Scripture Daily

Context No. 372 of 4322 · John

Context · Reflection

John 3:9-21: in context

9Nicodemus answered him, “How can these things be?” 10Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and don’t understand these things? 11Most certainly I tell you, we speak that which we know and testify of that which we have seen, and you don’t receive our witness. 12If I told you earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended out of heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven. 14As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only born Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 17For God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him. 18He who believes in him is not judged. He who doesn’t believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only born Son of God. 19This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil. 20For everyone who does evil hates the light and doesn’t come to the light, lest his works would be exposed. 21But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be revealed, that they have been done in God.”

Nicodemus, a respected teacher, has come to Jesus at night, and he is baffled: how can these things be? Jesus' answer moves through some of the most famous lines in the Bible, that as Moses lifted up the bronze serpent in the wilderness so the Son of Man must be lifted up, and that God so loved the world he gave his only Son so that whoever believes would not perish. And Jesus is emphatic about God's intent: he did not send his Son to condemn the world, but to save it. Condemnation is not the mission.

But then Jesus says something about judgment that is worth slowing down over, because it locates the problem in an unexpected place. This is the judgment, he says: that the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come to it, for fear that their deeds will be exposed. Notice that the barrier here is not intellectual doubt. Nicodemus asked how, but Jesus diagnoses something deeper than a lack of understanding. What keeps people away from the light is the fear of being seen. They love the dark not because the light is unconvincing but because the light would reveal what they are doing, and they would rather stay hidden than be exposed. And the one who does come, Jesus says, is the one willing to have his deeds brought into the light, to be seen, so that it becomes clear they were done in God.

That reframes what actually holds me back from coming fully into God's presence. Often it is not that I do not believe, but that I do not want to be seen, and I would rather stay in a comfortable dark than let the light expose what is really there. But the light came to save, not to condemn. What keeps me at a distance from God, honestly, unbelief, or the fear of being exposed, and am I willing to step into a light that would show me plainly in order to be healed rather than hidden?

Sources