John 3:1-17 There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these miraculous signs you are doing unless God is with him.”
3Jesus replied, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless someone is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?”
5Jesus answered, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God! 6Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh. Whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Do not be surprised when I tell you that you must be born from above. 8The wind blows where it pleases. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
9“How can these things be?” asked Nicodemus.
10“You are the teacher of Israel,” Jesus answered, “and you do not know these things? 11Amen, Amen, I tell you: We speak what we know, and we testify about what we have seen. But you people do not accept our testimony. 12If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13No one has ascended into heaven, except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.
14“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15so that everyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
16“For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Amen. (2 Corinthians 13:14)
My daughter, Lydia, is a sophomore at a private Presbyterian university in Iowa. A few weeks ago, Lydia’s theology professor assigned her class a paper on the gender of God. Throughout this semester, the professor has been leading the students to question God’s gender. She has stated numerous times in the class that God is at times male, other times female, and other times multi-gender or no gender.
Lydia had the inner conflict that all of us have when faced with such blasphemous theology. Keep her head down and her mouth shut to get a good grade or stand up and speak out and possibly tank her grade.
I’m going to read to you the last two paragraphs of her paper and let you decide what she did.
“I believe that the question of whether God has a gender does have implications for how we view ourselves and humankind. This is because the God of the Bible is unchanging. If humans try to change the gender of God, they are breaking the second commandment that God gave to his people from Mt. Sinai. The second commandment states, ‘You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God.’ If humans try to change the gender of God that God clearly gives for people to refer to him, then they are misusing God’s name and are blaspheming. The article from the Women’s Ordination, misuses God’s Word and twists it to make God appear as feminine. The Holy Spirit is clearly using a metaphor [about mother bears and mother hens] to demonstrate how God is carrying and protective like a mother. Not that he is a mother. If these passages were to be taken literally, then God would literally be a bear and a hen. That’s just silly. More than that, it’s blasphemy.”
“There are many different ways that people think of God. People use many different names to refer to God. Referring to God as anything but male, is changing what God says about himself. God’s Word, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is very clear. The God of the Bible describes himself as male. To question, doubt, change, or twist God’s Word in any way to say anything different is - in today’s language - misgendering God.”
I tell you this story because this subject is not confined to one student in one theology class. These are the kinds of questions, doubts, debates, and outright denials of God’s truths that Christians are facing right now. It’s in our public high schools, colleges, and universities. This kind of language about gender has permeated businesses, penetrated the military, and saturated media, entertainment, and government.
This false theology about gender and God has even infiltrated churches. Here is a quote from a wolf in sheep’s clothing as he preached to his flock recently: “God is gay. God is a lesbian. God is trans. God is gender non-binary. God is straight. God is cis gender.”
God is none of those things!
There is a lot of spiritual darkness in our culture. Some people are sowing confusion and doubt. Some are preaching blasphemy and heresy. Others have legitimate questions. Jesus teaches us how to answer these questions in the darkness in his conversation with Nicodemus.
Nicodemus had a lot of questions as he came to Jesus at night. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a teacher of the Jews. Nicodemus is a rabbi who has come to see the Rabbi. He comes in the darkness because he is interested in the One who is the Light of the world.
Nicodemus was infected with the malady that infects all of humanity. We all think we are better than we really are. Most people see no need for the church, Christianity, or Jesus because they see no need for a Savior. They are living in the darkness of sin and unbelief, and often don’t even realize it. If they could form the question, it would be something like this, “If there is a God, he would see me as a pretty good person, wouldn’t he?”
This was Nicodemus’ question in the darkness, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh. Whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
It doesn’t matter how good we imagine that we are, God sees us as sinners by what we have done, by what we have left undone, and by our sinful nature. There is nothing good within us. King David puts it succinctly and accurately, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:3). We are by nature evil, vile, corrupt wretches of sin and filth.
But our Triune God loves us too much to allow us to languish in the darkness of our sin and death. Our Triune God created a way of salvation. Just as the new world was created through water and the Holy Spirit hovered over those waters, so we are created anew through water and the Spirit. Jesus told Nicodemus, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God!” Jesus is speaking about Baptism.