To see the kingdom of God, your Jewish identity, is insufficient. It's inadequate.
You also need to be born of the Spirit.
So it seems obvious when you read several of the gospel accounts
that they decide to start with the story of John the Baptist and Jesus' baptism.
Is there any intentionality to those decisions, maybe to start their stories with that?
Yeah, I do think that there is.
John, I think especially, but it's not going to be limited to John.
There's a lot going on in there. There are, if you really drill down in a study Bible,
or a commentary or something like that, commentators are going to draw attention
to the fact that at the baptism you have Exodus imagery.
And what that means is that there are things, maybe vocabulary
used in the Greek of John there, that go back to the Septuagint,
which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament,
that match specifically in the passage about the crossing through the sea
with Moses and Israel,
and other events associated with that whole set of circumstances.
You get some of this same Exodus talk in relation to Jesus in John chapter 3.
So we've got this sort of commissioning sense, we've got the prophet,
we've got the Moses imagery at the baptism.
But if you keep reading in John, you get to John chapter 3,
which is a really familiar passage.
But again, there's a lot going on here that's under the surface.
This is set at Passover.
Okay, John chapter 2 ends in that way, and it gives you the setting.
And this is the Nicodemus scene. So I'm just going to read a few things
and just see if the vocabulary sort of jumps out at you.
«Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
This man came to Jesus by night.»
By night, what else happened at night in relation to the Passover?
Okay, it's the Passover. It's the death angel, right?
«By night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God,
for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”
Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again
[or born from above, some translations have] he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
[Born again, born from above]. Nicodemus said to him,
“How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time
into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you,
unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’"»
You know, he goes on to castigate Nicodemus a little bit later on, like,
"you're a teacher of the Jews, don't you know this stuff? "
What's he supposed to know? This whole thing about being
born of water and Spirit, and being born a second time, or again,
supernaturally, you know, from above, as opposed to physically,
is actually drawing on Exodus imagery, even though that sounds a little bit crazy.
But if you think about it in a certain way, and I think this is what Jesus
is tracking on, here's what you get: What he's saying is, look,
you, Nicodemus, are a ruler of the Jews, you're a teacher of the Jews,
your heritage, your identity is wrapped up in what? It's wrapped up in the Exodus,
it's wrapped up in being delivered from Egypt, it's wrapped up
you know, this is the whole event. This is the formative event of being a Jew,
of Jewish identity, is the Exodus.
You go through the water, you go to the Promised Land, you go to the mountain of God,
where God makes a covenant with you. This is the event. So you're born of the water.
You're a Jew, you passed through the Red Sea. But Jesus says that is not adequate.
It's not adequate that you just have your Jewish identity. You must be born again.
You must be born from above. And this time you have to be born of the Spirit.
Why that language? Because the Spirit coming is the new covenant.
Okay, passing through the Red Sea, going to Sinai is the old covenant.
Now Jesus says, to see the kingdom of God,
it's not sufficient for you to identify only with Moses,
and the Torah at Sinai, and the Exodus event. Your Jewish identity is insufficient,
it's inadequate. You also need to be born of the Spirit.
You need to be a participant in the new covenant.
And Nicodemus, who is a teacher of the Jews, is going to know
well, the new covenant is linked to what else?
To the new Son of David, to the Messiah. This is Ezekiel 36. It's Ezekiel 37.
And he's going to know these things.
And so Jesus is basically putting it right on the line for him.
If you're trusting in your Jewish identity,
to get you to the kingdom of God, you're going to fall short.
You need to embrace the Messiah,
who just happens to be sitting right here in front of you.
You know, it's that sort of thing. And even...
«as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness
[he says to Nicodemus], so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.»
He's actually drawing on this idea of Jewish identity in the Exodus,
and adding the new covenant to it in this conversation, which is why he says to Nicodemus,
why are you amazed that I would say you need to be born again of the Spirit?
Why would you be amazed? You're a teacher of Israel, don't you know this?
And we find out later that Nicodemus figures it out, because he does become a believer,
toward the end of John's story.
So there's a lot in the New Testament of this kind of thing, where John
and the people in the story like Jesus, in this case,
they will assume a certain body of knowledge of the Old Testament
on the part of the people who are listening to them or the reader.
And a lot of that is related directly to Moses, and the Torah, and the Exodus,
and the passing through the Red Sea.
But then Jesus will invariably link things in like the Spirit and the New Covenant.
You get to some of his sermons, he loops in some other things too.
They're just supposed to know what he's tracking on,
and some of them do and some of them don't. But it's all really important imagery
that is right underneath the surface
that if we had a better command of our Old Testament, we would be able to pick up on
a little bit more and get more out of these conversations and scenes.