Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews — a member of the Sanhedrin. He came to Jesus by night to inquire (Jn 3:1–21), and received the great teaching: 'Unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' From his question came one of the most quoted lines of the New Testament: 'For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son: that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting' (Jn 3:16).
He spoke up cautiously for Christ before his fellow Pharisees (Jn 7:50–52). At the Crucifixion he came openly to the tomb, bringing 'a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight' (Jn 19:39) — the proper burial of a king. With Joseph of Arimathea he wrapped the body of Christ for the tomb.
Tradition (preserved in the Acta of the Apostolic Fathers and in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus) holds that he was baptized by Sts. Peter and John, expelled from the Sanhedrin, and died as a Christian.