John 3:6-21 – Bible Study & Exploration
You Must Be Born of the Spirit
(Verses 6-7) Being born of the spirit is a bit easier to understand than being born of water. A person who comes to faith in Jesus Christ and believes that He is the Son of God, died on the cross and was resurrected for the forgiveness of our sins will be born of the spirit (born again).
Once a person repents of their sins and truly accepts Jesus as their Lord and Savior, then the Holy Spirit will come and dwell within them. This is how someone becomes born of the Spirit.
This is where the Christian journey begins. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit works in your life to make you more holy. Your life changes when the Holy Spirit enters your life. You become less interested in things of the flesh and are look more toward things of heaven and the spirit.
Jesus Christ becomes the most important thing in the lives of born again Christians.
Born of the Spirit is Like Wind
(Verse 8) The words wind and Spirit come from the same Greek word, pneuma. Can you take hold of the wind in your hand? No! Can you see the wind? No! We don’t know where the wind comes from or where it’s going. A meteorologist has to predict the weather often in order to get an idea of what’s to come. The reason for this is he doesn’t know how the wind will react or change the atmosphere.
The wind can be as soft and gentle as a cool summer breeze on a warm humid day. It also has the ability to become so powerful and destructive, almost to the point of incomprehension.
Such is the Holy Spirit in our lives. No one can grasp the Spirit. No one can hold onto the Spirit. But the Spirit is there working inside you. It has the power no one else has to change lives and point them to Christ.
Earthly Things and Heavenly Things
(Verse 9-15) As Nicodemus grapples with everything Jesus has told him, Jesus teaches him even more. He explains to him that he must understand and believe in the earthly things that He’s teaching him in order to understand the heavenly things.
Jesus is the only one that can teach of heavenly things because He is the only one that has been to heaven. Unfortunately, many find it difficult to believe the earthly teachings. How will they ever understand and come to believe the message of the kingdom of God that Jesus has come to deliver to mankind?
Many have a heart of stone and refuse to believe.
“The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
There are many heavenly things that are about to take place before the very eyes of the Jews.
Especially as Jesus comes to the end of His three year ministry. He wants to prepare them for these things. So when they see them, they’ll understand what is taking place. This will hopefully lead them to believe in Christ and to give their lives to Him.
Born of the Spirit Leads to Heavenly Things
(Verses 16-21) Jesus uses the example of Moses in the desert with the snake to help them understand.
“They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”
Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.
The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.” (Numbers 21:4-9)
By casting their eyes upon the snake on the pole, the Israelites could save themselves from death due to the venomous bite of the snake. This was a foreshadowing of Jesus on the cross giving His life in exchange for our sins.
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
This is not something Jesus was forced to do. It’s something he chose to do for His love for mankind.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
The foreshadowing event of Moses with the snake in the desert would one day lead to mankind gazing upon Jesus hanging on the cross. Accepting Jesus for who He was and what He had done for us by the spilling of His precious blood, we would be born again and saved from the bite of sin that leads to eternal death.
Jesus Didn’t Come to Condemn the World
God’s gift of salvation to mankind through His Son Jesus Christ is not an act of condemnation. It’s an act of love for mankind by the creator for His created things.
Mankind was already condemned well before Jesus’ arrival. Our sin nature that we are born into is a testimony of our condemnation. If you don’t believe that. Ask yourself why your children tell little white lies or scheme to get there own way. It’s our sin nature.
Jesus came to remove us from this condemnation. It’s not something we can do for ourselves. It can only come through the work and blood of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Because of our sin, our world lives in darkness. Jesus is the light that came into the world to expose what the darkness was hiding. The light is meant to draw us out of the darkness and into the light, so that we might be saved through the light which is Jesus Christ.
Not even religion can save us, but only Jesus Christ alone!