The discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus focuses on the Trinity.
After an introduction, in the dialogue between the two of them, Nicodemus makes three speeches to which Jesus gives three replies. Furthermore, Jesus introduces each reply with the phrase, “Amen, Amen I say to you.” Whenever this phrase appears something of supreme importance is being said. In the Gospel of John, only in this text do three occurrences of this rare affirmation appear. What is their significance?
The first amen statement provides critical information about God. The second tells of the Spirit and the third illuminates the person of Jesus.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin. As such he was both a scholar and a politician. He was timid yet openminded. His colleagues had no doubt dismissed Jesus; Nicodemus opted to let Jesus speak for himself
In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, day is a time of conflict, death, and banishment. By contrast night is a time of beauty, joy and love. In John’s gospel the exact opposite occurs. The night/darkness is a time of uncertainty, betrayal, and fear. In the light of day, there is truth, righteousness, and revelation. Nicodemus comes at night and amazingly Jesus turns the dialogue into an occasion of revelation.
Nicodemus opens the conversation with compliments about which Archbishop Temple writes, “We taste their diplomatic flavor.” He grants Jesus the title of Rabbi. An old scholar/leader is addressing a young man in his early thirties. To grant Jesus this title is remarkable, especially in light of the fact that Jesus did not study under a recognized rabbi as did Paul.
Nicodemus continues, “We know that you are a teacher come from God.” He does not say that Jesus was sent as a prophet might be sent. But literally “You, teacher, have come from God.” Jesus is an active participant in the Incarnation. He came. At the same time “God is with him.” His coming from God causes no separation of the unity between the Father and the Son.
Furthermore, the works of Jesus are for Nicodemus signs, not miracles. They are theological statements made with drama and power. We expect Nicodemus to say, “We know you are a teacher come from God because of the deep wisdom of your teachings.” Instead Nicodemus affirms Jesus as a metaphorical theologian who creates meaning by means of dramatic action.
As a polite Middle Easterner, Jesus is expected to respond with a second compliment. He should reply, Famous teacher of Israel, we are honored to welcome a scholar of your status, reputation for learning, and prominent position. Your willingness to search me out and give me an audience demonstrates your nobility of spirit and openness of mind.
I can easily imagine the deference being shown to the distinguished guest by the disciples around Jesus. Surely Jesus will respond with some sort of friendly reply. He doesn’t. Instead he opens with an affirmation about the nature of God.
1. The God who gives birth
Jesus addresses the entire Pharasaic guild that Nicodemus represents and in effect tells him, Nicodemus, you and your colleagues have spent your lives developing strategies for a more and more precise observance of law. You must make a radical new start. You must be born again. From where you now stand you cannot even see the Kingdom of God.
Neither precision in legal observance (the Pharisees) nor political liberation (the Zealots) would achieve that elusive goal. To be born anothen means both “anew” and “from above.” Syriac and Arabic versions across the last 1,900 years have chosen first one and then the other of these alternatives. Both are valid.
This is a bold and striking phrase and is a clear New Testament example of female imagery used to describe God who is Spirit and thereby neither male nor female. If we are “born of God” then God in some sense gives birth like a woman.
Within Islamic thought and piety there are 99 names for God. One of them, malak (king), is a metaphor. The other 98 are all adjectives. God is merciful, compassionate, wise, all knowing, all powerful etc. Metaphors are avoided because, says Islam, if God is compared to a father, ideas about human fathers will color the community’s understanding of God and this will inevitably lead down the slippery slope to idolatry.
An appropriate response might be that we recognize the danger, but the Scripture not only calls God Father, but goes on to define the term. In Hosea (11) and in the parable of the Compassionate Father (Luke 15) the term father is defined. This is the only biblical understanding of God as Father.
In like manner, in Isaiah God “cries out like a mother” (Isaiah 42). The psalmist affirms that he is comforted (presumably by God) “like a child at its mother’s breast” (Psalm 131).
The Canaanites had male and female deities; Israel did not. Rather, the prophets used male and female imagery to enrich their understanding of God as did the authors of the New Testament.
This first round of the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus tells us three things about God:
a. Jesus comes from God and yet God is with him.
b. The believer is born of God. God like a mother gives birth to God’s children.
c. God’s Kingdom is a reality here on earth that requires a radical new orientation to all things, like a baby that is born from its mother’s womb.
2. God The Spirit
Nicodemus’ response initiates the second section of the dialogue. His reply can be understood to mean: I am established in my career. People come to me for legal rulings on fine points of the interpretation of the law. They ask me questions such as, “Can I kill a scorpion in the kitchen on the Sabbath without breaking the law.” This is who I am and this is what I do. Are you really asking me to start over?
Jesus replies with his second amen statement that focuses on the Spirit and the entering of the Kingdom of God. To be born of water surely refers to the baptism of John that would have been known to Nicodemus. He must start with John. But beyond John is new life in the Spirit.
Organized religion likes to keep things under appropriate authority. Jesus is a new wind blowing through the land that the Pharisees cannot control. Wind is not observed by source or destination but only by its effect. The cooling of the flushed face, the waving of the stately oak, the awakening of the sleeping ocean are all results of the wind and are evidence of its power and presence.
Even so the Spirit. In my lifetime, the Makana Yesus Church of Central Ethiopia has grown from fifty thousand to four million members. The South Sudan has suffered and endured more than 40 years of war with more than 3,000,000 people dead. Yet, over that same period the Church has grown beyond anyone’s fondest hopes. Entire tribes are now Christian and African villages once Muslim are finding answers to life’s deepest questions through faith in Jesus.
The Spirit moves in centuries and only in the last decade have we in the West become aware of the awakening of the giant of the Churches in the global South. The wind of the Spirit is known in its effects. Through Jesus, God offers this wind of the Spirit.
Nicodemus is puzzled and asks, “How can this be?”
3. God in Christ
Jesus replies by focusing on himself. He tells Nicodemus that he, Nicodemus, cannot ascend to the heavens. Not by rational thought, nor by mystical speculation, nor by precise observance of the law is it possible to penetrate the divine mysteries of the nature of God. Only the one who has already descended from the heavens can reveal those mysteries.
Every religious system has some form of Incarnation. For Judaism, God came down, entered a burning bush and spoke to Moses. For Islam, God gave one section after another of the Quran to the angel Gabriel and sent him to recite those uncreated chapters in Arabic to the person of Muhammad. The result was a book that for Muslims contains the very speech of God. What the Quran is to Muslims, the person of Jesus is to Christians. Jesus is our Quran. God came to us in human form and through him revealed not merely the words of God, but the life and love of God.
That revelation climaxed in the Cross and the Resurrection. Moses took a brass serpent, lifted it up. The people looked to it and were delivered from a plague of snakes. Even so, said Jesus to Nicodemus, the Son of Man must be lifted up, that whoever believeth in him may have eternal life. In Jesus, life emerges from death.
Like many of the parables of Jesus, the story does not end; it merely stops. We have been told of the Father who gives birth, the Spirit that blows freely and the Son who gives life through death. John records his response (3:16-21) and we must live out ours.
Kenneth E. Bailey is an author and lecturer in New Testament Studies living in New Wilmington, Pa.
