Condemnation through Rejection of the Light of Jesus (John 3:17–21)

¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸ Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. ¹⁹ This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. ²¹ But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.”
Christian Standard Bible

In v. 16 John spotlighted God’s love that prompted him to give his only divine Son to the world to bring eternal life to the perishing, to everyone who would look to him in faith. Now in these verses, which begin with another “for,” like v. 16, John elaborates on Jesus’s mission. Why does John begin by telling us what Jesus did not come to do? It’s because although he didn’t come to condemn, that doesn’t mean that many in the world won’t be condemned. Although saving and life-bringing was his mission, condemnation would in fact be the result for many, who would refuse to receive the light and life that he brought—that he is. John wants us to be clear that Jesus did not come from heaven on a mission of judgment on the wicked, as many expected the Messiah to do, but rather to save the perishing who would come to the light.

The verb translated “condemn” is krino, which has various uses in different contexts, but they all have to do with deciding. The use here is the most negative, involving passing a judgment or sentence of condemnation. But we also use “judgment” when we go shopping for groceries, clothes, or a car. We’re looking for something that meets certain criteria involving quality but also appropriateness to our needs, our budget, and our personal desires. The verb may just mean to “choose,” or it may involve a value judgment regarding which is better, or even which fruit is rotten and needs to be thrown away. Our word crisis is related to this word krino. It’s a fork in the road. The dictionary says that a crisis is “a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger.” It can be “a time when a difficult or important decision must be made,” a “critical decision.” It can also be “the turning point of a disease, when an important change takes place, indicating either recovery or death.” It can be what we call “a defining moment” in our lives.

These verses speak of the “critical” character of Jesus’s mission. The divine will had no other purpose than to save. Jesus wasn’t on a mission to “search out and destroy” rotten people, but rather to save any people in this condemned world of darkness who would come toward the light. By refusing to come to him, however, many people demonstrate the fact that they “have already been condemned.” The verb in v. 18 is a perfect tense pointing to a situation they’ve placed themselves in by refusing to believe in the “name,” that is, the merciful, saving character of the unique Son of God. As long as they are unbelieving, they have “missed the boat,” or, as we are more likely to do and as I have done (once by falling asleep in the terminal), they’ve “missed the plane.” I was able to catch a later plane. But Jesus is the only plane to the divine presence, and to miss him is to miss out and be left with nothing but our darkness and our “evil deeds,” occupying ourselves with the worthless, reprehensible things that we love—or is it hate?

Verse 19 begins by saying, “This is the judgment.” The Greek word is krisis. If I were to claim that Jesus is repulsive, you might kick me out the door, or you might think I meant that some people think he’s repulsive. But Jesus actually is repulsive—the same way that the north pole of a magnet is repulsive, that is, to another magnet’s north pole. Jesus is repulsive to those whose self-love and pride cause them to cling to their wicked lifestyle and to run and hide from the light out of fear of being “caught.” The verse is ironic in light of v. 16. God loved the world by sending his only unique Son to save people from perishing in darkness, but many hate God and love their darkness and would rather perish there. Haters of light run from it in fear and shame so that who they won’t be exposed. But lovers of light run to it to escape the darkness and become children of light. To them Jesus is attractive.

As I reflected on how Jesus’s coming divides believers from unbelievers, I remembered my high school chemistry and how we would separate out certain elements that were invisibly in a solution. The process is called precipitation. It’s used to remove impurities from water or to extract valuable minerals that are in a liquid solution.

As John explained in 1:4–5, darkness is in conflict with light, but light banishes darkness. In a book by Annie Dillard I’ve been reading, called Teaching a Stone to Talk, in one chapter she describes her experience in the Amazonian jungle. She speaks of the sun going down, “pulling darkness after it like a curtain.”[1] It may look like that. But the fact is that they can’t coexist—especially spiritual light and spiritual darkess. Darkness must retreat. So Jesus, who came to save, is the “fork in the road,” the crisis. Just as vv. 1–8 speak of the necessity of new birth, so vv. 16–21 speak of the critical necessity of believing. Another way of saying how important something is in one’s life is to say that it’s crucial. Do you know where that word comes from? It comes from the Latin crux, which means “cross.” The cross is crucial; new birth is crucial; faith is crucial. It’s the turning point. Jesus is the critical turning point, the crucial turning point.

[1] p. 76.

God’s Motivation of Love (John 3:16)

16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Here John begins his discourse on the Jesus-Nicodemus dialogue. Interpreters differ as to where Jesus’s speech ends. The red letters in the CSB continue through v. 21. On the other hand, some end Jesus’s words after v. 13. Carson, however, argues that reference to the Son of Man is so characteristic of Jesus that v. 14 must come from him,[1] and the sentence structure and logic brings v. 15 with it. The term rendered “one and only Son” (monogenēs) in v. 16 is elsewhere never used by Jesus but only by the author (1:14, 18; 1 John 4:9). So John 3:16 is probably the beginning of John’s comments on what Jesus has said to Nicodemus.

Although the one who would “lift up” Jesus in v. 14 isn’t specified, surely the purpose of the lifting stated in v. 15, “so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life,” is God’s purpose for the lifting. Therefore, he’s the one who would do it, parallel to Moses, who was the one who lifted up the snake in the wilderness. The provision of eternal life for all who would believe was the reason for the cross. The word “for” in v. 16 then introduces God’s motivation for wanting people to have eternal life—his love for the world.

The standard word for love in Hebrew (ʾahab) is first used of God’s love in Deut 4:37: “Because he loved your fathers, he chose their descendants after them and brought you out of Egypt by his presence and great power.” It’s found next in Deut 7:7–8: “The Lord had his heart set on you and chose you, not because you were more numerous than all peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. Because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your fathers, he brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the place of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” The basis for God’s love is never explained except to say that it isn’t based on our loveliness. We might call it the “unmoved mover” hidden in the heart of God. That doesn’t mean that God’s love has no foundation or cause, and it certainly isn’t random or arbitrary. It just means that God has not divulged to us his reasons for loving his rebellious, corrupt, selfish, wicked human creations. What we do know is that it’s the basis for his work of redemption. He’s not a cold, calculating, Machiavellian God, just using us for his own purposes. Rather, he’s motivated by love for us. Out of love for a rebellious world he promised to send a human offspring to crush Satan’s head. Out of love for the world he preserved Noah and his family. Out of love he chose Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and David, through whom he would bless the nations. Out of love he raised up Joseph and Mary and sent Jesus, the one and only Son of God, into the world as a light to the nations. And out of love he lifted up Jesus on the cross as the ultimate and final Lamb of God. He would be the sacrifice that would take away the sin of the world. Also out of love, Paul tells us that God has given us his Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5). Furthermore, nothing can stand against us, and we will be “more than conquerors” because of God’s love, from which nothing can separate us (Rom 8:35, 37, 39). This is because the length, width, height, and depth of God’s love for us is incalculable (Eph 3:18). Therefore, the one who loved us “to the end” (John 13:1) will love us forever and will continue to be on our side.

So John 3:16 tells us two things about God’s love. It tells us how God has shown us his love, and it tells us the limitlessness of God’s love. The rendering of the KJV, “For God so loved,” is not wrong but has almost certainly been misunderstood. The word for “so” does not mean “so much” but “thus, in this way.” Elsewhere it often follows “just as” and means “so also” and can even be a conjunction meaning “so then.” It’s used 14 times in John and never with the meaning “so much.” For example, in 3:8 Jesus says, “The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So [or “thus”] it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” In 3:14, Jesus says, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so [or “so also”] the Son of Man must be lifted up.” In 7:46, the temple guards sent to arrest Jesus returned to the chief priests and Pharisees empty-handed and explained, “No man ever spoke like this [that is, “thus”]!” Finally, after the resurrection, John tells us in 21:1, “After this, Jesus revealed himself again to his disciples by the Sea of Tiberias. He revealed himself in this way.” Then he proceeds to recount the incident of Jesus appearing to the fishermen from the shore. In 1 John 4:9, our author even paraphrases John 3:16 but uses another Greek construction, meaning “by this,” that everyone recognizes as expressing manner: “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him.”

The first point of John 3:16, then, is to tell us that God, after demonstrating his love for the world by promising salvation, then choosing the human instruments through whom he would bring salvation, then by showing his saving power in the exodus from Egypt and later even in a new exodus from Babylon, has finally, “in these last days” (as Hebrews 1:2 says), not only sent but “given” us his “one and only Son,” through whom we can have eternal life only by believing in him. This is how we know God loves us.

John’s second point is how much God loves us. It comes from the fact that just as Abraham was prepared to give his “only son Isaac, whom [he] loved” to God out of a combination of fear, faith, and love (Gen 22:1, 12, 16; Heb 11:17), so God gave us his “one and only Son” out of love. Scripture gives us many heart-wrenching pictures of the love of a parent for an only son or only child and the boundless pain felt at their loss (see Judg 11:34; 2 Sam 18:33; Jer 6:26; Amos 8:10; Zech 12:10; Luke 7:12; 9:38). We only have to look at Abraham, Jephthah, and David to be moved by their grief and so to feel the love of God for giving up his only Son. Just listen to David’s grief: “My son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you, Absalom, my son, my son!” This shows the limitlessness of God’s love for us. As Paul says, “If, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.” So we know that God will spare no expense, no price is too much, he will go to any lengths to show us his love. It has no bounds.

Much more could and should be said about this verse. We could discuss the significance of the word “world,” which John uses of darkness and unbelief. As Carson says, “God’s love is to be admired not because the world is so big and includes so many people, but because the world is so bad.”[2] Then we could examine the verb “give” and ponder the nature of the divine sacrifice. We could also meditate on the phrase “everyone who believes,” rendered in the KJV by the powerful “whosoever believeth.” We could also wrestle with the meaning of the verb “perish” as the opposite of eternal life. And finally, we could discuss the nature of “eternal life” and the fact that John speaks of it not only quantitatively, as life without end—everlasting—but also qualitatively, a sharing in the divine life.

[1] Carson, 203.

[2] Carson, 205.

John’s Discourse on the Jesus-Nicodemus dialogue (3:16–21)—God’s Motivation of Love (3:16)

16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Interpreters differ as to where Jesus’s speech ends. The red letters in the CSB continue through v. 21. On the other hand, some end Jesus’s words after v. 13. Carson, however, argues that reference to the Son of Man is so characteristic of Jesus that v. 14 must come from him,[1] and the sentence structure and logic brings v. 15 with it. The term rendered “one and only Son” (monogenēs) in v. 16 is elsewhere never used by Jesus but only by the author (1:14, 18; 1 John 4:9). So John 3:16 is probably the beginning of John’s comments on what Jesus has said to Nicodemus.

[1] Carson, 203.

[2] Carson, 205.

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Jesus’s Last Word to Nicodemus (3:14–15)

14 “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

Having explained to Nicodemus about the new birth from Ezekiel, Jesus leaves him with these words about eternal life based on an account from Numbers 21. It involves a puzzling comparison between Jesus’s crucifixion—being “lifted up”—and Moses lifting up an image of a snake on a pole.

The episode in Numbers takes place at the end of the wilderness wandering, after the exodus generation of Israel has died, with the exception of Joshua, Caleb, and Moses. They have just experienced their first victory over the Canaanites in Num 21:1–3. But rather than moving north into the promised land, God has them head south into the Arabah toward Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba to go around Edom. On the way, Num 21:4–9 recounts Israel’s final incident of complaining, followed by God’s judgment and provision of a solution through Moses. Three incidents of the first generation complaining on the way to Sinai are recounted in Exodus 15, 16, and 17. Three more incidents are recounted on the way to Kadesh in Numbers 11–12, culminating in the Lord’s oath that they would never see his rest (Ps 95:9–11).

Now the second generation is following in the steps of their fathers. They are “impatient because of the journey” (Num 21:4) and sick of the “wretched food” God had provided (v. 5). So God sent among them snakes that were “poisonous,” literally “burning” or “fiery,” a word perhaps describing either the feeling of being bit or the inflamed wound. Many died before representatives begged Moses to plead for them before God, who, rather than taking away the snakes, instructed Moses to create an antidote. The antidote would be “a fiery thing” mounted on a pole, which CSB renders “a snake image” (ESV, “a fiery serpent”; NRSV, “a poisonous serpent”; NIV, “a snake”; NLT, “a replica of a poisonous snake”). Simply looking at the image after being bitten would keep one from dying, that is, “he will live” (v. 8). Perhaps Israel is near the copper mines of Timna, since he makes the image out of copper or bronze (copper plus 10% tin). In the 1960s archaeologists found a Midianite tent shrine in Timna, within which was a five inch copper snake.

God’s provision of life in response to Israel’s sin involved looking at the image of an unclean animal, one that also symbolized evil. But all sacrifices involved blood and dead animals, things that in themselves made someone unclean. The homeopathic nature of God’s cure for the impatient and ungrateful people is somewhat parallel to the act of the Philistines who had captured the ark in 1 Samuel 4. Terrified at the damage done to their temple of Dagon and the outbreak of tumors, they returned the ark to the Israelites accompanied by a guilt offering of “five gold tumors and five gold mice,” which God accepted (see 1 Sam 6:1–21). A modern analogy might be found in our using disease-causing germs to create vaccines. Perhaps God used such an image so that Israel would be discouraged from worshiping it, although that didn’t work for long. Some in Israel eventually began burning incense to it (see 2 Kgs 18:4). Of course, to God the most important thing seemed to be the “fiery” nature of the image. Making it out of copper even made it reddish in color, perhaps suggesting sacrifice (compare the red heifer sacrifice, cedar wood, and the scarlet cord in Numbers 19). Perhaps the most striking thing is that although bringing a sacrifice for sin always involved touching the animal, laying hands on it, here was deliverance by merely looking at something that perhaps represented a sacrifice.[1]

Why did Jesus use this episode to illustrate the salvation and gift of eternal life he would provide by dying on the cross? The principle of “look and live” was certainly in view. John the Baptist called upon people to “look” at Jesus (1:36). Jesus invited the disciples to “come and see,” as did Philip (1:39, 46). Jesus promised they would “see heaven opened” (1:51). In 6:40 Jesus said, “Everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” Jesus healed the blind and made them see (9:7). In 14:19 Jesus told his disciples, “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too.” At the crucifixion, John quotes Zech 12:10 in John 19:37: “They will look at the one they pierced.”

Jesus used the verb for “lift up” again in John 12:32–33: “As for me, if I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to myself.” Then John explains, “He said this to indicate what kind of death he was about to die.” There was a physical aspect to being “lifted up,” but there was also the aspect of resurrection and exaltation. In drawing all people to himself, he would bring them up with him into eternal life, resurrection, and exaltation. Some translations such as NIV interpret the phrase “in him” as modifying “eternal life” rather than “believe.” As we saw in 1:4, this is certainly where life must be found. “Eternal life” refers to the life of the age to come, which is only ours if we are joined to Christ by faith. The word “must” means that the cross is absolutely essential to our gaining eternal life and that this was God’s sovereign plan.

[1] For these suggestions, see Gordon J. Wenham, Numbers, TOTC (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity, 1981), 157–58.

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Going to the Well on 9/11

by E. Ray Clendenen

I read this morning about a woman named Emma Gatewood. In 1954 at the age of 67, after raising 11 children, she began hiking. Her husband Percy had recently beat her so badly that he broke her teeth and jaw and cracked her ribs, nearly killing her. She was granted a divorce—unheard of in those days—and she raised her last three children alone. Her youngest daughter Lucy, who witnessed the brutal violence, showed her mom a National Geographic article about the Appalachian Trail and urged her to set out on an adventure. So she set her mind to tackle the 2,168-mile trail. She was the first woman to walk the Appalachian Trail solo in one season. She completed the hike three times, the last at age 75, making her the first person to do so. She also walked 2,000 miles of the Oregon Trail, averaging 22 miles a day. In total she walked alone through 14 states. It was described as “an act of self-care, healing, resistance, independence, and a way to regain her inner and outer strength and to find her way back to herself.” I don’t know anything about her spiritual condition, only that a situation of cruelty and brutality resulted in her finding inner peace and inspiring others. I can identify because several years ago I began coping with a time of personal crisis and desperation by hiking—not the AT, but at Radnor Lake, several times a week.

The United States has always been a pluralistic nation, full of all kinds of self-interest groups vying for attention. Two devastating world wars full of cruelty, hate, and heroism led to a stream of nationalism that has lately dissipated to a trickle. On this day in 2001 a murderous act of heartless brutality united us for awhile and made us feel like a nation again. Singing America the Beautiful together was almost a spiritual experience.

A domestic act of brutality resulted in a personal journey for inner peace. A national act of brutality resulted in a spirit of unity and compassion for one another. These were significant events that affected many lives. But their scope and power for change were limited. About 2,000 years ago another act of cruelty and brutality against one innocent man resulted in a death with global and eternal results that began as a trickle but has become a river of living water.

About three years before that event that has become a historical and spiritual continental divide, Jesus the Jewish carpenter and fisherman met a disregarded member of society, a Samaritan woman, at a well.

10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.”
11 “Sir,” said the woman, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’? 12 You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”
13 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.”
15 “Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”

“The gift of God” Jesus refers to in v. 10 is God’s Spirit, as we can see from several OT prophetic texts such as Isa 44:3–4, where the gift of the Spirit is associated not only with water but also with Jacob. God’s people are not to fear,

“For I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your descendants and my blessing on your offspring. They will sprout among the grass like poplars by flowing streams. This one will say, ‘I am the Lord’s’; another will use the name of Jacob; still another will write on his hand, ‘The Lord’s,’ and take on the name of Israel.”

The Samaritans accepted only the Pentateuch as Scripture, which is why Jesus says to the woman, “If you knew the gift of God.” Several NT texts as well speak of God’s gift of the Holy Spirit that Jesus the Messiah came to bring. And at the feast of Tabernacles recounted in John 7, Jesus would declare,

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.” He said this about the Spirit. Those who believed in Jesus were going to receive the Spirit, for the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified. (John 7:37–39)

John uses two different terms for “well” here in chap. 4. In v. 6 he uses pēgē, also used by Jesus in v. 14, associated with “living water.” Pēgē was actually the term for a spring or fountain (see Jms 3:11; 2 Pet 2:17; and over 90 times in the Old Testament). In Rev 21:6 the one seated on the throne declares, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will freely give to the thirsty from the spring of the water of life.” The other word for “well” John uses (vv. 11–12) is phrear, referring to a pit or shaft, typically leading to a water supply. Although the OT doesn’t mention Jacob’s well, a reliable tradition identifies it with a well located a little less than a mile from what was probably ancient Sychar. The well still exists today at the base of Mount Gerizim, which the woman refers to in v. 20 as “this mountain.” The well is now about 100 feet deep and is fed by an underground spring.

The term “living water” is used in the OT of running water, especially fresh, spring water. The prophets also use “living water” in a figurative sense to describe spiritual water that brings life. Isaiah promised a day when Israel would “joyfully draw water from the springs of salvation” (Isa 12:3). Jeremiah uses the phrase “living water” to describe the Lord. He condemns the people for abandoning the Lord, “the fountain of living water,” and digging “cisterns for themselves—cracked cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jer 2:13). The psalmists also use water to symbolize the Lord’s faithful, life-giving provisions for his people. “People take refuge in the shadow of [his] wings” are said in Psalm 36 to be “filled from the abundance of your house. You let them drink from your refreshing stream [lit. “the stream of your delights”; the latter word in the singular is ʿēden, i.e. Eden]. For the wellspring [pēgē in LXX] of life is with you” (Ps 36:7–8). Psalm 42 begins, “As a deer longs for flowing streams [lit. “streams/channels of water”], so I long for you, God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God?” (Ps 42:1–2). Finally, Psalm 63 begins, “God, you are my God; I eagerly seek you. I thirst for you; my body faints for you in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water” (Ps 63:1).

Jesus’s promise is that if a person will “ask” him, he will give us the spiritual water that will become a spring and even “streams of living water flow[ing] from deep within.” Then why do we so often thirst? Is it because we lack spiritual resources? Or is it because he puts us in situations that drive us to the well? When we as Christians come to the end of ourselves, we are driven to the well. But we need to go to the well . . . every . . . day. We need to drink deeply from that well of living water every day. We need to dive into those waters and let them inundate us every day. Does that mean five minutes of Bible study and a five-second prayer? Does it mean an hour of Bible study and another hour of prayer? It means as long as it takes. Until we are full and satisfied and fortified.

The Impossibility of Starting Over (John 3:3–8)

The Amazing News of New Birth (3:3–8)

3 Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 “How can anyone be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?”

5 Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again. 8 The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

The Impossibility of Starting Over

How can I become a new person? That’s evidently the question millions of people are asking, since marketing tells us that so many products and services have the ability to make a new man or a new woman out of us. We all want a make-over, or a do-over. We want another chance to get it right. It would be nice sometimes just to hit RESET or to REBOOT. Sometimes we think a change of circumstances or location will fix us, but it never does, because we’re still there. One evening at a restaurant Gigi told me about a song she really liked. She played it for me and I liked it too. I even made part of it her ringtone when she calls me. It’s a Lynyrd Skynyrd song called “Free Bird.” Here are some of the lyrics.

Things just couldn’t be the same
Cause I’m as free as a bird now
And this bird you’ll never change
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
And this bird you cannot change
And this bird you cannot change
Lord knows, I can’t change
Lord help me, I can’t change
Lord, I can’t change

Is the songwriter right?

When I was about 19 and in college, I was just beginning to grow in Christ. I bought a notebook at the college store and started recording what I was learning and what I was thinking about. Being a wannabe poet, I tried to express my longings in a poem.

Dear God, forgive this feeble species
for adulterating our only source of life—
for fragmenting Christ into a million different pieces,
and then changing each to suit ourselves.
If only we could start again—
erase all that we have done and begin anew
to see the essence of life as you have shown it,
and carry the picture of Christ with us through all.
But how can the mind of man lose what it has taught itself
and start again to know of Christ?

Even if we could start again, the second time around might be even worse. So starting over can be scary. It can also be discouraging. No one likes to have to go back to the start in a game, especially if you’re close to the finish line. It can even be humiliating. In the movie Regarding Henry, Harrison Ford plays an unscrupulous, ruthless lawyer, whose wife and daughter hate him. Then he gets shot by a robber and suffers brain damage and memory loss. He doesn’t recognize anyone and has to relearn to talk, walk, eat, read, and write. But he learns all those things and to everyone’s surprise becomes a kind, gentle, loving man. I can testify as well that starting over can be painful and humiliating. So can Moses, who had to start over. So can the apostle Paul. In John 3, Jesus meets a man who needs to start over, but who is either unable or unwilling to recognize it. After all, he is “a man from the Pharisees, . . . a ruler of the Jews,” a prominent “teacher of Israel” (lit. “the teacher of Israel”) named Nicodemus.

Nicodemus began his conversation with Jesus by stating what “we know.” I went to seminary full of questions. I think I irritated my fellow students in class sometimes by asking so many questions. Many of the students had been to Christian colleges and knew many things I had not been exposed to in my studies in anthropology in a secular university. I think many of the professors spoke more to them than to me and assumed knowledge that I didn’t have. I may also have been a bit skeptical and wanted to make sure the professors had good reasons for the things they were saying. Other students asked questions too, of course. I often thought their questions were intended more to show off what they knew than to gain new knowledge and understanding. Nicodemus may have been like one of these. He was a Jewish teacher and leader and wanted to begin by making sure Jesus knew he wasn’t ignorant or stupid. He and his buddies knew some things. Jesus wasn’t talking to a religious novice. After making this point, perhaps Nicodemus meant to continue with a question about the finer points of the kingdom of God. But he never got there. Jesus knew what was on his heart and “replied” to the unstated question. He wasn’t impressed with what Nicodemus knew.

What Jesus said was surely meant to baffle Nicodemus and make him aware of what he didn’t know. Verse 7 tells us Nicodemus was “amazed” by what Jesus told him. In v. 8 Jesus even uses an illustration of the “wind” (the same word meaning “spirit”), and says to Nicodemus, “you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going.” Jesus is calling his attention to the vastness of Nicodemus’s ignorance. When Nicodemus confirms his ignorance with a question in v. 9, Jesus even humiliatingly asks, “Are you a teacher of Israel and don’t know these things?” In other words, “Is it possible that you aren’t really as smart as you thought you were?” When I was a teenager I ran across this ancient proverb:

He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool, shun him.
He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is a student, teach him.
He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep, awaken him.
He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise, follow him.

Jesus is clearly the wise man. But when Nicodemus came to Jesus, he seems to have been a fool. Fortunately for him and for us, though, Jesus did not shun him.

The repetition of several terms in these verses helps us identify what we should pay special attention to. We’ve already noticed the word “know,” which occurs three times. Another such word that occurs six times in vv. 2–9 is easily overlooked. The Greek word is dunamai (related to English “dynamite”), meaning “to be able/possible.” Its importance is masked in English by having to translate it with such words as “could,” “cannot,” and “can.” Nicodemus uses it first when he informs Jesus of what he knows: No one is able to perform such signs unless he is God’s messenger. Jesus does not disagree, but he wants to redirect Nicodemus’s attention. He picks up Nicodemus’s word and says, in effect, “You think it’s impossible to do such things without being sent by God? I’ll tell you something even more impossible. It’s impossible for anyone to even see God’s kingdom without being born again (or “from above”). Later Jesus talks about entering the kingdom. Perhaps he is alluding here to Moses, who at first was allowed only to see the promised land (Deut 34:1–4).

But Nicodemus misses Jesus’s point about seeing God’s kingdom and focuses on the impossibility of being born again because he thinks it involves the impossibility of reentering his mother’s womb and then coming out again. Jesus, he thinks, is talking nonsense. The word translated “again” usually means “from above,” as in 3:31 (“The one who comes from above [Jesus] is above all. The one who is from the earth is earthly and speaks in earthly terms”) and 19:11 (where Jesus tells Pilate, “You would have no authority over me at all . . . if it hadn’t been given you from above”). But Nicodemus takes it according to its alternate meaning of “again,” which fits the context here too but causes Nicodemus to misunderstand. Jesus tries again to focus Nicodemus’s attention on the kingdom of God by pointing out the impossibility of entering it without being “born of water and the Spirit.” This phrase should cause Nicodemus to realize he’s talking about something spiritual, not physical. But it doesn’t help. A birth brought about by the Spirit seems to Nicodemus to be just as impossible. He responds in v. 9 (lit.), “How is it possible for these things to occur?” He is not only baffled but incredulous. Part of Nicodemus’s difficulty may have been the assumption of most Jews that God’s kingdom was something coming in the future and, more important, was something faithful Jews already had a ticket for since Abraham was their father (see John 8:33–40).

Another interesting repetition that’s easily missed is the word “unless,” which occurs three times (lit. “if not”). Some things are impossible unless something else is true. That is, there is one and only one thing that can make the otherwise impossible possible. It’s absolutely essential, the sine qua non, a Latin phrase meaning “without which nothing.” Life is impossible, for example, unless oxygen is present. Even water requires oxygen. It’s also impossible to play ball unless we have a ball. It’s the sine qua non of ball playing. It’s also impossible to enter a foreign country unless you have a valid passport. Nicodemus is again the one to use this word first, and Jesus picks it up for a reason. Doing the things Jesus did would be impossible unless he is doing God’s work. That’s the one necessary thing, Nicodemus recognizes, the sine qua non, that can make Jesus’s works possible. Jesus responds that an even more amazing and essential thing that can make the impossible possible is the new birth. It’s the only thing that can turn the impossibility of seeing the kingdom of God into a possibility. Jesus underlines its importance by saying it again in different words in v. 5. Being “born again” means to be “born of water and the Spirit.” It’s the only thing that can make entrance into God’s kingdom possible.

No one could miss the importance of the word “born” in vv. 3–8. It occurs eight times—more than any other word. In v. 6 Jesus explains that birth is what determines whether someone is “flesh” or “spirit.” He is not speaking in Pauline terms of our sinful nature, but rather of our being strictly human and therefore powerless when it comes to spiritual realities. Being “spirit” is absolutely essential to entering God’s kingdom. So how does one become spirit? This is another recurring word in these verses. It’s the Greek word pneuma. It occurs five times here, although with three different meanings. In v. 6 it describes the spiritual nature of someone who is able to enter God’s kingdom: we must be “spirit.” It can also refer to “wind,” as Jesus uses it in v. 8 for what “blows where it pleases.” It’s what Nicodemus often hears but has no ability to understand. But the first and most important appearance of pneuma is in v. 5, when Jesus says one must be “born . . . of the Spirit.” Jesus uses the phrase again in vv. 6 and 8. In these verses it refers to the One we consider the third Person of the Godhead or Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

A repeated phrase in these verses helps us understand how important the Spirit is. This phrase is found on the lips of Jesus in John’s Gospel 25 times. The KJV rendered it literally if oddly (to modern ears): “Verily, verily, I say unto thee.” I like “Most assuredly, I tell you.” Its purpose is to mark especially important things Jesus has to say. The first time Jesus uses it is in 1:51 introducing his promise that the disciples would see heaven opened. He uses it with Nicodemus in v. 3 when he declares how impossible it is to see God’s kingdom without the new birth. Then he uses it again in v. 5 when he explains that it’s impossible to enter God’s kingdom without being “born of water and the Spirit.” Only God’s Spirit can cause a spiritual birth that can take a person who is nothing but flesh—earthbound humanity—and make them “spirit,” that is, having a new, spiritual nature. Only people radically transformed by God’s Spirit can enter God’s kingdom. The reason Jesus’s message to Nicodemus is so important is that he has not yet experienced it. He thinks he can approach the kingdom on the basis of what “we know.” He’s no more equipped to enter the kingdom of God than a shrimp is to whistle, a caterpillar or a robin’s egg is to fly, or a tadpole to hop, croak, and eat flies. Nicodemus is nothing but flesh. That’s why he can’t even understand what Jesus is talking about.

Jesus’s message to Nicodemus teaches us that the things we often value so much because we think they make us special are nothing but useless baggage and a crushing millstone on our spiritual journey (Phil 3:3–9). This may include our pedigree or ancestry, what our forefathers may have been or done, the clubs or other groups we may belong to, our education, our experience, our “scars,” our accomplishments or honors, or the accomplishments or honors won by our children or even friends (“the mayor is a personal friend of mine”). All those things can be nothing but worthless hindrances to entering an eternal relationship with God.

But if Nicodemus did come to experience rebirth by the Holy Spirit, as he evidently did, not only was he granted entry into the kingdom of God, but he was radically changed into a new man. Before he came to know Jesus, if someone had asked him who he was, doubtless he would said something like “I’m Nicodemus, a Pharisee and ruler of the Jews, a teacher of Israel.” Afterward, his answer would have been quite different.

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Nicodemus Comes to Jesus (John 3:1–2)

1 There was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
2 This man came to him at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform these signs you do unless God were with him.”

Undoubtedly John intends us to interpret his account of the “man” (anthrōpos) Nicodemus beginning in 3:1 in light of his emphatic statement in 2:25 that Jesus did not need to consult anyone “about man [anthrōpos]” because “he himself knew what was in man [anthrōpos].” Repetition of the word for “man” may tell us that Nicodemus is different from them. The Greek conjunction de introducing the chapter often, though not always, means “but.” However, the statement in 2:6, “Now six stone water jars had been set . . .,” begins with this word. Furthermore, the meaning “but” is found mainly where the word joins clauses, rather than at the beginning of a section as here. So the conjunction here does not tell us a contrast is intended. John’s intention is more likely that Nicodemus is an example of the kind of superficial believers referred to in 2:23–25. According to Dan Wallace, “The evangelist is moving from a generic principle in 2:24–25 to a specific illustration of this principle in chapter 3.” He further explains that “immediately after this pronouncement about Jesus’ insight into man, the evangelist introduces the readers to a particular man who fits this description of depravity.”[1] Bruner suggests that Nicodemus may even have been a spokesman for the superficial believers, perhaps suggested by his words in v. 2, “we know.”[2]

The phrase “from the Pharisees,” which occurred first in 1:24, suggests that Nicodemus might be like the “priests and Levites” who interrogated the Baptist in 1:19–28. The phrase occurs next in 7:48 pointing to their unbelief: “Have any of the rulers or [any from the] Pharisees believed in him?” And in each of its other three uses (9:16, 40; 18:3) it also refers to Jesus’s opponents. As McHugh states, “The words define succinctly the man’s religious character.”[3] His identification as a “ruler of the Jews” means he was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin. Another clue that Nicodemus is intended as an example of inadequate or phony faith is his reference to “these signs you do” in v. 2, which echoes 2:24.

The next clue about Nicodemus is that he visited Jesus “at night” (v. 2). Some might take this as a sign of his social ineptness or even rudeness: he was the kind of person who would intrude on someone at night. But this would be reading modern sensitivities into the text. It’s usually taken as indicating Nicodemus’s fear (or at least prudence) that his consulting Jesus might be discovered by some of his fellow Pharisees. As John tells us in 12:42, many of the Jewish “rulers” did later “believe in him,” although the genuineness of their faith is questioned, not only by their failure to “confess him” out of fear of being “banned from the synagogue,” but by their preference for “human praise more than praise from God” (12:43). The Pharisees mostly controlled the synagogues and used this to keep people in line. McHugh points to “an abundance of rabbinic texts proclaim[ing] the virtue of studying the law deep into the night” and proposes that “Nicodemus seeks not the cover of darkness but the blessings of the night.”[4] Keener notes, however, that studying Torah at night was probably only necessary for those who worked by day, which would not have included Nicodemus.[5] Morris points out that Jesus would have been busy with the crowds during the day, and night would be Nicodemus’s only opportunity to have a private, uninterrupted consultation with this remarkable rabbi.[6] This may be true but is unlikely to be his point.

Besides implying secrecy, the time of Nicodemus’s visit probably also is symbolic of his spiritual condition.[7] He was one coming out of the darkness to seek the light (see John 1:4–5; 3:19–21). Jesus later told his disciples, “If anyone walks during the night, he does stumble, because the light is not in him” (11:10). Then even later John tells us that after Jesus predicted that one of his disciples would betray him, Judas, “after receiving the piece of bread, . . . immediately left. And it was night” (13:30). Finally, we learn that at some point Nicodemus did put his faith in Jesus. He and Joseph of Arimathea prepared Jesus’s crucified body and buried him in a nearby garden tomb (19:18–42). Nicodemus is identified there as the one “who had previously come to him at night” (19:39), marking the significance of the fact. We also learn there that evidently fear did not necessarily indicate unbelief, for such fear prompted Joseph of Arimathea, “a disciple of Jesus,” to come to Pilate “secretly because of his fear of the Jews” (19:38). Notice that Jesus does not criticize or ridicule Nicodemus’s faltering faith or fearfulness in coming to him at night.

John tells us of a spectrum of people from varying social levels and circumstances who “came to” Jesus for various reasons and in various ways.[8] Rather than a simple fisherman, a woman of questionable morals, or a man blind from birth, Nicodemus was a Pharisee (that is, a really serious religious person), a ruler of the Jews, and a teacher of Israel. He was prominent enough that we know his name. He was evidently healthy, financially stable, highly respected, well educated, socially connected, and a member of the group that felt most threatened by Jesus and therefore had the greatest animosity toward him. Surely he was not a prospect for discipleship. Nor did he walk the aisle at the beginning of the first verse of “Just As I Am,” like the unnamed Samaritan woman. He was initially skeptical of what Jesus had to say. His faith evidently started very small and grew very slowly.

John doesn’t really tell us why Nicodemus came to Jesus. Jesus identifies him as “a teacher of Israel” who doesn’t seem to know the first thing about God’s truth (3:10). Yet, on the basis of “signs” that were like nothing he’d ever seen before,[9] Nicodemus claims to “know” that Jesus is “a teacher who has come from God.” Evidently Nicodemus acknowledges that there may be some things he doesn’t know that he might learn from Jesus. Is he applying for admittance into Jesus’s school of discipleship? Or perhaps he just wants a seminar from this gifted teacher. He begins his audience with the Savior by raising several topics that he presumably would like Jesus’s response to: “his claim to being a rabbi [a professional teacher of the Torah], his function as a teacher, his origin from God, and the signs he has performed.”[10] (Notice that Nicodemus is recognizing only Jesus’s membership in some rather commendable groups rather than his unique status as the rabbi and teacher to end all rabbis and teachers, and as the Son of God.)

But rather than letting Nicodemus set the agenda for their conversation, Jesus offers his own topic, which Nicodemus accepts: the necessity of new birth for one to see God’s kingdom. Jesus was not avoiding difficult questions with subterfuge or rudely dismissing Nicodemus’s concerns in order to pursue his own. Jesus had an ability, coveted by every counselor, many of whom imagine they possess it, to see through all the smoke in a person’s life into their heart. Like a smart missile that is incapable of being thrown off course by camouflage, decoys, or evasive maneuvers, Jesus zeroed in on what Nicodemus needed to hear. Jesus’s knowledge of “what was in man” (2:25), exhibited earlier in his knowledge of Nathanael and the other disciples (1:47) and later in his knowledge of the Samaritan woman (4:17–18) and Judas (see 13:21–30), is exhibited in his dealing with Nicodemus. What Nicodemus needed was “the kingdom of God.” Was that a longing in his heart? If so, Jesus’s answer to his longing came as a total and initially incomprehensible surprise.

[1] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 597, 228–29, respectively.

[2] Bruner, 167.

[3] John F. McHugh, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on John 1–4 (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), 219.

[4] McHugh, 220.

[5] Keener, 536.

[6] Morris, 211.

[7] See Jörg Frey, The Glory of the Crucified One: Christology and Theology in the Gospel of John (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2019), 130.

[8] The verb ἔρχομαι followed by πρός occurs in John 31 times, more than in the combined Synoptic Gospels.

[9] This is probably the sense of “no one could [is able to] perform these signs unless God were with him.”

[10] See F. P. Cotterell, “The Nicodemus Conversation: A Fresh Appraisal,” ExpTim 96 (1984–85): 239, as cited by Stanley E. Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament (2nd ed.; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), 306–7.

Jesus Announces the Ultimate Sign (John 2:18–22)

I. Prologue (1:1–18)
II. Jesus’s Ministry Begins (1:19–2:11)
III. Jesus Reveals the Father in the World (2:12–12:50)
A. Jesus’s Early Ministry (2:12–4:54)
1. Jesus in the Temple (2:12–22)
a. Jesus’s Zeal for His Father’s House (2:12–17)
b. Jesus Announces the Ultimate Sign (2:18–22)

18 So the Jews replied to him, “What sign will you show us for doing these things?”
19 Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days.”
20 Therefore the Jews said, “This temple took forty-six years to build, and will you raise it up in three days?”
21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 So when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the statement Jesus had made.

Although the verb “replied” implies Jesus had asked a question, the Greek verb can also refer to a response to something that has happened, as is the case here. So it would be better rendered “responded” (NIV, NET). Carson prefers “demanded,”[1] which is followed by NLT, although this would normally require a verb form of zēteō, “seek.” Nevertheless, context as well as our understanding of the Jewish leaders in John would suggest that “demanded” was surely the nature of their question to Jesus.

This is the second time “sign” occurs in John, the first being at the wedding in Cana. The word occurs over 70 times in the NT, and only three times is it something that is shown (cf. Matt 16:1; Acts 2:22, “attested”). It’s usually something seen (10x) or sought/demanded (8x), or that happens (9x; Gk. ginomai, “become”), but most often it’s something done/performed (23x). That is, it’s usually an action or event. What the Jews were asking for is unclear. We expect them to ask Jesus what right or authority he thinks he has for his behavior in the temple, and that is probably the point. Maybe they are sarcastically asking for his ordination certificate or a letter from the high priest like Paul had (Acts 9:2).

Jesus’s response to the Jews’ demand is striking, mysterious, and intriguing. He could have said, “I don’t need a sign, you morons, I am the sign, I’m the Son of God.” But instead, he points to “this temple.” Clearly, at the time, no one understood that Jesus was not speaking of the literal temple built by Herod, although John tells us Jesus was speaking figuratively of his body, which would be “destroyed” at the cross (v. 21). According to v. 22, this realization only came to Jesus’s disciples after his resurrection. So the sense in which Jesus’s death and resurrection would function as a sign was lost on the Jews he was speaking to. The Roman destruction of the temple in AD 70, however, surely convinced many Jews that God had considered their temple in need of cleansing. Like the first sign in 2:11, the sign of Jesus’s death and resurrection would only be meaningful to believers, but it would also nurture their faith and their knowledge of him. Another intriguing aspect of Jesus’s statement is that the word “destroy” is an imperative, which on the surface is a command. Clearly a condition is implied: If they destroy him, he would rise from the dead and thereby demonstrate his authority. Nevertheless, Jesus uses an imperative. The sense is “If you really want a sign of my authority, you will have to crucify me, and then I will rise from the dead.”[2] Of course, as father Abraham told the rich man in Jesus’s parable, “If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31).

But by referring to his body as “this temple” as he spoke to the Jews within the precincts of Herod’s temple, Jesus was being intentionally ambiguous, using what Beale calls a “double entendre.” Although the physical temple was provisionally his Father’s house, the divine presence was no longer there. It would be virtually or spiritually destroyed when Jesus was crucified (see Mark 15:38), and God would use the Romans to destroy it physically in AD 70 (see Acts 6:14). God’s glory was present now in Jesus (John 1:14: “the Word became flesh and [tabernacled]among us”), the One on whom the angels ascended and descended, the new Bethel, the “house of God,” the place for people to meet God (see comments on John 1:51). The temple of stone was being replaced by a divine temple of flesh, which would finally be accomplished at Jesus’s resurrection. True worship would no longer occur at the Jerusalem temple but at Jesus’s feet (see John 4:21–24).[3]

During the last week of his earthly life, as Jesus and his disciples were leaving the temple, one of them said to him, “Teacher, look! What massive stones! What impressive buildings!,” to which Jesus answered, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another—all will be thrown down” (Mark 13:1–2). We’re so easily impressed, and, as British theologian Michael Reeves says, “We naturally gravitate, it seems, toward anything but Jesus—and Christians almost as much as anyone.”[4] We like to talk about Christianity (even God), grace, faith, the gospel, the Bible, our church, Celebrate Recovery, staying healthy, etc. But for Paul the fanatic, Jesus was everything. He wrote the Philippians, “For me, to live is Christ,” and “I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ” (Phil 1:21; 3:8). Only Jesus is the Light, without which not only darkness but also falsehood flourishes and rules. Only he is “the bottomless Spring of life, comfort and joy.”[5] We could talk endlessly about the excellence of Christ and never say enough. When we define ourselves by anything other than Christ, we become nothing but puffed-up balloons.[6]

[1] Carson, Gospel according to John, 180.

[2] The sense of the imperative may also be that the destruction of “this temple” was a divine necessity. Cf. Matt 6:21, etc.

[3] See G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God, NSBT (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 192–95.

[4] Michael Reeves, Rejoicing in Christ (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015), 10.

[5] Reeves, 9.

[6] Reeves, 97.

Jesus’s Zeal for His Father’s House (2:12–17)

I recently released a book on the first week of Jesus’s ministry with Wipf & Stock called Jesus’s Opening Week: A Deep Exegesis of John 1:1–2:11.

As I continue slowly to teach through John’s Gospel, I decided to post my notes. I’m adapting Carson’s outline as follows:

12 After this, he went down to Capernaum, together with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples, and they stayed there only a few days. 13 The Jewish Passover was near, and so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling oxen, sheep, and doves, and he also found the money changers sitting there. 15 After making a whip out of cords, he drove everyone out of the temple with their sheep and oxen. He also poured out the money changers’ coins and overturned the tables. 16 He told those who were selling doves, “Get these things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!” 17 And his disciples remembered that it is written: Zeal for your house will consume me.

At some point, Jesus made Capernaum (meaning “village of Nahum”) his home, moving there from Nazareth (Matt 4:13; Mark 2:1). Capernaum was on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee and was a larger town than Nazareth. Their brief stay there was because of the coming Passover, but it would make sense to go home first. John mentions three Passovers, here, in 6:4, and in 11:55 (with a possible fourth in 5:1[1] The time would be the end of our March or the beginning of April (Nisan 14, followed by the festival of Unleavened Bread, Nisan 15º22). It would be a time when minds were to be focused on God’s deliverance of his people from Egyptian bondage and the making of the nation of Israel.

Blomberg suggests that Caiphas the high priest may have only recently moved the commerce of animals and money-changing from the Mount of Olives on the other side of the Kidron Valley into the outer temple courtyard, the court of the Gentiles.[2]The provision of animals was for the sake of out-of-town visitors, so they didn’t have to bring their own animals. The reason for the money changing was that the time around Passover was when Jews had to pay the annual temple tax. People came to the Passover from all over the empire and brought different coinage with them. The tax, an annual half-shekel, however, had to be paid with a Tyrian coin (because of its high quality), which covered the tax for two people (cf. Matt 17:27). People had to exchange their coins for the Tyrian coin, for which the money-changers charge them a percentage.

Jesus’s problem with the proceedings was not that people were being cheated or overcharged (in the later cleansing recounted in Mark 11:17 Jesus does suggest this by the phrase “den of robbers”) but that the activity was taking place in the temple, which was to be a dignified and holy place of prayer, humble repentance, and praise of God. Jesus’s behavior was a threat to the priestly authorities because they were the ones who had authorized it. The event may allude to Zech 14:20–21, which is found in the final, climactic chapter of the book, which describes the day of the Lord, when the Lord will appear on the Mount of Olives to annihilate the nations attacking Jerusalem (v. 12, “their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths”). After his victory, he will provide “living water” and will “become King over the whole earth—the LORD alone, and his name alone” (14:9). As a result, his people will live there in security (v. 11). Finally, the Lord’s presence will make his people “holy to the Lord,” like the inscription on the high priest’s turban, so that even the horses’ bells will be holy (as the priest wore bells), as will even the pots in the temple and throughout Jerusalem.

On that day, the words HOLY TO THE LORD will be on the bells of the horses. The pots in the house of the LORD will be like the sprinkling basins before the altar. Every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the LORD of Armies. All who sacrifice will come and use the pots to cook in. And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite [kĕnaʿănî also meant “merchant”] in the house of the LORD of Armies (14:20–21).

“Zechariah looks forward to the time when everything impure, including the idolatrous ‘Canaanite,’ will be removed from God’s presence.”[3] In the book of Zechariah, it is clear that the means of cleansing and providing God’s presence among his people would be the Messiah’s death.

An allusion is also found here to Mal 3:1–4:

“See, I am going to send my messenger, and he will clear the way before me. Then the Lord you seek will suddenly come to his temple, the Messenger of the covenant you delight in—see, he is coming,” says the Lord of Armies. But who can endure the day of his coming? And who will be able to stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire and like launderer’s bleach. He will be like a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. And the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will please the Lord as in days of old and years gone by.

The passage that John makes explicit, however, being remembered at some point by Jesus’s disciples, is Psalm 69:8–9:

I have become a stranger to my brothers and a foreigner to my mother’s sonsbecause zeal for your house has consumed me, and the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.

Jesus’s zeal for his father’s house is shown here to be the reason for the Jews’ opposition to him. The psalmist was profoundly committed to the temple. Notice the change of past tense in Ps 69:9 to future tense in John 2:17 (like the LXX). Carson explains, “Jesus’ cleansing of the temple testifies to his concern for pure worship, a right relationship with God at the place supremely designated to serve as the focal point of the relationship between God and man.” I suspect that the “house” Jesus’s zeal was directed toward was the new Jerusalem that he came to establish. The way Jesus would be “consumed” would be his death.

In looking at Jesus’s disruptive behavior in the temple, however, it is easy to overlook the claim that he makes. No Jew besides Jesus would refer to the temple as “my Father’s house.” This is the first of many of Jesus’s references in John to his Father-Son relationship with God. Matthew’s Gospel also contains many of these references, and a few are found in Luke and Revelation. Here it’s an implicit claim to authority, for which the Jews may be demanding proof. What right did Jesus have to make such a claim?

As Klink points out, the quotation from Ps 69:9 in John 2:17 indicates these Jews are like David’s enemies. They hate Jesus “without cause” (Ps 69:4, 14); they are “powerful” and “deceitful enemies” who would “destroy” Jesus (69:4); they “insult” him and consider him to be “a joke” (69:9–11, 19–20). But in spite of Jesus’s distress and disgrace (69:17–19), the “floodwaters” would not “sweep over” him or the “deep swallow [him] up” or “the Pit close its mouth” over him (69:15). His enemies, on the other hand, would be caught in a snare, their “eyes [would] grow too dim to see,” “their hips [would] continually quake” (69:22–23). God would “pour out [his] rage on them,” and his “burning anger overtake them” (69:24). Everything they trusted in for protection would become “desolate,” and they would be removed from their dwellings (69:25). Finally, they would “be erased from the book of life and not be recorded with the righteous” (69:28). This will be the end for all the enemies of God’s children who are “poor and in pain” but who “exalt him with thanksgiving” (69:29–30). The “humble” who “seek God” may “take heart” because “the Lord listens to the needy and does not despise his own who are prisoners” (69:33).

[1] D. A. Carson, 176.

[2] Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel,91.

[3] Anthony Petterson, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, 297–98.

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Thoughts on the Passing of a Christian Friend

The sad news of the passing of a Christian lady named Cheryl after her long battle with cancer led me to look at John 11. The question of why Jesus had allowed Lazarus to die, even though he could have prevented it, is raised three times by three different people or groups. And even though Jesus knew what he was about to do, when he heard the question the second time, this time from Mary, we are told he was “deeply moved in his spirit and troubled,” and he wept (CSB translation, but essentially the same as others). The NET Bible note says the Greek verb translated “deeply moved” “indicates a strong display of emotion, somewhat difficult to translate — ‘shuddered, moved with the deepest emotions.’”

Then when Jesus arrived at the tomb, he was “deeply moved” again. Jesus knew/knows Cheryl (and her family) as well as he knew Lazarus and his sisters. Even though she lives now and will be raised, Jesus is “deeply moved.” He’s experiencing our deep pain at her passing and is weeping—even bawling—over it. We also have no reason to dispute the Jews’ interpretation of Jesus’s tears: “See how he loved him[her]!” Frederick Dale Bruner says that the hymn “And Can It Be?” could have been sung, “And can it be, that Thou, my God, wouldst cry with me? Amazing love, how can it be?”
Just some thoughts.