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John 3 - Devotion · The Five Minute Bible Podcast

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  Welcome to Five Minute Bible in our journey through the New
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  Testament. In each episode, we take just a
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  few minutes to focus on one chapter of the New Testament,
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  exploring the truths God is teaching us through His Word and
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  expanding our view of who He is. Before you listen, make sure
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  you've gone straight to the source, either by reading
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  today's chapter of the Bible yourself or listening to today's
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  read along episode in this podcast feed.
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  If you haven't done that yet, feel free to pause and do that
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  now. When you're ready, let's dive
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  into God's Word together. In John chapter 3, we read of
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  the late night meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus, described
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  in this chapter as a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews.
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  It is in this conversation that Jesus tells Nicodemus and you
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  and me, the modern readers, that he must be born again.
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  Not born again physically, but born of the Spirit.
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  He must be made new. He must be regenerated, brought
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  to new spiritual life. Nicodemus asks Jesus how can
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  these things be? Jesus responds and tells
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  Nicodemus how it is that he can have eternal life.
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  Listen to what he says. No one has ascended into heaven
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  but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, the Son
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  of Man, Jesus has descended from heaven.
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  There is no one whose merit would allow them to ascend into
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  heaven based on their own works. And so we are reliant on God
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  Himself to come down to meet us. The only way we are entering
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  God's Kingdom is if He escorts us there himself.
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  So how is it that Christ makes us new?
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  What is it that He does that allows us entrance into heaven?
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  Listen to what Jesus says next. As Moses lifted up the serpent
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  in the wilderness, Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up so
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  that whoever believes will in him have eternal life.
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  Here Jesus is referencing an Old Testament story where, after
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  complaining against God and against his servant Moses, the
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  people of Israel are struck with fiery serpents sent from God
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  that bit the people and killed many of them.
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  After the people confess their sin to the Lord and to Moses,
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  God instructs Moses to fashion a serpent out of bronze and put it
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  up on a pole. And whenever the people looked
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  at that bronze serpent, they were healed.
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  So what does that have to do with Jesus?
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  How is he like the bronze serpent of the Old Testament?
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  And what does that have to do with Nicodemus being born again?
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  In the story of the serpents, God tells Moses to specifically
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  fashion a serpent out of bronze. Of all the ways God could have
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  chosen to heal the people, he deliberately chose to require
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  them to look at the very thing that was plaguing them.
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  In order to be freed from their curse, they had to look upon the
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  curse itself. The serpent lifted up on the
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  pole, and it is like that serpent that the Son of Man must
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  be lifted up. Jesus here is foreshadowing His
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  death. He will be lifted up on a cross
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  of wood. He will become the curse for the
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  sake of those who would put their trust in Him.
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  Second Corinthians 521 says He made him who knew no sin to be
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  sin in our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness
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  of God in him. Jesus becomes sin on our behalf.
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  He, like the serpent, is raised up on the tree.
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  He bears the curse for us. But just like the story of the
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  serpents, for all who will look on him, for all who will fix
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  their faith and hope on Jesus Christ, they will be saved.
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  So how can we be born again? We look up at the Son of man who
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  became sin for us. That was true for Nicodemus, and
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  that's true for you and me today.
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  And when we believe in Christ, when we trust Him for salvation,
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  we can rejoice in the beautiful truth of the very next verse in
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  this account of Jesus and Nicodemus.
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  For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,
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  that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have
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  eternal life.