Creflo Dollar - Eternal Life That Only Comes By Grace
We're doing a series on John, John chapter 3, and we're gonna talk about eternal life that only comes by grace. It's the only way. And maybe we've been taught in times past that it comes through other mechanisms, but it only comes by grace, and I'm gonna show you, once again, how the book of John parallels the law and grace together, and every time grace just reigns supreme over it. And so, in the 3 chapter of John we're gonna find the insufficiency of the law as a means to life and that it's very clear, and it's clearly and positively declared in John chapter 3, the insufficiency of the law as a means to life. In other words, the law will never produce in anybody life.
This chapter talks about the revelation concerning the new birth, which is always exciting to hear about. And when you get the revelation of the new birth, you're actually talking about the beginning of life through grace, and that's what happens when we get born again. It's the beginning of our life through the grace of God and how it should be lived through the grace of God. And so, we're gonna look at a personality by the name of Nicodemus. So if you have your Bible, let's go to John chapter 3, read a few scriptures here, and then we'll get started tonight. And we're gonna see his journey. There was a lot of symbolism that took place with Nicodemus.
Verse 1, he said, "There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with Him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God".
Verse 6, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit is spirit". Verse 7, "Marvel not that I said to thee, You must be born again". Now, I'm sure a lot of us have read this over and over again, but when you operate and understand the grace of God, there's so much, so much in this. And the first thing I wanna look at is that chapter 3 says four things about Nicodemus, four things. Here's what he said at first. Number one, said that Nicodemus that he was a Jew. All right, what's the significance of that? The Mosaic law was given to the Jews. So, he was a Jew and the Mosaic law was given to the Jews. The second thing that we find he said about Nicodemus is that he was a Pharisee.
Now, the significance here is that the Pharisees were a sect of the Jews that were separated unto legal self-righteousness. They were the strongest contenders for the law. So, when you heard somebody was a Pharisee, they really were zealous and really stood up for the law. So, Nicodemus was a Jew, Nicodemus was a Pharisee. The third thing we hear about this person, he was a ruler of the Jews. So, he was the teacher of Israel. And if you look at John 3, verse 10, he was the teacher of Israel. He was the one that instructed them in the law.
Verse 10 says, "Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knoweth not these things"? So, Nicodemus was the guy who was the instructor in the law. And then number four, here's the fourth thing they said, not only was he a Jew, a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews who instructed them in the law, but watch this, he was a man. He was of the seed of Adam, and by virtue thereof, because he was a man and a seed of Adam, death, which came by sin, was passed on to him. So, in Romans chapter 5 and verse 12, the death... Romans 5 and 12, he says, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned".
This fits Nicodemus. He was talking to Nicodemus. He had not been born again yet. So by the law, according to Romans 3:19, flip over there, by the law, Nicodemus was guilty before God. He says, "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God". Here is a guy who was a Jewish guy, who was under the Mosaic law, who was a Pharisee, who was the instructor of the law, and he was a man that was subject to the death that came because of Adam. But this man said something in John chapter 3, verse 2, which is the reason why we're studying this. I mean, to look at this after so many years of reading this particular chapter, I just thought it was about a dude who came to Jesus and said, "Show me how to get saved," and that's what we limited it to, And it's so much more.
John chapter 3, verse 2, here's what he said. "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God". Now, here's a man who's not born again. Here's a man that is a Jew. This natural man, who's dead in trespasses and sin, who all the days of his life had sought righteousness but did it under the law, this natural man came to Jesus to understand how to live right and how to enter into the kingdom of God. Here's the instructor of the law, and somewhere on the inside of him he knew something's missing, and he comes to Jesus because he knows that he's a teacher sent from heaven to try to find out how to live because it's not working. How many of you remember when you were living by religious law, how you just knew something was missing? Just something wasn't there, all right?
Well, he knew the same thing. This perfectly shows the dispensation of the law, which Paul wrote about in Galatians chapter 3:23 and 24. Let's look at that, Galatians 3:23, 24. I need to slow up, on the inside, I wanna hurry up and get to this place that I know is gonna really be good because I've already been there several times, and this is good. All right, verse 23 says, "But before faith came," hm, "we were under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed". 24? "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith". The law was our schoolmaster.
So the work of a schoolmaster is to instruct the pupil on how to improve himself. That's the job of a schoolmaster, to instruct the pupil on how to improve himself. So the law, as the schoolmaster of natural man, could only instruct him how to live and get my understanding of how to impose penalties upon him for his wrongdoing. So, I'm gonna show you how to live and I'm gonna show you what happens when you mess up and I'm gonna show you the penalties. That's all he could teach. It could not change his sinful nature. He still had a sinful nature. And I felt like that's what most of us were doing when we were in church, that our pastors were teaching us, you know, how to improve ourselves, but it never took away sin.
And so, it could not change our sinful nature. It could not do anything to remove the death sentence that rested upon man because of Adam's sin. So, in short, there was no life-giving power in the law. The law could not give you life. Simply put, nobody could get born again under the law. Nobody. They had religious teachers. They were instructing you according to the law. Nobody could get saved under the law. So, all of the things that we read about, about those who are under law, was everybody in the old covenant before Jesus was raised from the dead and they had an opportunity to get born again. The law does not give life to men. So you got to back up and think, well, why were we in it for so long? Why is it preached to us so much? It does not give life to men.
And so, let's get back to Nicodemus. Nicodemus was in absolute darkness, spiritually. When he showed up and asked Jesus these questions, he was in absolute darkness, spiritual. But do you recall what it was when it, you know... what the atmosphere was when he showed up to ask Jesus that question? It was dark. That darkness, when he showed up in the darkness to ask Jesus that question, it symbolized the darkness that he had on the inside of him, spiritually. So he was spiritually dark and he was surrounded by darkness. The outer darkness was symbolic of the darkness that he had on the inside of him.
Now, let's look at John 3:3. Go to the next verse there, verse 3, so, "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God". Okay, this is the answer from Jesus, full of grace and truth, to Nicodemus, the representative of the law. Jesus, full of grace and truth, is talking to Nicodemus, the representative of the law. And basically what he says is that except a man be born again, he can't see the kingdom of God. What he says was the old must be entirely set aside, I'm gonna talk to you about that, it'll be, it's got to, we're not talking about, all that Nicodemus could do back then was, with that old, sinful man, try to teach them how to live better, and that there will be some penalties that would come upon them for wrongdoing.
So, fear was probably implemented as well. Jesus did not come to teach sinful, human, natural, unregenerated man how to live acceptable to God. He did not. There's no place for the schoolmaster under this covenant of grace. What is needed is a new life with a new nature that is capable of pleasing God. That's what's needed. This is the only way to see the kingdom of God: new life, new nature that's capable of pleasing God. Under the law there was no new life, no new nature, and they could not please God. They would work hard to please him, but they failed all the time because they're coming up to something that's perfect and they can't keep that which is perfect because they're imperfect, and the law condemned and shamed them until, and I'll show you the benefit of knowing what the law did, but you gotta understand, where you live at today, you get born again, you get a new nature, a new life, and when you get born again, you please God. Wow.
Jesus did not come to take people with old nature, old life, and try to get them to be acceptable with God. He said, "We can't do that". What he said was, "We can't do that with that nature in you. You need a new nature". He said, "It ain't working, Harry. It ain't working. You need a new nature. You can't please God the way you are. What happened in the Garden messed you up, but I got a plan. I'm gonna give you a new nature free of charge, and you'll see Jesus when you get born again". Now, please understand, Nicodemus still don't know what he talking about. He's so blind, he thought, well, do I go back up into my mother's womb and come out again? Think about how blind you got to be to... This is the chief instructor of the law and he has no idea what Jesus is talking about. Oh Lord Jesus.
So Jesus declared once for all that the law which was given through Moses cannot be a means of entering into the kingdom of God. Wow, that's a big statement. The law that was given by Moses cannot get you into the kingdom of God. So why are people trying so hard to try to keep that instead of go and getting right with God and getting born again? Basically, and getting born again. Some people feel like, well, I'm cool. I'm good. Because they think if they're good, then God will be good to them. No, there's only one way to see the kingdom of God. You must be, how they used to say, you got to be, you need to be, "bone" again. Not born again, "bone". "Bone" again, B-O-N-E, "bone" again.
Now, the veil of the law was upon the heart of Nicodemus so that he did not understand the veil was over his heart. Now, I thought it would be cool to define this veil. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 3:15 to 16. Now, I told you in this series we covering every corner. Sometimes you come in here, we got a real good, exciting corner to come. Sometimes you come in there, we just need to cover that corner so you'll know what's going on the next time you read it. All right, now watch this. The veil was over his heart, kept him from understanding, could not see what Jesus was talking about. 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 15 to 16 it says, "But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart". Wow, look at verse 16. "Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord," he says, "when you turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away".
So what he is saying is the way to get rid of the veil is to get born again. When you turn to the Lord, the veil disappears, the veil is taken away from you. So I'm thinking veil, I'm thinking curtains. I'm thinking all that kind of stuff. So today, how would you define the veil? What is the veil today? It's the condemnation that comes from the law that says you don't measure up to the standard, you are deserving of punishment, and you are deserving of the cursed. That's all true because under the law, under the law, there's condemnation, under the law it's so perfect you can't measure up, and under the law there is punishment and a curse if you can't measure up.
You see that clearly in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 28. It's there. But when we turn to Jesus, the veil of condemnation is removed. When you turn to Jesus, now all of a sudden, it's not whether you can do something. Jesus starts telling you the stuff that's already done. You got to get a hold of this. Now that you're born again, something so amazing has happened. It's not you working for God, God is now working for you. Wow. So Jesus explains that one must be born of the water and of the Spirit. In other words, there must be a cleansing from the sin of that old man and a spiritual union has to take place with God. Titus chapter 3 and 5 talks about that cleansing.
Ephesians chapter 5:26 talks about that cleansing. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit is spirit". Look at verse 6. I mean, he states that. "Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh; born of the Spirit, spirit". John chapter 3, verse 6, and it's just locating where this is. He says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit is spirit". Now, listen to this. Flesh is always relating to the law. Flesh is always relating to the law. Let me read something to you out of two versions.
Romans chapter 7, verse 5 in the King James and Romans chapter 7, verse 5 in the New Living Translation. Flesh and law go together. He says, "For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins," we were in the flesh, "which were by the law," we were in the flesh, "which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death". In the flesh, which were by the law. So, when you're living by the law, you are living in the flesh. Look at NLT. He says, "When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death". I don't know why people wanna live by, listen, the law, please don't. It's good, it's perfect, it's flawless, it represents God's character, but you're not.
So, imperfect, trying to keep something that's flawless, and you can't do that. It'll bring out the worst part of you because you're trying to keep something you're not even equipped to keep. In the New Testament, you got to have Jesus to help you with everything. Amen? And then in Galatians chapter 5:23 he said something that I just really got a hold of. He says against the fruit of the Spirit there is no law, because spiritual things go with spiritual things. Against the fruit of the Spirit there is no law. The flesh goes with the law. It doesn't go with the Spirit. So Nicodemus, this is all gonna come together, now Nicodemus did know how a person... or didn't know how a person might be born again, while the law was a God-given standard of life for man born in the flesh. So, being born again belongs to grace and truth, which came by Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 2 and 8, "For we were saved by grace," but we got it through saved. So being born again belongs to grace and truth. So Jesus, full of grace and truth, showed up so we can get born again. If it were not for Jesus, we would not be able to get born again, period. Jesus is why you can get born again, and no matter what kind of great revelation you get from the law, you still ain't saved. You're still not born again. The disciples were not born again because Jesus had not yet died and was raised from the dead so that they would have the opportunity to do that. Do you understand how awesome you are, and you must seem like, to those angels? They ain't never seen nobody like you.