I've mentioned before that I participate on a Christian chat server on a regular basis. Last night I had an experience with a user who took issue with the notion that God was kind, because He's left us in a mortal state, and has taken so long "do anything" to bring about the betterment of our situation. This is a person who claims to read the Bible and who has had ample exposure to things Scriptural. Still this person does not understand the simplest things about the nature and character of God. Not terribly surprising I guess. I could use Nicodemus to illustrate why I say that.

Nicodemus knew his Scriptures well. He probably had a good deal of them committed to memory. Yet, "Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3:3 That's a very familiar verse to most Christians and to many non-Christians as well. Nicodemus' response in the next verse was to ask Jesus, "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?"

In verses 9, Nicodemus was trying to find out just how such a spiritual transformation occurs: 9"Nicodemus said to Him, "How can these things be?" Jesus let Nicodemus know in the following verse that as the teacher of Israel, Nicodemus ought to know.

The prophets of the Scriptures Nicodemus knew so well (the Old Testament), spoke of the new age to come, and it's working of the Spirit in Isaiah 32:15, Ezekiel 36:25-27 and Joel 2:28-29, so one of the country's foremost teachers should understand how God by His sovereign grace should be able to give someone a new heart. Look at 1st Samuel 10:6 and Jeremiah 31:33 for examples of that.

In light of verses 11 and 12 Nicodemus wasn't only ignorant of the spiritual realm that Jesus was speaking to him about, but he was an example of Israel's general unbelief and lack of insightful knowledge of the Scriptures. Jesus gave the nation the low down on divine themes, but He was rejected by his own people. Since Nicodemus couldn't get his head around the basic teaching of regeneration, even when Jesus couched it in earthly analogies, how was he going to be able to understand and believe the such Biblical doctrines as the Trinity and the Incarnation?

So when Jesus told him that "No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man." in verse 13 of John 3, he probably had trouble understanding what the Savior meant. He probably thought surely, that others had ascended into heaven at that point. His thoughts may have drifted to Elijah. I believe that in the context of their conversation, Jesus was trying to tell Nicodemus that no one has ever gone to heaven and then come back to earth with the capability to clearly teach others about things divine.

Only Jesus, "the Son of Man," is the way from heaven to earth, and who alone has access to both realms. The angels move about only through God's provision. Jesus "descended" in the Incarnation and "ascended" in the Ascension, but, He was in heaven before the Incarnation and he knows the answer to all of the divine mysteries. Elijah was taken to heaven but hasn't returned.

The user I chatted with last night was at just as big a loss to understand the process of spiritual transformation. In that user's understanding, God allows suffering because He's cruel and indifferent, He's left us with an inaccurate message (the Bible), and the idea that mortal man can be made immortal is an "oxymoron."

Nicodemus at that point in his life and this user are so far apart in their spiritual experience as to be in almost different universes, but they share at least one thing in common. Neither Nicodemus nor this user understood the grace of a God who didn't consider it robbery to be made like one of us, and to suffer horribly for us, in our place, because of our sins. Nicodemus was a teacher of Israel and he didn't know what I know. The user last night doesn't know what I know of the Bible, or have my understanding.

What do I know? I don't know anything. If you don't know what I know, you know less than nothing. (laughing here) Seriously though, I'm no Bible hotshot, but a loving, patient, kind, gracious and forgiving God gave us a wonderful love letter and owner's manual to be enriched, enlightened and guided by in order to be able to draw closer and closer to Him while reaching out and sharing about Him to others. It is all about Jesus from beginning to end and if one submits their heart to His love and gives His Word a chance to be stored up in their hearts, the nothing that I know will be grown by the life sustaining God into something life changing.