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John 3:1-17

¹ Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. ² This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” ³ Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” ⁴ Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵ Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

⁹ Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰ Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? ¹¹ Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. ¹² If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Grace, mercy, peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

For lack of a better term, this text is very vertical – it has a lot of up and down talk.

Jesus tells Nicodemus of earthly things but he doesn’t believe, so Jesus asks, “How can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” Jesus says that no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven. Jesus reminds Nicodemus that Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness and that He, the Son of Man must also be lifted up. And all this vertical stuff starts back in v. 3, but most English translations miss it. Jesus says, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born from above (not ‘born again’) he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

In this whole conversation, Jesus is trying to get Nicodemus to see how a relationship with God works. Nicodemus thinks that his relationship with God is a from below effort.

You and I are the same as Nicodemus. We know that God is angry because of our sin, but we then conclude, wrongly, that God must be pleased with our good works. We think that we can get back to God by climbing up to Him. So we try to ascend to God from below by climbing up one of three ladders.

The first ladder is moralism. To be fair, I am quite certain that most, if not all, of you know that you cannot be saved by your works. Reading the Scriptures is a good vaccination against you attempting to climb this ladder for your salvation.

But it is still common among Christians to think that the ladder of moralism is still an important ladder to climb. You are tempted to think that even though you don’t do good works to get saved but once you are saved, then, you’d better get in gear. Many Christians will say, “Yes, I’m saved by grace, but now I need to do good works to show my appreciation for what God has done for me.” Maybe you think that the Christian life is all about living a sanctified life, but sanctification is a work of the Holy Spirit.

This is how the devil likes to point us to this ladder. He’ll even steady it for us while we climb up it because this ladder takes our eyes off Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, and turns our attention to our works and efforts. But the ladder of moralism will only reach so high, and none of your salvation depends on you climbing it.

The second ladder is mysticism. This is probably the most dangerous ladder for you and me. Mysticism is the ladder of the emotions and feeling close to God.

When your feel like God is far away, you start seeking things that make you feel closer to God than you were yesterday – maybe it is music, a ‘mountaintop experience,’ being in creation, or something else. The ladder of mysticism is a maze of different attempts to feel closer to God. And what worked a month ago might not work today. Mysticism is like a drug, you start to get accustomed to its effects. So you need a bigger hit, you need a stronger drug than last time.

The devil likes to use the ladder of mysticism to lead us into despair. Jesus has told us where He meets us – in His Word, in the Sacraments, and in the Absolution. Sometimes those things will make us feel close to God, but sometimes, if you are honest, they don’t.

If you don’t feel close to God, if you don’t feel peace and joy in the Word and Sacraments, it isn’t a problem with the Word and Sacraments. It is a problem with your feelings, not with God’s promises. And we get into a trouble when we try to get the feeling of being closer to God through anything other than where God promised to give us His forgiveness.

The devil drives you to mysticism by pointing out your sins and making you feel guilt and shame while the Bible tells that you are forgiven and saved. Nowhere does the Bible tell you to feel forgiven or saved. The Bible just tells you that you are forgiven and saved through faith, trusting God’s promised forgiveness which He delivers through His Word and Sacraments.

The ladder of mysticism is unstable and confusing. It leads only to doubt in God’s plain promises. You do not get closer to God on the ladder of mysticism.

The third ladder is rationalism. This ladder is an attempt to climb to heaven by having a perfect knowledge of God.

But here, again, you can only know God by what He has revealed to you in His Word. When you try to learn about God apart from the Bible, you end up in despair.

Salvation is not a matter of knowing about God. Rather salvation is about God knowing you. He knows your sin. He knows your shame. He knows your regret. And your God still came down knowing that you would not appreciate it enough, thank Him enough, or praise Him enough.

If salvation is about you knowing God, then despair. We finite, mortal creatures cannot know the eternal, infinite God. You cannot be saved by climbing the ladder of rationalism.

All three of these ladders – moralism, mysticism, and rationalism – are our failed attempts as creatures from below to ascend to God by our work, feelings, or thinking.

Repent. At best, each of those ladders is a stair climber. You can do a lot of work and waste a lot of effort, but you never make any progress getting nearer to God. Left to itself, your sinful flesh is doomed and cannot accomplish any work that earns or deserves God’s favor.

Nicodemus views his relationship with God from below. He keeps thinking that salvation is about him and his efforts. We see this clearly when Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born from above, and Nicodemus is already trying to figure out what he needs to do to be reborn. “So, Jesus, should I climb back into my mom?”

But Jesus refocuses him. Jesus shows Nicodemus and you here today the true way to get back into a right relationship God – the from above way.

Salvation is always God’s gift. God loves you. You get to God in this way:

He comes down. He comes giving His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for you. He comes to you in Word and Sacrament not to condemn you, but so that you would be saved through Him.

As our Epistle text said (Ro. 4:5), to you who do not work by climbing ladders but believe in Jesus who came down to justify the ungodly, that faith is counted to you as righteousness. Amen.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.