John 3:1-16

Summary: John tells us in chapter 20:31 that the whole reason he wrote his gospel was that we ‘may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing in him we may have life in his name.’ That goal is obvious throughout the gospel and especially here in Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus. Jesus raises for Nicodemus an issue that he would have thought was already settled; namely, his admittance to the Kingdom of God. As a leading figure in Judaism, Nicodemus would have had little doubt that he was already included on the basis of his ethnicity and moral credentials. He came to Jesus, not to be saved, but to have an informative conversation about what God was doing in Jesus’ life and ministry. Instead, Jesus reveals himself to be much more than “a teacher who has come from God.” Jesus reveals himself as the one in whom eternal destinies are determined. He says that unless Nicodemus is radically transformed (i.e. ‘born from above’) and unless he trusts entirely in the death of Jesus, then he is yet under condemnation and standing outside the Kingdom of God. For as Jesus says so famously in verse 16, it was the love of God that sent him here for the very purpose of dying to give eternal life to all who believe in him.