Nicodemus, dressed in the robes of a Jewish teacher, sits across from Jesus by lamplight in a shadowy room at night, his face showing wonder and confusion as Jesus speaks with gentle authority.

Fulfillment in ChristNew Testament

You Must Be Born Again

Nicodemus Comes to Jesus at Night

It is nighttime in Jerusalem. The city is quiet, but one man cannot sleep. His name is Nicodemus, and he is a Pharisee — one of the most important religious teachers in all of Israel. He knows the Scriptures well. He has studied and taught the laws of God his whole life. But something about Jesus troubles his heart in the best possible way. So Nicodemus wraps his cloak around himself and slips through the dark streets to find Jesus.

When he arrives, Nicodemus says something respectful: 'Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs You are doing unless God were with him.'

Jesus does not answer with a thank-you. Instead, He says something that must seem very strange: 'Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.'

Born again? Nicodemus furrows his brow. 'How can a man be born when he is old? Surely he cannot enter his mother's womb a second time!'

Jesus explains that He is not talking about a physical birth. He is talking about something only God can do — being born of water and the Spirit. This is the new birth that baptism points to, the washing and renewing that God alone gives to His people. Just as God once breathed life into Adam, now the Spirit of God must breathe new life into a person's heart. Without this, no one can truly belong to God's kingdom.

Nicodemus is still puzzled, and Jesus gently challenges him. If Nicodemus is a teacher of Israel and does not understand these things, there is something important he is missing. All through the Old Testament, God was making a covenant — a great promise — with His people. But now the fulfillment of every one of those promises is standing right in front of Nicodemus in the dark.

Then Jesus says something that changes everything. He reminds Nicodemus of a story they both know — when Moses lifted up a bronze serpent on a pole in the wilderness so that anyone who looked at it would be saved from death. Jesus says, 'So the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.'

And then come the most wonderful words in the whole Bible: 'For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.'

God does not send His Son to condemn the world. He sends Him to save it. This is the good news — that faith in Jesus, not rule-keeping or religious learning, is the way into God's kingdom. Justification — being made right with God — is a gift. It is something God does, not something we earn. And it begins with the new birth only His Spirit can give.

Christ in This Story

The bronze serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness (Numbers 21) was a picture pointing forward to Jesus being lifted up on the cross — those who look to Him in faith are saved from the deadly poison of sin and death. Jesus tells Nicodemus that every covenant promise in the Old Testament finds its yes in Him. The new birth Jesus speaks of is made possible only because the Spirit, purchased by Christ's work, is poured out on all whom the Father draws to His Son. Justification and eternal life are not earned by religious effort but received through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus.

Historical Context

Nicodemus is identified in John 3:1 as 'a ruler of the Jews,' meaning he was likely a member of the Sanhedrin, the seventy-one-member council that served as both the supreme court and legislative body of Jewish religious life. Pharisees were deeply respected laypeople and scholars who were devoted to the precise keeping of the Torah and its oral traditions. For a man of Nicodemus's status to seek out an itinerant teacher from Galilee was socially unusual, which may partly explain why he came at night — though some scholars also suggest the nighttime visit reflects his spiritual condition of being 'in the dark' before the Light of the World.

The image Jesus uses in John 3:14–15 — the serpent lifted up on a pole — refers to the episode in Numbers 21:4–9, where God instructed Moses to make a bronze serpent and raise it on a pole. Any Israelite bitten by a snake who looked at it would live. This kind of object raised on a pole was recognizable in the ancient Near East as a standard or banner lifted high for people to rally around or look toward. Jesus deliberately reclaims that image, pointing to His own crucifixion as the moment when all people are invited to look to Him and live. The word translated 'lifted up' (Greek: hypsōthē) is used in John's Gospel both for crucifixion and for exaltation — a rich double meaning that would have resonated in both Greek and Hebrew-speaking audiences.

Let's Pray

Heavenly Father, thank You for loving the world so much that You gave Your Son Jesus. Please give us the new birth that only Your Holy Spirit can bring, so that we can truly see and belong to Your kingdom. Help us to look to Jesus — lifted up for us — and trust Him with all our hearts. Amen.