“How can these things be?”
“Sometime soon, I want to talk to you about how to know if you are really saved.” These words were spoken as we stood near one another, clipping name-cards on a clothesline strung around the sanctuary. Her words paused me in my task, as I pondered my response.
- How can one know that he knows?
- How can a person be 100% sure that Jesus has saved his soul?
- What biblical foothold can a person stand upon so his doubt will not consume him?
Quite possibly, Nicodemus thought the same 2,000+ years ago when—
“Nicodemus said to Him,
(The Gospel According to John 3: 9 NAS)
[the Rabbi, a man of the Pharisees, directed the question to Jesus, the Son of God]
“How can these things be?”
We live in a world where we desire to know with assurance that which we hold as truth. It is when we need a word defined, we turn to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, looking up the word and then trusting the definition given, trusting that it’s the TRUTHFUL definition. Then there are those times when we leave for a holiday, traveling to a place we have never been, we turn to Global Positioning System (GPS), a satellite-based navigation system, typing in the address we need to reach, and then trusting the directions given, trusting that it’s the TRUTHFUL & BEST path.
“How can these things be?”
- How can a person walk through this life, not believing?
- How can a person go through his days, not concerned about his death?
&
- How can a person live life as if there’s no afterlife, no eternity?
- How can a person just ‘hope for the best’ whenever his life here is finished?
Jesus did not rebuke this Jewish religious leader for his unbelief, and He did not make light of his question. As the Perfect Teacher, Jesus met Nicodemus right where he was in his faith-walk and answered his question with TRUTH.
Jesus answered Nicodemus, giving him an Old Testament teaching that He knew this religious man would understand.
“No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.
(The Gospel According to John 3: 13-16 NAS)
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.
For God so loved the world,
[Every man, woman, boy, & girl]
that He gave His only begotten Son,
[God the Father gave us Jesus]
that whoever believes in Him
[God’s grace comes only through faith in His Only Son]
shall not perish,
[the person who believes in Jesus, who places his faith in Him, will not be spiritually lost]
but have eternal life.”
In the Old Testament history, we read of a time when the children of Israel were bitten by fiery serpents and were dying as punishment for their sin against God. They feared they would all be lost, so they came to Moses, the servant of God, and implored him to intercede to God for them. The children of Israel knew only the LORD could save them. It was as if they said, “Please tell us Moses, “What must we do to be saved?”
Moses listened to the LORD’S instruction.
“And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about,
(Numbers 21: 9 NAS)
that if a serpent bit any man,
when he looked to the bronze serpent,
he lived.”
- Not the killing of the serpents.
- Not the bronze serpent.
- Not the gazing at the image lifted up high, that which Moses fashioned to the pole.
The people were only saved when they looked BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH.
- We are ONLY saved by looking at God’s perfect sacrifice. (The Gospel According to John 3: 14-15)
- We are ONLY saved by God’s gift by grace through faith. (The Letter of Paul to the Ephesians 2:8)
- We are ONLY saved by Jesus, the Son of Man, the Light of the world. (The Gospel According to John 12: 30-36)
- Truly, there is ONLY one way we are saved—through believing in Jesus, the Son of God. (The Gospel According to John 14: 6)
- Thus, as we are saved, our lives are redeemed from death, from that which we deserve for our sin. (The Letter of Paul to the Romans 6: 23)
So, , like Nicodemus, the man who came to Jesus in the darkness, we too may come to Jesus & ask:
“How can these things be?”, to which the LORD & SAVIOR JESUS replies—
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
(The Gospel According to John 3: 16-18)
that whoever believes in Him shall not perish,
but have eternal life.
For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world,
but that the world might be saved through Him.
He who believes in Him is not judged;
he who does not believe has been judged already,
because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
So, in closing, we read in the Bible how the Holy Spirit of God gave the apostle John these words so that we can know that we know that we know—We Are Saved.
“These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God,
(The 1st Letter of John 5: 13 NAS)
so that you may know that you have eternal life.”