---When
the Lord Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born
again, he is using a Greek word that can also be translated
as “from above”. In fact, some Bibles
use it that way, but Nicodemus understood the simpler
meaning that fit into his own system of beliefs.
---According to him, a
gentile had to experience the luck of regeneration if
he wanted to be part of God’s people, but never
a Jew like him. Therefore, he was thinking in a physical
birth, and so his surprise and question follow: “How
can a man be born when he is old?”.
---But the Lord was referring
to a heavenly birth. The Greek word “anöthen”
is translated as “from heaven” in John
3:31 (Spanish Version); and as “from above”
in John 19:11. This is how the birth from above is established
as an “essential” requirement to enter into
God’s kingdom. In the first chapter of John it
has already been said: “But as many as received
Him, to them He gave the right to become children of
God, to those who believe in His name…who were
born, not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, nor
of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).
---In the gospel of John
there is a great difference between what is earthly
and heavenly. John the Baptist says: “A man
can receive nothing unless it has been given to him
from heaven” (John 3:27); and then he adds:
“He who comes from above is above all…he
who comes from heaven is above all” (3:31),
in reference to our Lord Jesus.
---Nicodemus was a good
and pious man; upright according to the law. But the
words of the Lord clearly tell us that it was not enough
for Nicodemus to be perfected according to the law,
but that he needed divine intervention, a birth from
above. Even the best natural man is infinitely inferior
than the worst spiritual man. The most select human
manufacture is nothing before the glory of that which
is born from heaven.
---That is why the Lord
chose Nicodemus to tell him this. He could have said
this to the Samaritan woman, or to the man who was born
blind, but he did not. He tells this to the best of
men, so that we will not think that it is enough to
have a perfected human nature, or a man trained in certain
virtues.
---Nicodemus, like all
men, belongs to Adam’s lineage, and this lineage
is irremediably lost. A new nature needs to be introduced
in us if we want to enter into God’s territory;
a nature that resists time and eternity. “All
flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower
of the grass; the grass withers, and its flower falls
away,” says the prophet.
---Only what comes from
above will remain standing when this earth and sky are
removed. Only what is born from above will remain forever.
(Translation:
Betsy Calvo, USA).
