Who was Nicodemus?
“Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews”– John 3:1.
Nicodemus was a seeker of God and a leading Bible teacher of his day (John 3:1-21).
Who was Nicodemus? He appears in the Bible only three times in the Gospel of John. The first appearance is when Nicodemus had a private meeting with Jesus of Nazareth at night in John, Chapter 3. Nicodemus sought Jesus to learn more about His teachings and ministry.
Nicodemus had many questions. Was Jesus a false teacher, a prophet from God, or even the Messiah? How could Jesus preach as He did and perform real miracles if He were not from God? Why did Jesus challenge Nicodemus’ beliefs and religion? Why was Jesus condemning him and the other religious leaders, telling the people the Pharisees were leading men and women to hell?
In Matthew 23:15, Jesus said, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you go round about the sea and the land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, you make him the child of hell twofold more than yourselves.”
He was an eyewitness
During Jesus’ three-year ministry, the Jewish people were flocking to Jesus. Nicodemus was an eyewitness to Jesus’ miracles and listened carefully to many of His sermons. Though Nicodemus had many questions for Jesus at their meeting, Jesus did not address these questions. Instead, He knew Nicodemus’ heart and thoughts. Jesus presented God’s plan of salvation to Nicodemus, generating light and cutting through the darkness of that night.
Nicodemus comes to Jesus’ defense
The second appearance of Nicodemus took place when the Apostle John mentions Nicodemus coming to Jesus’ defense, trying to save His life in John 7. This event took place about a year before the Romans executed Jesus on a cross at Golgotha.
The Chief Priests and Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest Jesus. The leaders wanted Him dead. They hated Jesus. They saw Him as a threat to their religious system and way of life.
The temple guards came back empty-handed, however. The Pharisees asked the guards why they didn’t bring Jesus to them. The guards replied, “No one ever spoke the way this man does.” The Pharisees asked if they also had been deceived. Then they asked if any of the rulers or any Pharisees believed in him.
Nicodemus then spoke up. He reminded his fellow Pharisees the law required the leaders to hear the accused before they could judge and sentence him or her to death. They quickly brushed aside Nicodemus’ concerns for the law. They could not carry out their plot immediately against Jesus because of God’s timing and plan.
He provided Jesus with a royal burial
Nicodemus’ final appearance in the Bible is at the crucifixion of Jesus in John 19. Joseph of Arimathea brought a linen shroud and asked Pilate for Jesus’ body. Nicodemus helped his friend, Joseph, take Jesus’ body down from the cross.
They both prepared the body and anointed Jesus with aloes and myrrh. At significant risk to their safety and reputations, they defied the Sanhedrin and Pharisees by treating Jesus’ body with dignity. They honored Him in death. They placed Jesus’ body into Joseph of Arimathea’s unused tomb. Three days later, Nicodemus and Joseph were witnesses to the empty tomb. The large stone was moved away. They heard the life-giving words, “Jesus is risen!”
He was a separate one
Nicodemus was a prominent, respected teacher and a Pharisee. The Pharisees were a “separatist” political party, and a religious group made up of scribes, sages, and businessmen.
The word, Pharisee, comes from the Hebrew word “parush.” It means “one who is separated.” The Pharisees believed it was vital for them to keep separate, holy, and unpolluted from the “godless” world. They did not engage or socialize with Gentiles and irreligious Jews.
Nicodemus was an elder, ruler, and counselor to the chief priest. He was one of Israel’s most educated and outstanding Bible teachers. His name in Greek means “victor over the people.”
As a Pharisee, Nicodemus also was very influential in the community since he was one of the wealthiest men in Jerusalem. He was very successful in business.
He was a member of the Sanhedrin, the main ruling body and civil and criminal authority of the Jews in Palestine. The Sanhedrin was Israel’s Supreme Court. The members included the high priest, chief priests, elders, and scribes. The Pharisees with the scribes, lawyers, rabbis, and Sadducees were all part of Israel’s religious system.
Promoted Orthodox Judaism plus added traditions
The Pharisees opposed Jesus because He violated many of the Pharisees’ oral laws. He mixed freely with tax collectors and sinners, making Him ceremonially unclean (Luke 7:39). He ate and drank with them, and was called a glutton and a drunkard (Luke 7:34). He ate with ceremonially unclean hands (Luke 11:38). He broke their Sabbath laws by healing people and gleaning corn to eat (Luke 13:14, Matthew 12:1-2). He forgave peoples’ sins, which to the Pharisees was blasphemy (Luke 5:21).
Nicodemus and his fellow Pharisees promoted what they believed to be Orthodox Judaism. They believed in the strict letter of the law and Scriptures.
They were an elite group of students and teachers of the law. Many Jewish leaders considered them the supreme authority on Scripture as well as tradition.
The Pharisees were legalists, and zealots for religious purity and rituals. They piously invented and introduced new doctrines, rules, laws, and traditions apart from the Scriptures, as they tried to keep the Mosaic law.
They believed they were saved, pure, and undefiled by their good works and sacrifices. Unfortunately, their work-based religious principles were in direct contrast to Jesus’ teachings on how to get into the kingdom of God.
They regularly opposed Jesus of Nazareth, who denounced them as false teachers and hypocrites. They were more concerned about their legalistic rules than they were with administering and keeping God’s law.
The Pharisees were expecting the Messiah to appear soon and deliver them from the Romans. They believed that God allowed the oppressive Romans to punish and rule over them since the Jews refused to uphold the Torah’s laws and statutes.
The Pharisees and Rabbis believed they projected the heavenly values on earth. They were holy, and not like the others. They thought they achieved sainthood through the study of the Torah and keeping the Mosaic law.
The Pharisees were so proud; that they even developed a tradition whereby people dedicated material possessions to God by giving those possessions to them.
When Jesus began preaching, the people who listened to His sermons recognized a difference between His teaching and those of the Jewish religious teachers.
Jesus gets the Pharisees’ full attention
And they were astonished at Jesus’ teaching, for He taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes (Mark 1:22).
Jesus taught as one having authority and not like their “experts in the law.” Jesus’ power was evident in His healing of the sick and raising the dead. He also cast out demons from many of the Israelites.
The Pharisees quickly took notice of Jesus. Many religious leaders shadowed Jesus to view His healings and to listen to His teachings. Some even attended His baptism, and others were present when He spoke in front of the large crowds at the temple.
Early in Jesus’ ministry, the Pharisees were careful to not speak critically of Jesus. The Pharisees, however, became jealous of the crowds following Jesus. They began to challenge Jesus’ teachings. Some even claimed He was distorting the Mosaic law, teaching lies, and doing miracles by the power of Satan.
Annulling the word of God for tradition
The Pharisees followed and watched Jesus to see where they could discredit Him and His ministry.
The Bible says in Matthew 15:1-9, “Then some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ‘Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.’And He answered and said to them, ‘Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?’ For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, whatever I have that would help you has been given to God, he is not to honor his father or his mother.’ And by this, you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you:
‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’”
Jesus condemned Nicodemus and his fellow Pharisees
The Pharisees were corrupt and lost in their religious, man-made system. They were more concerned about the external ceremony, rituals, and human traditions than they were of their internal morality and souls.
Throughout His ministry, Jesus opposed the Pharisees. He denounced them for their hypocrisy, spiritual blindness, and evil ways. The Pharisees had been entrusted with the guardianship of the Torah which was God’s gift to Israel. (Matt. 23: 1-29)
They concealed and justified their inward corruption through their wrong interpretations of Scripture. Jesus said the Pharisees were whitewashed on the outside. However, they were full of dead men’s bones on the inside. They were purveyors of false religion and led men and women to hell.
Jesus confronted the Pharisees’ righteousness and taught in public with authority, “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:17-20).
Jesus also pointed out that the Pharisees thought they were honoring the prophets in their actions, but they supported killing the true prophets, who disagreed with them. They also wanted to kill Jesus, one they did not recognize as the Messiah and Son of God.
The Woes of the Pharisees
Jesus exposed the Pharisees’ beliefs and teachings. He illustrated their hypocrisy and lies in Luke 11:37-54, “Now when He had spoken, a Pharisee asked Him to have lunch with him; and He went in and reclined at the table. When the Pharisee saw it, he was surprised that He had not first ceremonially washed before the meal. But the Lord said to him, ‘Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but inside of you, you are full of robbery and wickedness. You foolish ones, did not He who made the outside make the inside also? But give that which is within as charity, and then all things are clean for you.’
Jesus remained silent before King Herod (Luke 23:8-12).
‘But woe to you Pharisees! For you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, and yet disregard justice and the love of God, but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the chief seats in the synagogues and the respectful greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you! For you are like concealed tombs, and the people who walk over them are unaware of it.’
“One of the lawyers said to Him in reply, ‘Teacher, when You say this, You insult us too.’ But He said, ‘Woe to you lawyers as well! For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and it was your fathers who killed them. So, you are witnesses and approve the deeds of your fathers; because it was they who killed them, and you build their tombs.’
“For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, maybe charged against this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation. Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.’
“When He left there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile and to question Him closely on many subjects, plotting against Him to catch Him in something He might say.”
Jesus said the Pharisees taught about God but did not love God. They did not enter the kingdom of God themselves, nor did they let others enter. They converted others to their dead religion. They taught the law, but they did not practice parts of the law. They presented the appearance of being clean, yet they were dirty inside. They were full of sin, greed, and self-indulgence.
They rejoiced in His death and flourished
Unfortunately, after Jesus’ crucifixion, the Pharisees celebrated His death and became even more powerful. After the Siege of Jerusalem (AD 70), Pharisaic beliefs became the foundational, liturgical, and ritualistic basis for Rabbinic Judaism. All mainstream forms of Judaism today come from Rabbinic Judaism and the Pharisees.
(E-Book: Born from Above; Introduction; Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8; Chapter 9; Chapter 10; Chapter 11; Chapter 12; Epilogue)