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THE KING’S BUSINESS
under cover of the night, but coming out fully on the side of the Lord, at the very time when His disciples were deserting Him. But on this first visit he belonged to the class mentioned by John in chapter 12:42, 43, “the chief rulers who believed on Him, but because of the Pharisees did not confess Him.” However, Nicodemus was not as culpable as the mass, of these were, he was feeling his way toward the light, he was timid, too timid, he . should have taken his stand sooner and more decidedly, there wa,s enough by his own admission to convince him that Jesus was “a teacher sent from God but it is evident from the whole account that Nicodemus was a man of honest and conscientious character in spite of the element of hesitation and possible cowardice, that is here disclosed. Many men today are like him—they are in a measure convinced, and yet hesitate to take a decided stand. They want to be sure, absolutely sure, of what they do. Our Lord did not repel, nor upbraid Nicodemus, neither does He others who are like him today. It took courage and a large measure of decision for a man in Nicodemus’ position to come to Jesus even by night, and he may have been prompted in part by a desire to find Jésus alone, that he might have a quiet talk and talk it out. He certainly had gone so far as to makeuphismind to find out for himself the real ,nature of Jesus’ teaching and Jesus’ person. While he approached Jesus simply as teacher, giving Him the title that was accorded to recognized teachers in that day, he approached . Him as “a teacher come from God.” That is more than many of those who profess to be Jesus’ disciples today really believe about Him. As the words are found in the original there is a very strong emphasis upon the “from God.” The one fact that stood out clear and plain in the mind of Nicodemus was
“this man is from Gop.” About His being " from G od ’ Nicodemus, is very positive ; he was absolutely sure, he says, “We know that from God thou hast come a teacher.” There are many, very many, in the church today who are not as sure of this as Nicodemus was, though they profess a much longer creed than he did at this time. The strength of our creed, is often more important than the length of our creed. Nicodemus does not merely say, “I know,” but “we know.” Possibly, he says, “we” instead of “I ” because he does not wish to make too personal a confession, but still more he says “we” because he realized the fact that though the class to which he belonged had not admitted, that Jesus was a teacher sent from God, they really recognized the fact that He was. In the Greek the pronoun “we” is not emphatic as it is in chapter 9 :24, and it has more of. the character of a general statement than of a strong, personal confession. It comes far short of Nathanael's statement, “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God” (John 1:49), both in its content and in its. intensity. While Nicodemus recognized that Jesus was a teacher come from God, he sees in Him nothing more than a “teycher ” not différent in kind from other teachers except’ that He was more surely from God’ The deeper meaning of Jesus’ works Nicodemus had not recognized as yet. He simply saw His credentials as a teacher, not as manifestations of a Divine Person. Nicodemus came to the certainty that Jesus was from God in a very rational way. The signs which Jesus wrought and which demanded Divine power for their accomplishment demonstrated that Qod was with Him. It was no blind faith that Nicodemus entertained. Jesus had presented His credentials and Nicodemus pronounced them satisfactory; indisputably Divine works in-
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