Written from a pre-millennial perspective of which people are of course free to disagree. I hesitate a bit to share it because of the length and intricacies of the response but I believe there is enough meat in the detailed response to benefit any who might choose to read it.
DOL - the Day of the Lord at which Jesus returns and which serves as the jumping off transition point into the next age.
QUESTION:I know what the commentators say, but Jesus' response to Nicodemus, that as a teacher with authority he should understand the necessity of a new birth by the Spirit, seems to me to be the same gospel that was revealed to Paul that he also had not previously noticed. A gospel of a new birth, a "new creation” that must happen by being born of the Spirit. What OT passages do you think Jesus had in mind that Nicodemus should have grasped but did not?
REPLY: Simple. The very scripture that is referred to in Jn 3:5 in particular is Eze 36:25-27, but no less, by obvious allusion, Jesus is also referring to Isa 66:8 in His reference to new birth. There, a nation is born in one day after Zion's travail (a reference to the great tribulation; Isa 13:8-9; 26:16-17; Mic 5:3; Jer 30:6-7). These scriptures should have prepared Nicodemus to understand what Jesus will here give as the great axiom of the faith in both testaments, and NOT only since His advent. Here's why.
Nicodemus would have known that the metaphor, 'sprinkling of clean water' in relation to the Spirit (not baptism as in Christian dogma, but the washing of regeneration as in Tit 3:5 and Eph 5:26), is in reference to Eze 36:25-27. This would call to mind many other scriptures bearing upon the great transition of the Day of the Lord, all in close association with the eschatological promise of the Spirit. Taken together, these call to mind a number of closely related scriptures that show that the Holy Spirit transforms and makes the nation fit for the promised kingdom of God on earth.
For Nicodemus, the kingdom of God comes with the post-tribulational deliverance of Israel, but Israel enters that renewed kingdom of David only by reason of the promised gift of the Spirit that secures everlasting righteousness and thus everlasting inheritance of the Land in peace and glory. What 'teacher in Israel' would not have known that it is the Spirit of the Lord alone who brings about all the metaphors for regeneration, cleansing, birth, resurrection, and new creation? So where does Nicodemus miss it?
By referencing familiar language of Israel's post-trib entrance into the kingdom, Jesus chides this notable 'teacher in Israel' for his failure to 'connect the dots', as we say. He's basically asking this man of high responsibility, "Since you know well that the nation cannot enter / see the KOG without a new birth by the Spirit (Isa 66:8 with Eze 39:28; Zech 12:10, Joel 2:27-32; et al), how can it be thought different for the individual?" How is one even alive to God without the Spirit? It seems plain to be seen that the soteriology of the NT, as described by Jesus and the apostles, is patterned after the eschatology of the OT, as all of these metaphors (new creation, birth, resurrection) are taken over and applied to the present salvation of Spirit filled believers.
Though not as pronounced in the earlier scriptures, regeneration of the Spirit is a necessity in both testaments. Not simply requisite for baptism into the new community of Jesus confessors, it is the "without which not" of all spiritual life and union with the divine nature, regardless of age or dispensation. The 'life of the age to come' has always only been 'the life of God' in every living believer in every age. There was never an acceptable, 'living' faith in any dispensation that was devoid of the Spirit, since it is only this union of shared 'divine nature' that constitutes one a child of God at any time. "God is not the God of the dead but of the living."
The New Covenant is 'not so new'. It is eternal, as the writer of Hebrews is so interested to show. It is indeed 'new' to the sinner made righteous at the point of a Spirit quickened faith. It will be new to the penitent survivors of Jacob's trouble, as an entirely born again nation enters the millennium. And, of course, from the standpoint of the OT prophets, the post-Jacob's trouble, day of the Lord deliverance of Israel (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1) that is distinguished by the 'coming in' of the everlasting righteousness of the everlasting / new covenant (Jer 32:40 with Dan 9:24). But in what sense is this new? It is new in the sense of its contrast with the 'old'. The old, ineffectual covenant must reign over the larger nation until 'all Israel' (not only a remnant; Jer 31:34) is alive to God by the Spirit. But as John shows in his shorter epistles (1Jn 2:7-8; 2Jn 1:5), it is not the commandment that is new, but the power to perform it by the Spirit. Until 'that day' (Ps 102:13; 110:3), the nation, as a nation, remains 'short' of the glory God, thus condemning itself to the curse of the broken law that can only guarantee repeated cycles of covenant judgment and potential exile.
The life of the New Covenant is the life of the Spirit. It is nothing less or other than the life God in the believer through the regenerating work of the Spirit. Prophetically speaking, the life of God by the Spirit is the promised 'life of the age to come' that will be made sure to all Israel "from that day and forward" (i.e., the day of the Lord; Eze 39:8 with Rev 16:14, 17). This divine life was experienced in real measure by the righteous remnant in the OT, but any first fruits of what was to come always pointing ahead to the transformation of the natural order when the apocalyptic in-breaking of the Day of the Lord would end the time of the nations, restore the scattered tribes, when the Holy Spirit would be received, not merely by a few, but by the whole of the nation (so many as survive till that time). With new heart and new spirit by the outpouring the Holy Spirit, the whole of the nation would now be able to keep the law from the heart and so dwell securely in the Land, forever free from the threat of invasion and exile (2Sam 7:10; Amos 9:15; Isa 54:14-15, 17).
The righteousness of God, which is the life of God through the Spirit that will come to 'all Israel' when the Deliver comes to Zion, has now come to full light in the revelation of the mystery, it's eternal ground and basis being now seen in the shed blood of Jesus (the curse reversing man-child, who circumvents the fallen nature by virgin birth). So much that was foretold was hinted at, here a little and there a little, all throughout the prophetic scriptures, but only vaguely understood until the Spirit was 'sent down from heaven' to fully reveal the secret that had been hidden in past ages (Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11-12).
The everlasting covenant becomes new for the nation, as a nation, only when there is no more a remnant, but 'all Israel' knows Him from the least to the greatest (Jer 31:34; Isa 59:21; Ro 11:26). The promise anticipates a time when there will not be found on this earth a single Jewish person that is not born again through the revelation of their Messiah that comes with the outpouring of the Spirit (Eze 39:22, 28-29 with Zech 12:10; Jer 31:34; Isa 59:21; 60:21; 66:22, et al). No one in any age was ever saved by anything less than the Lamb slain before all creation. That much is usually granted, but were they born again?
Were the benefits of the Surety of the better covenant applied and appropriated by faith before Jesus' death? Unless God had already secured in His eternal foreknowledge the predestined surety of the Redeemer's finished work, He could not have 'lawfully' approached the fallen pair with promises that were based on 'nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness'. This too is granted, but where is the Spirit? Many scriptures combine to show that the Spirit was always present wherever the gospel was preached, and it was "preached before to Abraham" (Gal 3:8), but certainly not in the full light of the revealed mystery. But how is the gospel heard in a way that brings life? It is heard by the opening of the heart by the Spirit (Acts 16:14). The writer of Hebrews shows that the Word that divides between soul and spirit is the 'quickened Word' (Heb 4:12). It is only as the Word of God is quickened by the Spirit that a living, overcoming faith is 'born of God' (1Jn 5:4), whether now, or in those who 'heard' the gospel in times past (Heb 4:2).
Though much more pronounced in the NT, nevertheless, it is an axiom of revealed truth, as well applied to the age before the cross as after, that apart from the quickening of the Holy Spirit, one is dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1). This is not something that has only newly come about since the cross. No less for the OT faithful than for those living after the cross, it is simply a rule that one "MUST" be born again by the Word and the Spirit. (1Pet 1:23). What is new is the full revelation and actualization in time that Jesus has accomplished the foundation of the eternal covenant sealed in His blood. This is to say that the OT believer was as much alive to God by the Spirit as any NT believer, though in some measure ignorant of precisely how God would proceed to transact all the various parts and stages of the promise (Eph 3:5; 1Pet 1:11). Though fully foretold in the prophetic writings (Acts 26:22; Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11), the mystery of His will (Eph 1:9) was strategically kept secret until the appointed time (Ro 16:25-26 with 1Cor 2:7-8). Concerning this partial revelation, the prophets would search and diligently inquire, but it was not until the Spirit would be 'sent down from heaven' that the full revelation of the gospel would be preached openly to all nations.
Until this appointed time, Jesus would be the lone custodian of the secret (Isa 53:11; Mk 8:30, 9:9; Ro 16:25-26; 1Cor 2:7). After His resurrection and ascension, the everlasting gospel of His twofold advent would come to fullest light by revelation of the Spirit sent down from heaven (1Pet 1:12), as sign and witness to the finished work that forms, but also 'reveals' a new community, the confessing community that stands in true continuity with the "remnant according to the election of grace" of the OT faithful, the household of faith. This is the earnest and first-fruits of the eschatological in-gathering into the newly revealed (not newly existing) unity of the children of God (Jn 11:52), the one fold of the one shepherd (Mt 10:16), the one new man of the one Lord, one faith, and one baptism (Zech 14:9; 1Cor 8:6; Eph 4:5), i.e., the 'one new (regenerate) man', always in Christ, but now 'revealed' to be in Christ.
At Pentecost, all, or at least most, of the pieces of the puzzle created by the partial revelation, sprinkled all throughout the prophetic writings, fell gloriously into place. Now the blood of the everlasting covenant that was sure from before the foundation of the world, had come to full light, and it's benefits revealed in unexpected advance of the DOL deliverance of Israel. Now the full light of the gospel could be shed on why the future DOL will accomplish all its glorious ends without fail. The ground and basis of the Spirit's work of creating a new heart and spirit (in any age or dispensation), has now come fully to light in the revelation of the mystery of the gospel. It can now be seen for the first time that Messiah must come twice, and this discovers a new age between His ascent and return.
This age is an already and not yet of the purchased possession. While this age continues and the structures of the old order are left intact, the believer is translated into the life of the age to come, being tasted and witnessed by the powerful working of the Holy Spirit in signs and changed lives, as faith enters in and appropriates His "glorious rest', even before its post-tribulational, millennial expression is realized (Isa 11:10 with Heb 4:3, 10-11). This NT understanding of the everlasting covenant is new to what the prophets conceptualized, but not entirely. Let me explain.
Certainly, and for good reason, the fore-view of the prophets was naturally focused on the time in the future when "all Israel" would be saved at the post-tribulational DOL, with the KOG established fully on earth in fulfillment of all the unilateral covenants of promise (Abrahamic, Davidic, New). But the prophets also show a vivid awareness of the right-now access and availability of the everlasting covenant as presently available to penitent individuals.
We see this in Isa 55:1-3. One may now enter into the sure mercies of David before the rest of the nation, which will not come in until the post-tribulational DOL, when the nation, ever prone to backslide, will at last be free from the recurrent cycles of curse and exile. The same can be seen in Eze 18:31 where the new heart and spirit is currently available and even required of 'whosoever will' repent and turn to the God who makes the heart clean and the spirit new, as well understood by the precedent of David's model penitential prayer in Ps 51. (For the well known availability for the Spirit to be "poured out" on penitent individuals, see Prov 1:23).
But typically, in speaking of the 'new' or 'everlasting' covenant, 'My covenant of peace', etc., the prophets looked beyond the present to an apocalyptic conclusion when each and every penitent Jewish survivor of the final, unequaled affliction would enter the new age of the Spirit, which they invariably put on the other side of the DOL or "last day" of common Jewish idiom, at which time the surviving remnant would be saved and the righteous dead raised.
This is the focus of the prophets, because only then, at the post-trib DOL, would an 'entirely saved' Jewish nation attain to the covenant promise of a full and final end to the ever threatening cycles of covenant curse and exile. This would be possible only because the nation is no longer only slightly preserved by the presence of the remnant. Under the conditions then present, the remnant would bear the sufferings incurred by the nation in its apostasy. But with the coming in of the everlasting righteousness at the end of Daniel's 70th week (Jer 32:40 with Dan 9:24), 'ALL' the nation, from least to the greatest will know Him, and this blessed condition will be preserved unto children's children (Isa 54:13; 59:21; Eze 37:25). No longer a mere remnant, subject to the changing fortunes of the nation, 'all Israel shall be saved' in the sense of an irreversible righteousness, that is not their own ('the LORD our righteousness'). The prophets understood that this alone could guarantee permanence and abiding security in the Land.
I labor to stress again this familiar point, because it is so notably absent in the literature, though plainly how the prophets conceived and contrasted the present opportunity for salvation by faith, by the same covenant of grace that MUST eventually stand, not with only a remnant amidst an apostate nation, but with 'all Israel' in the way this much debated term was surely understood by Paul in Ro 11:26.
Nicodemus' reprehensible blindness was his presumption that anyone could now have right standing with God or hope to 'see' the KOG on any lesser basis than the spiritual washing and new birth required of the nation for its entrance into the post-tribulational KOG.
The sprinkling of clean water and receiving of the Spirit was the well known requisite. The Lord's reprimand of this authoritative "teacher in Israel" lay in his failure to apply the principle of the future to the present. If a nation is born in one day by the Spirit and the sprinkling of clean water (metaphor of spiritual cleansing), how can less be required presently of any individual? All the more because of his high office, Nicodemus is being held responsible to make this 'necessary inference' by the grace of the Spirit's help. (Reggie Kelly - April, 2018)
