How To Study The Bible
Vern Peterman · May 19, 2002
How to Study Bible (2001-02), No. 33
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/482622439687

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Somebody read John 3, 3 for us. That's the verse we were to focus on. John 3, 3. Somebody read that out loud. Jesus answered and said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. So now after about five weeks into this thing, we're just getting into verse 3.

So we're racing along here, you understand. As we enter this, what's fascinating is that this is dramatic, especially because of the sharp contrast. There is both a national and a cultural and a cosmic conflict in these verses. Nick Dimas is coming in trying to be real polite. And as we see here, this is going to be some shocking words.

Anyway, what observations did people make as they looked at this verse? One of the things that I saw is that word, the Greek word for cannot, there is a dynamo, whatever it is, a Greek dynamo, power. The word for power. Is it a Greek word for which? It's a big deal. Did you get a key? So that's that's the Greek power. Yes. Yeah, he does not have the ability. Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah, that's right. OK, can you hold on a sec? Because you brought up something that you're you're racing. Yeah, but but don't don't lose your train of thought, because that's good.

The thing that you brought up was this, you know, cannot is the English translation, and that word, the root word there is dynamis. We think of it as power. Probably the best English equivalent is ability. And so cannot is sort of flat. You're right. It's sort of a flat translation. It means we'll have no ability. How about that? And that's more powerful, isn't it? Will be unable, just will not have the ability, and that has more depth and dimension to it than just cannot. Okay, right, now your next thought. The next thought, and I'm going to back up a minute, because I was getting ahead of myself like I should. The word for verdict there, you know, begins with G, whatever it is.

And that that seems to me is the emphasis on the father and not the woman. You see what I'm saying? Yes, there is procreation initiated by the father, which in this case or my own. My sense here is that makes it better to think of birth from the father, birth from the mother and that kind of thing. Mm hmm. OK. You see, I'm trying to get there. OK. Then the next issue is using the word see me now knowing I began to think about the whole actually the reproductive cycle. OK. OK. All right. I was birthed from the Father.

I thought about, it took me to Joseph and Mary. I looked back to see if this had to be with no Joseph, no Mary. What I was looking for is the translation for intimacy. This is an intimate knowledge. It's not just see or know, it's an intimate knowledge.

So those are kind of stuff. OK, and I guess I probably spoke. All right, good. Let's back up to you. Talk about born. OK, that was Ganesha. And if we get our our word like genetics from that, you know, because they don't have a sound for for gamma. So we translated or bring it over into English. like genetics and things of that sort, is this thing born? Even gynecology comes from the same root idea. And so this born thing, and we'll take a look at that in a minute, because you're on to an important subject. It's pivotal. Yes, yes, go ahead. I thought in terms of power, it's impotent. Ah, okay, yeah, just totally unable, impotent, yeah, good, good, alright, good, alright, thanks. Other thoughts?

What did some other folks come up with in terms of observations on John 3.3?

The Kingdom of God, somehow or other, whenever I was looking, there was a difference, I don't care how I use that word, a difference. The comparison of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God. And I didn't check all the Gospels, but I think in the other three Gospels you find it was the Kingdom of Heaven. And here it's kingdom of God.

So you've got to say, you know, why? Why the difference? And the kingdom of God seems to me to be a universal type kingdom that would be inclusive of, you know, Gentile believers. In the other gospels, it would be kind of exclusive of Gentile believers and inclusive of the Jews. Okay, and we're going to get into that in more detail than we can tolerate today even.

Donna? Yes. Well, I was just thinking along with what he said. Yeah. Unless a man, and that indicated any man. All right. Yes. Ah, interesting, okay. Yeah, there's some kind of widening out of the Jewish understanding, isn't there? Unless, you know, any man. Okay, good point. Tom?

Well, instead of saying kingdom of heaven and Jesus speaking of himself before on behalf of the Trinity, he's saying, I'm going to fuzzy this up, of God. Yes. That is a vague language that says, yes, I'm a bug. We're going to say, hey, this is it. Not going to try to disguise it or mute it down. Right. OK.

OK, any other thoughts? One observation, too. Another one is that they use the name Jesus, just Jesus, throughout all of John, I think, not Jesus Christ. Interesting. Okay. After the resurrection and then in the Pauline official we saw Christ Jesus. Ah. Okay. Alright. Good point. So John seems like fairly consistently seems to just say Jesus. And that was it. Okay. Okay. Any other observations? Anything else that you see or have seen in this set of verses? Well, we need to do this. Well, actually, I didn't. That's verse 4. Okay, alright. Well, hold on the idea then. Okay. It's verse 4. Hold on to it.

Okay, what else? Well, born again, actually, that's born from above, isn't it? Well, and we'll take a look at that because that's an important insight. Okay? Yeah, Wayne? I think Nicodemus was one of the things that he was when this Born Again came up, why he was focusing on this, because he already had a pretty good concept that he was going to be in the kingdom. Ah, okay. Important insight. It's important for us to think through what is this Nicodemus guy thinking? What's Nicodemus thinking about? Good morning.

I want to welcome you. We're in John 3-3, okay? And by the way, you've just stepped onto a train that's going 60 miles an hour. This is a class that started last October, and so we'll use Greek words and things like that from time to time. If you don't mind, you know, we're glad to have you. Okay, good. My name is Vern, by the way. My name is Cyril. This is Kristen. Good to have you.

Let's kind of go through the verse a little bit at a time here, and let's tie in the observations that you've already made, and let's see if we can make some more. Now, as we go through here, what's the first two words? Three, three. What's the first two words? Jesus. Okay. One of the observations is that Jesus seems to be singular by itself as opposed to Jesus Christ.

And one of the things that we note is that John has a particular way of writing and saying things. You might have noticed as we go through Revelation, there's a lot of things. We noted one of them last week. John alone uses the phrase, down from heaven or down out of heaven. and it's in the Gospel of John, it's in the Book of Revelation, and the one place that it's not in a book he wrote, it's quoting him in Luke. And so that was a phrase that exclusively John's. John alone calls Christ the Lamb in the Gospel of John and in Revelation. This is another instance where John has his own pattern. He doesn't put Jesus Christ in there, he just calls Him Jesus.

So anyway, that's one thing. But how about this next thing, as you go from verse 2 to verse 3, does it seem like there's a bit of a disconnect between what Nicodemus said and what Jesus came back with? Yes, Donna? Doesn't it seem like it's, I don't know if you'd say carnal and spiritual? He's coming at him trying to be pleasant, and it just goes right to the crux of his heart. Yes, exactly. Nicodemus had come in, like I say, pleasant, polite, but very Jewish religious. And beg, he says, we. Yeah, who's we, you know?

Yeah, and so, and then immediately Jesus makes a disconnect in terms of the way this is going on. Also, did Nicodemus make a statement or a question? A statement. Alright, and so he puts together the statement, and so Jesus' answer seems almost kind of funny, doesn't it?

And the word that's translated answer, probably in this context, better be translated responded. Jesus responded to what Nicodemus began saying, but he didn't answer in exact correspondence. You see the difference? So probably responded would be a better way to translate it, and the Greek word actually will allow that. Because that better fits the fact that you've got a subject disconnect and that what Jesus is saying isn't an answer to a question that Nicodemus had put forth, right?

So that's one part of it. Now, next thing you see in there, and then he said to him, said to Nicodemus, and now he says, in the Kings James, it's verily, verily I say unto you, or in other translations, a lot of them, truly, truly I say unto you, Now, anybody check that out. Yes. Amen. That's right. The Greek is Amen, Amen. We would Anglicize it as Amen. That's our English equivalent. So Jesus said to him, Amen, Amen. That's a good point. What else did you find out?

John is the only one who records it as truly, truly. That phrase, you know, truly, truly, I say unto you, Jesus says numerous times in the Gospel of John, the other Gospels say just truly, once, about all the different things. And basically, it's when Jesus is making a statement, it's like, you know, of all things, this is definitely true, okay? And John, here's John talking uniquely again. John uniquely has the truly, truly, And that's the Greek way of emphasizing.

In the net Bible that you have in front of you, it puts it this way. I tell you the solemn truth. How would we say in English to get the point across? This is most certainly true. That's the point he's trying to get across. Here's something else. Truly, truly I say unto you, or even just truly I say unto you, those phrases, They show up where?

Where do you see those? Revelation. Do you see it in Revelation? Well, how about, if you look that up, do you see that in Revelation? You do see the word, I mean, you're correct about that. But it's a little different. But there's a reason for it. You're on to something. Okay? What is What's going on?

Where do you see that, truly I say unto you? Where do you see that in the Bible? Parables? It might be connected to a parable, but who tells parables? Jesus. And that's one pattern. Either truly I say unto you or truly, truly I say unto you is only used by Christ. None of the other apostles use it. None of the other prophets use it. When somebody says honestly, I think right away, are you lying otherwise? Why does Jesus say that?

That's one thing, is to think in the context of the culture. Think of the context of the culture. If you want to focus on a truth, and to say, if I were to come to you and say, this is pivotal, Paul says it differently. He comes to Timothy. And he says, this is a true and faithful saying. And like five times he'll say that as he's writing Timothy. That's Paul's way of putting it. Jesus' way of putting it was consistently through all four Gospels, either truly I say unto you or truly, truly I say unto you. Tom?

I've given you a lot of truths here and truths there, but this is the really core, important... Yeah, this is pivotal. If you miss this, I mean, the others, you know, things like Rendered, or Caesar, that which is Caesar's, that's all fine and well. But if you miss this, you've really missed it. You get the point? In other words, this is a way of putting something in highlighting. Emphasis. Yes, this is emphasis. This is saying, if anything is critical, this is critical.

Don't miss it. It's like the sequence with a parachute. Pull the cord, jump. That's an important sequence, right? You've got to get that right. If you get it wrong, you'll be in a real mess. It's things like that. It's put the parachute on, pull the cord, you know, jump. Things like that. You've got to get in the right order, right? Yes? Can I take this back to Jesus? Absolutely. Go for it.

In my brilliant quotes that I've read along that divine report, I kind of formed the opinion that the use of the word Jesus Christ refers to Jesus when he's on the ground, if you will. If it's Christ Jesus, it refers to Jesus when he's in the air. If you will.

So the question here becomes, there's no Christ involved either way in this birth. I mean, his people, his Jewish people at the time, we'll assume he's on the ground here, would call him master. So is the fact that Jesus is that kind of irreverent? In other words, we in effect should not just refer to Jesus as Jesus. It ought to either be Christ Jesus or Jesus Christ.

Why would John do that? Why would John say, John was the apostle Jesus had his love for, especially. It was like he was close enough, and maybe on this whole sound version, in it. But let's just say John was after the thoughts of Jesus. John was after real Jesus, not just Jesus as some kind of symbol or anything. John was after Jesus himself. That's an important point, Tom. Think about this.

We have Jesus Christ. Jesus was his given name. Christ was essentially a title that acknowledged his special position as ruler over the coming millennium. And so what we have when we say Jesus Christ, it's a personal name and a title. When we read about Jesus in the Gospel of John, John is very personal. He doesn't even refer to himself by name.

John says, the disciple whom Jesus loved. So as he is talking here, it reflects the way John talks about Jesus throughout the Gospel, and it's personal relationship, which is maybe something we ought to get a clue from. It's personal relationship that John is focusing on here. And that's why I think the distinction, you know, that you've well noted, that this gospel has a particular way of stating things, putting things, and emphasizing things. In spite of the fact that John was connected with all the big, you know, uppity-ups in Israel, well connected with the chief priests and the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin, in spite of that, his relationship with Christ is very personal. the disciple whom Jesus loved. Isn't that amazing to think of? That's what John thought of himself. I'm not John, I'm the disciple that Jesus loved. Isn't that neat? That's a neat thing. Alright, let's look a little farther on there.

So here's this truly, truly, I say to you, and we find this consistent pattern, and then he comes out with it. Accept a man, be born again. And what do you notice right off about what he starts saying? Accept a man, be born again. What does that start telling you?

That's right. And one of the things you'll notice frequently about the way Jesus puts things when he states them is he'll put those exclusions in there. See, we're inclined oftentimes to state things inclusively. Frequently, Jesus will put these exclusions in there. Unless, da-da-da-da-da-da, you can't be my disciple. And that's to underscore that this is conditional. This isn't a shoo-in. This isn't a whoops, I'm saved. So this isn't something you just slip into accidentally, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's exclusive, it's singular, that's a good point. There's one way. It just zeroes in on that fact. Accept a man. Now, it has here a man. You got some insights into that? Accept That's been brought up historically. Actually, it's not. I think it's the word anyone. Yeah, it's anyone. So the exception narrows it. The anyone opens the availability and access to all. To be mankind. Yeah, yeah. Except anyone.

So here's immediately is something that narrows it down, but the very next set of words there opens it up. Isn't that interesting? Now, this word born that initially was brought up here, let's take a look, and we're going to jump ahead here just to get larger context. This word born, look how many times it shows up in this passage. You see that? How about that? It must be important.

And, since it's a conversation between Jesus and this other Jew, In Israel, we'd better get a real good understanding of two things. One is, what did Nicodemus think of this idea of being born? What was the Jewish thought of being born? And the second thing is, what did Jesus, and correspondingly, John, intend to get across?

You see that? Alright, so let's take a look at those. Here's John 8. Let's jump ahead. And this is another passage where, here again it's John, right? So we know we have a good reference because it's John writing. Again, if you want to find out what a word means, your first choice is to look at the author, the same author. Because as we've seen, the same author is going to be more inclined to use the word the same way.

Okay? Now, here's Jesus saying, I know that you are Abraham's descendants. What does that mean? Who is He talking to? These are Jews. Okay. Yet you seek to kill Me because My Word has no place in you. I speak the things which I have seen with My Father. Therefore, you also do the things which you heard from your father. They answered and said to Him, Abraham is our father. Now, does that make sense? Abraham is our father? Alright. This is clue number one. Abraham is our father.

What does that make you think about their concept of what it means to be born? What's that? It's from the womb. It's physical birth. Abraham is our father, boy. And what are they hanging on to spiritually as Jews? Yeah, in other words, it's the physical connection that they're looking to, to hang them in there spiritually.

Yes. Yes, that's right. That's exactly it. Good way to put it. I've got the Abraham gene, so I must be fine. I got the right birth. You see that? So, here's their mentality, and that's their answer. That's their answer, isn't it? I've got the Abraham as my father. I've got the Abraham gene. Man, you just can't get better than that. That's their thought. Now, Jesus said to them, if you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham. Okay, now he's taking it what? He's taking it outside of this physical birth thing. And in this case, it's action. He's saying, let's get into action here. Not just, you know, what's your genetic background.

But as it is, you are seeking to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Ooh, whoa. What kind of a statement is that? Do you hear what Jesus just told him? He heard the truth from God. Now, how many of you would say that? Any hands go up?

This Abraham did not do. You are doing the deeds of your father. They said to him, we were not born of fornication. We have one father, God. What is their concept? If Abraham is our father, then God must be our father. To them, the physical birth automatically means spiritual birth. You got it.

And one of the things that shows up in the handout, I think you got last week, their thought, and we'll get into this a little bit later, you know, we have this idea of baptism. Their thought was people who were not Jews, but became Jews, were converted to Judaism, they were baptized. You baptize those people, but you don't have to baptize those who are already Jews, because they're already sons of Abraham. They're already descended from Abraham, and they're already Shulans. You see the picture there? Their thought, you know, I'm a Jew, I'm physically descended from Abraham, God's my father.

Period. That's it. And Christians are the same way. If you live in America, I'm a Christian. Excellent, excellent analogy. If I live in America, I must be a Christian, right? Good point. If we think we're born here, we live here, yeah, I must be a Christian. That's a good way to think of their thought, is if I'm descended from Abraham, I've got the right genes. I'm there. God's my father. What's that? Okay, now let's go on to the same conversation. I'm going to jump ahead a little bit just to get to our point here.

So the Jews said to him, you are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham? Jesus said to them, here's another one of these, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born. It's like, whoa, I mean, Abraham being born, that's the ultimate. And what Jesus is doing is stepping outside of Abraham.

He's stepping outside of the lineage. And to them, nobody on planet Earth was going to get anywhere if you step outside the lineage. I mean, being born of Abraham was it. Right? What did he just do? He stepped outside the lineage, not outside entirely, but just going before. Before Abraham. It's like Abraham's the door, I'm not even going through it. Before Abraham was born, I am.

And this I am, remember we talked about that? The Greek is an emphatic... You can say I am in Greek very simply with one word. When you use the second I, it's ego-emi. It's easy to memorize. Ego-emi. When you say that, it means you're saying I'm God. Because that's what the Greek translation of the Old Testament had. Remember when Moses says, you know, who shall I say sent me? Latin does the same. It says, Ego sum. Ego sum. Sum means I am. Yeah. Ego is the emphasis. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Latin carries it over in the Latin translation.

It basically, he used the same words here that God used with Moses in the burning bush. Okay? So for this, therefore they picked up stones to throw at him because Jesus hit himself and went out of the temple. Jesus stepped outside of the lineage of Abraham. He says, I'm above the lineage of Abraham and I'm God. How about that for getting their attention?

Now we're getting a little better idea of what's the Jewish mindset here. The Jewish mindset was basically totally physical. You've got the right genes, you're born in the right lineage. This is why Paul has all these warnings about endless genealogies. You read that later on in his letters. Warnings about endless genealogies. Why? So what happens? We've got a modern cult that goes back to it. The point being that the physical lineage is not the issue. Now, something else to take a look at here before time runs out on us.

This word, most of your translations will say born again. Some of them will say born from above. Here's why the confusion, and it actually gives us a tremendous insight. The Greek word is anothen. It's like another, only put an N at the end instead of an R. Anothen. And basically it means, and look at this, from above, from a higher place, as in John 3, 3 and 7, and 31, which is outside of our passage that we're looking at totally. But it means born from above, and it also means born again another time.

So our English translators are scratching their head. How do I translate this? Because the word could be used both ways or mean both at the same time. Interesting. It's an interesting word. And we have words like that too. They have multiple meanings.

But you could translate it to be born again from above. And that would give the full sense of the word. To be born again from above. So that would communicate you must be born a second time and that being born a second time must be from above. You get the significance there? In other words, there's more packed into that word than most of our translations communicate. It's not so much chronological as it is an additional. an additional. That's a second time. As a matter of fact, that will come out as we study this passage a little farther. So it's kind of an intentional play on words, but it explains why, and we'll see this in a little bit, it explains why Nicodemus' response.

He's saying, okay, Jesus just said something, which definition did he mean? We know the Jewish bent already in their thinking, right? That everything's physical? So that tells us why Nicodemus asked the question that he did. Why was he puzzled? He was trying to clarify what Jesus said. But the trend that he took of the two directions, is this spiritual or is this physical? He put his question in the form where he's assuming that it's physical, right? Can a man be born again into his mother's womb? His response reflected the uncertainty of which definition was Jesus using, and it also reflected the natural Jewish bent. That if I'm Jewish, if I'm descended from Abraham, I'm there.

See that? Make sense? Does it make sense? Okay, yeah. So what we have here is probably best to think of this in terms of born again from above. That it's really communicating both. And that's what's interesting is instead of, usually you'll see one definition and then a passage, and another definition and other passages.

Now with both definitions, You see John 3.3 in there, what we're just reading here.

Yeah, Donna? Wouldn't you not have a concept when you talk about people that convert to Jewish religion? I mean, through the baptism, you know, and leaving behind of what they were, right, to become a Jew? Wouldn't you not have a concept? of a change? And that's an interesting point. Essentially, you're right. He would have a concept of a change, but the idea that somebody who is not only a Jew, but a Pharisee of the Pharisees, undeniably a son of Abraham, to that mindset, the idea that I'd have to undergo some kind of spiritual change just didn't connect.

It would be like, to give you some kind of an idea, it would be like if I came in here and I said, folks, you all gotta get to Colorado. And you're looking at me, huh? What do you mean, get to Colorado? We're in Colorado, Vern. You see the point? As far as Nicodemus is concerned, Jesus is trying to tell him something that's just inexplicable. What do you mean? I'm already there. Yeah, to him it's like, what are you saying?

I'm already there. I'm a son of Abraham. I can't get any better than that. All I can do is follow the law, but in terms of, is God my father? Yeah, I'm there. That was the connection in Nicodemus' mind. Now, let's look on a little further in there. Cannot see. Chuck brought up this point. Cannot see the kingdom of God. We kind of brought up that question before. Is that an eyesight problem? You've got to get new glasses? You've got to get radial keratotomy? You've got to pull the veil off your head? What does the C mean? What does he mean by cannot see?

Spiritually. It also means to enjoy the privileges of it. It's kind of like when we go to Disneyland, we go to see Disneyland, we don't just look at everything. We go on rides, we go to shops, whatever. Alright, good. So you're talking about seeing as being experience. Let's look at something else. That phrase, Kingdom of God, does that show up again in the passage? Okay. And does it use the same C again?

No. What does it say? I think it's just a stronger way of saying not only can you not enter, you aren't even going to be able to see this. Well, and notice the point that Chuck made earlier, is you will have an inability to You just won't have the ability to do it. You're just not getting there. Okay. Okay. We've run out of time. but we haven't run out of verse. Here's what I want to leave you with.

I would suggest to you that the proper understanding of C depends on first understanding that phrase, Kingdom of God. Because the phrase Kingdom of God has got various definitions among those in Christendom, that that impacts how you understand that word C. Because, depending on what that is, you're going to, quote, see different things. Check on the phrase, Kingdom of God, and look at the different passages that have that phrase, Kingdom of God, and notice something about those passages.

Are they negative statements? Positive statements? Neutral? What's the characteristic of them? So take a look at that for next time. Because there is a pattern, but I want you to make sure that you pick up on it, okay? Alright, let's pray. Lord, thank you that in contrast to the way Jesus stated it here, that by your grace we have an ability. more than only by your grace. But you have indeed enabled us. You indeed have given us the ability. And beyond that, Lord, we can see and understand far more than Nicodemus at this point in time was able to. And thank you for the marvelous mercy and grace that you've shown to us. In Jesus' name, Amen.