We have attempted to portray Jesus in the light of Jewish tradition and the events surrounding his birth. The events of his life can be traced on a map of Palestine; a large part of his preaching was connected with the Jewish festivals; the way the gospels narrate the events confirms their authenticity, and his preaching often reflects the doctrinal questions of the day. It could even be argued that it is impossible to understand Jesus' advent without setting it in the context of his own time. The writer Mark Twain said once that the difference between the right and the wrong word is equivalent to that between a glow-worm and a flash of lightning. We must ask in each case just what is really meant.

The Greek philosopher Pythagoras said that he was not sophos, 'wise'; he was a mere philosophos, or 'lover of wisdom'. The tyrant Leon once asked him if he had some secret for understanding life. "Some come to the Olympic games", Pythagoras replied, "with their bodies in fine trim, in order to win the laurel wreath. Others make bets to receive a share in the winnings. But there is also a third group: they seek neither favour nor victory. They come only to observe what goes on and how it all happens. They wish to see the innermost side of the events -- qui rerum naturam intuerentur." An intuitive eye of this kind is needed when we study the gospels. In the topika, the aim, as we have seen, is to find the "main points of view" of the issues, and their significance in human thinking.

Jesus' character is so sublime that any description of him is doomed from the outset to be a mere attempt. The French word essai means both 'attempt' and 'weigh up', and so we will attempt in our miniature studies or essais which follow to weigh up the innermost character of the gospels.

Nicodemus hears of the New Birth.

The gospel of John has been attacked because its narrative style is different from the others, and in particular since its five opening chapters are not found in the other gospels. Nevertheless, it is clear from the gospel that John begins his account with the early stages of Jesus' ministry. Each one of these introductory chapters forms an essai-type whole.

Chapter three tells us of Nicodemus, "the teacher of Israel", who came to Jesus by night to discuss his teaching with him. John later mentions that this same man defended Jesus before the Sanhedrin (7:50) and that he assisted at Jesus' burial (19:39). Was he a genuine historical character?

We are told of Nicodemus that he was a Pharisee and that he was known as a friend of Joseph of Arimathea (19:38 and Luke 23:50). They both belonged to the Sanhedrin, which dealt with legal matters of a religious nature. The Talmud mentions Nicodemus's full name, Nakdimon Ben Gurion.¹ This "Son of Gurion" was one of the three richest nobles in Jerusalem. Insurrectionists later burned his grainaries. The Talmud also tells us that once when the celebrated Rabbi Johanan Ben Zakkai was riding out of Jerusalem on a donkey he saw at the roadside a poor woman who looked familiar to him. "Whose daughter are you?" the Rabbi asked. "I am the daughter of Nicodemus, son of Gurion," she replied. "My daughter," the Rabbi enquired, "What has happened to the riches of your father's house?" "Melah mamon haser, ['the salt of mammon is want']", the woman answered, adapting a Hebrew proverb. She then told the Rabbi that her father had lost his fortune, and asked him if he remembered when he had signed her marriage agreement. The Rabbi turned to his disciples and told them of the dowry mentioned in the agreement: "A million gold dinars from her father's home." At that the disciples reminded him that Nicodemus had not practised deeds of charity, because the correct form of the proverb is Melah mamon hesed, 'the salt of mammon is charity'! (In the Hebrew the two sayings differ from each other by the mere stroke of a letter.) According to this Nicodemus was by nature niggard and canny in both spiritual and monetary matters.²

The historian Josephus in his "Wars of the Jews" mentions several of Nicodemus's relatives. His son Gurion entered negotiations with the Roman garrisons at the beginning of the revolt which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem, negotiations which resulted in these garrisons' surrender. Gurion's son Joseph was chosen as the leader of the defenders of Jerusalem, along with the Sadduccean high priest Ananus, the same who had James, the Lord's brother, put to death in 62 AD, a deed which Josephus considered one of the causes of the city's destruction.³ Nicodemus's family was so distinguished that the longstanding Prime Minister of modern Israel David Ben Gurion took his Hebrew name from them. His former name, Gr?n, 'green', would not have been very appropriate for someone constantly in the public eye.

John tells us that Nicodemus came to Jesus at night. It was a full moon, as always at Passover time. Perhaps it was the "night of vigil in honour of the Lord" of Exodus 12:42. He had probably been sent by the Pharisees. Normally on such a half-official errand the Jews take with them at least one witness, often a young student, as I know from experience. To avoid any misunderstanding, Jesus may have chosen the young John as his witness. Thus, both parties in the narrative speak in the first person plural.

Jesus had performed many miraculous signs in Jerusalem (John 2:23), so Nicodemus begins with polite reticence: "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no-one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him." Jesus immediately brings the discussion down to a personal level: "Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a man is born again [or 'from above'], he cannot see the kingdom of God."

Critics have long considered the words of Jesus, "Truly, truly, I tell you", to be rather strange. In the Greek original the Hebrew words amen, amen are used, in a way which is not found in either the Old Testament or the Rabbinic literature. 'Amen' there is found at the end of prayers and speeches, whereas Jesus used it to introduce what he had to say. In the early 1960's a fragment from a deed of transaction was found in which a contemporary of Jesus solemnly states "Amen, amen, ani lô ashem", 'Truly, truly, I am innocent'. Jesus seems to have borrowed this grave formula of his from a juridical oath. In Hebrew the words for 'faith' and 'amen' are derivatives of the same root. The word 'amen' is indeed the only permissible affirmation: 'You can believe this; it is true!'

And is the idea of being 'born again' foreign to the Jew? The Sidur prayer-book mentions it when speaking of the Coming of the Messiah, using the term briah hadashah, or 'new creation' (cf. Gal. 6:15). Some of the OT prophecies which refer to the future renewal of all things emphasise the necessity for the renewal of the heart and spirit (Jer. 31:33, 32:39, Ez. 11:19, 36:26). Jesus made the New Birth a prerequisite for entrance into the Kingdom of God.

Some OT prophecies can be understood as signifying that spiritual renewal embraces purification and sanctification. Jesus said that unless a man is born "of water and the Spirit" he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Paul too mentions these two contributory factors when he writes that God saves us "through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit" (compare John 3:5 and Tit. 3:5). Peter adds a third characteristic to this and points out that we are born again "through the living and enduring word of God" (1 Pet. 1:23). Practically speaking, there are three things associated with the idea of the New Birth: purification, sanctification, and the spiritual endowment which takes place through the Word. Paul stresses this third factor when he writes to the Corinthians: "For in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel" (1 Cor. 4:15).

Nevertheless, birth is always a miracle. Jesus even says that it comes "from above", to which Nicodemus asks, "How can this be?" Jesus answers him with a rebuke, "You are Israel's teacher, and you do not know this?" Surely a Jew would understand the issue! In the ensuing discussion some special characteristics of Jesus' own time become apparent.

Firstly he refers to the Pharisees and says, "I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?" Learned Jews have to this day a predilection for arranging their teaching under the two headings: Those things which are niggaloth, or 'revealed', and those which are nistaroth, or 'concealed'. They often repeat, as the key to the interpretation of the whole Bible, the words of Dt 29:29: "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children for ever". If the group represented by Nicodemus did not wish to receive teaching based on ordinary everyday life, how would they be able to grasp heavenly mysteries? Jesus then presents the greatest mystery of God's plan of salvation: "No-one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven -- the Son of Man."

Jesus' words lead us to the central problem of the Messianic mystery. Dt. 30:11-14, which could almost be considered the classic statement of the Christian doctrine of atonement, asks "Who will ascend into heaven for us?" and "who will cross the sea for us, into the 'underworld'?" The law was "given through angels" from heaven (Acts 7:53, Gal. 3:19 and Hebr. 2:2). If this law is broken, who will ascend "for us" to atone for our sin against heaven (Luke 15:18, 21)? The Messiah was to do it for us (Rom. 10:4-8). It is no coincidence that Paul writes of this to the parishioners of the Bishop of Ephesus, John, in Eph. 4:9-10:

"He ascended . . . and descended to the lower, earthly regions . . . He who descended is also the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill all things" (gr. "ta panta").

"Who has gone up to heaven and come down?. . . What is his name and the name of his son? Tell me if you know!" Jesus was referring to this mystery.

"The Shekhinah [the spirit or presence of God] has never descended, neither did Moses or Elijah ever ascend into the heavens, because the heavens are God's heavens; and he gave man the earth."⁴

"I am the first, I have no father; and I am the last, I have no brethren. If someone should say to you, 'I am God'. he is a liar; if someone should say to you, 'I am the Son of Man'. . . he will regret his end; and if he says, 'I will ascend into heaven'. . . they are nothing more than words; he will not be able to fulfil them."⁵

The Rabbinic literature associates this "ascending" and "descending" to and from heaven with the Messiah. In Deut. 30:4 we read that "even if you [the Israelites] have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back". The Targum of Jonathan explains that this will take place "through the high priest Elijah, and he will bring them back through the Messiah-King". The Jerusalem Targum says, "If only we had a prophet like Moses, who would ascend into heaven and would give us the Torah and read out to us its commandments." The Jews actually consider the Messiah to be such a "second Moses": aliah, or 'ascending', and yeridah, 'descending' to the 'far side of the sea' -- in other words, down to Sheol -- belong to the Messianic office. Jesus made reference to this "mystery".

We can see that Jesus went on to develop the same theme: "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."

In "The Messiah in the O.T." we spoke of this serpent in connection with the Messianic hope of salvation when we looked at the 'proto-evangel'.⁶ When considering Jacob's blessing we saw that Stockholm's onetime Chief Rabbi Gottlieb Klein said that the Messiah would crush the head of the serpent, because the gematria value of 'snake' and 'Messiah' is the same. The esoteric reference nearest to Jesus' enigmatic words is, however, to be found in chapter 16 of the Wisdom of Solomon, an apocryphal book from a time before the commencement of our Christian era. We find there parallels both to the bronze serpent and to the Messiah's aliah, his ascending. The book of Wisdom calls it "a sign of salvation":

"because thou gavest them a sign of salvation to remind them of the decrees of thy will; because everyone who looked at it remained alive, not on account of their looking, but because it was thy will, thou God of salvation". . ."Thou bringest down to the grave and raisest up again."⁷

The Aramaic Targum of Jonathan attaches an explanation to this which states that "he who lifts up his heart in the name of the Mimra [Word] will remain alive". In all this the Messianic tiqun or 'reparation', in which God will heal mankind's sin impediment, is apparent.

The strongest testimony to the genuineness of the metaphor used by Jesus is, however, to be found in the Talmud, where the phrase "raising the heart" is also to be found. In discussing the assistance given by Aaron and Hur when they supported Moses' arms during the Israelites' battle with the Amalekites, the Talmud says:

"'As long as Moses held up his hands'. . .means that if Israel looked up and gave over his heart to his Heavenly Father he prevailed, but if not, then he began to lose; Thou sayest, 'Make for thyself a serpent and put it on a pole, and everyone bitten who looks at it will survive, because the serpent brings death and the serpent makes alive'; If Israel looks up and gives over his heart to the care of his Heavenly Father he will be healed, if not, he will die."⁸

I may mention further that 'giving over the heart to the care of our Heavenly Father' and 'lifting up the heart in the name of the Mimra' brings to mind the discussion among the Jews of the Mimra as an epithet for the Messiah.⁹ There was an allusion to this in the letter I recently received from the Archbishop of the Syrian and Armenian eastern churches, Mar Jacob. This first-rate Aramaic authority wrote about a lecture given in Jerusalem University by an Algerian orthodox Rabbi who spoke of the Mimra as the personification of the presence of God (the Shekhinah), and as the "word" and the "Torah". Mar Jacob suggested that 'Mimra', which corresponds to the Syrian Aramaic term Milta, is also God's "intermediary" and "represents independent self-awareness". It is no miracle, then, that the Jewish philosopher Philo, who lived at the same time as Jesus, said that this logos was God's representative, emissary and high priest who prays before God for the world. Mar Jacob also complained in his letter that too little is known in the West of the discussions of "the Semitic Jewish Christians of Mesopotamia and Assyria" on these matters.¹⁰

When Jesus spoke of his mission he never fell into the tangled reasoning of the scribes, but he nevertheless appealed to the best-known Messiah-expectation features of his time. The serpent of bronze was "a sign of salvation". The Christ is raised onto a cross of shame. He takes the road of submission which leads ultimately to his glory. Eternal life is received by believing in him. He went to the cross "for us". The New Birth involves purification and renewal by the Holy Spirit. For "God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life". He came so that the "world might be saved through him". Here lay the very heart of the gospel.

Christians sometimes speak, somewhat romantically, of "Nicodemus Christians", but there is something not quite right in such thinking. To be a Christian always requires open acceptance of the yoke and public confession of Christ. The Talmud gives a tragic testimony to Nicodemus's selfishness, which may be quite true. It may be that he kept his canny approach right to the end. Jesus, however, gave him a "sign of salvation". It is only when we encounter our crucified Redeemer and begin to walk the way of the Cross for ourselves that we can be called Christians.
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1.      Gittin 56a.
2.      Ketuboth 66a.
3.      See Wars of the Jews II, 20 and IV, 3,9.
4.      Sukka 5a.
5.      Jer. Talmud, Ta'anith, chap. 2a.
6.      The Messiah in the Old testament, p38-39.
7.      Wishdom of Solomon 16:7-8 and 13. See also 2 Kings 18:4.
8.     Rôsh Ha-Shanah, Chap.3, 29a. The discussion relates to Ex. 17:10-12.
9.      See The Messiah in the Old testament, chapter on "The Messiah, God's Mimra or Word"
10.   The Finnish professor Jouko Martikainen of Göttingen University has, with his exellent knowledge of Aramaic, worked on this area