About Me

Arborg, Manitoba, Canada
Married to the love of my life with whom I (and God - all three of us) have co-created three incredible sons. Interested in philosophy, theology, and how to live Truth. Love music but couldn't carry a tune to save my life.

Monday 6 October 2008

John 3 in the context of John 1-3

We all know John’s third chapter.  Most every child raised in a religious context memorizes John 3:16 and we know that this is the chapter in which we are told we need to be born again, and we pretty much all know how that happens as well.  We have been enlightened beyond poor Nicodemus, who asked disbelievingly Surely a man cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!  But do we really know what John 3 means to tell us?  Do we understand how John 3 fits into the narrative that John is painting for us?  In this posting I propose a journey of sorts which aims to arrive at John 3 by way of John 1 and 2.  I want to pay attention to the way John develops his story and how he gets to Nicodemus’ encounter with Jesus in the third chapter.  In doing so I hope we can be reminded of nuances in the born again discourse of John 3 that we could easily miss by reading it as an isolated incident.

John 1:1 In the beginning
echoes Genesis 1:1 and alerts us that John intends to tell a story of (re)creation.  There is a story of reality that we have misunderstood and John wishes to shed new light on our current existence with the help of an old story.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....  Through Him all things were made In Genesis we find a phrase that is repeated time and again “God said ‘Let there be...’ and there was...”  This Word that John is talking about is God’s Word by which all things were created at the origin of all things.  It is God’s Word creating all things, and creating life.  John goes on to say In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.  We had the original light pouring illumination into our lives, but we didn’t get it.  We confused all kinds of other things and people (prophets, John the Baptist, religious structures and creeds? etc.,) with the light, but we did not understand the light when it shone on us.
Then The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  God, Yahweh, the one whose name could not be mentioned because the Name was far too holy - this God, this Yahweh, became flesh, became one of us, and lived and walked among us.  This is earth-shattering news.  The impossible has happened.  The Holy, which heretofore had resulted in instantaneous death when not properly respected, has touched the mundane, has lived with us, and walked with us, and shared food and drink with us, and we live to tell the story.  What can this mean?  This introduction gives us the foundation of John’s gospel.

John’s first stories make it clear that everything has changed.  John the Baptist is asked if he is the Christ, and he says no.  He is just a nameless voice in the wasteland crying out for the way of the Lord to be prepared.  Expectations are not met.  The one who looks like he might be the Messiah is not the One.  In fact, He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.  Things are turned around.  The one who comes later is first.  The one who we think looks like the Christ is a nameless voice in a wasteland, while the true Christ is ignored, until He can be ignored no longer, then He will be crucified.
Impetuous Simon who bends with every breeze, the one who makes sure that when he gets anything into his head he gets it out into the open quickly, before he has a chance to think better of it, is renamed Peter, which means Rock.  What is more dangerous than a Rock careening wildly about, ricocheting back and forth with complete unpredictability?  And yet Jesus later says “On this Rock I will build my church”.  Nathanael says Nazareth!  Can anything good come from there?  John intends to show us that the only hope of the entire world comes from Nazareth.

When Jesus is calling his disciples he tells them I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels if God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.  This quotation recalls Jacob’s experience when he is running for his life from his brother’s justice.  To this point in Jacob’s story we have not seen him do anything but lie and cheat, with the complicity of his mother, and now his brother has vowed to kill him.  Now Jacob may be a liar and a cheat, but he is no fool, so he hightails it out of there, finds a place to sleep with only a pillow for a stone.  I think I’d have nightmares, too, if I had a stone for a pillow, but Jacob’s dream really puts the fear of God in him.  He sees a stairway that rests on earth and reaches into heaven.  Yahweh stands above it, and angels are going up and down the ladder.  Now remember, Jacob does not know Jesus.  For all of the human desires to know God and be like God, the gods are also dangerous, and best kept at a safe distance.  It is good to have God on your side, but it is also good to keep a safe distance from God lest God turn and consume you (Dt 4:24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God).  And Jacob has reason to worry about a holy God since he is, after all, running for his life because of his cheating ways.  In his dream God promises to follow him where ever he goes.  Is that a promise or a threat?  When Jacob wakes up he is thoroughly afraid, saying “God is here and I had no idea!  This is none other than the house of God.  This is the gate of heaven!”  He makes an altar of his pillow stone, and then he magnanimously promises God that if God does go with him on his journey, and brings him back to his father’s house safely, he will give God 1/10 of all that God gives him.  That is a wonderful thing to hear from a cheat.  I am sure God was thrilled.
So why does Jesus make reference to this story?  What is so significant about Jacob’s ladder?  It is about who Yahweh is, and where Yahweh is to be found.  For Jacob the ladder represented a place where Earth and Yahweh connected, and it was an awesome place, a frightening place.  It was a place one did best to make tracks away from.  It might be a good place for making deals with a Deity, but it was not a good place to live.
Jesus, the Word become flesh, tells us that he is the ladder.  The Word become flesh and making his dwelling among us means that all of life has become sacred.  The Holy touching the mundane does not profane the Holy.  It sanctifies the mundane.  So now everywhere is God’s place, and since God makes his dwelling among us, there is no special place on earth where we must go to connect with God, and there is no place we can go to get away from God.  Does that make a difference in our theology?

Two more stories before we get to John 3.  First, Jesus goes to a wedding party and turns water into wine.  Fine wine.  Not just any wine, Jesus makes the best wine, and then wastes it on those who have already had too much to drink and are unable to appreciate the vintage.
The other story is the only story in which Jesus becomes rambunctiously troublesome.  He walks about in the temple, sees merchants taking unfair advantage of his beloved sheep, and (much to my pacifist non-violent consternation) he braids a whip to drive them out of his Father’s house.  The bawling and the bleating and the hollering that ensued as animals and vendors were driven out of the temple area must have been a thing to behold.  How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!  How dare you use my Father’s house as a place where you turn things to your own advantage?  It’s a good thing we never do that, right?

Now we come to John 3.
Nicodemus is a man of the Pharisees and he comes to Jesus by night.  He enunciates a recognition of Jesus a teacher who comes from God, a recognition that Nicodemus premises on the miracles that Jesus has been doing.  Jesus responds I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.  Why?  What does this response mean?  Why does Jesus mention the kingdom of God?  Nicodemus question is “What do you mean ‘born again’?”
Jesus responds I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' 8The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.
Water and the Spirit may recall John’s baptism of water for repentance, and John’s statement that Jesus would baptize with the Spirit (1:33).  Repentance is an important part of a changed life, but repentance alone will not change a life.  For a life to be radically changed requires something more.  It could be argued that the form of genuine repentance that is part of a radical life change is also possible only on the basis of an act of God such as Jesus indicates by everyone born of the Spirit.  Water and Spirit are then not two different events, but a singular event with several integral component aspects.  To be born of flesh and Spirit means one has life that is more than just physical life.  “Born from above” may be a better translation than is “born again”.  This is insinuated by Jesus’ analogy of the wind.  We don’t know where the wind comes from, or where it is going, but we know it is.  We recognize its effects, and we know how to read the signs, and we know when the wind is blowing, even if we know neither its origin nor its end.
In a similar way, the one who is born again, or born from above, is one who knows how to read the signs of our mundane world with a frame of reference that is rooted in the Holy.  Life is not just a body with functional lungs and a beating heart, it is a gift of God.  Life is not just an ongoing physical process, it is a miracle that gives evidence that God is here.  We neither determine the genesis and the processes of life, nor can we adequately define it.  We may not know when life begins, and are not always certain when it ends, but as long as life is, we know God is here.  We cannot always be certain what constitutes a reading of mundane life that is rooted in the Holy, but we know there is such a thing, and we yearn to explore it more fully, to experience it more vitally, and we begin to recognize that the experience of the Holy is itself a taste of the eternal life, the gift which is God sending His One and Only Son.

We do not define the new birth, and we do not determine how it functions.  The new birth is an act of God, and it passes understanding.  We see its effects, and we should learn to recognize its signs, but we should not become unduly distracted by how well it accommodates itself to our accustomed definitions.  We should celebrate the new life where ever we see it, and when we do so we will begin to appreciate it enough to look for it in unexpected places.  Who knows, if we really get carried away with this we might even find ourselves hob-nobbing with prostitutes and tax collectors.  It’s happened before.

18 comments:

Matt said...

Hey Henry,

interesting post. Interesting partially because we are working through John in the SS class I'm teaching.

We had an interesting conversation on vv.12-13 - But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Two things popped out in the discussion. Who is a child of God? And who is the active party in the application of salvation in v.13?

Matt said...

Hey Henry,

interesting post. Interesting partially because we are working through John in the SS class I'm teaching.

We had an interesting conversation on vv.12-13 - But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Two things popped out in the discussion. Who is a child of God? And who is the active party in the application of salvation in v.13?

Snow said...

Hi Matt,
I am curious, how did the SS conversation go? This post is a presentation I did at our ConneXion gathering on the 5th. These presentations are generally followed by a time of reflection, discussion and interaction. We think it helps us be more scripturally grounded if we have a time of accountability immediately following a sermon.
It seems clear in this text that whatever "child of God" means, the right to be a child of God is something given to those who receive and believe. This birth into God's family is not something that can be accomplished simply as a natural process or on the strength of a human decision, though that is clearly pivotal. The new birth is more than these - it is ultimately an act of God (as John 3 clearly indicates). Even though receiving and believing are pivotal factors in having the right to be part of God's family bestowed on us, these alone are not enough to achieve a new birth. The new birth is something we could never achieve on our own. We are radically dependent on God to give us life in every way. The new birth is God's action in the lives of those who receive and believe the Word of life.
Thanks for the questions, Matt. They are excellent questions regarding a challenging topic that I think we dare not attempt to domesticate too religiously. It seems apropos that the new birth remain a bit of a mystery to us if it is indeed God's work in us.

Matt said...

Hi Henry,

I think we're generally agreed on the answer to these questions:

1) 'Children of God' in the Bible does not refer to all created people, but rather to those who believe. John 1 undergirds this understanding.

2) God is the active party in v.13, although that does not nullify meaningful, self-determined choices.

That was also the general consensus in our SS discussion. I guess one potential concern I could have about your post (which I generally agree with) is that your definition doesn't adequately close the door to universalism or inclusivism. If "child of God" and "adoption" are only for the believing ones, then we have to trust God when He says as much. Making that recognition should not, however, nullify that we don't understand, and are not privy to the private conversations that take place within the Trinity.

Blessings,
Matt

Snow said...

Hi Matt,
I am not too concerned about universalism and inclusivism. I am inclined to think not all are ultimately saved, but there are enough references that are most naturally read that way that I cannot reject that possibility out of hand. Ultimately anyone who is saved is saved only through the work of Christ, just as I think I am, and I agree with your comment that "we have to trust God", and extend it to say that we have to trust God to make that call.
I do endorse a qualified form of inclusivism in the sense that salvation is not found in any religion, it is found only in God. Confessions are important, but words are not enough. "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." It would be entirely plausible and consistent for God to save those who say yes with their lives, whether or not they ever become adherents of the Christian religion.

Matt said...

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." It would be entirely plausible and consistent for God to save those who say yes with their lives, whether or not they ever become adherents of the Christian religion.

I think it's possible that we agree somewhat, depending on how you define "Christian religion".

If you're suggesting, though, that one can be saved while simultaneously belonging to another religion, or while being ignorant, then I'd have to disagree. How is one able to do the will of the Father except that He is (knowingly) renewed by the gospel and then becomes aware of God's revelation?

To say that 'being good' is sufficient to say 'yes with their lives' leads us directly to works-based salvation among those who don't accept Jesus Christ in faith.

Blessings,
Matt

Snow said...

I never suggested that being good was sufficient. Saying yes with your life is more than being good, just as saying yes must always be more than saying words. Nothing we do is ever enough, and no religion can save, only God can. If you insist that one must in some way knowingly become a Christian then, in my view, you are promoting a salvation of works.
Blessings.

Matt said...

Sure, salvation involves ,more than saying words. Those words are proven to be genuine with our lifestyles.

What I'm saying is this - the lifestyle means nothing if not rooted in belief.

If you insist that one must in some way knowingly become a Christian then, in my view, you are promoting a salvation of works.

What I'm insisting on is that one must knowingly repent of his sinfulness and turn to Christ in order to be justified. Hope that clarifies.

Snow said...

So we must knowingly and consciously do something to be justified. Sounds like justification by works to me.

Matt said...

No, I'm not advocating justification by works. Quite the opposite!

I'll phrase it another way:

When God saves us by His sovereign grace, He gives us a new heart. Repentance, faith, and a new life are a result of grace.

Snow said...

So we are saved by sovereign grace without any action whatsoever on our part. No conscious or knowingly repenting or naming Jesus required. I can go with that.

Matt said...

That's not what I or the verse said. What I'm affirming is that those things (repenting or accepting Christ) a) can't take place place before a work of the Holy Spirit; and b)will take place when the work of the Holy Spirit has happened (i.e. accepting Christ in faith). I suspect that you're bright enough to have known that that was where I was going, though :-)

Snow said...

Hi Matt,
This does seem a substantial breakthrough. You have moved (are moving? Seem to have moved??) from an obsession with either/or logic to both/and logic. I like that. This is a much better way of looking at things and theology. That will go a long way towards helping you get over some of the Reformed obstacles to balanced theology. Randy may not be too happy, but I certainly am.
Of course, if we take this to the next level I would still have reservations about God imposing His will on us without regard for our wishes as I believe you would hold (unless you have relinquished some of your Reformed commitments). That does not seem consistent with the God we see in scripture who calls and woos, and calls again. The God who wants to gather and nurture his children as a hen gathers her chicks, but cannot do so because His children are not willing. That is the OT story of God and His children in a nutshell. It continues to be the story of God and His children today, it seems.
God bless.

Matt said...

Hey Henry,

not aware that I've changed my position since becoming Reformed. If we're talking monergism/synergism, then we have an either/or situation. If we're talking about the necessary results of monergism, then I suppose it becomes a both/and situation. I'm not sure that I could have been any clearer than I have been in any of our previous conversations.

God does all the work of regeneration.

That regeneration always and necessarily results in faith in Christ and repentance.

Snow said...

Hi Matt,
I would have to say you have been very clearly equivocating. I asked if we are saved by works and you said no. I asked if we are saved solely by grace without works and you said no. Then you say we are saved by grace that results in works, but near as I can tell you will not accept any notion of a salvation that does not include knowing and conscious action on our part. That is clearly a synergistic position though you insist you hold monergism. I know you try to get around some of these implications by employing all sorts of mumbo jumbo double-speak about freely choosing when you cannot choose otherwise, and always choosing according to your desires when we could not desire otherwise. That is precisely the tautological logic that I object to in many iterations of Reformed theology.
God bless.

Matt said...

Henry, this is an honest question. Do you feign ignorance, confusion, etc. intentionally? It would seem to me that strategically, at least, this would be a clever move on your part. You're bright enough to know that your postmodern philosophy can't possibly support itself, and it seems to me like you're attempting to force a modicum of validity onto it by pretending like everything is so terribly confusing.

For a guy with a Ph.D. in philosophical theology, you seem to have a difficult time differentiation cause and effect.

For what I now believe will be the last time, I will say again what I believe, and what you know you understand (even if you disagree) of Reformed theology. You asked:

So we are saved by sovereign grace without any action whatsoever on our part. No conscious or knowingly repenting or naming Jesus required. I can go with that.

There's two parts here.

So we are saved by sovereign grace without any action whatsoever on our part.

Correct. We're dealing with causality here.

No conscious or knowingly repenting or naming Jesus required.

Not in order to merit God's sovereign grace, no. But if the conversion was real then these things are a necessary consequence of God's regenerating work.

You're free to disagree with me if you like, but please quite pretending like it's beyond your comprehension. You're a big boy.

Snow said...

I am not pretending I do not understand. I think I do understand Reformed theology as least as well as you do, but I also think that some of the moves that are made to buttress Reformed theology are ultimately not logically sound. I do think moves are made in an attempt to fuzzy up the logic in order to make an untenable position look reasonable. That is my opinion. I do disagree with your position. I make no bones about that. I am not sure why you take that disagreement to necessarily entail a pretense of not understanding.
God bless.

Matt said...

I am not sure why you take that disagreement to necessarily entail a pretense of not understanding.

Disagreement isn't necessarily from lack of understanding. Assuming we both comprehend Arminianism as well as Calvinism, then our disagreement is based on something other than misunderstanding.

The reason I said what I did was because of your statement in which you tried to make it sound like I was saying something other than I had.

Have a blessed Lord's day,
Matt