#24.1 Nicodemus Visits Jesus

#24.1 Nicodemus Visits Jesus

Please first Read: John 3:1-21

President J. Rueben Clark, Jr.:

“Nicodemus, a Pharisee, visits Jesus secretly by night; Jesus preaches the first great discourse;  declares that except a man be born of the water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God; the Spirit leadeth where it will; Jesus will testify of what he knows and what he has seen; again refers to his crucifixion by citing Moses lifting up of the serpent in the wilderness, and by saying that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to save it; men love darkness more than light; he that doeth truth cometh to light.”

Apostle Bruce R. McConkie:

Jesus has not been two months in his formal ministry. He is publicly active … the wedding feast at Cana, the miracle of wine, the attending the Passover Feast, and certainly his appearance at the temple. Jesus has divided the people. It would appear that Jesus’ act of cleansing the temple of the money changers has set the battle lines between himself and the Jewish leaders, and this is possibly what he intended to do. He has openly confronted the priestly powers of the Jewish nation; announced that God is his Farther, is openly teaching and performing miracles, and has prophesied he would be slain and in three days be resurrected. He is now a chief concern of all Palestine that is aware of him. Certainly he has the animosity of the rulers of the people. Many are now coming to see and hear him, including a ruler of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus.

He calls Jesus “Rabbi” meaning “Master.”  “We know” … others too? “thou art a teacher come from God” … in effect a testimony,” “for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.” We are left to assume the processes of conversion continued to operate in Nicodemus.

“Verily, verily, I say unto thee” (John 3:11) … this brings hostility immediately from the Jewish leaders and from now on. Jesus is not quoting other prophets, but speaking on his own authority as the Son of God. This is a blaspheme which they cannot allow.

Nicodemus shows himself to be in spiritual darkness by asking, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” To this Jesus replies, “Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?” This had to be a stinging rebuke, but Nicodemus voices no objection, and continues in conversation with the Lord.

John chapter 3 verse 1: Nicodemus. An example of a lukewarm believer, not a true disciple. He appears to be a leader and teacher, and is probably a member of their ruling body, the Sanhedrin. He comes at night possibly to avoid being seen by his colleagues, although it might have been for other reasons. Later in Jesus’ ministry when the Sanhedrin is attempting to arrest him, Nicodemus cautions them to follow the law.

Verse 3: In our mortal fallen state we are all spiritually dead. To gain salvation in the Kingdom of God (the Celestial Kingdom) we must put off the natural man and become saints, follow the spiritual person that we are, and become new creatures of the Holy Ghost, i.e. be born of water and of the Spirit.

Verse 8: “When the Holy Ghost falls upon a worthy recipient, it has the effect of pouring out pure intelligence upon him; the still small voice speaks peace to the spirit within man; and the sanctifying, cleansing power of the Spirit begins to manifest itself.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith)

Verses 10-12: Jesus chastises Nicodemus … as a teacher in Israel he should have known of these truths regarding spiritual rebirth and the prophetic writings about them. Jesus and his disciples are teaching by testimony and by the Holy Ghost. If they are closed to the Spirit on hearing earthly things they will not believe what Jesus tells them about heavenly things.

Verse 16: The only begotten Son of God the Father in the flesh, meaning in mortality. The natural processes of procreation were involved.

Verse 17-18: Salvation through Christ. Salvation was, and is, and is to come only in and through the atoning blood of Christ.

Apostle James E. Talmage:

The wonderful deeds done by Christ around the time of the Passover moved some of the learned as well as many of the common people to believe in Jesus. Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a ruler among the Jews (probably a member of the ruling body, the Sanhedrin) was interested at least to the point of coming to inquire of Jesus. He addressed Jesus as “Rabbi” the same title he bore and showed due respect to the Lord as he conversed with him. There may have been more than one reason why he came to Jesus at night … pride of his office and station in the community, repercussions of being seen with him in view of Jesus’ recent activities; or like our Bishops and church leaders, busy with responsibilities during the day they see and have appointments like this at night;  or in the culture of that time, night time was a good time for learning and study, especially of spiritual and religious matters. We do not know but should give Nicodemus credit as being honest and sincere in his purpose.

Interestingly, Nicodemus’ asking how can a man be ‘born again’ (John 3:4) … the idea of a new birth was common in the teachings of the day. Every proselyte to Judaism was spoken of at the time of his conversion as one new-born!

Elder Talmage:

“The narrative of this interview between Nicodemus and the Christ constitute one of our most instructive and precious scriptures relating to the absolute necessity of unreserved compliance to the laws and ordinances of the gospel, as the means indispensable to salvation.”  (page 162)

                                                             (To be concluded)

Glenn R. McGettigan

February 2014; Revised September 2014

References:

“Our Lord of the Gospels.” Clark

“Doctrinal New Testament Commentary.” Volume 1. McConkie

“The Mortal Messiah.” Book 1. McConkie

“Jesus The Christ.” Talmage

                                                                             

           

                                                                          

#23 The First Passover; Cleansing of the Temple

#23 The First Passover; Cleansing of the Temple

Please first read: John 2:13-25

Apostle Bruce R. McConkie:  

“Passover: To commemorate Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian bondage, the Lord commanded his people to keep the feast of the Passover, a celebration pointing particularly to the fact that the angel of destruction passed over the homes of the faithful sons of Jacob, when the first-born in all the families of Egypt were slain.

“It was during the week of this feast, some 1500 years after the exodus, that our Lord was crucified. Just before his betrayal he had partaken of the feast with his disciples, using it as the occasion to introduce the ordinance of the sacrament to the church. (Matthew 26; Mark 14; Luke 22.)

“Keeping of the Passover with its sacrifices and unleavened bread, ended (except among apostate peoples) with the sacrifice of “Christ our Passover.” The saints were to keep the feast only in a spiritual sense.”

Apostle Bruce R. McConkie:

 “As Jesus entered the outer courts of the temple, during the first Passover of his ministry. He beheld what he was to call three years later on a similar occasion, “a den of thieves.” (John 2:13-17; see also Mark 11:15-19 and Matthew 21:13.) Before him were stalls of oxen, pens of sheep, cages of doves and pigeons, with greedy hucksters offering them at exorbitant prices for sacrificial purposes. Crowded on every hand were the tables of the money-changers who, for a profit, changed the Roman and other coins into temple coins so that sacrificial animals could be purchased, and the half shekel poll tax required at this season of the year might be paid. In righteous anger and with physical force he drove the apostate priesthood from their unhallowed merchandising enterprises.”

This dramatic episode in the life of our Lord has been preserved to bear record:

1.      That our Lord was a man of action, dynamic, of courage and physical strength, zealous in the cause of righteousness

2.      That God was his Father

3.      That the temple was still his Father’s house, although filled with apostate people

“Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up …”  (John 2:18-22.) On this and other occasions Jesus taught his own resurrection, and though disbelieving, the Jews knew what he was teaching and understood the meaning of the figurative expressions he used.”  “Only after the resurrection did the full and complete meaning of Jesus’ announcement of his coming resurrection dawn upon his disciples.

“He knew all things,” (I.V.  John 2:23-24) During his mortal life our Lord progressed from grace to grace and from truth to truth until after a glorious resurrection he gained all knowledge and all truth. However, in the course of his mortal probation he knew all things in the sense that having the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost and revelation all knowledge was constantly available to him.

Apostle James E. Talmage:

Thirty Years of Age: The law provided that at the age of thirty years the Levites were required to enter upon their special service. Jesus was not of Levitical descent but to have taught in public at an earlier age would have been to arouse criticism and objection, which might have resulted in serious handicap or hindrance at the outset.

Attendance: At Passover was undoubtedly enormous. Estimates range from one to three million.   The number of lambs slain was counted for Nero to estimate the strength of the Jewish people … that number one time was 256,000 which would be a lot of meals.  

Cunningham Geike:

“The streets were blocked by the crowds from all parts who had to make their way to the Temple, past flocks of sheep, and droves of cattle, pressing on in the sunken middle part of each street reserved for them, to prevent contact and defilement. It was, in fact, the great yearly fair at Jerusalem, and the crowds added to the din and tumult, till the services in the neighboring courts were sadly disturbed. Persons going across the city with all kinds of burdens, shortened their journey by crossing the Temple grounds.”

The Jews professed high regard for the temple. We might ask the question, why did no one intervene … public, worshipers, temple officials, Roman authorities when Jesus became a one-man wrecking crew, overthrowing the money changers tables and booths, freeing and chasing the sacrificial animals from their pens? When he castigated all there for desecrating the temple?    Elder Talmage explained, “Because sin is a weakness; because there is nothing so abject as a guilty conscience, nothing so invincible as the sweeping tide of a Godlike indignation against all that is base and wrong.”

Richard Holzapfel and Thomas Wayment:

Jesus began his teaching ministry at Passover time in Jerusalem. It would have been a very public and audacious start as he physically drove the animal vendors and money changers from the temple courts, exclaiming “Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.”

The Sadducees controlled the activities at the temple, not the Pharisees … They would have been the ones challenging Jesus, not the Pharisees. Interesting, in that the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, and the Pharisees did! When Jesus tells them, he will raise “this temple” in three days the Sadducees did not understand to what he was referring.

The BYU Course Manual entitled “The Life and Teachings of Jesus and His Apostles,” (1978) teaches the following about the Feast of the Passover; a feast that designed to bring two things to their remembrance:

 

1.      That the angel of death passed over the houses and flocks of Israel, while slaying the firstborn among the men and beast of the Egyptians.  

2.      That Jehovah was their Deliverer, the same holy being who would come into the world as King-Messiah to work out the infinite and eternal atonement.

  

Raymond E. Brown:

“Since the Jewish Passover was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple precincts he came upon people engaged in selling oxen, sheep, and doves, and others seated, changing coins.  So he made a kind of whip out of cords and drove the whole pack of them out of the temple area with their sheep and oxen, and he knocked over the money-changers’ tables, spilling their coins.  He told those who were selling doves, ‘Get them out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market place!’ His disciples recalled the words of Scripture: ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’

At this the Jews responded, ‘What sign can you show us, authorizing you to do these things?’  ‘Destroy this Temple,’ was Jesus’ answer, ‘and in three days I will raise it up.’ Then the Jews retorted, ‘The building of this Temple has taken forty-six years, and you are going to raise it up in three days?’ Actually, he was talking about the temple of his body. Now after his resurrection from the dead his disciples recalled that he had said this, and so they believed the Scripture and the word he had spoken.”

“Whip out of cords:” no sticks or clubs were allowed on the temple grounds. Jesus may have used animal bedding or vegetation brought in for the animal’s food, etc.

Money concessions and marketing activities in and around the temple were tightly controlled by the Sadducees, the family and office of High Priest, and other temple authorities. They had a monopoly and it was highly profitable. This was widely known by the public and was a source of contention for them.

Alfred Edersheim:

The money-changers set up booths in many towns and villages a month before Passover to accommodate the many who had to pay the annual temple tribute of ½ shekel. Only Jewish money could be used and there were many different nationalities of money in circulation in Jerusalem, Persian, Syrian, Egyptian, Grecian, Tyrian, Roman. Many of these coins had heathen inscriptions and symbols on them. Shortly before the start of Passover, booths in outlying areas were closed and all such activity reverted to the temple grounds.

The time of Passover had become a huge financial activity, a time of buying and selling, of haggling over prices, worthiness of animals, costs of purification, charging of fees, price gouging, etc.

Frederic W. Farrar:

The Jewish Feast of Passover had become the capstone of all celebrations in Israel. Vast crowds came from many lands and nations. Many merchants, family members visiting, much buying and selling and negotiating of contracts, etc. The number of people and the atmosphere for many was that of a huge haggling bazaar. Over time this encroached more and more toward the temple until it had now invaded the grounds and the temple proper.  Herds of sheep and oxen, and tables of money changers now occupied the Court of the Gentiles, through which was the entrance to the Temple of the Most High, and to the House of Prayer.

Glenn R. McGettigan

January 2014; Revised March 2014  

References:

“Mormon Doctrine.” McConkie

“Doctrinal New Testament Commentary.” Volume 1. McConkie

“Jesus The Christ.” Talmage

“Life and Words of Christ.” Geike

“The Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ.” Volume 1. Holzapfel and Wayment

“The Gospel According to John I-XII; A New Translation From Ancient Texts.” Brown

“The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah.” Edersheim

“The Life of Christ.” Farrar

#14.2 John the Baptist Begins His Ministry

#14.2 John the Baptist Begins His Ministry

Please first read: Matthew 3; Mark 1; Luke 3 JST: Matthew 3; Mark 3

When John the Baptist (JB) now begins his ministry, it is really the return of the Kingdom of God to the earth.   The restoration of the Gospel and the true Church of Jesus Christ has begun. John will baptize the first converts in the Dispensation of the Meridian of Time. John comes upon the scene as a thundering voice of power; as one with authority he challenges, demands and accuses. He zeros in on the Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, and all the public that comes to see and hear him. He calls them vipers, snakes, and hypocrites. He warns them of God’s wrath to come and the “damnation of hell” for their wicked behavior; and demands them to repent before the coming of the Lord, the Messiah, who is already on the earth.

When they object and say they are of the chosen race, the children of Abraham, he tells them God is able “of these stones (gentiles) to raise up children unto Abraham.” John quotes Old Testament prophets and tells listeners, “Now…the axe is laid unto the root of the trees”; trees which are not bringing forth good fruit will be cut down and burned. This is the message he gives to the multitudes that come; this is the stage he prepares and on which the Savior will begin his ministry.

Apostle Bruce R. McConkie:

Joseph Smith translation Matthew 3:  JB was the one spoken of by the prophet Esaias as “the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord and make his paths straight.”   Also, that JB baptized “many” in the river Jordan.

    

The coming of JB signaled the last of the old law (of Moses) and the beginning of the new (the Gospel). He would be the last of the old dispensation, and the first one of the new. It appears that from the very beginning, ‘All Jerusalem and Judea went out unto John's baptism.’

    

His authority and call came directly from God. His mission was to prepare a people for the coming of the Lord, which was imminent. He would use the gospel of repentance of sins, and of baptism. This calling of people to baptism was not something new to the Jews. The ordinance of baptism went back several thousand years in Jewish history.

   

JB came as many of the previous prophets, in the plain rough dress of the poor working classes, a simple life style, and simple food. It was not just the poor and lowly people who came to see and hear him, but also many Pharisees and Sadducees (two of the most influential sects among the Jews) came to challenge and contend with him.

Daniel H. Ludlow:

JB's ministry ended the preparatory Gospel. The advent of the Savior would be the beginning of the Gospel in its fullness.  At this time we see the diminishing of John and the ascendency of Jesus. JB, as he began his ministry, was the only legal administrator in the eastern hemisphere that held the priesthood keys of the gospel of repentance. The Prophet Joseph Smith said that John had the Kingdom of God with him.

Apostle Boyd K. Packer:

The appearance of John was somewhat typical of that of the ancient prophet Elijah as given in 2 Kings 1; that of a "hairy man and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins.” To the Jews this would fit the  traditional image.

Apostle James E. Talmage:

John’s lineage was of the priestly order, but he was untrained in the Rabbinical schools and had no authorization or license from the various recognized religious leaders. He did not frequent the synagogues or temple courts, but was a voice crying from the wilderness of Hebron. During the years spent there he had been prepared and taught by divine teachers. His rough garments and simple food, manner, and ways were thought to be characteristic of prophets.

Apostle Bruce R. McConkie:                                   

As part of his calling John was ordained by an angel of God when he was 8 days old and given the power to overthrow the kingdom of Jews, to make straight the pathway of the Lord, and to prepare a people for the Lord when he would come. Acting in the power and authority of the Aaronic Priesthood: “For he was baptized while he was yet in his childhood, and was ordained by the angel of God at the time he was eight days old unto this power, to overthrow the kingdom of the Jews, and to make straight the way of the Lord before the face of his people, to prepare them for the coming of the Lord, in whose hand is given all power.” (D&C 84:28)

John's ministry was the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ on the earth in the Meridian of Time. As to this new kingdom, the Prophet Joseph Smith taught John was “the only legal administrator in the affairs of the kingdom there was then on the earth, and holding the keys of power.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.276)

We see the authority and preparation given by God to John reflected in his powerful teachings, testimony, and chastising of the wickedness of the people.

Frederic W. Farrar:

 In the Roman Empire and those nations under its rule we see an age of uncertainty, doubt, general corruption, corruption in the high priesthood and sacred institutions, atheism, paganism, incest, adultery, perversion, universal crime and immorality. “Remorse itself seemed to be exhausted, so that men were ‘past feeling.’”           

William L. Colman:

The Pharisees were the largest and most powerful religious group in Judea at this time. They were also very rigid, inflexible and unyielding in their religious beliefs, and strict in their rules and requirements.

    

John was highly motivated in his calling from the Lord to cry and demand repentance. As his ministry and message drew large crowds it was inevitable that the two ideologies would clash.   Calling these religious leaders “snakes” and other negative names could only result in hostilities.

Holzapfel and Wayment:

We don't know how long JB had been into his ministry before Jesus began his ... maybe six months or longer. We do know that by the time Jesus came to be baptized by John, great crowds had been listening to John, repented, and been baptized. All this activity had also created many enemies for John.

Glenn R. McGettigan

February 2012; Revised May 2014

References:

“The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah.” Edersheim

“LDS Bible Dictionary.”

“The Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ and His Apostles.” Church Educational System

“Our Lord of the Gospels.” Clark Jr.

“Behold the Lamb of God.” Clark Jr.

“The Life and Words of Christ.” Geikie

“Mormon Doctrine.”  McConkie