1. A Pharisee Comes by Night

Nicodemus was a careful man. He was a Pharisee, a member of the ruling council, a teacher of Israel. In John’s Gospel he is called the teacher — not merely a teacher but a recognized authority. He knew the commandments by heart. He knew the Torah by memorization. If anyone had a handle on the Scriptures, it was this man. Yet something was missing. With all of his learning, Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. He had heard about the Galilean rabbi, and what he had heard had reached past his books and into the empty room of his soul. Rabbi, he began carefully, we know You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.

Jesus does not return the compliment. He cuts to the bone. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus stops. The phrase has landed in his ear and he cannot make it fit. He answers with one of the most cited examples of interpretive confusion in the New Testament:

This is the question that opens Unit 9. Nicodemus is reading Jesus’ words too literally — or, more accurately, too literalistically. There is a difference between the two, and that difference is the principle of this unit.

2. Literal Is Not the Same as Literalistic

Hermeneutics teachers have always defended what is called the literal sense of Scripture. The literal sense means the sense the author intended — the plain, natural reading of his words. When the Bible says David killed Goliath with a stone, the literal sense is that a real boy threw a real stone at a real giant. When Genesis says God created the heavens and the earth, the literal sense is creation. The literal sense is the foundation of sound interpretation. The Reformers fought for it. The pulpit needs it.

But the literal sense is not always the flat physical sense. When Jesus says I am the door, the literal sense is that He is the entrance into the sheepfold of God. He is not telling us He is made of wood and has hinges. When David writes The LORD is my shepherd, the literal sense is that the Lord cares for him with the watchfulness of a shepherd. David is not telling us he is a sheep. When Jesus tells Nicodemus you must be born again, the literal sense is that a spiritual rebirth is required to enter the kingdom of God. He is not telling Nicodemus to climb back into his mother. Literal means what the author meant. Literalistic means the flat physical reading whether the author meant it that way or not. The two are not synonyms. Nicodemus collapsed the first into the second, and that is why he stumbled.

3. Where Nicodemus Stumbled

Nicodemus came at night, which is itself one of John’s gentle clues that this man was still in the dark. Jesus said born again, using a Greek word that can also be rendered born from above. Either translation points to the same reality — a new spiritual beginning that comes from God. Any first-century rabbi familiar with the prophets should have heard the echo. Ezekiel had promised a new heart and a new spirit. Jeremiah had announced I will write My law upon their hearts. The covenant prophets had been saying for centuries that the kingdom of God required a transformation deeper than law-keeping.

But Nicodemus drops into a physical reading: Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb? The picture is absurd, and that is exactly the point. He has confused literal interpretation with flat physical interpretation, and the absurdity exposes the confusion. Jesus does not laugh at him. He does not mock the question. He answers it — gently, but plainly. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. Two domains. Two kinds of birth. The physical birth from Nicodemus’s mother delivered a body. The spiritual birth from above delivers a soul. The first cannot accomplish what only the second can. Jesus is teaching Nicodemus — and through him every literalist preacher who would come after — that the literal sense often is the spiritual sense, because the speaker meant it that way.

4. The Wind

Then Jesus reaches for an illustration to break Nicodemus open. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. The Greek word pneuma means both wind and spirit — the same word for the breath you cannot see and the Spirit you cannot map. Jesus is doing more than telling Nicodemus a metaphor. He is teaching him how to read. The wind is invisible. Its origin is hidden. Its destination is hidden. But its effect is visible. Leaves move. Sails fill. Hair lifts. You cannot see the wind, but you can see what it does. So with the Spirit. You cannot see the new birth, but you can see what it does. The flat physical question Nicodemus asked — can a man enter his mother’s womb? — is the wrong category. The right category is can you see what the Spirit has done?

If you understand this passage, you have grasped the unit. The literal sense of born again is spiritual rebirth — that is what Jesus meant, and meaning is what literal interpretation seeks. The literalistic sense is physical rebirth, which is absurd because Jesus never meant it. To read Jesus literally is to read Him spiritually. To read Him literalistically is to miss Him.

5. The Same Mistake at the Well

John shows us the same pattern again in the very next chapter. Jesus is sitting at the well of Sychar when a Samaritan woman comes to draw water at noon — the hottest part of the day, when respectable women would not come, which is itself another of John’s gentle clues about her life. Jesus asks her for a drink. The conversation turns. He tells her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water. Her response is identical in shape to Nicodemus’s. Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? She has heard living water as flat H₂O. He meant the Spirit who quenches the deeper thirst of the soul.

Two chapters. Two literalists. One a wealthy Pharisee with theological training. The other a poor Samaritan woman with five failed marriages. Both miss the same thing. Jesus speaks figuratively about spiritual realities, and they take Him flatly. John has not arranged these stories by accident. He is teaching us that the literalist mistake is not a class issue, not an education issue, not a religious-background issue. It is a human issue. The natural ear will take spiritual words and demand water, womb, bread, ladder, door. The Lord patiently corrects in both cases. By the end of John 4 the woman believes, the city of Sychar believes, and the same Spirit Jesus described has begun to do exactly what He said He would do.

6. The “I Am” Sayings

John’s Gospel is full of statements that require this distinction. Jesus calls Himself a door, a vine, bread, light, the way, the resurrection, a shepherd. He is not a slab of wood. He is not a grapevine. He is not a loaf. He is not a lamp. He is not a road. He is not a corpse coming back to life. He is not a man with a staff and sheep. He is what each of those images does. He admits entrance. He gives life through union. He satisfies hunger. He drives away darkness. He leads to the Father. He raises the dead. He keeps and feeds His people. To read these statements literally is to read them figuratively, because figure is what Jesus meant. To read them literalistically is to ask whether He has hinges and a doorknob, and to miss the gospel He was preaching with the image.

A simple test will save you from most literalist mistakes. If I take the speaker’s words at face flat-physical value, am I left with absurdity? If yes, the speaker is using figure, and your job is to find the spiritual reality the figure was made to deliver. A door admits or excludes. So does Jesus. A vine sustains the branches. So does Jesus. Bread keeps you alive. So does Jesus. The figure is the literal meaning, because figure is what was meant.

7. Old Bill, New Bill

A man named Bill lived in Evansville, Indiana. He began drinking at an early age and lived in the depths of sin. People called him Old Bill. One night in a drunken brawl, a man hit him so hard that he was thereafter known to many as One-Eyed Bill. Then something happened. Bill was told about a Savior who could save him and give him a new life. In simple faith he accepted the Savior, and his life was completely changed. For many years afterward Bill worked around the rescue mission in Evansville. The change was so visible to his old friends that they stopped calling him Old Bill. They began calling him New Bill. He went by that name for the rest of his life.

There is the literal meaning of born again. Old Bill did not climb back into his mother’s womb. He was born of the Spirit, and the wind began to move through his life in ways every old drinking buddy in town could see. The trees bent. The sails filled. The hair lifted. He was the same man with a new origin. That is what Jesus told Nicodemus, and that is what your sermons on John 3 are meant to deliver to your people. Not a riddle. A rebirth. The literal meaning is the gospel meaning, and the gospel meaning produces New Bills wherever it is preached without the literalist distortion.

8. The Mistake in the Other Direction

The literalist errs in one direction. The over-spiritualizer errs in the other. He turns straightforward statements into hidden allegories. The Red Sea becomes a symbol of baptism in a way Moses never intended. The blood of bulls and goats becomes a coded reference to communion in a way that strips the Levitical text of its historical weight. The literal stones of Goliath become five virtues you should cultivate to defeat your giants. Both errors fail in the same way. Each ignores what the author meant. The literalist demands a flat reading where the author used figure; the over-spiritualizer demands figure where the author was telling history.

The rule that protects from both extremes is the rule from Unit 8 said another way. Identify the kind of language before you decide what to do with it. Is this narrative reporting a historical event? Then read it that way. Is this Jesus teaching with a figure of speech? Then read it that way. Is this prophecy giving a symbolic action? Then read it that way. Genre tells you which kind of literal you are dealing with. Honor the genre, and you will honor the author’s meaning.

9. Three Questions the Pastor Should Ask

Three questions will keep your reading on the right side of the literal-literalistic line. First, what did the speaker mean? Not what does the word say in the dictionary; what did he mean when he chose this word? The author’s intent is the literal sense. Nicodemus asked the wrong question because he asked about the dictionary, not the speaker. Second, would a flat physical reading produce absurdity? If yes, you are looking at a figure, and the literal sense is the figure’s meaning. A door without hinges, a sheep with a staff, a man re-entering his mother — these absurdities are the text’s own way of telling you to look for the figure. Third, what spiritual reality does the figure deliver? Once you have named the figure, name the truth. New birth. Living water. Bread of life. Spiritual sight. The literal meaning is the spiritual meaning, because the speaker meant the figure to carry exactly that reality.

10. Nicodemus at the Cross

John does not leave Nicodemus in his confusion. The same man who came by night in chapter three reappears in chapter nineteen. After Jesus has died on the cross, Joseph of Arimathea asks for the body. He does not come alone. And Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. A hundred pounds of burial spices is the kind of preparation reserved for a king. The Pharisee who could not see the kingdom in chapter three is preparing the King for burial in chapter nineteen. The wind had blown through him. He was not the same man. The new birth he could not understand at first was already happening inside him while he stood there in the dark of John 3.

Pastor, your people will sit in front of you on Sunday morning with the same literalist instinct Nicodemus brought to Jesus by night. They will hear born again and reach for the dictionary. They will hear living water and reach for a jar. They will hear I am the door and look for hinges. Your task is to do for them what Jesus did for Nicodemus. Honor the literal sense. Reject the literalistic flattening. Teach the difference patiently. Show them what the speaker meant. The wind will do what the wind does. Some Nicodemus in the third row will leave at night confused and return at noon carrying a hundred pounds of myrrh. That is how the literal gospel preached without literalist distortion produces New Bills, new Samaritan women, and new Nicodemuses to this day.