(John 3:1-21; 7:50-53; 19:28-42; 1 John 5:4,5.)

There is divine fitness in the fact that while nothing is said of Nicodemus in the other Gospels, John speaks of him three times. On each occasion he is referred to as he that "came to Jesus by night" The Spirit of God fastens upon the ruler's approach to Jesus under cover of darkness, to depict the darkness which lies upon man's heart in his relations with God.

As one of the greatest men of his day in Israel, Nicodemus stood for all that was highest and most valued in that nation. Of the foremost authorities on Judaism and the Law, he is addressed by the Lord Himself as "the Teacher of Israel" (see R.V.). In answering him therefore, while first of all having in view the ruler's own personal need, the Lord also spoke to him as the representative of his people. All that was said to him had its voice for the nation as well as for himself; and indeed, it was the revelation of the very heart of God toward all men.

Nicodemus was entirely Jewish by birth, training and tradition. But he had one thing which linked him with the Gentile world, and that was his name. Whatever the reason for this strange fact, the meaning of his name was only a taunt to him. For under the "iron heel" of Rome, as he and his people were at the time, the suggestion of being a "Conqueror of the Populace" carried with it a sting to the pride of those who knew that they might have been the "head" and not the "tail" among the nations of the earth. But it was not fate which had placed Israel under the Gentile "heel," and no one knew it better than Nicodemus. Nothing but Israel's sin and unbelief brought them into the humiliation they were experiencing; but GOD, even the God of their fathers, had pointed out to them the way back into the place of rule and authority over the nations. Nicodemus knew too that neither he nor his people were taking that way to attain their desired end. Yet God had decreed that Nicodemus should "conquer the world" in a way which, as yet, he knew not.

The searching ministry of John the Baptist, calling upon the nation to repent, and to bring forth the fruits of that repentance, had also "voiced" its testimony concerning Him who "came after" him, but who was "preferred before him." John the Baptist preached Jesus, not alone as the King of Israel with the instrument of judgment in His hand about to purge His own "threshing-floor"; but what is even more important, he set Jesus forth as the "Son of God," and as the "Lamb of God." His ministry, had it been received by the nation, would have "prepared the way" for the Lord to be received by His people. How sad then to behold from the very leaders themselves nothing but this timid acknowledgment, which had to find its way through Nicodemus under cover of night. "Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God. For no one is able to do these signs which Thou doest unless God be with him." But no one dared openly to confess Him, "for fear of the Jews." And if some think that Nicodemus was a "coward," what must be said of his fellow-rulers who joined hatred to bigotry, and derided what they could not deny. And here, had they but known it, was one of themselves who claimed to "point the way" (the Torah-instructors) coming to Jesus for the light which neither he nor they possessed.

There is but one explanation for this, and though unknown as yet to Nicodemus himself, he was beginning to have wrought in him that which was as much the work of God, as when, at the first, "God said, Let there be light-and there was light." And since this greater light is found only in the Son, how fitting that the ruler should seek its Source in Him. For there can be no doubt that Nicodemus sought in Jesus that which he knew Judaism did not possess. No one knew better than he its limitations, and he now looked outside of it to find what his soul craved.

The manner of the Evangelist's narrative, in bringing before us the interview the ruler sought with the Lord, is itself a witness that God was working. And when He works, man must "stand still, and see the salvation of God." It was thus that the Lord testified later, when opposed by the leaders of the Jews in His labor of love:"My Father worketh until now:and I work" (5:17). It was not that His Father had ceased to work, giving place to the Son; but rather the Son had come forth from the presence of His Father to work along with Him, even as at first They wrought together in Creation. The revelation of this from Jesus' lips brought forth from the blind leaders the charge of "blasphemy" against Him whom they knew not. But here was one of their number who was being led out of "darkness into His marvelous light."

How unprepared was the heart of the ruler to hear the words of divine truth which leveled to the dust all that he and his people had hoped for! For what the Lord told him so emphatically placed himself and his proud people as much outside the kingdom as the uttermost Gentile. "Except anyone be born again (anew), he cannot see the kingdom of God." What a blow in the face of Jewish and Pharisaic pride! No wonder that the ruler sought to offset these words with mingled denial and ridicule. "How can a man be born when he is old?" That is to say, the thing is impossible. It is a common thing for men of intellect and of standing with men, if faced with what they inwardly feel to be the "sword of the Spirit," to deny what they cannot answer, and then to pour contempt on what they do not understand. Nicodemus' second question was intended, it would seem, to make the Lord's declaration appear ridiculous.

The fact that the ruler employed such weapons in meeting the truth he had heard was all the stronger witness how deeply he was wounded. In fact it was a "death-blow" he had received; but he did not give in without a struggle. When the Lord replied to him reiterating what He had already said, and with the same divine emphasis, Nicodemus could but answer:"How can these things be?"

In the first part of His discourse, the Lord made no new revelation to his unwilling hearer, but opened out in fuller display that which His Father had already made known in the Old Testament Scriptures.. Israel's condition, stricken with death, and needing divine life, was surely no new discovery. God had uncovered their woeful state, and along with this, His promise of cleansing and renewal. All that which answered to being "born again" should have been understood by the ruler. But he and his fellows were "blinded" by their own hands. Their own prophet Isaiah had testified to them:"Be astounded and astonished; blind yourselves, and be blind. They are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. For Jehovah hath poured out upon you a deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes, the prophets and your chiefs, the seers hath He covered. And the whole vision is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed…. therefore, behold, I will proceed to do marvelously with this people… and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their intelligent ones shall be hid" (Isa. 29:9-14, J. N. D. TV.).

The same prophet had foretold "how" these things can be, and this by the same means which the Lord later brought before the ruler. Ere anyone could be "born anew," the One whom the Father had sent must suffer and die! But how strange that He who alone could bring life to man, should be rejected by him when coming into the world! Stranger still; it was to be in and through that very rejection and death that life was to come for man! The "new" birth could come in no other way. So it had been foretold:"When Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed,… He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied." Thus, and only thus, can Israel be re-born. But if He suffer thus, who shall limit His "seed" to that nation? If the Son of Man be lifted up, accursed of God for man's sake, it is that "whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."

And now the Lord in opening to the ruler's wondering view the real meaning of the "serpent of brass" lifted up in the sight of the smitten ones, goes on to tell something which till then had never been known. As yet the Son of Man was a mysterious figure set forth by the prophets. The Jews too had asked:"Who is this Son of Man?" Now, Jesus is about to bring out of His treasures things "new" as well as "old.""For God so loved the world (here Jew and Gentile are seen as one in their ruin and need, but also as alike loved by God, and "so loved"), that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The Man who travailed that He might "see His seed" born anew unto Him; who was "lifted up," even as the serpent in the wilderness, that those smitten through their sin might have eternal life, who is He? The Lord takes His hearer beyond the prophet, and beyond Moses in the wilderness, back, back to the very days of Abraham and Isaac. There before the nation had been born at all, Nicodemus sees once more a "father" giving up "his only-begotten son."But how could he have been able to guess at the truth underlying that strange sight? Here then, the Son Himself tells it out. It was GOD, not as the Jew had conceived Him, but a Father giving His own Son, the "Only-begotten" out of the fulness of infinite love! But why give Him? And to whom? We can only answer in the words of the Son Himself."For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

That "strange work" of judgment which Jehovah will "rise up to do"-even as of old, He smote all His enemies backward, and delivered His oppressed people-will then fill the world with astonishment, so that even the "kings shall shut their mouths at Him." But that was not the purpose of God in sending His Son into the world at that time. Rather, as Jesus goes on to tell Israel's chief, "For God sent not His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth in Him is not judged, but he that believeth not is judged already; because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God." The purpose of God is the manifestation of the love of His heart, bringing it close to each and every man, so that none who receive that love can ever know judgment by experience. On the other hand, theirs is that "eternal life" in the power of which the Father and the Son have lived and rejoiced in unclouded communion, save in that dread and awful darkness and wrath, when the billows and waves of divine judgment passed over the Son. Who can measure then the guilt lying upon the rejecter of such love? As words must fail to tell the immensity of the love here revealed, so words cannot express the extent of the sin which closes the door against such love as that which the Only-begotten Son has revealed. Nicodemus, divinely led, had come to the Light, that his works might be manifested that they were being wrought, not in his own power, but "in the power of God." Wm. Huss

(Concluded in next number, D.V.)