For the last few days we have been talking about what it means to be born again.  Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, came to Jesus and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”  Jesus skipped over his comment and got to the core of Nic’s heart, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless on is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Jesus told Nic that “which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” and after He finished His comments Nic asked, “How can these things be?”  Nic couldn’t understand what Jesus was saying, but I want you to see why he couldn’t understand Him.  It wasn’t because Nic wasn’t intelligent—he was extremely intelligent.  It wasn’t because he didn’t know the Bible—he was a lifelong student of God’s word.  The reason Nic couldn’t understand what Jesus was saying about the spiritual new birth is that he didn’t believe in Jesus.  His ignorance was due to his unbelief.  Look at verses 11-12, “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.  If I had told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”  Verse 12 tells us the reason he would not receive in verse 11—he did not believe.

Spiritual things are not understood from the fleshly side.  Go back to verses 3 and 5—you can’t see the kingdom or the things of the kingdom until you are regenerated and you can’t enter the kingdom of God until you have been born of water and the Spirit—that is the Word and the Spirit.  Nic could not find the answers he was looking for until he was born again.  The great problem in humanity is our ignorance of the heavenly things.  Spiritual growth begins with a confession of our lack of ability to understand the heavenly and with a pleading for God to show us the heavenly.

Why can’t we understand it on our own?  Jesus tells us in verse 11, we have no access to the information.  Notice something—Nic comes to Jesus and says, “Rabbi, we know that you are teacher come from God.”  The “we” in that group is referring to the religious leaders—the in crowd of theology, but Jesus responds to his “we” with a “we” of His own.  Don’t miss this—Jesus said, “We speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen…”  Who is Jesus referring to with His “we?”  Some have suggested that Jesus is talking about the Disciples, but I think this is a reference to the Trinity.  In other words—you are among a group who speculates, but I am of a group that created all that you see and I don’t speculate because I actually came from heaven.  Nic and his peers had no way of knowing and neither do we—we have no access to the heavenly realm except by way of revelation from One who is in that realm.

This is where the Bible comes in—God has revealed all that we need to know about Him in His book.  I didn’t say He has revealed all that there is about Him, but I said, all that we need to know.  Have you ever noticed how the prophets and apostles wrote?  Did they say, “I’ve been thinking about these things and it occurs to me…?”  Did they say, “I have some ideas that I want to share with you…”  No, they said, “Thus says the Lord.”  The Bible must be taught and shared because it is the revelation of God from God.  Peter said, “no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation.  For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 P 1:20-21)  I’ll go back to what I said Sunday night—if we aren’t teaching the Word of God in our small groups we are wasting out time because that is what we are supposed to be teaching—God’s Word. 

Jesus told Nic he didn’t understand because first, he didn’t have access to the info and we know that the solution is to teach the Bible, but He gave him another reason.  He didn’t understand because he was fallen and still in the flesh.  “That which is born of the flesh is flesh…”  Think about it—Jesus was the incarnate word, but did people understand Him?  He told the woman at the well that he could give her living water—did she understand what He meant?  He told his listeners that He was the bread of life—did they understand Him?  They had His teachings and yet were unable to grasp it.

Even the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Explain the parables to us…”  Jesus messes with Nic a little in verse 10, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things.”  I am sure He really got under his skin when he talked about earthly things and heavenly things—Nic thought he taught heavenly things, but in reality they were earthly.  Here is what we learn—without the regenerating work of the Spirit of God we cannot understand the Word of God.  That is why you’ll hear of people who read the Bible and said, “I didn’t understand it…”  You can’t understand it unless the Spirit enables you.

It’s not that the Bible isn’t clear or difficult or accessible—it is that the Bible, even in English, is another language—it is heavenly language and to understand it you’ll need someone to explain it to you.  Lost people will never receive the truth of God’s Word until they believe in Jesus.  As long as they refuse to believe it will remain unacceptable to them. Eph 4:18 speaks of the unregenerate like this, “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardness of heart.”  Until the heart is changed they will remain ignorant and even hostile to the truth of God’s Word.  Now, who changes the heart?  Only the Spirit of God can change our heart.