John 3:9-12

⁹ Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰ Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? ¹¹ 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. ¹² If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

            In the previous verses, Jesus told Nicodemus the spiritual reality of seeing and entering in into the kingdom of God—he must be born again and be born of the Spirit to be able to enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus also told him not to question how the Holy Spirit works and who will be chosen next but to just understand what He was doing inside of Nicodemus himself. This next paragraph will be key for Nicodemus to do all that. Jesus has shown him the spiritual reality but that makes no sense to someone who cannot understand the physical reality first.

            Nicodemus still did not understand what Jesus was talking about as he was still thinking in more physical terms. What Jesus said next seems like a rebuke but could also be read as Him saying “Even a teacher of Israel cannot understand these things without the next part.” Jesus was setting Nicodemus up to understand the full reality of what was before Him. He started in the last paragraph, showing the vast gap in his knowledge as a spiritual teacher by starting with the spiritual parts that he can’t yet understand.

            The next two verses reveal the reason Jesus started the way He did. Nicodemus needed to recognize that he did not completely understand what was before him, so there was no way for him to understand the spiritual things that Jesus just mentioned. Jesus brought up the difference between earthly things and heavenly things to contrast what is easy to understand and what is a lot harder to understand. Jesus was preparing Nicodemus to inform him on the earthly reality, something that he must grasp before he could understand the spiritual reality of being born again.

            As Christians, this is something we must grasp ourselves—that belief comes in stages. No one can understand the deeper parts of being born again without understanding the earthly reality. This earthly reality is Jesus who came in the flesh, but everything that we do before then sets someone up to understand that reality. Our lives must reflect this reality which can only happen when we are in the word of God every day, praying every day, and in communion with a body of believers.             For a non-Christian, the heavenly might seem out of your reach, that you cannot grasp for it. This is true, but that is why God sent Jesus to Earth because the earthly realm is easier to understand. Jesus is from the earthly realm and the heavenly realm and Him dying on the cross and rising again is on this earthly realm. This is the first thing you must accept to understand what it means to be born again.