Face to Face: Nicodemus

Lawrence Kelley
02/05/20 - Thought of the week

Nicodemus thought he was perfectly positioned for the coming of the kingdom of God:

He was born an Israelite - the nation to whom God’s promised king would come.
He was a Pharisee - an elite religious order with demands so rigorous that only 6,000 men attained it.
He was a member of the Sanhedrin court - A judicial body made up of only seventy-one men.
He was financially first-class - Jewish tradition says he was one of the three richest men in Jerusalem.
He was in a class by himself in regards to the Jewish Scriptures - Jesus calls him The teacher of Israel.  

Imagine his shock when Jesus told him that none of that qualified him to enter the kingdom of God or would even enable him to see it when it arrived. In fact, Jesus told him that if he wanted to see the kingdom he would have to completely start over. Jesus exact words were,
 

He was referring to the promise found in Ezekiel, where God said the day would come when “I will sprinkle clean water on you...I will give you a new heart...and put my Spirit in you....”

It must have been extraordinarily difficult for a man as connected and accomplished as Nicodemus to hear a Galilean street preacher tell him that none of the things he thought would gain him entrance into the kingdom were of any use. But Jesus would say these kinds of things over and over:
 

Addicts and prostitutes know that they are far from God. Their struggle is to believe that God could have mercy on a sinner like them. When they learn that he will, they often come running. But the deeply religious and socially connected think their achievements commend them to God already.