Seventeen centuries ago Christian church leaders gathered together for a very important meeting. This meeting went on for about three months, from May to the end of July of 325 AD. This was a very big deal. It was the first time that a general council of the whole Christian church on earth was called. There were 318 bishops in attendance. Bishops were pastors in charge of a region of churches. The total attendance might have been close to 2,000 people. The council was opened by the Roman emperor Constantine.
This was the first council of Nicaea. And there is one particular piece of business that was the main reason for calling this council and the reason that it is still remembered today, and that’s the question of “just who is Jesus?” A man named Arius had been teaching that the Father alone is eternal, and that because the Son is begotten of the Father that must mean that he has a beginning and is subordinate to the Father. The other side had a number of prominent figures, including a man named Athanasius, and they argued that Jesus is “of the same substance” with the Father.
These men wrote the Nicene Creed, which explains this, saying,
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father.
The even longer Athanasian Creed was written later on and named after the man who did so much work to defend sound Biblical teaching at Nicaea.
Who is Jesus? The Arian Controversy and the Council of Nicaea might seem like matters for the history books. These things happened many years before our time. And yet we still recite the three creeds: the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian. And we do that because knowing who Jesus is—knowing who God is—isn’t just a matter of trivia. Knowing God rightly is a matter of life and death. God has revealed himself to us. He wants us to know him, truly, rightly. In him there is salvation. In him there is life. We have new birth from our Triune God.
Our Gospel for today has been the Gospel reading for this Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost, for a very long time. The oldest lectionary we still have is from about the time of the Council of Nicaea and this is the reading for this Sunday in there. That was actually a long time before this Sunday was universally observed as Trinity Sunday. But it’s a fitting text because right here we see the same questions that the Council of Nicaea was wrestling with. Just who is Jesus? How are we to know and teach about God? Jesus answered some of those same questions to a man named Nicodemus.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and usually when we think of the Pharisees we think of the bad guys, the enemies of Jesus, but here we see that they weren’t all the same. Nicodemus was a prominent Pharisee, and also a member of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin. And John tells us
He 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.”
There’s only one reason he would come to Jesus at night. He was afraid. He was afraid someone might find out. He was afraid of what might happen to his position on the council or his position as a Pharisee. And what he said to Jesus is also revelatory. “We know,” he said, “That you are a teacher who has come from God.” Who’s “we”? He includes himself with those who are not enemies of Jesus, but want to learn from him. At the same time, it seems that he’s saying, “Everybody knows this. Even those who are denying it are denying it out of jealousy, not for any good reason.”
Of course he’s right. How could anyone look at Jesus and what he was doing and hate him for it? He was healing people. He was driving out demons. He was performing all kinds of miracles, not like some trickster trying to show off, but like a true prophet, doing these things to confirm that his word was the Word of God.
At the same time though, what Nicodemus was willing to admit was far too little. Yes, it was plain that Jesus was a teacher who had come from God, but that was not what Jesus’ disciples had confessed about him. “We have found the Messiah!” Andrew told Simon Peter. “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Nathanael exclaimed.
There are a lot of people like this today. They position themselves as being in the middle of the road, moderate sorts of people. They like Christians and Christian values. They’ll talk inclusively about themselves, “We know these things.” But when pressed about questions like, “Just who is Jesus?,” they don’t want to answer. They back off, like Nicodemus sneaking out at night.
It’s sad, really. They may be nicer people than those who openly hate Christ, but they’re no closer to his kingdom. The Pharisees like Nicodemus had built around themselves a lie that they were the most righteous people on earth, but the reality was that they didn’t even know God when he was standing right in front of them. All Nicodemus’ high status and good works didn’t matter one bit. Jesus told him the one thing that does matter. John writes
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.
What you need is not to know a few things or to be on the right side or identify with the correct group. What you need is not a list of good works that elevates you above everyone else and makes you more holy than any of them. What you need is a new birth. You need to be born again. You need to be born from above. You need to be born of God.
Our sinful nature does not like this one bit. My heart doesn’t think I need a new heart. No, deep down I think my heart is just fine. I look at other people and say, “Ah, yes, see how righteous I am! Surely God must love me. Surely there’s a ticket into heaven with my name on it because of all the good and worthy things that I’ve done, and all the evil things that I have stayed far away from. And at the very same time I have all kinds of sins that I’m very comfortable with. “Oh, they’re not that bad,” I tell myself.
But they are. Each one of those little sins that you and I tolerate in our hearts are so bad that they cut us off entirely from God. We can’t even begin to approach his glory. Purity and holiness and perfection is not a noble goal. It’s the bare minimum. I need a new birth because I need to be a new person. This person that I am is not righteous at all. I am not holy. I am not pure. I am not perfect. I am a sinner. And unless someone is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus couldn’t bring this about. He couldn’t approach God. Jesus was telling him that his whole life, all he had done, all he had built, was nothing, a waste. He couldn’t ascend into heaven. And he couldn’t start over.
But that was why Jesus had come from heaven to us. Jesus said,
No 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.
The man who was teaching Nicodemus wasn’t just a teacher. He was the very Son of God. He was the one who came to be lifted up on the cross so that the debt of our sin would be paid for and the Father would look on us not for our own righteousness but for his. He came to send the Holy Spirit, so that by the Spirit’s work we would be born again, made entirely new people.
Jesus says that we must be born of water and the Spirit. You can’t see the Holy Spirit, but you know what you can see? You can see the water that he attaches his promise to. In your baptism you were born again. You received new life, you were given a new birth. And this was not your doing, just as you didn’t bring yourself into the world in your first birth. Your baptism is the work of God. It’s the gift of God. It’s the promise of God.
You were baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. One God in three persons, and three persons in one God. To know God as he reveals himself, as he wants to be known, is to know his salvation. He alone can reveal earthly things and heavenly things. And he tells you to look to the cross, to listen to his word, and to find assurance in your baptism. By this he gives you eternal life.
Give thanks for the creeds. Give thanks for every bold confessor and teacher of God’s truth. Give thanks for new birth from our Triune God. Amen.