Chapter # 3 Paragraph # 1 Study # 6
September 3, 2023
Broadlands, Louisiana
(Download Audio)
Thesis: The "believe into" issue is narrowed down to Jesus' identification with the brass serpent of
Numbers 21: God's provision of a "solution" for the "sin" problem.
Introduction: In our previous study in this record, we considered the beginning of Jesus' answer to the question of Nicodemus, "How can these things be?" In that study we saw that Jesus deliberately accused Nicodemus of being "The Teacher of The Israel", but ignorant as to the most fundamental issue of "teaching". I argued that Jesus did not do that "hatefullly", but as a necessary prerequisite to any real understanding of the rest of the "How" question. If a person is unwilling to accept the necessity of an "again birth", the position that person is taking is that of "I am not terribly guilty of violating God's purposes for me" rather than a "I have so totally missed the purposes of God that I desperately need to start over altogether".
This morning we are going to move on to the second part of Jesus' answer to the "How" question.
- I. Jesus' Continuing Response To Nicodemus' Rejection Of The Necessity Of Starting Over.
- A. Nicodemus' rejection of the statement "you must be born again" was rooted in his lack of "material world" evidence (at the individual level he had never seen an "again birth" of a human being) and his lack of "relational world" experience (at the national level of an "again birth", having heard only of Israel's "first birth" out of Egypt).
- B. Jesus' Response.
- 1. He uses the "wind" as a "this world" phenomenon and points to the fact that it is inescapable in terms of its "sound".
- 2. He likens the "born again" person to the wind which makes its "sound" (this would be the "noise" that a born again person -- Jesus and His works -- inserts into the "this world" reality), but is unknown as to source and destination.
- C. Nicodemus' subsequent question: How are these things empowered to make this discernible difference?
- D. Jesus' response to this "How" question.
- 1. First, He exposes Nicodemus' massive failure.
- 2. Second, He pronounces another "Verily, verily" statement.
- 3. Third, He accuses Nicodemus of "rejecting our witness".
- E. He declares that He has explained a sufficient number of "earthly" ("material world") things to lay a foundation for "believing", but that Nicodemus and his ilk have not "believed".
- 1. This is the eighth text, of eighty-five, that uses the verb "pisteuo".
- a. The first such text is 1:7 where we are told that we cannot bypass the message of John (the preparer) and ever get to "faith in Jesus".
- b. The second such text is 1:12 where we are told that "faith into the name of Jesus" is responded to by God with an "again birth" that makes those who so "believe" "children of God".
- c. The third text is 1:50 where Jesus questions Nathanael's exuberant declarations that Jesus is "Rabbi", "The Son of The God", and "The King of The Israel" with "do you believe?"
- d. The fourth is 2:11 where we are told that His disciples "believed into Him", possibly indicating that Nathanael's exuberance was not well founded (just as Peter's was ill-founded in 13:38).
- e. The fifth is 2:22 where the disciples are described as "believing in the Scripture" after Jesus was raised from the dead.
- f. The sixth and seventh are in 2:23-24 where the issue of "belief" is drawn out quite clearly: it is a matter of "entrusting oneself to the object of faith".
- 2. And, finally, this text (3:12) is the eighth: Jesus' accusation that Nicodemus "is not believing".
- F. He questions how Nicodemus can think to understand His explanations of the "heavenly things" ("relational world realties") if he refuses to move from his "locked in" material perspective to God's "revealed" relational perspective.
- 1. At this point, He declares a fourth "Verily, verily" statement.
- a. There are twenty-five of these "Verily, verily" statements in this Gospel. They stack one upon the other; none can be safely ignored.
- b. Three of the first four of these "Verily, verily" statements are in this conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus (the first of these being Jesus' declaration to Nathanael regarding what he would "see").
- 2. The issues of this fourth statement.
- a. Focus upon two factors.
- 1) First, that Jesus is speaking of things that He absolutely knows, because He "has seen" them.
- 2) Second, that Nicodemus "is not receiving" (Present Active Indicative) Jesus' testimony of what He has seen.
- a) This is the third use of forty-one texts found in this Gospel of the verb "lambano".
- b) The very first use is in 1:12-13 where we are told that "receiving" Him is the issue of being "born of God".
- c) The second use is in 1:16 where we are told that "grace upon grace" is the outcome of "receiving": once born of God, one becomes the object of God's outpouring of "grace".
- b. Puts Nicodemus into the uncomfortable position of having to either recant his first claim ("...we know that from God You have come as Teacher..."), or begin to receive Jesus' "testimony".
- 1) But Jesus declares that Nicodemus is not "receiving".
- 2) This means that Nicodemus is not willing to rest his understanding upon the "testimony" of another (although the vast majority of what Nicodemus thinks he knows is rooted not in his personal experiences, but in "testimony" from others; his "position" of disbelief is irrational).
- 3. The crux of the answer to Nicodemus' "How" question.
- a. The historical example of Moses' obedience to God in providing a brass serpent affixed to a pole so as to be elevated in the camp for anyone/everyone to be able to "see" it, is Jesus' "answer".
- b. The critical issues of this example.
- 1) Are rooted solely in the promise of God in the setting of the great sin of the people.
- a) The sin was grievous; the consequences were deadly; and the people were forced by the deaths of their fellow Israelites to go to Moses to seek a solution.
- b) The requirement was only that one "look and live".
- c) There is no challenge to the people to "commit" to any course of action in addition to "looking": this is because no one can actually "commit" when the foundations are inadequate.
- d) The immediate issue is "faith" in the "look and live" promise.
- 2) The "serpent" was a deliberate "presentation" of what was, superficially, causing death.
- a) When the New Testament says that Jesus was made to be "Sin" for us, it is telling us that "Jesus became the serpent" in terms of the provision that was extended to any/every one who "looked" upon the serpent and saw it as a provision for their "sin".
- b) The imagery was deliberately NOT an image of the triumphant killer of the serpent; it was the serpent itself as the death-dealing adversary sent into the camp to kill the guilty.
- c) This imagery is qualified by Jesus in 3:17 where He distances Himself from the serpent as "destroyer" in terms of why He came.
- d) This imagery is deliberately Jesus as the "brass serpent" and not an actual serpent; i.e., the "solution" rather than the death-dealing problem.
