Preaching the Gospel Like Jesus

One of the most recognizable, most quoted verses in the entire Bible is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” It is the Gospel in a nutshell. Nearly every Christian has this verse memorized from early on in their faith. Athletes paint John 3:16 on their faces; it’s plastered on billboards in the middle of bustling metropolises; the verse is printed on T shirts and tote bags and coffee mugs; you can probably even find it on cardboard signs held by the street corner evangelists of our cities and towns. Next to Psalm 23, John 3:16 is likely the most well-known bit of Scripture for both believers and non-believers alike.

What some people may not know, however, is that this wonderfully compendious verse comes on the heels of Jesus’ clandestine conversation with the Pharisee Nicodemus, a conversation in which Jesus preaches the Gospel to the mystified teacher. John 3:16 is the bookend to Nicodemus’s own personal mini-sermon, preached to him by Jesus Himself. But before we dive into Jesus’ preaching, let’s talk a little context.

At this point, Jesus’ ministry has begun. He’s called His disciples, changed water into wine, cleansed the temple, and generally caused quite a stir among the people of Israel, including her religious leaders. He speaks boldly and with authority (Mk. 1:21–22; Jn. 7:46), contradicting many of the common teachings touted by the Pharisees and backing up His message with miracles. His fame is spreading throughout the land (Lk. 4:37; Jn. 2:23), and with it, opposition from the religious elite. In the midst of this increasing tension, we find Nicodemus, “a man of the Pharisees” and “ruler of the Jews” (Jn. 3:1), seeking Jesus out by night because he is fearful of what his fellow Pharisees might think. As we will see throughout the ensuing conversation, Nicodemus is wrestling with a Law-based, ethnically inherited, man-wrought salvation paradigm, one which Jesus is going to shatter in order to make way for the good news of His salvation — a salvation based in grace, inherited by the Spirit, and wrought by God Himself.

The conversation begins with a statement from Nicodemus: “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” (Jn. 3:2). Okay, first things first: Nicodemus is speaking not only for himself, but for the religious leaders when he says “we know that you are a teacher come from God.” He addresses Jesus as Rabbi — Teacher — and alludes to the fact that he believes the miracles Jesus is performing are evidence that God is working through Him. So why the secret meeting? If the religious leaders had no problem with Jesus, then why would Nicodemus be sneaking around? The issue that’s being skirted here is the conflict between what Jesus is saying and what the Pharisees are saying: One speaks of entrance into God’s Kingdom by grace through faith, while the others hold up Law-keeping as the only way to enter into life. Jesus knows this, even if Nicodemus isn’t saying it, so He cuts through the pleasantries and gets right to the heart of the matter.

“Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God’” (Jn. 3:3). There it is. The answer to the question Nicodemus should have been asking: How does one enter into the Kingdom of God? The reason our learned friend failed to ask this question was because he thought he already knew the answer: One enters the Kingdom of God by being born an Israelite and keeping the Law. It’s clear elsewhere in Scripture that the Jews relied upon their relation to Abraham (Jn. 8:38) and the Law of Moses as their hope of eternal life (Jn. 5:45, 9:28–29). They were natural beings with earthly mindsets preventing them from understanding heavenly realities (1 Cor. 2:14), and Nicodemus was no different.

“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?’” (Jn. 3:4). Nicodemus cannot understand what Jesus is trying to tell him. In his fallen, natural state, he’s simply doing what we all tend to do: immediately looking for the physical and practical applications of Jesus’ words. What obligations must I meet, Jesus? How can I be better? Show me the boxes to check, give me the bullet points, just tell me what to do! But this is to take what Jesus is very obviously describing as a supernatural occurrence and bring it down to our level. We relativize God’s salvation when we make it dependent upon anything other than the work of Jesus Christ, and that’s exactly what Nicodemus is attempting to do.

Jesus’ illustration could not have been more clear: You did not birth yourself into this physical world; what makes you think you can cause yourself to be born into a spiritual kingdom? While Nicodemus is busy worrying about entering his mother’s womb a second time, Jesus is practically shouting, You are not involved! This has nothing to do with your effort, Nicodemus! But, ever the patient Savior, Jesus continues to instruct him through profound and powerful Old Testament imagery.

“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’” (Jn. 3:5–6). A trained ear who had been tutored extensively in the Scriptures (like Nicodemus had) would be connecting the dots between Jesus’ words and the words of the prophet Ezekiel. Jesus is hammering home the absolute necessity of God’s work in salvation completely apart from man’s efforts by reminding Nicodemus of this New Covenant passage found within the ancient writings of Ezekiel:

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ezekiel 36:25–27)

When Jesus tells Nicodemus that in order to enter the Kingdom of God, one must be born of water and the Spirit, He is speaking of both the cleansing and regenerating work that only God can do for His people. This cleansing and regeneration comes to us by faith as the fruit of our belief in the Gospel, yet we often attempt to reverse the order just as the Pharisees did. To give an example, as more and more Gentile converts joined the early church, men from Judea were falsely teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1). At the Jerusalem Council where this issue was debated, the apostle Peter stood up and boldly declared, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:7–9, emphasis mine). This is “the washing of water with the word” (Eph. 5:26) that Christ accomplished for His bride through His sacrifice in order to make us “holy and without blemish” (v. 27). But it doesn’t end there.

Jesus goes on to say, “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (Jn. 3:7–8). The Greek word translated “wind” in these verses is pneuma, the very same word used for “spirit.” And just so we don’t miss the connection, let’s take a quick look at Ezekiel 37:

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army. (Ezekiel 37:1–10)

The Hebrew word ruah is used for three different words in this passage. Care to guess which ones? That’s right, spirit, breath, and winds are all ruah. What both Ezekiel and Jesus are getting at is that, like the wind which is an unseen force with an observable effect upon the physical world, or like the breath in our lungs which is invisible yet imparts life, so the Spirit also brings spiritual life wherever it goes, yet cannot be manipulated or produced by man; it is directed by God. Once more we see the supernatural, unachievable nature of the new birth — a work that God alone must do for us. And if a valley of dead men’s bones isn’t enough of an illustration for you, just remember the apostle Paul’s words in Ephesians: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved … For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:4–5, 8–9).

Naturally, Nicodemus is floored. He says to Jesus, “How can these things be?” (Jn. 3:9). In other words, I can’t do that, Jesus! To which Jesus might have said, Exactly. So what’s going on here? Why is Jesus telling Nicodemus he must do something that he cannot do? (And make no mistake, we must be born again in order to be saved.) The answer is because Jesus isn’t preaching the Gospel yet. It’s easier for us to look at this unfolding conversation and fill in the blanks for ourselves because we know Jesus is the Messiah come to save us from our sins, but remember: Nicodemus did not yet have this knowledge. He should have, as Jesus is going to tell him here directly, but he was still operating from the earthly, Law-bound perspective handed down to him by the very same fathers who persecuted and killed the prophets of old for announcing the coming of the Righteous One (Lk. 11:47; Acts 7:52). What’s happening here is that Jesus, the perfect preacher, is crushing Nicodemus with the full weight of the Law.

Let’s pause here for a moment. We cannot tell people what they must do in order to enter God’s Kingdom as if they can do it and never get around to where Jesus is going to go in just a moment. Does this mean we don’t teach the commands of Scripture? Absolutely not. What it means is that God requires all sorts of things from us that we cannot do in our own strength. If you want to boil all of God’s commands down to the summation: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (Lk. 10:27), then we should all be able look at Jesus’ words and say with complete honesty, I have never done this perfectly for a single moment of my entire life. This is the beginning of preaching the Gospel, or any sermon, for that matter. We must always be told first and foremost that we cannot do what God requires of us so that all our little idols of self-sufficiency we erect throughout the week may be bulldozed to make way for the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And that’s exactly where Jesus is headed … but not yet.

Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (John 3:10–12)

Jesus rebukes Nicodemus as a teacher of Israel — the people to whom divine revelation had been given — for not understanding this most necessary, great, and wonderful doctrine: how one enters into the Kingdom of God. As a Pharisee, Nicodemus had spent his time learning and teaching man-made traditions and lifeless ceremonies of religion, while neglecting that which would lead to the spiritual regeneration of God’s people: faith in the atoning work of the Messiah. I mean, kind of important if you’re responsible for the spiritual welfare of an entire nation… Just sayin’. Jesus then goes on to avow the certainty of the things he has spoken to Nicodemus by calling upon not only those who bore witness to him on the earth, but the divine testimony of God the Father and the Holy Spirit. The prophets spoke about Christ from the divine inspiration of the Spirit, but Jesus speaks out of His own perfect relationship to the Father: “For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me” (Jn. 12:49–50).

The reason Nicodemus cannot receive Jesus’ testimony, even after Jesus has used earthly examples to make His words more intelligible, is because the corruption of his nature — of the nature of all mankind — will not allow it: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). Again, Nicodemus has come up against a wall. He cannot cause himself to be born again, which is a desperate situation in itself, but even more desperate is the reality that he cannot even accept the spiritual, heavenly reality of the new birth that Jesus is speaking about because he lacks the spirit to discern it. Now that Jesus has effectually destroyed Nicodemus’s confidence in both his fleshly works and his earthly wisdom, He’s going to give him precisely what he needs: the Gospel.

“No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 3:13–15)

Jesus, once more relying on Old Testament imagery, shows Nicodemus that He is able, meet, and equipped to reveal to him the sublime doctrines of the will of God for man’s salvation, because He alone has come down from Heaven and He alone will ascend to it in righteousness. Jesus refers to Himself as “the Son of Man,” a phrase which hearkens to the Son of man spoken of in Daniel’s vision, which the Jews understood to be the Messiah (Dan. 7:13–14). He then pivots from divulging His person to disclosing His plan, and He does it by taking Nicodemus back to the writings of Moses.

And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. (Num. 21:5–9)

What was it that the people of Israel had to do in order to escape the fiery serpents of God’s judgment for their sins against Him? Look, and live. And why would the people look upon a bronze serpent attached to a wooden pole unless they truly believed it could save them? A simple look of faith, and the serpent’s bite was rendered harmless. A look of faith, and they received the deliverance they needed. We, too, need only look to Jesus in faith, to cast our eyes upon Him, lifted up on the cross, to be saved from death and judgment. This has always been God’s eternal plan. It has always been about Jesus, not us. He became the curse for us; He nailed our sin and that ancient serpent the Devil to the cross that we might be saved, absolved of our guilt, and freely given righteousness and eternal life by faith.

Nicodemus did not believe he was cursed. He didn’t think he was condemned. And he trusted in himself to be justified. Jesus looked at him and said, Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Then He held Himself out to Nicodemus as his atonement, as the propitiation for his sins and the wrath he deserved, as the One who had achieved righteousness for him, as the One who conquered the Devil, the One who holds the power of Death, the One who could set him free. The crescendo, the climax of Jesus’ preaching could not be more clear; it is not “Look to yourself” but “Look to Me.” This is what God, in His divine wisdom, uses not only to bring people from death to life, but to set them apart unto Himself.

So often we present passages like the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus as Law-heavy, prove yourself kinds of texts, but that’s not what Jesus intended. This is a proclamation passage, not an examination passage. Its purpose is to present the Gospel, and we must trust that the Gospel not only saves, but renews, strengthens, and sanctifies God’s people. Instead of preaching, “Examine yourself to make sure you really have been born again,” we ought to preach, “Believe and trust in the sufficiency of Christ for you.” We cannot preach the effects of the Gospel as the Gospel itself. And we cannot simply talk about the Gospel, or tack it onto the end of a Law-based, self-focused sermon, or act as if it is implied and expect to see any power in our preaching. Believers and unbelievers alike need the pure, unadulterated Gospel proclaimed to them in churches, taught to them in Bible studies, written about in books, and spoken about by Christian friends and family. They need the heralding of Christ for sinners, for that is what they are! Without it, they cannot hope to have the power necessary to pursue a life pleasing to God.

Therefore, let us strive to preach the Gospel like Jesus, remembering that we received the Spirit of our regeneration not by works of the Law (which we cannot fulfill), but by hearing the good news of Jesus with faith, and that it is by that same faith in Christ for us that we will be perfected (Gal. 3:1–3). Ours is a salvation rooted in grace, given freely through faith, empowered by the Spirit, and wrought by God before the foundations of the earth. It is scandalous in its simplicity, supernatural in its workings, sweeping in its scope, and solid in its foundation. We need only keep our eyes on Christ, trusting in Him and looking to His sufficiency instead of to ourselves, to experience just how great a salvation we have!