John 3
3
Born from Above
1-2There was a man of the Pharisee sect, Nicodemus, a prominent leader among the Jews. Late one night he visited Jesus and said, “Rabbi, we all know you’re a teacher straight from God. No one could do all the God-pointing, God-revealing acts you do if God weren’t in on it.”
3Jesus said, “You’re absolutely right. Take it from me: Unless a person is born from above, it’s not possible to see what I’m pointing to—to God’s kingdom.”
4“How can anyone,” said Nicodemus, “be born who has already been born and grown up? You can’t re-enter your mother’s womb and be born again. What are you saying with this ‘born-from-above’ talk?”
5-6Jesus said, “You’re not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the ‘wind-hovering-over-the-water’ creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom. When you look at a baby, it’s just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can’t see and touch—the Spirit—and becomes a living spirit.
7-8“So don’t be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be ‘born from above’—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it’s headed next. That’s the way it is with everyone ‘born from above’ by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.”
9Nicodemus asked, “What do you mean by this? How does this happen?”
10-12Jesus said, “You’re a respected teacher of Israel and you don’t know these basics? Listen carefully. I’m speaking sober truth to you. I speak only of what I know by experience; I give witness only to what I have seen with my own eyes. There is nothing secondhand here, no hearsay. Yet instead of facing the evidence and accepting it, you procrastinate with questions. If I tell you things that are plain as the hand before your face and you don’t believe me, what use is there in telling you of things you can’t see, the things of God?
13-15“No one has ever gone up into the presence of God except the One who came down from that Presence, the Son of Man. In the same way that Moses lifted the serpent in the desert so people could have something to see and then believe, it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up—and everyone who looks up to him, trusting and expectant, will gain a real life, eternal life.
16-18“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.
19-21“This is the crisis we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won’t come near it, fearing a painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is.”
The Bridegroom’s Friend
22-26After this conversation, Jesus went on with his disciples into the Judean countryside and relaxed with them there. He was also baptizing. At the same time, John was baptizing over at Aenon near Salim, where water was abundant. This was before John was thrown into jail. John’s disciples got into an argument with the establishment Jews over the nature of baptism. They came to John and said, “Rabbi, you know the one who was with you on the other side of the Jordan? The one you authorized with your witness? Well, he’s now competing with us. He’s baptizing, too, and everyone’s going to him instead of us.”
27-29a John answered, “It’s not possible for a person to succeed—I’m talking about eternal success—without heaven’s help. You yourselves were there when I made it public that I was not the Messiah but simply the one sent ahead of him to get things ready. The one who gets the bride is, by definition, the bridegroom. And the bridegroom’s friend, his ‘best man’—that’s me—in place at his side where he can hear every word, is genuinely happy. How could he be jealous when he knows that the wedding is finished and the marriage is off to a good start?
29b-30 “That’s why my cup is running over. This is the assigned moment for him to move into the center, while I slip off to the sidelines.
31-33“The One who comes from above is head and shoulders over other messengers from God. The earthborn is earthbound and speaks earth language; the heavenborn is in a league of his own. He sets out the evidence of what he saw and heard in heaven. No one wants to deal with these facts. But anyone who examines this evidence will come to stake his life on this: that God himself is the truth.
34-36“The One that God sent speaks God’s words. And don’t think he rations out the Spirit in bits and pieces. The Father loves the Son extravagantly. He turned everything over to him so he could give it away—a lavish distribution of gifts. That is why whoever accepts and trusts the Son gets in on everything, life complete and forever! And that is also why the person who avoids and distrusts the Son is in the dark and doesn’t see life. All he experiences of God is darkness, and an angry darkness at that.”
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John 3: MSG
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
John 3
3
1And there was a man of the Pharisees, Nicodemus his name, a ruler of the Jews,
2this one came unto him by night, and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we have known that from God thou hast come — a teacher, for no one these signs is able to do that thou dost, if God may not be with him.’
3Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Verily, verily, I say to thee, If any one may not be born from above, he is not able to see the reign of God;’
4Nicodemus saith unto him, ‘How is a man able to be born, being old? is he able into the womb of his mother a second time to enter, and to be born?’
5Jesus answered, ‘Verily, verily, I say to thee, If any one may not be born of water, and the Spirit, he is not able to enter into the reign of God;
6that which hath been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which hath been born of the Spirit is spirit.
7‘Thou mayest not wonder that I said to thee, It behoveth you to be born from above;
8the Spirit where he willeth doth blow, and his voice thou dost hear, but thou hast not known whence he cometh, and whither he goeth; thus is every one who hath been born of the Spirit.’
9Nicodemus answered and said to him, ‘How are these things able to happen?’
10Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Thou art the teacher of Israel — and these things thou dost not know!
11‘Verily, verily, I say to thee — What we have known we speak, and what we have seen we testify, and our testimony ye do not receive;
12if the earthly things I said to you, and ye do not believe, how, if I shall say to you the heavenly things, will ye believe?
13and no one hath gone up to the heaven, except he who out of the heaven came down — the Son of Man who is in the heaven.
14‘And as Moses did lift up the serpent in the wilderness, so it behoveth the Son of Man to be lifted up,
15that every one who is believing in him may not perish, but may have life age-during,
16for God did so love the world, that His Son — the only begotten — He gave, that every one who is believing in him may not perish, but may have life age-during.
17For God did not send His Son to the world that he may judge the world, but that the world may be saved through him;
18he who is believing in him is not judged, but he who is not believing hath been judged already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19‘And this is the judgment, that the light hath come to the world, and men did love the darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil;
20for every one who is doing wicked things hateth the light, and doth not come unto the light, that his works may not be detected;
21but he who is doing the truth doth come to the light, that his works may be manifested, that in God they are having been wrought.’
22After these things came Jesus and his disciples to the land of Judea, and there he did tarry with them, and was baptizing;
23and John was also baptizing in Aenon, nigh to Salem, because there were many waters there, and they were coming and were being baptized —
24for John was not yet cast into the prison —
25there arose then a question from the disciples of John with [some] Jews about purifying,
26and they came unto John, and said to him, ‘Rabbi, he who was with thee beyond the Jordan, to whom thou didst testify, lo, this one is baptizing, and all are coming unto him.’
27John answered and said, ‘A man is not able to receive anything, if it may not have been given him from the heaven;
28ye yourselves do testify to me that I said, I am not the Christ, but, that I am having been sent before him;
29he who is having the bride is bridegroom, and the friend of the bridegroom, who is standing and hearing him, with joy doth rejoice because of the voice of the bridegroom; this, then, my joy hath been fulfilled.
30‘Him it behoveth to increase, and me to become less;
31he who from above is coming is above all; he who is from the earth, from the earth he is, and from the earth he speaketh; he who from the heaven is coming is above all.
32‘And what he hath seen and heard this he doth testify, and his testimony none receiveth;
33he who is receiving his testimony did seal that God is true;
34for he whom God sent, the sayings of God he speaketh; for not by measure doth God give the Spirit;
35the Father doth love the Son, and all things hath given into his hand;
36he who is believing in the Son, hath life age-during; and he who is not believing the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God doth remain upon him.’
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