Monday, September 12, 2022

Karl Deenick on "seeing" the Kingdom of God in John 3

  

When Jesus says that no one can ‘see’ the kingdom, He isn’t talking about understanding or grasping what it is or having the eyes of faith to know about it; rather Jesus uses the word ‘see’ to mean ‘experience’. For example, when someone says, ‘I would love to see Europe’, they don’t mean they would love to understand or know about Europe, but rather that they would love to go there and actually experience it. In the same way, no one can ‘see’ God’s kingdom unless they are born again. A few verses later, that becomes absolutely clear when Jesus expresses the same idea in a different way, saying that those who are not born again cannot ‘enter the kingdom of God.’ (Karl Deenick, Washed by God: The Story of Baptism [Ross-Shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, Inc., 2022], 43)