In John 3, Nicodemus came to Jesus late one night, after dark. He was a spiritual leader who knew and understood the Old Testament and what was in it very well. You know the story.
He told Jesus, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”
Then we read how Jesus answered him. I will try to rephrase it as I understand it:
“Nicodemus, you think you know how these things of God work. What you do not understand, however, is that to truly become a child of the God you speak of and think you know, one must be born again. You literally must become a new person.
Up until now, your spirit has been dead because of sin. Therefore, you have never been able to hear God’s voice and understand what He is saying. Hence, everything you have said, thought, felt, and chosen has only confirmed that you are spiritually dead.
You need to be born again and made new, before you can be acceptable to God and become part of His people and kingdom here on earth.”
Of course, Nicodemus did not understand what Jesus meant by this.
So, Jesus goes on and explains how this can happen. He explains that it is the work of God the Spirit inside us, which people cannot see.
To explain this further, Jesus uses the events in Numbers 21:4 to 9 to make it understandable to Nicodemus.
He explains that when the people in the wilderness became impatient again in unbelief and sinned, God sent poisonous snakes among them. The snakes bit the people, and everywhere, people were dying. The people then cried to Moses and confessed: We have sinned against God with what we said. Please pray to God that He will take the snakes away from us.
When Moses spoke to God about this, God told him: Make an image of a serpent of brass and put it on a pole where everyone can see it. Everyone who is bitten and looks at it will live.
So, Jesus then explains further to Nicodemus, God sent Jesus to this world to die on the cross for each of you and bear the punishment for your sins. Everyone who comes to Him (who hangs on the “tree”) and believes that what He did is sufficient to save and deliver you from death, is born again by the work of the Holy Spirit, where no one can see. He or she becomes new and receives God’s grace and eternal life.
Then we hear the most famous of all Bible verses from Jesus’ mouth, there in John 3:16 to 18:
“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. Whoever believes in him is not condemned; whoever does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
May I conclude by asking you very personally: Was there a day in your life when you deliberately looked up in faith to the One, Jesus the Christ, who hung on the cross, in April 30 AD, also for you, to bear the full punishment for all your sins, so that God could have mercy on you and forgive your sins?
If you have never done this deliberately, why don't you do it today?
Then you can know based on God's Word that you will not be lost but have been born again by His Spirit, and will live forever as God's child.