In John 3 Nicodemus has trouble comprehending the nature of God as we sometimes do. He is coming to Jesus from the teaching “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD”. (Deu_6:4) He definitely would not expect to be standing before, and speaking directly to, God himself. He is questioning who he perceives to be an ordinary man, though a healer, worker of miracles and a radical teacher. Jesus tells him bluntly he must be "born again", a term that is strange to him. He is thinking of natural childbirth. Jesus explains men must be born of water (natural childbirth) AND spirit. He is using natural things to explain spiritual things. Through verses 10 to 21 He tells Nicodemus how men are born again, and Jesus' mission on earth.
We can empathize with Nicodemus. It is hard to conceive of God’s omnipresence except by the Spirit of God. Many invent their own conceptions of God such like the Hindu concept as "all is in God" or "God is in all". But that seems to reduce God to an ether-like force or a huge conglomerate of things: something without a personal will or even a personality.
But we know, because God tells us:
- The Father is the creator, the one who sits on the throne of heaven.
- The Son, he that came in a body to save us.
- The Spirit, the Comforter, the one who lives in all God’s people.
