Nicodemus in the Bible Encyclopedia - ISBE

nik-o-de'-mus (Nikodemos): A Pharisee and a "ruler of the Jews," mentioned only by John. He (1) interviewed Christ at Jerusalem and was taught by Him the doctrine of the New Birth (Jn 3:1-15), (2) defended Him before the Sanhedrin (Jn 7:50-52), and (3) assisted at His burial (Jn 19:39-42). 1. The Interview: This meeting, which it has been surmised took place in the house of John (Jn 3:1-15), was one of the results of our Lord's ministry at Jerusalem during the first Passover (compare Jn 3:2 with Jn 2:23). Although Nicodemus had been thus won to believe in the divine nature of Christ's mission, his faith was yet very incomplete in that he believed Him to be inspired only after the fashion of the Old Testament prophets. To this faint-hearted faith corresponded his timidity of action, which displayed itself in his coming "by night," lest he should offend his colleagues in the Sanhedrin and the other hostile Jews (Jn 3:2). In answer to the veiled question which the words of Nicodemus implied, and to convince him of the inadequacy of mere intellectual belief, Christ proclaimed to him the necessity for a spiritual regeneration: "Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (Jn 3:3). This was interpreted by Nicodemus only in its materialistic sense, and therefore caused him bewilderment and confusion (Jn 3:4). But Christ, as on another occasion when dealing with His questioners on a similar point of doctrine (compare Jn 6:52,53), answered his perplexity only by repeating His previous statement (Jn 3:5). He then proceeded to give further explanation. The re-birth is not outward but inward, it is not of the body but of the soul (Jn 3:6). Just as God is the real agent in the birth of the body, so also is He the Creator of the New Spirit; and just as no one knoweth whence cometh the wind, or "whither it goeth," yet all can feel its effects who come under its influence, so is it with the rebirth. Only those who have experienced it as a change in themselves, wrought by the Divine Power, are qualified to judge either of its reality or of its effects (Jn 3:7,8). But Nicodemus, since such experience had not yet been his, remained still unenlightened (Jn 3:9). Christ therefore condemned such blindness in one who yet professed to be a teacher of spiritual things (Jn 3:10), and emphasized the reality in His own life of those truths which He had been expounding (Jn 3:11). With this, Christ returned to the problem underlying the first statement of Nicodemus. If Nicodemus cannot believe in "earthly things," i.e. in the New Birth, which, though coming from above, is yet realized in this world, how can he hope to understand "heavenly things," i.e. the deeper mysteries of God's purpose in sending Christ into the world (Jn 3:12), of Christ's Divine sonship (Jn 3:13), of His relationship to the atonement and the salvation of man (Jn 3:14), and of how a living acceptance of and feeding upon Him is in itself Divine life (Jn 3:15; compare Jn 6:25-65)?...