Men love darkness rather than light
“This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” – John 3:19-21
Jesus told Nicodemus that men and women are depraved, and lost in darkness. The light exposes their sins. Jesus said God would judge men and women by how they hated the light and loved the darkness.
The crucifixion of Christ is the climax of redemptive history. (Matt. 27:27-55).
Jesus continued, “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” (John 3:19-20).
Nicodemus knew the Messiah was the Light, foretold by the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah 9:2, says, “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.”
Jesus is that “Light” who came into the world. The Light signifies not only His incarnation but His revealing the merciful counsel of God for a person’s salvation and eternal life.
The “Light” came into the world but was rejected by many. Why? “Men loved darkness rather than light.” They choose darkness and death over the light of life, the saving knowledge of the gospel. The Bible says men and women are without excuse and guilty of neglecting the Scriptures and the teachings of the Son of God – Jesus. In Romans 1:20, Paul wrote, “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So, they are without excuse.”
The Apostle Peter was executed for his faith in Christ (John 21:18-19).
The love of darkness is a result of mankind’s vile and wicked ways. The significant penalty of sin is death and separation from God. A preference for evil is originated and confirmed by sinful compliance. The blinding of the eye and the deafening of the ear are the result of an unregenerate man’s unwillingness to see or walk in the light of the Lord.
Jesus disclosed to Nicodemus that unbelievers have no power because they have no life. They are dead in their trespasses and sin. They do not have a new heart. They do not have a new spirit. They are not guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit. They do not have a love for God and righteousness. They cannot serve God.
Jesus said mankind lives in darkness because “their deeds were evil.” The vices and love of sin are the works of darkness. The fruits are their ignorance and pride. They protect and feed their carnal, corrupt nature. They reject the light of the gospel because it exposes their depraved lifestyle and the fact that they are slaves to their sins. They cannot stop sinning.
Sin permeates every part of the unregenerate sinner’s nature, even the seemingly good things he or she does are done ultimately with wrong motives.
Only light can penetrate this darkness. Jesus Christ is the Light. This Light came into the world to provide a way for man to gain eternal life.
Jesus said, “The world hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil” (John 7:7). The world’s contempt for Christ stems from moral, not intellectual motives.
Most people love sin and hate God. They refuse to be held accountable for their sins and guilt. And that’s because all people are sinners by nature—a nature passed on to every descendant of Adam after the fall in Genesis 3. “Through one man, sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). “Through the one man’s disobedience, the many were made sinners” (Romans 5:19). “No one seeks for God” (Romans 3:11).
With Jesus’ visit to earth, God reached out in the darkness to bring light and salvation to His elect. John 3:20 says, “For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”
Not only does man love evil and darkness rather than light, but he hates the light and lives in known sin. The light illuminates the dark and secret chambers of the heart and reveals thoughts and deeds. It detects and exposes man’s corrupt practices, and thus it causes anguish and shame to his guilty mind. A person avoids looking at his or her true character and the dangerous and miserable condition in which he or she live.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences (2 Cor. 5:10-11).
Christ is hated, sin is loved
Christ is hated because sin is loved. Moreover, sinners hate the light because it discovers the evil and sinfulness of their ways. God condemns them because they will not repent of their vile sinfulness.
The man who practices evil and shuns the light is on a path to eternal hell. He experiences a wasted life of regrets.
Jesus told Nicodemus, “But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God” (John 3;21).
Who comes to light? It is those people who are drawn by God to obey the truth. The sinner acts from falsehood and error. The redeemed person acts according to the truth. The sinner believes a lie – there is no God, or there is no eternity and no hell. The follower of Christ believes in God, and he or she desires to serve and have a relationship with His Son and Spirit. He or she believes there is an eternity and believes in the saving work of Jesus Christ: the Son of Man who came to earth died on the cross for mankind’s sins and was raised from the dead.
Lord’s first coming
The primary purpose of Jesus Christ’s first coming was to provide a way of salvation for lost sinners. Jesus died on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice and atonement. It was a glorious act of God’s love.
However, those who reject this offer of salvation refuse God’s love. They fall under even greater condemnation for having seen the light and then denying it. Unregenerate people are spiritually dead; they cannot respond to the light of divine truth without God’s intervention.
A person’s response to the light of the Lord’s coming is indicative of their moral and spiritual condition. Those who practice the truth do not fear the light since it exposes the righteousness of righteous men. Those who are wicked will fear and avoid the Son. They practice sin and are the slaves of sin. Thus, the spiritually dead person cannot stop from sinning. He or she needs to be made alive by God alone, through His Holy Spirit.
A follower of Christ loves the light and walks in truth. “They have been done in God (John 3:21).
A Christian hates the darkness. A person who is born from above will seek and do the will of God and will bear fruit, godly works. He or she walks according to the truth. The person has a living faith and relies on God’s grace.
He steps into the darkness to redeem
Humility and servanthood marked Christ’s first coming. Serving the poor, healing the sick, and dying on the cross. He rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and promised to come again. And when He does, it won’t be as a humble servant riding a lowly donkey. He’s coming as a warrior and judge, and the terrifying events He’ll bring with Him will culminate in bloody confrontation and the defeat of Satan and his followers (Rev. 19:15-20).
Christ’s work of redemption extends to those in darkness as He is “the light.” Jesus stepped into the darkness to redeem those captive to it. Jesus’ mission was to enter the dark and sinful world and help men and women find Him.
Humanity is broken beyond all repair. Men and women are slaves to Satan and in a state of sin. Jesus told Nicodemus that man is spiritually dead. Only by the power and work of the Holy Spirit can mankind be brought back to life.
True religion unites humanity with God’s mighty Spirit, who overwhelms, transforms, and converts men and women.
Humanity’s role in this transformation is a belief, and yet it is a belief that is aided by God’s work within a person since he or she lives in the darkness and has spiritual capacities incapacitated by sin.
Jesus taught that all true believers come to the light, love the light, obey the Son, practice the truth, worship in spirit and truth, honor God, do good deeds, remember His death and resurrection, love God, follow Jesus, and keep His commandments. Nonbelievers do not practice such things.
The Holy Spirit convicts unbelievers of sin, righteousness, and judgment. True believers still sin, but they cannot and will not continue to live in open rebellion and unrepentant sin after salvation.
Old Sin Versus New Birth
“No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.” (1 John 3:9-10).
The new birth signals a new reconciled life in Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:17-18. Those who were hopelessly corrupt become new creations in Christ, buried with Him and raised unto a new life of righteousness.
In Ephesians 2:4-6 it says, “God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
The Spirit-Empowered Result of Salvation
The Apostle Paul wrote about the implications of the death and Resurrection of Christ. He stated that this truth was to be personally experienced: “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Philippians 3:10).
The Bible says, there are only three groups of people in the world: “the spiritual person, the infant in Christ, and the natural person.”
In 1 Corinthians 2:14-3:3, Paul wrote, “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for, ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly-mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?”
The spiritual person displays God’s righteous character through obeying His law. He or she lives by the Spirit and is growing in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He or she has been born twice. The spiritual man receives the truths of the Word of God
The infant in Christ may be growing up slowly in the faith, but he or she is weak and vulnerable to the sinful world. This type of person may be saved, yet mostly unchanged. He or she continues to be defeated by the flesh, by the world, and by the devil.
The natural man, however, is dead, doomed, depraved, and in darkness. The natural man reflects Satan’s sinful character by neglecting God’s Word and habitually sinning. The exact nature of a man’s or woman’s faith eventually manifests itself in how he or she lives.
Unlike the natural person, a person who is a Christian loves the Lord and will show evidence of the authority of God’s Word, the righteousness of His Son, and the manifest work of His Spirit.
Christ is the Word of God
Jesus said to Nicodemus, “But he who does the truth comes to the light that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
Jesus presented the gospel to Nicodemus strikingly and memorable. Christ’s message was clear: He was the Word of God and the source of salvation.
The Bible says, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Jesus gave Nicodemus a powerful illustration of the new birth. Jesus told Nicodemus if he were to enter the kingdom of God, he had to be “born from above” by the power and the work of the Holy Spirit!
The Holy Spirit whispers the same message to all men and women today, “Are you born from above?” Do you have peace with God? If you were to die tonight, would you be in God’s kingdom of heaven or hell with Satan and damned forever? Do you know the answer to these questions?
I John 5:13 says, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
Few will hear and heed the warning of Jesus’ teaching on being born again, while many others will remain deaf to the Holy Spirit’s call.
(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)