Lesson 8 Answers

Text John 3: 1-21 

Family Research Question

1. What is a Pharisee?  What is a Sadducee?   Give the name of any Pharisees you can find in the New Testament.

    1.a) A Pharisee is a member of a Jewish religious group which acts under the guidance of scribes and is extreme about keeping traditions and the form (outward actions) of the Mosaic Law.  A Pharisee does outward things to call attention to himself so others will think he is very holy (set apart; special to God).

     1.b) A Sadducee is a member of another Jewish group which is opposed to Pharisees' beliefs such as bodily resurrection and angels.  They accepted only the five books of Moses as their spiritual authority. 

     1.c)  Nicodemus, John 3:1-21

 

Nicodemus was a Pharisee.  He was a ruler of the Jews. He went to see Jesus one night. By going to see Jesus at nighttime, he may have been hoping no one would see him.  He told Jesus that he knew that Jesus had come from God the Father. 

Jesus told Nicodemus something strange.  He told him that, in order to get into the kingdom of God, a person would have to be born again. 

Nicodemus must have pictured in his mind a tiny baby coming into the world.  He asked Jesus, “How can a man be born when he is old?"

Jesus was really talking about baptism.  After people are born into the world they grow up and eventually they make wrong choices.  Their hearts and lives grow heavy with sin.  When a person becomes a Christian that old sinful person dies within.  Like Jesus being buried after He was crucified, we bury the dead person of sin in the water of baptism.  Baptism is symbolic of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.  When we come out of the water we are born again or come to life again, just as Christ came to life again after He was buried.  A new Christian is like a newborn  baby.  A new baby has no sin. A new Christian has no sin.   A Christian should always keep a pure heart and strive to have an innocent “newborn baby” type of heart.  When a person is  "born of the Spirit" it means that he or she hears the Word of God with his or her heart , turns away from sin and starts living for God.  A person who is born of the Spirit continues to study God’s Word to learn how to live and is obedient to His Word in every way.

Family Dictionary Work

2. Please look up the words: 

a. Symbol

    a.) An action or thing representing something spiritual.

b. Symbolic

    b.) Something representative.

God used symbols a lot in the Bible.  Discuss the meaning of “symbolic”.  Think of some other symbols in the Bible and tell what they represent.  List the Bible symbols that you think of.

    2.) Some examples:  Rainbow (God's covenant); Bread and Wine (the new covenant; Christ's death, burial, resurrection); Bronze serpent (Christ) 

True or False 

(Look out for tricky questions!)

3. Nicodemus was a Sadducee.

    3.) False

4. Nicodemus came to Jesus at nighttime.     

    4.) True

5. Nicodemus told Jesus that he thought Jesus was deceiving people.

    5.) False 

6. Jesus told Nicodemus that in order to get into God’s kingdom a person would have to be born of water and the Spirit.  

    6.) True

7.  John 3:16says that those who believe on Him will not perish.

    7.) False 

8. Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.

    8.) False (unless you meant to put 'loved'darkness and 'were evil')

9. God sent His Son to condemn the world.

    9.) False

10. The person who does not believe in Jesus is condemned already.

    10.) True

Unscramble the words and tell how they relate to the lesson.

11. bibra

    11.) Rabbi. This is how Nicodemus addressed Jesus. Rabbi means 'Teacher'.

12. shiper

    12.) Perish. God sent Jesus so mankind could be saved and not perish. Perish means to be destroyed or die  

13. glith

    13.) Light.  Jesus is the Light that has come into the world. Believers let His light shine through them into the world's dark places to lead others to God and salvation.

14. skerdsan

    14.) Darkness.  Everyone who loves sin hates the light of God's Word and doesn't come to Jesus for fear their sins will be uncovered.

15. medonnc

    15.) Condemn.  God did not send His Son into the world to condemn it, but so that the world, through Jesus, can be saved.