JOHN 3 – NICODEMUS VISITS JESUS

In the 2000s at Bible College, the students who had grown up watching Nickelodeon on tv joked that Nicodemus’ visit to Jesus at night was the first “Nick At Night.”

Nicodemus wants to discuss some things with the new rabbi from Galilee. But after Jesus raised such a dust-up in the temple courts, driving out the money-changers, it might be risky to be seen with Him. So Nicodemus finds out where Jesus is staying and discreetly visits Him under cover of darkness.

If I were to paraphrase the opening of their conversation in modern casual language, it might be something like:

Nick: I can see that God is with you.

Jesus: Oh? You won’t really see unless your’e born again.

Nick: Excuse me?

There are generally two ways that people interpret the bit that follows about being born again.

• Interpretation 1 – The “water” refers to natural human birth and the “spirit” refers to spiritual rebirth.
• Interpretation 2 – The “water” refers to water baptism and the “spirit” refers to spiritual regeneration.

I take the first view because:

1. Jesus describes two ways of being born: water and spirit. Both are required to enter the Kingdom of God. I wouldn’t consider baptism and spiritual regeneration to be 2 different types of birth. They are rather meant to coincide at the same time.
2. He immediately contrasts the two in verse 6: Flesh & Spirit. In the context, the “flesh” is the synonym for water while spirit is used twice.
   • Humans aren’t just flesh (physical). We are also spiritual. Nicodemus has been physically born. He has checked the first box. But the only thing the flesh can give birth to is flesh. (Paul is going to REALLY unpack this for us in 1 Corinthians)
   • Spiritual birth is also required to enter the Kingdom. One must be born of God just as the LORD “breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.” Adam was alive in the spirit, not just his body. And in the day he disobeyed, he surely died; not in the flesh, but in the spirit. (Conversely, Jesus died in the flesh so we could be made alive in the Spirit) Only those alive in the spirit can enter the kingdom of God. That’s why Adam and Eve were promptly removed from Eden (the kingdom).
   • And we might well capitalize Spirit, because it is God’s very own Life that He shares with us. He doesn’t give us a separate life apart from Himself. It’s as if the saint of God is a conjoined twin or a transfusion patient receiving spiritual lifeblood from the Almighty Himself. “In Him was life…” “I Am…THE Life,” Jesus says THE because there’s only one Life. There is no other life in the universe. God is Life. There is no real life independent from Him. There might be existence, but not life. There’s a difference. (See also 1st John 5:12)

I do think that baptism is meant to be the entry point to being joined to Christ. I just don’t think that’s what this particular text is about.

Notice that when Jesus expounds on being “born again” in verses 7-8, He says nothing about water or flesh. He speaks only of the Spirit.

• Being born of the water (fleshly birth as a human) = born the first time
• Being born of the Spirit (spiritual birth as a child of God) = born again

If your brain is cramping a bit trying to grasp these 2 overlapping realities, don’t feel bad. Dr. Nicodemus, Ph.D., was struggling with it too.

Jesus is trying to help us earth-bound clods grasp the reality of the heavenly realm that we cannot see or sense in any way in the flesh. Jesus tells Nicodemus that He can explain these things and should be believed because He’s seen them. He’s from Heaven.

And the reason He came down to earth and will be “lifted up” like the bronze serpent on the pole, is so that the world may be saved.

There’s a reason why John 3:16 is considered one of the most important texts in all of scripture. It encapsulates, in very few words, the entire scope of God’s plan of redemption.

For God

So loved

The world

That He gave

His only begotten Son

That whosoever

Believes in Him

Will not perish

But have everlasting life

Just as important are the verses that follow. They explain that Christ was not sent to condemn. He doesn’t need to do that.

Why?

Because the world was already condemned before He came. Our own rebellion did that.

Since the flesh and earthly cannot find its way back to the spiritual and heavenly, Jesus came to bring heaven to us. But Heaven is a bright place. Jesus is Light. He exposes all that is dark within the human heart. And some people would rather scurry away into dark corners with their sins rather than humbly admit their sins in the Light.

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JOHN 4 – THE WOMAN AT THE WELL

Remember how the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrians?

😐 Were those the guys who cut out people’s tongues and marched around with decapitated heads on spears?

The very same.

😒 Yup. Unfortunately, I remember them.

They settled Gentile colonists in the area called Samaria. They even brought in a Levite to teach the people to sacrifice to Yahweh. Some of these Gentile colonists intermarried with a few Jewish people left behind. Some of them claimed Hebrew ancestry but couldn’t prove it by ancestral records. They were very eclectic in their religion and only had the Torah but none of the rest of the OT. They sucked up to the Seleucids and denied any connection to the Jews to avoid the wrath of Antiochus Epiphanes. Because of all this bad history, the Jews avoided them like the plague and called them “dogs” (and not in the cool way like “Yo Dawg.”)

But Jesus decides He “needs” to travel through their territory. This is an interesting statement. No respectable Jew ever “needed” to go through Samaria.

The red line shows the typical route Jews would take to between Jerusalem (and points west or south) and Galilee. They would go several miles and thousands of feet in elevation out of their way to avoid Samaria.

Instead, Jesus takes a route roughly marked by the blue line. The town of Sychar was between the mountains where Joshua and the Israelites read all the curses and blessings of the Law. It’s where the bones of Joseph were interred because it was a piece of land Jacob deeded to Joseph.

There are some interesting parallels between Jesus meeting this woman at the well and Jacob meeting Rachel at a well and the servant of Abraham meeting Rebecca (the future bride of Isaac) at a well.

Abraham’s servant asks for a drink and it sets off a whole chain of events that ends in Rebecca becoming the bride of Isaac.

Jacob removes the cover over the well so that Rachel can have access to the water.

Jesus does both of those things. He asks for a drink which leads to this woman becoming part of “the bride of Christ.” And he removes the obstacle (lack of revelation) so she can access the living water.

A Samaritan woman comes to the well for water at noon. Much has been made of the rather unusual time of day for her to come to the well alone, but we should be careful not to conjecture too much.

She is shocked at Jesus’ request for a drink.

A pious Jewish man might not even speak to a Jewish woman, definitely not to a Samaritan, and ABSOLUTELY NOT to a Samaritan woman. Everyone knows this.

Consider this: The person sitting in front of her telling her He would give her living water is the One Who spoke this:

“For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the source of living water, to hew out for themselves cisterns, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.”
‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭2‬:‭13‬ ‭LEB‬‬

She thinks He’s talking about H2O. 💧

So Jesus changes course. He asks about her husband. And that’s a problem.

For most of human history, divorce has been extremely one-sided. Men have owned their wives and children like property to be bought and sold – and there was nothing legally they could do about it.

We have no idea why 5 men in succession have divorced this woman but it didn’t have to be much.

I know she was Samaritan and not Jewish, but the Jewish Mishna Gittin (written in around 200AD but recording older oral traditions), said:

In short, they had interpreted Moses to mean anything they wanted it to mean.

Maybe the woman at the well was a bad cook or rather plain-looking.

Whatever the reason, she has found herself in a very vulnerable position. Jesus knows personal details about her life and she realizes he’s no ordinary man. He must be a prophet. And she has a question she’s been dying to ask.

Have you ever thought about a thing and wished you could ask an expert?

😐 No. There’s this thing called Google.

Ok. I know. But you can’t have a conversation with Google.

In the unlikely event that I ever bump into a theoretical physicist, I have questions I want to ask. I would LOVE to have a conversation on the nature of reality.

I wonder if this woman felt that way.

👩🏽‍🦱 “If I ever bump into a real prophet, I’m going to ask him why they say Yahweh lives in the temple in Jerusalam but we also have a temple for Him here on Mount Gerizim. I wonder which one is right.”

And Jesus tells her more about worship in this conversation than He ever says about anywhere else. As a worship leader, this is a very dear and important passage.

Jesus is changing things. Radically! It won’t matter anymore where a person is geographically.

God is the One Who insisted that worship be “where He would cause His name to dwell.” And now He’s changing that.

The location of worship is moving from physical to spiritual. It won’t take place in a physical temple of stone anymore. It will take place in a person; IN Spirit and Truth.

In Spirit…

• Not solely in the flesh
• Within the Spirit of God Himself
• Accessible from any physical place
• Only accessible to those alive in the Spirit

In Truth…

• Based on and conforming to the revealed will of God in Scripture
• Authentically, honestly, and not in appearance or outward form only
• Within Christ, (the Truth) Himself

The Father is looking for people who will worship Him in this way.

If you’ve ever asked, “God, what do you want from me?,” here’s your answer.

🪴🪑☕️🕰️

This woman is aware of the prophecies about the coming Messiah. She knows that He will have the definitive answer on all this.

And then – and I hope the shocking nature of this hits you – Jesus, point blank reveals Himself as the Messiah to this woman.

He hasn’t told anyone “I am the Messiah.” Not John the Baptist. Not the disciples. Not Nicodemus. Not even His own mother and family. But He tells her. This Samaritan 5x divorcee who secretly ponders what little she knows of scripture and hopes for the Messiah. SHE is the first person He tells.

And this revelation sparks a 2-day “revival” with this woman as the primary evangelist going through the town telling people about Jesus and sending them to see and hear Him for themselves. Indeed, she is regarded as the first evangelist of the New Testament. And they believe on Jesus as Messiah.

Peter gets all the credit for being the first to preach to the Gentiles and Cornelius is consistently named the Gentile convert (and he was, in a strict post-Pentecost sense). But we shouldn’t overlook how Jesus is bringing all people – Jew and Gentile – back to the Father, starting with the Samaritans.

The Bible does not record her name, but there is an ancient Church tradition about the woman at the well. Here is the Google summary:

I fully intend to meet her one day and have a conversation.