Jesus and Nicodemus
Life of Jesus · Draft · BSB
Content revision: be1901c842b48407 · No editorial review date recorded
Date: Preparation and early ministry. A guided comparison of Gospel accounts, not a measured calendar or a claim that every parallel follows the same sequence.
Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. Their conversation turns to birth through the Spirit, the lifting up of the Son of Man and God’s love, followed by a contrast between coming to the light and avoiding it.
The comparison with the bronze serpent belongs to the wilderness story. The chapter does not narrate Nicodemus making a completed public confession at this meeting; his story continues later.
Primary Scripture
3:1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.
3:2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs You are doing if God were not with him.”
3:3 Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
3:4 “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time to be born?”
3:5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.
3:6 Flesh is born of flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit.
3:7 Do not be amazed that I said, ‘You must be born again.’
3:8 The wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
3:9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
3:10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and you do not understand these things?
3:11 Truly, truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, and yet you people do not accept our testimony.
3:12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
3:13 No one has ascended into heaven except the One who descended from heaven—the Son of Man.
3:14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
3:15 that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.
3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
3:17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.
3:18 Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
3:19 And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil.
3:20 Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
3:21 But whoever practices the truth comes into the Light, so that it may be seen clearly that what he has done has been accomplished in God.”
Related Scripture
Jesus explicitly recalls Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness.
Location evidence
Jerusalem is inferred from the preceding Passover setting in John 2. John does not name the house or room where Nicodemus visits.
Event map marker: Identified site; [longitude, latitude] = [35.23494, 31.77744]. This is a teaching marker, not an exact event venue.
Jerusalem: Identified site. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [35.23494, 31.77744]. Classification source: rule.
Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire
Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire
For the class
What changes when Nicodemus’s question is heard as more than a question about physical birth?
Interpretation and reuse
Narrative order is a reading arrangement, not a proven chronology. Dates retain their stated uncertainty. An identified locality does not establish the exact venue or prove an event. Region extents and routes are illustrative, not surveyed boundaries or ancient roads. Draft material has not completed editorial review.
Record source: theographic (274)
Record source: editorial
Events and places adapted from Theographic Bible Metadata (github.com/robertrouse/theographic-bible-metadata), CC BY-SA 4.0. This adapted data is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Place coordinates from OpenBible.info Bible Geocoding Data, CC BY 4.0.
Teaching stops, summaries and regional extents are original editorial content of this atlas.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. https://berean.bible/licensing.htm