Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
Nicodemus is one of those fascinating figures we read of in the Gospel of John. He wasn’t a fisherman, tax collector, or ordinary person like many of Jesus’ other followers. He was a Pharisee—a respected religious teacher, an expert in Scripture, and a member of the Jewish ruling council. In other words, Nicodemus was the kind of man people looked up to for answers.
And yet, when we read of him coming to Jesus in John 3, he came at night. It is possible he didn’t want his colleagues to see him. Maybe he was afraid of what others would think. Or he simply wanted a private conversation with the teacher who was performing all of the miracles he was hearing about. Whatever the reason, John makes it clear that Nicodemus came to Jesus “in the dark.”
When he opened the conversation, Nicodemus sounded respectful: “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God.” But as Jesus often did, He immediately cut to the heart of the matter: “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” Nicodemus was stunned. He thought Jesus meant a physical rebirth, and he couldn’t understand. Jesus was really saying, “You need a spiritual rebirth—from above, by water and the Spirit.”
This was shocking for a man like Nicodemus. His entire life was built on his study of the Scriptures, Jewish traditions of the Rabbis, and his careful obedience to the Law. But Jesus told him plainly: Eternal life isn’t found in rules or knowledge. It comes only by being born again, born from above, through faith in the Son of God.
To make His point, Jesus reminded Nicodemus of the story in Numbers 21, when God told Moses to lift up a bronze serpent so that the dying Israelites who were snake-bitten could look at it and live. In a similar way, Jesus would be lifted up on the cross, and whoever looked to Him in faith would find eternal life. This is the context of the verse we all know so well: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” - John 3:16.
Nicodemus didn’t fully believe that night. But his journey didn’t end there. Later in John 7, he cautiously defended Jesus in front of his peers. And finally, after the crucifixion, Nicodemus brought a very costly gift of burial spices and helped Joseph of Arimathea bury Jesus. That act was public, costly, and courageous. It was Nicodemus’ way of stepping out of the shadows and into the light.
His story reminds us that faith is often a journey. Some of us begin with curiosity, asking our own questions in the dark. Others cautiously defend Jesus but hesitate to commit fully. But in the end, real faith calls us to step boldly into the light, no matter the cost.
Nicodemus challenges us with one big question: Are we still hiding in the dark, or are we ready to step into the light of Christ and be born from above?
