PREACHING TO THE CAPTIVE WILL
by Dick Smith
March 22, 2009
Gospel: John 3:14-21
Chapter three begins with Nicodemus coming to Jesus by night. Vs. 10, begins an answer Jesus makes to him that goes on for a number of verses. Since Greek had no quotation marks the context was used to determine when the statement ended. Here however it is not easily discerned. As a result the scholars have drawn two different conclusions. One says that Jesus’ comment ends with verse 15. The other holds that Jesus’ comment runs all the way through verse 22.
This immediately raises the question, did Jesus speak the Mini Gospel (John 3:16) to Nicodemus or is John making a statement that runs from verse 16 through verse 21? It’s your call. However you see it.
From the very outset of the conversation with Nicodemus Jesus has asserted that the relationship between God and man is one accomplished totally by God. He begins with the necessity of being born from above. Nicodemus immediately tries to take it out of God’s hands and put it in man’s. Jesus responds by taking it out of man’s hands and keeping it in God’s hands. Water and the Spirit are references to baptism that John brings up again and again in the Gospel. Our brother Paul sees water baptism as the pivotal point in God’s relationship to us. (See Romans 6:3ff. And lest one think that this refers to some kind of adult only knowledgable baptism, note that Paul addresses his readers with the idea that they may not even understand what happened to them in their baptism. He writes, “Or are you IGNORANT (the Greek. Often translated into English as, “Do you not know…”) that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore by baptism into his death that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father we too might live a new life.” There is the death and new life, “being born from above,” that Jesus speaks to Nicodemus.
Jesus continues in his drive to proclaim that it’s all about God and his action and not about anything man can do. He does this by pointing out that the Holy Spirit moves where he wills not according to our will. Further he points out that it isn’t about man climbing up to God but about the Son of man coming down to earth. And what that means is centered on the cross where he will be lifted up and there glorified. IT is in the cross where salvation is won. Eternal life is for the ones believing.
This then leads to the mini gospel, as I call it, the passage that has been called the golden thread of Scripture that runs through it From Genesis to Revelation. “For God so loved the world…everlasting life” (John 3:16). It is about saving not about condemning, John writes. (You see “my take” on the quotation. I think Jesus’ comments conclude with verse 15.) Condemnation is associated with unbelief.
The judgment is “that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil”(verse 19). This means that human kind is in rebellion against God. This counters the argument that there are “seekers after God.” Certainly there are self proclaimed “seekers” but what they don’t see is in their seeking they are moving away from God. As our brother Paul wrote, “’None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, NO ONE SEEKS FOR GOD. All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, NOT EVEN ONE.’” (Romans 3:10b-12).
Like the good tree that produces good fruit and the evil tree that produces evil fruit, (Luke 6:43-44) so with faith and unbelief. The one believing comes to the light because his deeds are like that of the good tree producing good fruit. “His deeds have been wrought in God” (John 3:21). The one unbelieving produces evil fruit like that of the evil tree and thus avoids the light because he does not want his deeds exposed.
Believing or Faith is “the real presence of Christ in us as redeeming reality…” (R. Prenter, “Spiritus Creator,” page 50). So faith is not the person’s. It is not “MY faith.” Rather the faith present in you is CHRIST himself. One could say it is “CHRIST’S FAITH.” That is how our brother Paul states it in Galatians 2:20. “I don’t live any longer. It is CHRIST who lives in me! And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by THE FAITH OF THE SON OF GOD who loved me and gave himself for me.”
The “light” here spoken of is CHRIST. In chapter one of John, it reads, “in him was life and the life was the light of men…The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world.”
This is the plight of the human. He is turned in upon himself, Luther wrote. He sees himself apart from God. He sees Christ outside of himself. He is against himself within because he fails to understand his condition, both as a sinner and as one in whom the light lives. He can search forever but will only drive himself further away from God.
The preaching of CHRIST is putting the faith of CHRIST into the person (“Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the preaching of CHRIST” (Romans 10)). The Holy Spirit will work or not work in the hearer according to his good pleasure.
So for the human person it comes down to preaching CHRIST and the rest is the work or not work of the Holy Spirit.
As Jesus pointed out to Nicodemus it’s NOT in man’s hands but in God’s hand alone.
Thanks be to God through JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD!
© Richard J. Smith
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