"Eternal Life Now!" (John 3:1-21)

1. Darkness and Light

John chapter 3 commences with a religious leader named Nicodemus approaching Jesus with an enquiring mind. Now, the religious leaders were, generally speaking, lining up in opposition to Jesus, for Jesus had already upset the applecart of their privileged and influential position, and shown much greater God-like characteristics than they ever had. Yet, here was one “Pharisee” who had been impressed enough by Jesus to approach him seeking a bit of an explanation.

Now, most interesting is the reference to Nicodemus approaching Jesus “by night”. In John’s Gospel there is a lot of light and darkness imagery – there is the constant theme of Jesus as the light entering into the darkness in the world. For Nicodemus to approach Jesus at night, is to suggest that, despite all his religious background and upright life, Nicodemus is actually in the dark when it comes to spiritual matters. “Night” or ‘darkness’ represent the absence of God, while ‘light’ represents God’s presence.

It is possible for a person to believe in the existence of God, and even in the worthiness of God’s law, but still remain in the dark. Why is this so??
· They lack a personal relationship with their Creator!
· They lack full understanding of who Jesus is!
· They lack the experience of being forgiven and being “born from above” or “born again”!
· They lack a proper understanding of what it means to be a Jesus follower!
· They lack being ‘spiritually switched on’!

Having met Jesus though, if Nicodemus is actually willing, Jesus will take him on a journey out of darkness and into the glorious light.

As we will discuss shortly, living in the light provides evidence (or proof) of one’s sincerity as far as receiving salvation is concerned, and allows one to enjoy the experience of “eternal life” here and now. For as we saw last week (from Revelation 7), the worshipful experience of heaven will be wonderful – yet we should be seeking that level of connection with God here and now on earth ... as a sort of apprenticeship for what will follow. If we are not emotionally and spiritually and cognitively and physically and socially tied into the worship and service of God now, how will we ever be ready later on?!?

The transition to “eternal life” does not happen at death, it happens here. Later, having served our apprenticeship, we receive our papers, and become fully qualified. And as we read in John’s Gospel, gaining entry to “eternal life” happens through being “born from above” or “born again” or “born anew” on earth.

2. What Nicodemus needs

Before we talk about what being “born from above” or “born again” means, let’s go back and consider Nicodemus’ enquiring statement in verse 2, and how this leads to Jesus’ response in verse 3. Nicodemus’ enquiry centred around Jesus being an inspired teacher, prophet and miracle worker sent by God – a bit of an intellectual question concerning events and facts. Jesus could have agreed with this statement because for the most part it was true or at least going in the right direction. But what it lacked was an acknowledgement of how this would affect Nicodemus personally ... that the coming of Jesus actually addressed Nicodemus’ own personal need. So this is precisely where Jesus headed with his response > as a result of Jesus’ coming, Nicodemus would need to put aside his past and be “born again”. Intellectual agreement with a set of propositions wouldn’t do it ... only a personally transforming experience would (do it)!

This did get Nicodemus’ attention, because we read he then tried to understand what this “born from above” thing was about. Jesus answer in a nutshell revealed that those who wanted to receive salvation and participate in the Kingdom of God needed to experience a rebirth, that is, a new start in life, a fresh experience of birth, generated by the Holy Spirit. So as we talked about two weeks ago, following repentance and receiving God’s forgiveness, we become a Jesus follower empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Whereas our first birth came about through physical means, this time we are “born again from above” (God bringing this recreation about). At some stage of life following on after our natural birth into a human identity, we have another experience of birth where God’s Spirit engages with and transforms our human spirit. Everyone needs to come to that place where they lay their lives open to the Spirit of God ... so that the Divine can break into the human.

Nicodemus’ question in verse 4 is quite interesting, because you would have thought that he would already have known that the answer to such a proposition was obvious, that there must be another explanation. It has been suggested that what this question really indicates is that Nicodemus was actually reflecting his doubts that anyone so set in their ways (as perhaps Nicodemus himself was) could ever change as radically as Jesus was indicating – i.e. a totally new life orientation. The impossibility of such change seems to be reflected again by Nicodemus in verse 9: “How can these things be”?

But it is possible, and it has happened ... millions of times! As we know well from John 3:16, this has all occurred out of the love that God has for the whole world (and each one of us). And we know from the surrounding verses that this love of God played out through the sacrificial willingness of Jesus to be “lifted up” onto a cross. And also we know that this all opens up to us the dynamic of “eternal life”.

All what I have said so far today leads to where my interest really lies at the moment. In what ways can we experience “eternal life” now?
· Through worship
· Through participation in Jesus-centred community (where all the gifts of the Spirit are shared in the common good)
· Through mutual encouragement and support
· Through service to God in serving our neighbour
· Through witnessing to our friendship with Jesus (however you want to put that)
· Through alleviating abuse, injustice and poverty
· Through expressing joy, purpose, hope and peace (as we make a difference for others).

Sure various cracks appear (in our lives) from time to time and rough edges do emerge under pressure, yet while we are still open to God-induced change, such cracks can be filled and rough-edges smoothed over. We still have our fickle freewill to deal with, complicated by pressures and temptations, which sometimes sees us going backwards, or at least our progress being thwarted ... and this is what I’ll deal with next week. Suffice to say at the moment, that this fresh birth experience has the potential of overcoming all past experience of failure and defeat and remaking all that has been previously broken.

3. Discipleship and Non-discipleship

Now we know that the world is a troubling place full of darkness which plays out in many negative ways. Yet the spirit in which Jesus came into the world and died for the world was NOT a spirit of condemnation or judgement, but rather a pure offering of love ... “God so loved the world...”. So this is the blueprint for us as well – a positive offering of God’s love to the world around us. It is then a matter of how people respond to this that determines their destiny.

But how can they respond warmly and positively if they are not told and shown in appropriate and credible ways. There is a sad description of the rejection of Jesus contained in verses 19-20; but I wonder whether the scandal here is more about the negligence of the potential bearers of the “light” ... whether they were active enough or credible enough (after all there is nothing deficient about God’s love).

The concept of people being condemned by their own inaction and thereby perishing should really convict us. For people to “perish”, means that they have wasted away their life, become dead spiritually, and then been lost to God eternally! In God’s love, Jesus came and died so that this would not happen!!

I’m currently reading a book by David Platt (an American) entitled “Radical”. In the early part of this book he talks about the ‘cost of non-discipleship’. Now we have heard all about the ‘cost of discipleship’ – that whole take up your cross and follow Jesus thing ... needing to lose our life if we are to find it ... and that’s all true. But for someone like me who understands all that fully, even if I continue to battle to live it out, to read the ‘cost of non-discipleship’ is still very confronting. ‘Discipleship’, simply put, is following Jesus. ‘Non-discipleship’, then, is the failure to follow Jesus when given the opportunity. Any ideas what this author lists as the ‘cost of non-discipleship’??
· That billions of people will die without hearing about Jesus
· That millions of people will live in poverty and under oppression when they should not have needed to.

It is a very interesting assumption for this author to make, that if people were wholly committed to following Jesus, then poverty would be significantly alleviated. But he’s right; for adopting the priorities of Jesus and his Kingdom would naturally lead in this direction.

In reassuring, encouraging and challenging the early church concerning their responsibility to the world, Peter wrote: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9). These are concepts Peter has drawn from God’s Old Testament relationship with Israel and reapplied to the church of Jesus who are now God’s representatives on earth.

Our “eternal life” experience, which has already begun, is the most wonderful and purposeful way of life; in fact it is the only way through which God’s original plan for life can be found.