John 3 - Introduction

CHAPTER III.

CHRIST AND NICODEMUS.

This chapter relates another and. remarkable incident of this visit to Jerusalem, an interview with. member of the Sanhedrim,. prominent Pharisee. The last verses of the second chapter state that there were many who believed in Jesus when they saw his miracles, not with that unfaltering trust that commits everything to the Lord, but. belief that he was. man of God. One of this number was Nicodemus, who came confessing that Jesus must be "a teacher come from God," because no man could do such miracles unless God was with him, and who sought to learn more in. private interview. In order to understand the significance of the Savior's words to him, the reader must inform himself as to the position of this "ruler of the Jews." He was. prominent member of the most influential sect of Israel, of an order who were in great repute on account of their reputation for holiness,. body of Hebrew saints elevated above the rest of the Jews by their devotion to the law of God. The body probably had its beginning about the time of the Captivity, but we discover it first as. power in Israel at the time of the great revival of the Maccabees, about two centuries before the time of this interview. At that time there was. determined effort to detach the Jewish nation from the religion of their fathers and to induce them to adopt the ways of the Syrian Greeks. Against this attempt the Pharisees set themselves with the sternness of Puritans and were. buckler to the Maccabees in their effort to re-establish the national freedom with the ancient religion. Seeking, at first, the preservation of the law of Moses with all its rites in their original purity, they gradually degenerated into. set of formalists who kept the letter of the law while its spirit was lost. In the time of the Savior the two fundamental rules were to pay tithes of everything, even to mint and cumin, and to keep rigidly every ceremonial required to secure legal purification. Hence, they made. great show of sanctity, were outwardly very religious, and esteemed themselves much holier than the rest of the people, but at the same time were proud, puffed up, and really corrupt at heart. My space will not allow me to go into details, but these would show in them one of the most conspicuous examples on record of the complete loss of the spiritual life in. slavish bondage to forms. At the same time they regarded themselves as the favorites of heaven, entitled to the approval of God by their righteousness, and the very nucleus of the kingdom of God. Hence, when one of these holy ones, with the prejudices of his order, but more open-hearted, inquiring and teachable than his brethren, came to the great "Rabbi" from Galilee for information, the occasion is. remarkable one, and the Savior, in his first utterance, fells to the earth the Pharisaic pride when he declares: "Except. man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nor need we wonder at the perplexity of Nicodemus concerning the "New Birth," when we realize that he deemed the natural birth of the race of Abraham together with. rigid observance of the law as the essentials to membership in that kingdom.