Confusion

Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?”

Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just 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.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:10-15)

The Pharisees were very good people and were very well respected by everyone. They took God and the Bible seriously, and their lives were consumed by being religious. Nicodemus belonged to that strict sect, and he was also a member of the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, an assembly of seventy-one religious leaders, both Pharisees and Sadducees, who met six days a week, except during holidays. Those who became members of the Sanhedrin were the best of the best. To them was given the task of settling all disputes relating to the Bible and its interpretation.

The majority of the members of that Sanhedrin did not like Jesus. So Nicodemus approached Jesus under cover of darkness one night. He was worried about what the other members of the Sanhedrin would think, but he needed to hear from Jesus directly. He was uncomfortable with relying on second hand, and clearly biased and contradictory accounts of Jesus’ activities.

Jesus explained that what he was teaching were things that Nicodemus, given his position and education, should have already known. Jesus wasn’t offering new, strange ideas. His teachings came from what the Law and the Prophets—that is, the Bible—presented. The Bible had promised that the Messiah would finally take the sins of the world away, because God loved the world and didn’t want people to perish.

By the time Nicodemus had finished listening to Jesus, not only did he understand him, he believed in him, too. Even a Pharisee can believe when he really hears Jesus and really understands what he has taught.

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