|
JESUS THE MESSIAH |
||
|
His Life and Times |
||
|
No. 43 Jesus and Nicodemus Part 3
(To read Parts 1 and 2 of this text, go to the Home Page above and then Archives of Previous Texts for Jesus the Messiah #41 and 42.) In the previous text, Jesus was talking to Nicodemus and and telling him how he must be born again to go to Heaven. All of this must have sounded quite strange and impossible to him as Jesus was talking. This new thing that Jesus was talking about way surpassed his experience and all the Jewish learning that he had been given. The only possibility of being that had ever occurred to him was the one that he was now aware of in his physical body. The Jews called it being in their original innocency when they first entered the world. He must have been thinking about this aloud when he said to Jesus, "How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time in his mother's womb and be born?" (John 3:4) Nicodemus was to see, though, that there was another world of being other than the one that he knew. That world was the Kingdom of God, and would be contrary to the kingdom that Nicodemus knew in his world. Jesus explained to Nicodemus that there was only one gate by which a man could pass to enter into the Kingdom of God - for that which was born of the flesh could never be anything but fleshly. Jesus told him that the Jews were striving to be holy by outward conformity to laws and standards, but that they could never be truly holy until they were changed from the inside out. Nicodemus would find out that the Kingdom of God was spiritual, and a man could not be a part of it from the fleshly realm. There had to be something spiritual that happened to him in order for him to partake of this spiritual realm. All Nicodemus really knew was what John the Baptist had taught about the coming Kingdom; but John the Baptist didn't have all the answers either, because the Holy Spirit was yet to come and live within man to guide and direct him. He could not approach the New Kingdom from the same vantage point that Jesus was talking to him about it now. Nicodemus now understood things from a limited perspective, but this whole new concept was totally unthought of and unimagined in Jewish theology. This was a very sad manifestation of what the teaching in Israel was during this day. He needed to know the how of things before he could really believe them. The people thought they had understood the teachings of Moses, and they knew very well of the supernatural manna that God had fed them with everyday for many years; but ultimately they did not believe and rebelled against God. Then came judgment on them in the form of fiery serpents. God made a way out for them, though. He told Moses to make a brazen serpent and put it on a pole. When the person was bit, all they had to do was look up to the pole and they wouldn't die. The meaning which tradition passed down for this, was that Israel lifted up their eyes, not merely to the serpent, but rather to their Father in Heaven, and received His mercy. The true interpretation is if the uplifted serpent, as symbol, brought life to the believing look which was fixed upon the giving, pardoning love of God, then, in the truest sense, shall the uplifted Son of Man give true life to everyone that believeth, looking up in Him to the giving and forgiving love of God, which His Son came to bring, to declare, and to manifest. This final and highest teaching contained all that Nicodemus or the Whole Church could ever be able to know. Jesus explained to both the "how" of the new birth, with the source and also the flow of its spring. Now all we have to do is believe what He said. Now, the record of the interview of Jesus with Nicodemus abruptly closes. It tells everything, but nothing more than the Church was required to know. Jesus had ended His teaching of Nicodemus under the Cross. Nicodemus now started to see that the Giver and Source of All was God. Today we can follow that teaching of Jesus backward and see just how true it has been proved concerning the world - 'that which is of the flesh is flesh' and all the passages about being Spirit-born in the Bible about having a need to have 'the birth from above.' We can read the words of the Voice of the Teacher come from God as He says the words of the eternal Gospel message to all people of all times: "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." For more information from this book, go to the Archives Page at my site www.cathydeaton.com There are other articles of interest there also. This text has been taken from the book Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah written by Alfred Edersheim. This book has been used by permission.
|
||