John 3

Here's the chapter: http://www.esvbible.org/John+3/

In the first part of John 3, Jesus is speaking with a Pharisee named Nicodemus. Unlike many of the Pharisees who were dead set against Jesus' message from the beginning, Nicodemus asks Jesus about he is doing, even calling him Rabbi (or teacher). He tells Jesus that he has come because Jesus has done great miracles. Nicodemus has seen the miracles and knows them to be true; therefore, we can take these tellings to be more true because here was a man who was educated and inquisitive who had every reason not to believe in them and find faults, but those miracles brought him to Jesus. When Jesus talks about being born again, Nicodemus asks how a man can crawl back into his mother's womb. Nicodemus does not understand that it is not enough to acknowledge Christ as the Son of God because even the demons do that. We must believe that he came to Earth to sacrifice Himself and take on the world's sins, so we can live with our Heavenly Father for all of eternity, and that He rose again on the third day after He was dead and buried. What Jesus said completely overturns Jewish teachings. In the old testament, the Jews were God's chosen people by birth. But Jesus says a flesh and blood birth is not enough to enter the kingdom of Heaven. He says the wind blows where it wants, and people can hear it but not know where it comes from or where it is going. The same is those who can be saved by the Spirit. Anyone can be saved: educated or illiterate, religious or full of sin, young or old, etc. Jesus talks about how He can confirm what He's seen because He is the only one on Earth who has seen Heaven. He grows frustrated and asks how if He has made things simple to learn by using Earthly words, and the people do not understand, how would they understand the Heavenly ways? Jesus references a part in Exodus where the people grumble against God, and he sends a poisonous snake to bite the people, and they would have died except that they confessed their sins and asked for deliverance. God instructed Moses to put the snake on a pole, and all who looked at it would be saved. In the same way, Jesus is lifted up for all to be forgiven if they confess their sins, ask for deliverance, and look on Him. Then the most well known verse, John 3:16. God loved the world that He sent Jesus, His son, to pardon the world of their sins if the people believed in Him. JESUS DID NOT COME TO CONDEMN THE WORLD BUT TO SAVE IT. That is the best news in the Bible. God is willing to forgive you for everything you have done and dispose of all judgements if we believe that His son died for us. But John says that some people don't want to be in the light because they enjoy the darkness of their ways. We all know people who won't come to Christ because they will have to change their ways, and they like their ways.

In the second part of John 3, John the Baptist gives a nice complementing idea to what Jesus told Nicodemus. John says Jesus must increase in importance, while he himself must decrease in importance. And just as Jesus previously said that Jesus is the only one who has seen Heaven, so He is the only one who knows of the Heavenly things. John is amazed that the people have chosen not to believe because God has given Jesus so much of the Spirit that He can perform the miracles. John 3:36 reiterates John 3:16, but adds the counterpoint. All who believe in God will have Eternal Life, but those who do not believe in God will have God's eternal anger. That is what Hell is: separation from God forever.