first hour when we become a Christian, but also every hour. I don’t know about you, but for me, I am so often and easily sidetracked and discouraged and lose sight of my calling. But when we fix our eyes on Jesus, everything becomes crystal clear – our calling, our purpose of life. And we grow and become more and more like Christ.

At first, Nicodemus didn’t get it. But as time went by, especially after our Lord was crucified, he put it all together. He realized that Jesus became the serpent on the pole (the curse on the tree), so that he might be healed, cleansed, and become his righteousness. So he came to the Jewish leaders and boldly claimed Jesus’ body for burial. That day Nicodemus looked to Jesus lifted up and crucified and lived.

 

The Love of God

John Calvin teaches that we are not truly converted by merely understanding doctrine, but by grasping God’s love so that the inner structure and motivation of the heart are changed.[1] So how can this be? How can we have this new birth? The answer is through the extravagant love of God. “For God so loved the world (your name) that he gave his only Son, that you may believe in him and should not perish but have eternal life” (v. 16).

Many of us love to sing F. M. Lehman’s great hymn, “The Love of God Is Greater Far.” Interestingly, the last verse was not written by him, but by the person who found the great love of God in a prison about a thousand years ago. It was inscribed on the wall next to the bed of this person:

 

Could we with ink the ocean fill

And were the skies of parchment made,

Were every stalk on earth a quill

And every man a scribe by trade,

To write the love of God above

Would drain the ocean dry,

Nor could the scroll contain the whole

Though stretched from sky to sky.

How can this be? Whoever we are and wherever we are on the journey, the new birth, the new life is possible because of the great love of God. So let us turn our eyes and look to Jesus. Let us look not just once or twice, but until we grasp God’s love – how deep and how wide it is – so that our inner being and our heart are changed. This is my prayer. This is our prayer.

---

[1] Collin Hansen, Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation (p. 102). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.