#24.2 Nicodemus Visits Jesus

#24.2 Nicodemus Visits Jesus

Please first John 3:1-21

Also referenced: A new translation by Raymond E. Brown

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin (verse 1) who came at night. “Rabbi,” he said to Jesus, “we know you are a teacher who has come from God; for, unless God is with him, no one can perform the signs that you perform.” (verse 2) Jesus gave him this answer, “I solemnly assure you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being begotten from above.” (verse 3)

“How can a man be born again once he is old?” retorted Nicodemus. “Can he re-enter his mother’s womb and be born all over again?” (verse 4) Jesus replied, “I solemnly assure you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being begotten of water and Spirit. (verse 5) Flesh begets flesh, and Spirit begets spirit. (verse 6) Do not be surprised that I told you:  you must all be begotten from above. (verse 7) The wind blows about at will; you hear the sound it makes but do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone begotten of the Spirit.”

(verse 8)

Nicodemus replied, “How can things like this happen?” (verse 9) Jesus answered, “You hold the office of teacher of Israel, and still you don’t understand these things? (verse 10) I solemnly assure you, we are talking about what we know, and we are testifying to what we have seen; but you people do not accept our testimony. (verse 11) If you do not believe when I tell you about earthly things how are you going to believe when I tell you about heavenly things? (verse 12)

Now, no one has gone up into heaven except the one who came down from heaven – the Son of Man (who is in heaven). (verse 13) And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. (verse 14) That everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. (verse 15) Yes, God loved the world so much that He gave the only Son, that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (verse 16)

For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. (verse 17) Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned for refusing to believe in the name of God’s only Son. (verse 18)

Now the judgment is this: the light has come into the world, but men have preferred darkness to light because their deeds were evil. (verse 19) For everyone who practices wickedness hates the light, and does not come near the light for fear his deeds will be exposed. (verse 20) But he who acts in truth comes into the light, so that it may be shown that his deeds are done in God.” (verse 21)

Commentary:

Nicodemus represents a group among the Jewish leaders who hesitatingly came to believe in Jesus.

Night: There was a rabbinic custom of staying up at night to study the law.

See: Greek: to experience, encounter.                  

Begotten: Greek meaning ‘to be born.’

Sound of the wind: voice of the Spirit.

The Son: John uses this in the absolute sense: THE Son. “Sign” and “miracle” … interchangeable terms in some ancient texts.

                                                                                    

Robert J. Matthews:

Jesus knew how to deal effectively with the cunning craftiness of the Pharisees, the scribes, and the Sadducees. He sometimes asked them doctrinal questions which they, as religious leaders, ought to have been able to answer, but of which they seemed to be ignorant. An example is seen in his interview with Nicodemus.

W. Cleon Skousen:

The Prophet Jacob, 600 years before Nicodemus, pronounced a very harsh judgment upon rabbinical schools, Said he, “Behold they despised the words of plainness … and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came from looking beyond the mark … God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand.” (Jacob 4: 14)

From earliest times, the Gospel culture of the prophets of Israel had taught that the “new birth” of baptism and the gift the Holy Ghost are symbolic of the natural birth.   That is the way it was originally taught to Adam.   But Nicodemus, the typically trained Pharisee, did not recognize the phrase from the Gospel culture which Jesus had just pronounced.

C. Wilfred Griggs:

John 2:23: The Greek translation indicates Jesus had been performing numerous miracles in Jerusalem, and many were gaining testimonies of his divinity based upon these “signs” that they saw. Nicodemus was apparently aware of this and motivated to find out more.

Verse 8: The Greek word “wind” also means “Spirit.” The Spirit breathes wherever it desires and a man may not know from whence it comes or where it will lead him. So, Jesus says, is everyone who is begotten by the Spirit.

Glenn R. McGettigan   

February 2014; Revised September 2014

References:

“Behold the Messiah.” Matthews

“Days of the Living Christ.” Volume 1. Skousen

“Studies in Scripture, The Gospels.” Volume 5. Griggs

                                                                               

  

#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