Victorious among his people; Nicodemus, an Israelite
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Nikodemos names Nicodemus, the Pharisee and Jewish leader who comes to Jesus in John 3, speaks cautiously in John 7, and joins Joseph of Arimathea in burial care in John 19. The name should be taught through John's narrative movement, not as a free-standing symbol of cowardice, courage, or conversion.
Reader summary
Full entry for Νικόδημος (G3530) · Open the biblical lexicon
Nikodemos names Nicodemus, the Pharisee and Jewish leader who comes to Jesus in John 3, speaks cautiously in John 7, and joins Joseph of Arimathea in burial care in John 19. The name should be taught through John's narrative movement, not as a free-standing symbol of cowardice, courage, or conversion.
The BSB source-word alignment has 5 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include Nicodemus (5).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at John 3:1. Its strongest book concentrations include John (5).
Nikodemos names Nicodemus, the Pharisee and Jewish leader who comes to Jesus in John 3, speaks cautiously in John 7, and joins Joseph of Arimathea in burial care in John 19. The name should be taught through John's narrative movement, not as a free-standing symbol of cowardice, courage, or conversion. John gives enough to see a man of status confronted by the necessity of new birth, puzzled by Jesus' words, later raising a question about lawful process, and finally bringing costly burial spices after the crucifixion.
The pastoral value is careful narrative reading: Jesus' doctrine of new birth carries the weight, while Nicodemus's appearances show how a named leader is drawn into the light of Jesus' revelation.
Nicodemus appears in three Johannine movements: the night conversation about new birth, a later public-process question among leaders, and the burial of Jesus with Joseph of Arimathea.
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.
John introduces Nicodemus as a Pharisee and leader of the Jews, setting the conversation with Jesus inside recognized religious authority.
“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?”
Nicodemus's question shows misunderstanding as Jesus teaches the necessity of being born again.
“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
His second question exposes the limits of status and learning before the mystery of new birth.
Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who himself was one of them, asked,
Nicodemus raises a procedural question among the leaders, recalling his earlier encounter with Jesus.
Nicodemus, who had previously come to Jesus at night, also brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.
Nicodemus brings myrrh and aloes for Jesus' burial, placing his final appearance at the crucified Lord's body.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. victorious among his people; Nicodemus, an Israelite
:--Nicodemus.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
5 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
Nicodemus
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Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 1 case and number pattern. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Νικόδημος is built from these roots:
The core insight of Nikodemos is that a recognized teacher still needs the life-giving work Jesus describes. Nicodemus enters the Gospel with status, knowledge, and questions, but Jesus does not flatter his position. He speaks of birth from above, the Spirit's work, and the lifting up of the Son of Man. Later scenes matter, but they should not be forced into a tidy moral biography.
John gives a real narrative progression, yet the doctrine remains centered on Jesus' words. Teachers should use Nicodemus to show that religious familiarity cannot replace new birth, and that careful narrative evidence matters when tracing a person's response.
John.3.1
Nikodemos is a proper noun. Its theological use depends on the three Johannine scenes where the named man appears, not on deriving doctrine from the name itself.
Nicodemus's story sits within Scripture's wider pattern that teachers and rulers must still receive God's life-giving work rather than relying on office, ancestry, or learning.