John 3:2, 3 The same came to Jesus by night, and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God… I. THE VAUNTED KNOWLEDGE OF NICODEMUS. Nicodemus wants to come to Jesus with safety to his own position, and he gets over the difficulty, as he thinks, by coming at night. But such a proceeding may produce greater difficulties than it removes. Now he has come, what shall he say? His aim is to sound Jesus a little, and find out if it will be politic to encourage him. We may be tolerably sure that, with such aims, Jesus would not make his task the easier. Imagine Nicodemus, after going through the usual salutations and beginnings of conversation, making his way to the business that has brought him. How, then, ought he to have begun? Surely something after this fashion: "You will think it a strange thing for me to come under cover of the dark, but you must know that I am a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews, and so I cannot come just at any hour I please. Coming in the daylight, my coming would get known, and all the good things I have worked so hard to gain would speedily vanish. So, before I risk them, I want to know a little more about you." But instead of beginning with simple truth, he says the very thing he ought not to have said - the very thing which was in plain contradiction to the way of his coming, he says he knows Jesus has come from God, and these Pharisees, one and all of them, were professed servants of God, ostentatious even in their service. If, then, Nicodemus had really believed Jesus to have come from God, would he have sought conference with him in this ignominious fashion? Nicodemus feared men more than he feared God. He really knows nothing at all about God. As yet he is a mere player with words instead of an earnest dealer in deep realities. Talking about words and names must not be confounded with real searching into things. Nicodemus should have none to Jesus, saying, "Thou doer of marvels, whence hast thou come? what hast thou brought? what dost thou ask for?" II. THE WAY TO TRUE KNOWLEDGE. Nicodemus must have his mind cleared of cant and illusion and empty tradition. Jesus does this at once by one of those fundamental declarations going down to the heart of human need. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Thus an indication is given as to the sort of people who profit by the teaching of Jesus. Nicodemus is right in calling Jesus a Teacher; but, then, he can only teach certain people. Jesus, who came to establish a spiritual kingdom of God, can as yet do nothing for Nicodemus, whose notions of a kingdom are of something having a power and splendour to be perceived by the bodily eye. Both Jesus and Nicodemus can talk about the kingdom of God, but they mean very different things. Jesus knows well what the Pharisee has come for. He suspects that Jesus, unlikely as he looks, may be a great one in the expected kingdom, and if so Nicodemus may get the first chance of a good position. So the heart of the man must be altogether altered before he can listen sympathetically to the teaching of Jesus. - Y. Parallel Verses KJV: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. |
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