Why does Jesus expect Nicodemus to know what He is talking about when He says "You Must Be Born Again"?

Is there enough evidence in the Old Testament to suggest that Being born of the Spirit would become part of a believer's experience in the New Testament?

It is probably the best known part of the New Testament. At least in the evangelical world, being born again is the line of demarcation between being saved and going to heaven as opposed to being lost forever and on your way to hell.

Everybody that knows anything about evangelical teaching and doctrine knows about this encounter Jesus had with the Pharisee known as Nicodemus. It is the middle of the night. The only time Nicodemus can go to the controversial rabbi who is performing all the works that only the true Messiah should be able to perform and yet there is a problem. Jesus has outright rejected the ways of the Pharisees and this has made Him a mortal enemy of the ruling elite. Jesus is an iconoclast who rejects the righteousness of the law and the salvation by being a son of Moses. Nicodemus hears the ring of truth in the young rabbi’s message of salvation through repentance of sin so he resolves to find out for himself the truth about the conflicting views about salvation. He can do without the scandal his meeting with the enemy of the state will produce so he comes to Him in the darkness of the night.

The interview that follows is the bread and butter of evangelical theology. If you want to be saved you must be born again. You must be born of the Spirit. Whatever this new birth is, whatever you have to do to achieve it, you better get to it or you are spending eternity in hell and that is final.

Before evangelical pastors got distracted with the social gospel, preaching from the third chapter of the gospel of John and other closely related passages described the entire preaching repertoire of a great many pastors who lived and died by elaborating to every minute detail of this encounter that Jesus had with Nicodemus one night, in an undisclosed location, somewhere in Jerusalem.

Given all this attention that the third chapter of John has commanded among evangelicals, I find it incredible that in all of my years of listening to preachers for uncountable hours, week after week, month after month, year after year, I never heard the simple question being raised. Why does Jesus expect Nicodemus to be enlightened enough to know what Jesus means when He says “You must be born again”? I am sure you know the passage but just in case you have missed it, here is the exchange as narrated by John the Apostle.

John3:1There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2This 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.”

3Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

4Nicodemus 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?”

5Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

9Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”

10Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?

Do you see the chastisement in verse 10? You are a teacher of the law and you cannot get it? Give it up Nicodemus. There is enough in the law and the prophets for a common believer to figure this one out and you, a teacher of the law cannot see it?

I remember being bothered by this question since my youth. What is there in the Old Testament that makes Nicodemus accountable to being informed enough to understand the words of Jesus? I had the question but just like every one included in my circle of knowledge, never got the oomf to raise it. I finally had to get serious with myself and had to think through my knowledge of the Old Testament in order to answer this question that as far as I know nobody had asked. Where are the references in the Old Testament that would make the idea of being born again as a natural requirement for salvation in the New Testament?

Amazingly, once I asked the question with a serious expectation of finding an Old Testament passage that would give a good hint about the new birth, the answer came effortlessly. It is in Jeremiah the 31st chapter.

Jeremiah 31:31“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

The Old Covenant was given on tablets of stone but it failed because the heart of man is incapable of keeping God’s Word. A new heart was needed. One with the law of God written on it. God promised to write His law on the heart and everything that God does He does it by His Spirit. It was there all along and the writers of the New Testament quoted Jeremiah in order to show God’s Stamp of approval to what they were experiencing under the new covenant. Hebrews 10:16“This is the covenant I will make with them

after that time, says the Lord.

I will put my laws in their hearts,

and I will write them on their minds.” b

17Then he adds:

“Their sins and lawless acts

I will remember no more.” c

18And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.

So, we come back to the same theme that infuriated Jesus and plagued the understanding of the Jews. God’s priority was the Jews’ slavery to sin but their preoccupation was their national slavery to Rome. If the Jewish focus was on overcoming the sin nature, they would have seen by the resurrection that their redeemer was among them. If the focus of Nicodemus in reading the law and the prophets was on redemption from sin, he would have connected the new birth of Jesus with the new Covenant of Jeremiah. As it was their focus was in their slavery to Rome so they all missed it and caused the grief to Jesus that we all know about.