The Descent of the Son of Man

[Read John 3:11-21]

I’m so thankful for my many years of running the dock business in Minnesota. It has really helped me to understand human nature more fully. I encountered so many interesting and difficult people, that I was able to get a glimpse into the wide spectrum of humanity in the world. I spent most of my days around some very rough characters, who met me early in the morning with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth and a cocktail in their hand, and half the words coming out of their mouth needing to be bleeped if they were on the television. 

In all reality, that wasn’t that interesting to me. I’ve seen those things all my life. It’s not like I’ve lived my life in a bubble. I’ve spent plenty of time with rough characters who cuss and drink and do drugs and have a foul mouth. That doesn’t throw me off, really. 

What I found interesting was how these rough, tough characters responded when we got talking about what we do for a living. I would ask them how they spent their time when they were away from the cabin. Eventually, they would ask if I ran the dock business full-time, or if I had another job. That’s when I told them I was a pastor. That was the interesting part. Until that point, they were completely comfortable around me. I hadn’t reacted to their smoking and drinking at 9am. I hadn’t reacted to their repeated cussing. But, the moment they found out I was a pastor, things immediately got awkward. They become uncomfortable. Some even apologized to me for drinking and swearing in front of me.

Here’s what’s really interesting about that. I hadn’t changed. They didn’t become uncomfortable around me because I all of a sudden became judgmental or condescending. They actually brought the judgment and condemnation upon themselves the moment they found out I was a pastor. This is interesting because I have heard accusations leveled at Christians over the years, saying, “Your all so judgmental,” but then I have experiences like this where I wasn’t being judgmental, and these people still felt “judged” in my presence, and it had nothing to do with the way I spoke or acted around them. It had everything to do with things being brought into the light. 

You see, each one of us lives by a basic principle of life—Ignorance is Bliss. What I don’t know won’t hurt me. What I can’t see, won’t cause me to fear. 

We live in a world with dangers and difficulties all around us. The number of dangers threaten to paralyze us in fear. If we really thought about how dangerous the world is, we’d be paralyzed and never leave the house. So, instead, we choose to ignore the danger, close our eyes, pretend like everything is perfectly safe, and follow the principle, ignorance is bliss. We live in a world that is full of difficulties. There are so many difficulties that we could easily be overcome with despair, thinking we will never make it. So, rather than accepting the reality of the situation, we choose to pretend like life is easy, that things are going well, we close our eyes to the difficulty, and pretend like everything is fine, following the principle, ignorance is bliss. 

Then, all of a sudden, light breaks into our darkness and shows us reality. We kinda jump and shriek a little bit. Some curl up in a ball, paralyzed. Some run in fear. Others just yell, “Shut off the light! You judgmental…” We’d rather live in darkness, in the bliss of ignorance, than acknowledge reality.

This is what Jesus is trying to help Nicodemus see at this moment. Remember Nicodemus came to Jesus saying, “I know some things about you” and Jesus responded, “You don’t really know what you think you know. You can’t really know anything until you’ve been born again.” 

Now, Jesus is taking that conversation further by saying, “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (John 3:12, ESV). When Jesus says this to Nicodemus, I don’t think he’s referring to what he just said about being born again by the power of the Spirit—that can hardly be understood as “earthly things”. I think Nicodemus had been hanging around Jesus for some time, watching him do signs and listening to his teaching. After all, he did refer to Jesus as a Rabbi and a teacher. So, I think Jesus is saying something like, “Nicodemus, you’ve been hanging around me, watching my signs and wonders, listening to me teach about earthly things. If you can’t understand those earthly things, you aren’t going to understand the heavenly things I’ve just told you. You actually don’t KNOW as much as you think you know.”

But then Jesus shows Nicodemus why he does know heavenly things. He says,“Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony…No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” (John 3:11, 13, ESV). Jesus tells Nicodemus, “I’m the only one who has been in heaven and seen these things for myself. I’ve been there and seen these heavenly things happen. I’ve been an eye-witness to these things. So, trust me when I tell you that these heavenly realities are true.” 

Not only has Jesus been in heaven and seen heavenly things, but he has now descended to earth, and Jesus goes on to explain why he descended to earth. And he does this by referencing a story from the Old Testament about snakes. So, before we dive further into this morning’s passage, I think it’ll be important for us to read this short story from the Old Testament. We can’t really understand the rest of this passage unless we have a firm grasp of this story in our mind. 

We find this story in the book of Numbers, chapter twenty-one: “From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.” (Numbers 21:4–9, ESV). So, the brief version of this story is: God’s people rebel against him, he sends a curse upon them that leads to death, when God’s people cry out for help and salvation, God sends them a way to be saved from the curse that is upon them. If they look to the one placed on a pole, they will be saved. 

Jesus says that’s why he has descended from heaven to earth. He’s been in heaven and seen heavenly things, but He’s come to earth to be the one who is lifted up for the world to see (through his death, resurrection, and ascension and the preaching of the Gospel), so that everyone who believes in him and looks to him for salvation will be delivered from the curse and condemnation that leads to death and they can have eternal life.

And we’re told why this is happening. It’s happening because God loved the world. We read it in this famous passage, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, ESV). And what’s supposed to catch us off guard a little bit is that God loved the world, even though the world is under a curse and condemnation. Just like God still loved his people when they were under a curse. God hasn’t abandoned the world, nor does he delight in its suffering. He still loves the world in the midst of its floundering under a curse and condemnation. 

And, this is written to point out to us that God doesn’t just love the world a little bit, he loves the world a lot. He loves the world so much that he sent his only Son into the world to save the world from condemnation and the curse. As we’ll find out later, God loves the world so much that he sent his only Son into the world to BEAR the curse and condemnation on behalf of all those who believe in Jesus Christ, so they could be saved and have eternal life. That is no small love. Everything in this passage is written to help us understand the greatness of God’s love for the world—even while it struggles under the curse and condemnation of sin. 

We read, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:17, ESV). I hope this makes sense now. Jesus didn’t have to come into the world to condemn the world, because it was already under condemnation. Just like the bronze serpent in the wilderness was raised up to deliver people from their condemnation, Jesus was sent on a rescue mission into a world that is languishing under a curse and condemnation. DA Carson says this well when he says, “The Son of Man came into an already lost and condemned world. He did not come into a neutral world in order to save some and condemn others; he came into a lost world (for that is the nature of the ‘world’, 1:9) in order to save some.” (Carson, 207). 

Then we hear much of this repeated once again to make sure we don’t miss the point: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” (John 3:18, ESV). Those who do not believe in Jesus Christ are already condemned—are already languishing under the curse of sin and death in this world. If they continue to refuse to believe in Jesus, they will continue on under the curse and condemnation. But, that’s not the only option. The other option is to believe in Jesus Christ and be lifted out of your condemnation. To say it another way, the other option is to recognize that you are under a curse of God, you’ve been bitten by a snake and are dying, the only way you can be saved from this curse and condemnation is to look up to Jesus Christ and believe in Him—put true faith in him. Put a true faith in the one who came down from heaven to save you because He loves you and doesn’t want you to perish or languish under condemnation. 

It seems like this line is also intended to drive this point home to Nicodemus. It’s a reminder to Nicodemus that he is also naturally in this state. Naturally, he is already under the condemnation of God. But it’s a reminder to him that God loves him and sent Jesus to save him too. It’s a reminder to Nicodemus that he should not be looking at the signs of Jesus to be saved, but he must look to Jesus himself to be saved. 

Yet, the conversation doesn’t end on the high note. We hear something that shocks us: “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” (John 3:19–20, ESV). Even after giving this glorious picture of God loving the world and sending his Son from heaven into the world on a rescue mission to save them from the curse and condemnation, we read that some people will not only choose to reject that salvation and deliverance, but they will LOVE remaining in that darkness and condemnation. They will LOVE it. They will actually HATE the light—they will HATE the salvation that is being offered to them and they will HATE one offering that loving salvation. And we’re told why they’ll hate it—because their works are evil and they don’t want them exposed. Ignorance is bliss. People would rather live by closing their eyes to the curse and condemnation around them, pretending like everything is fine, rather than have the light of Jesus shine into their life, expose their evil deeds, and then deliver them from those evil deeds. Or to say it another way, people would rather go through life with poison running through their veins—because they’ve been bitten by the snake—slowly creeping their way toward death, pretending like everything is fine, rather than acknowledge reality, acknowledge their need for salvation, and look up to Jesus Christ, believe in him, and be saved. They’d rather ignore all of this, and die in their ignorant bliss, because they were unwilling to face reality. 

But not everyone will respond this way. Some will come to the light, and when they come to the light we read “that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:21, ESV). This really ties everything together, this entire conversation that Jesus has been having with Nicodemus. For those that do come to the light, people will see that it has been a work of God. Only God could have done it. Only God could have delivered them from darkness to light. Only God could have brought them salvation from the curse and condemnation and given them eternal life. Only God could have opened their eyes, gave them new life through the power of the Spirit, transformed their lives, and given them the gift of eternal life. Only God could do this. 

Ultimately, this is the answer to Nicodemus’ question. Earlier he had asked, “How can that be?” DA Carson summarizes Jesus’ answer by saying, ”The kingdom of God is seen or entered, new birth is experienced, and eternal life begins, through the saving cross-work of Christ, received by faith.” (Carson, 202). It’s almost as if Jesus is telling Nicodemus, “It has to be this way, otherwise nobody would believe and be saved.” Because the world is already under the curse and condemnation, and because the world loves the darkness and hates the light, they would never be saved if God hadn’t taken drastic action. They would never be saved if God did not love the world; if God did not send his Son into the world to live, die, and rise again to save us from the curse; if God had not used his Holy Spirit to cause people to be born again so that they could see the Kingdom of God, put their true faith in Jesus Christ and enter the Kingdom of God. God had to take such drastic, dramatic action, otherwise nobody would be saved. 

That’s true of every one of us, and it’s very important that we understand this about ourselves. Ignorance is not actually bliss. Ignorance leads to death and destruction. We have to acknowledge that deep down inside each one of us, we actually love the darkness and hate the light. That’s true of us and it does us no good to pretend like that’s not the case. Ignorance of this is not bliss. Rather, this is a call to every person in this room, and every person listening on the livestream, that we need to acknowledge reality, acknowledge our sin and failure, acknowledge that we are under a curse and are dying, acknowledge that we actually hate the light, then look up to the one who can deliver us from these things. Look up to Jesus Christ hanging on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. Look up to Jesus Christ who lived and died and rose again from the dead so that we could be delivered from the curse and death. Look up to Jesus Christ who can change our hearts so that we can more and more hate the darkness and love the light. Look up to Jesus Christ, who is bringing us from the death and destruction of this world, into eternal life.