John 3

Joh 3:1-21.

NIGHT

INTERVIEW OF

NICODEMUS WITH

JESUS.

1, 2. Nicodemus--In this member of the Sanhedrim sincerity and

timidity are seen struggling together.

2. came to Jesus by night--One of those superficial "believers"

mentioned in

Joh 2:23, 24,

yet inwardly craving further satisfaction, Nicodemus comes to Jesus in

quest of it, but comes "by night" (see

Joh 19:38, 39; 12:42);

he avows his conviction that He was

come from God--an expression never applied to a merely human messenger, and

probably meaning more here--but only as "a teacher," and in His

miracles he sees a proof merely that "God is with Him." Thus, while

unable to repress his convictions, he is afraid of committing himself

too far.

3. Except, &c.--This blunt and curt reply was plainly meant to shake

the whole edifice of the man's religion, in order to lay a deeper and

more enduring foundation. Nicodemus probably thought he had gone a long

way, and expected, perhaps, to be complimented on his candor. Instead

of this, he is virtually told that he has raised a question which he is

not in a capacity to solve, and that before approaching it,

his spiritual vision required to be rectified by an entire revolution on

his inner man. Had the man been less sincere, this would certainly

have repelled him; but with persons in his mixed state of mind--to which

Jesus was no stranger

(Joh 2:25)

--such methods speed better than more honeyed words and gradual

approaches.

a man--not a Jew merely; the necessity is a universal one.

be born again--or, as it were, begin life anew in relation to

God; his manner of thinking, feeling, and acting, with reference to

spiritual things, undergoing a fundamental and permanent revolution.

cannot see--can have no part in (just as one is said to "see life,"

"see death," &c.).

the kingdom of God--whether in its beginnings here

(Lu 16:16),

or its consummation hereafter

(Mt 25:34;

Eph 5:5).

4. How, &c.--The figure of the new birth, if it had been meant only

of Gentile proselytes to the Jewish religion, would have been

intelligible enough to Nicodemus, being quite in keeping with the

language of that day; but that Jews themselves should need a new

birth was to him incomprehensible.

5. of water and of the Spirit--A twofold explanation of the "new

birth," so startling to Nicodemus. To a Jewish ecclesiastic, so

familiar with the symbolical application of water, in every variety of

way and form of expression, this language was fitted to show that the

thing intended was no other than a

thorough spiritual purification by the operation of the Holy Ghost.

Indeed, element of water and operation of the Spirit are brought

together in a glorious evangelical prediction of Ezekiel

(Eze 36:25-27),

which Nicodemus might have been reminded of had such spiritualities not

been almost lost in the reigning formalism. Already had the symbol of

water been embodied in an initiatory ordinance, in the baptism of the

Jewish expectants of Messiah by the Baptist, not to speak of the

baptism of Gentile proselytes before that; and in the Christian Church

it was soon to become the great visible door of entrance into "the

kingdom of God," the reality being the sole work of the Holy

Ghost

(Tit 3:5).

6-8. That which is born, &c.--A great universal proposition; "That

which is begotten carries within itself the nature of that which begat

it" [OLSHAUSEN].

flesh--Not the mere material body, but all that comes into the world

corrupted, depraved condition,

in complete subjection to the law of the fall

(Ro 8:1-9).

So that though a man "could enter a second time into his mother's womb

and be born," he would be no nearer this "new birth" than before

(Job 14:4;

Ps 51:5).

is spirit--"partakes of and possesses His spiritual nature."

7. Marvel not, &c.--If a spiritual nature only can see and enter the

kingdom of God; if all we bring into the world with us be the reverse of

spiritual; and if this spirituality be solely of the Holy Ghost, no

wonder a new birth is indispensable.

Ye must--"Ye, says Jesus, not we"

[BENGEL]. After those

universal propositions, about what "a man" must be, to "enter the

kingdom of God"

(Joh 3:5)

--this is remarkable, showing that our Lord meant to hold Himself forth

as "separate from sinners."

8. The wind, &c.--Breath and spirit (one word both in

Hebrew and Greek) are constantly brought together in Scripture

as analogous

(Job 27:3; 33:4;

Eze 37:9-14).

canst not tell, &c.--The laws which govern the motion of the winds are even yet but partially discovered; but the

risings, failings, and

change in direction many times in a day, of those gentle breezes here

referred to, will probably ever be a mystery to us: So of the

operation of the Holy Ghost in the new birth.

9, 10. How, &c.--Though the subject still confounds Nicodemus, the

necessity and possibility of the new birth is no longer the point with

him, but the nature of it and how it is brought about

[LUTHARDT]. "From

this moment Nicodemus says nothing more, but has sunk unto a

disciple who has found his true teacher. Therefore the Saviour now

graciously advances in His communications of truth, and once more

solemnly brings to the mind of this teacher in Israel, now become a

learner, his own not guiltless ignorance, that He may then proceed

to utter, out of the fulness of His divine knowledge, such farther

testimonies both of earthly and heavenly things as his docile scholar

may to his own profit receive" [STIER].

10. master--"teacher." The question clearly implies that

the doctrine of regeneration is so far disclosed in the Old Testament that

Nicodemus was culpable in being ignorant of it. Nor is it merely

as something that should be experienced under the Gospel that the Old

Testament holds it forth--as many distinguished critics allege, denying

that there was any such thing as regeneration before Christ. For our

Lord's proposition is universal, that no fallen man is or can be

spiritual without a regenerating operation of the Holy Ghost, and the

necessity of a spiritual obedience under whatever name, in opposition

to mere mechanical services, is proclaimed throughout all the Old

Testament.

11-13. We speak that we know, and . . . have

seen--that is, by absolute knowledge and immediate

vision of God, which "the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father"

claims as exclusively His own

(Joh 1:18).

The "we" and "our" are here used, though Himself only is intended, in

emphatic contrast, probably, with the opening words of Nicodemus,

"Rabbi, we know.", &c.

ye receive not, &c.--referring to the class to which Nicodemus

belonged, but from which he was beginning to be separated in spirit.

12. earthly things--such as regeneration, the gate of entrance to

the kingdom of God on earth, and which Nicodemus should have understood

better, as a truth even of that more earthly economy to which he

belonged.

heavenly things--the things of the new and more heavenly evangelical

economy, only to be fully understood after the effusion of the Spirit

from heaven through the exalted Saviour.

13. no man hath ascended, &c.--There is something paradoxical in this

language--"No one has gone up but He that came down, even He who is at

once both up and down." Doubtless it was intended to startle and

constrain His auditor to think that there must be mysterious elements in

His Person. The old Socinians, to subvert the doctrine of the

pre-existence of Christ, seized upon this passage as teaching that the

man Jesus was secretly caught up to heaven to receive His instructions,

and then "came down from heaven" to deliver them. But the sense

manifestly is this: "The perfect knowledge of God is not obtained by any

man's going up from earth to heaven to receive it--no man hath so

ascended--but He whose proper habitation, in His essential and

eternal nature, is heaven, hath, by taking human flesh, descended as the

Son of man to disclose the Father, whom He knows by immediate gaze alike

in the flesh as before He assumed it, being essentially and unchangeably

'in the bosom of the Father'"

(Joh 1:18).

14-16. And as Moses, &c.--Here now we have the "heavenly things,"

as before the "earthly," but under a veil, for the reason mentioned in

Joh 3:12.

The crucifixion of Messiah is twice after this veiled under the same

lively term--"uplifting,"

Joh 8:28; 12:32, 33.

Here it is still further veiled--though to us who know what it means,

rendered vastly more instructive--by reference to the brazen serpent.

The venom of the fiery serpents, shooting through the veins of the

rebellious Israelites, was spreading death through the camp--lively

emblem of the perishing condition of men by reason of sin. In both

cases the remedy was divinely provided. In both the way of cure

strikingly resembled that of the disease. Stung by serpents, by a

serpent they are healed. By "fiery serpents" bitten--serpents,

probably, with skin spotted fiery red [KURTZ]--the

instrument of cure is a serpent of brass or copper, having at a

distance the same appearance. So in redemption, as by man came

death, by Man also comes life--Man, too, "in the likeness of sinful

flesh"

(Ro 8:3),

differing in nothing outward and apparent from those who,

pervaded by the poison of the serpent, were ready to perish. But as the

uplifted serpent had none of the venom of which the serpent-bitten

people were dying, so while the whole human family were perishing of

the deadly wound inflicted on it by the old serpent, "the Second Man,"

who arose over humanity with healing in His wings, was without spot or

wrinkle, or any such thing. In both cases the remedy is

conspicuously displayed; in the one case on a pole, in the other

on the cross, to "draw all men unto Him"

(Joh 12:32).

In both cases it is by directing the eye to the uplifted Remedy

that the cure is effected; in the one case the bodily eye, in the other

the gaze of the soul by "believing in Him," as in that glorious ancient

proclamation--"Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the

earth," &c.

(Isa 45:22).

Both methods are stumbling to human reason. What, to any thinking

Israelite, could seem more unlikely than that a deadly poison should be

dried up in his body by simply looking on a reptile of brass? Such a

stumbling-block to the Jews and to the Greeks foolishness was faith in

the crucified Nazarene as a way of deliverance from eternal perdition.

Yet was the warrant in both cases to expect a cure equally rational and

well grounded. As the serpent was God's ordinance for the cure

of every bitten Israelite, so is Christ for the salvation of every

perishing sinner--the one however a purely arbitrary ordinance,

the other divinely adapted to man's complicated maladies. In

both cases the efficacy is the same. As one simple look at the serpent,

however distant and however weak, brought an instantaneous cure, even

so, real faith in the Lord Jesus, however tremulous, however

distant--be it but real faith--brings certain and instant

healing to the perishing soul. In a word, the consequences of

disobedience are the same in both. Doubtless many bitten Israelites,

galling as their case was, would reason rather than obey,

would speculate on the absurdity of expecting the bite of a

living serpent to be cured by looking at a piece of dead metal in the

shape of one--speculate thus till they died. Alas! is not

salvation by a crucified Redeemer subjected to like treatment? Has the

offense of the cross" yet ceased? (Compare

2Ki 5:12).

16. For God so loved, &c.--What proclamation of the Gospel has been

so oft on the lips of missionaries and preachers in every age since it

was first uttered? What has sent such thrilling sensations through

millions of mankind? What has been honored to bring such multitudes to

the feet of Christ? What to kindle in the cold and selfish breasts of

mortals the fires of self-sacrificing love to mankind, as these words of

transparent simplicity, yet overpowering majesty? The picture embraces

several distinct compartments: "THE

WORLD"--in its widest sense--ready

"to perish"; the immense

"LOVE OF

GOD" to that perishing world,

measurable only, and conceivable only, by the gift which it drew forth

from Him; THE

GIFT itself--"He so loved the world that He gave

His only begotten Son," or, in the language of Paul, "spared not His

own Son"

(Ro 8:32),

or in that addressed to Abraham when ready to offer Isaac on the altar,

"withheld not His Son, His only Son, whom He loved"

(Ge 22:16);

the FRUIT of this stupendous gift--not only

deliverance from impending "perdition," but the

bestowal of everlasting life; the MODE in

which all takes effect--by "believing" on the Son. How would

Nicodemus' narrow Judaism become invisible in the blaze of this Sun of

righteousness seen rising on "the world" with healing in His wings!

(Mal 4:2).

17-21. not to condemn, &c.--A statement of vast importance. Though

"condemnation" is to many the issue of Christ's mission

(Joh 3:19),

it is not the object of His mission, which is purely a

saving one.

18. is not condemned--Having, immediately on his believing, "passed

from death unto life"

(Joh 5:24).

condemned already--Rejecting the one way of deliverance from that

"condemnation" which God gave His Son to remove, and so wilfully

remaining condemned.

19. this is the condemnation, &c.--emphatically so, revealing the

condemnation already existing, and sealing up under it those who

will not be delivered from it.

light is come into the world--in the Person of Him to whom Nicodemus

was listening.

loved darkness, &c.--This can only be known by the deliberate

rejection of Christ, but that does fearfully reveal it.

20. reproved--by detection.

21. doeth truth--whose only object in life is to be and do what will

bear the light. Therefore he loves and "comes to the light," that all he

is and does, being thus thoroughly tested, may be seen to have nothing

in it but what is divinely wrought and divinely approved. This is the

"Israelite, indeed, in whom is no guile."

Joh 3:22-36.

JESUS IN THE

NEIGHBORHOOD OF THE

BAPTIST--HIS

NOBLE

TESTIMONY TO

HIS

MASTER.

22-24. land of Judea--the rural parts of that province, the foregoing

conversation being held in the capital.

baptized--in the sense explained in

Joh 4:2.

23. Ænon . . . Salim--on the west of Jordan. (Compare

Joh 3:26

with Joh 1:28).

24. John not yet cast into prison--Hence it is plain that our Lord's

ministry did not commence with the imprisonment of John, though, but

for this, we should have drawn that inference from

Mt 4:12

and Mark's

(Mr 1:14)

express statement.

25, 26. between some of--rather, "on the part of."

and the Jews--rather (according to the best manuscripts), "and a Jew,"

about purifying--that is, baptizing, the symbolical meaning of washing

with water being put (as in

Joh 2:6)

for the act itself. As John and Jesus were the only teachers who

baptized Jews, discussions might easily arise between the Baptist's

disciples and such Jews as declined to submit to that rite.

26. Rabbi, &c.--"Master, this man tells us that He to whom thou

barest such generous witness beyond Jordan is requiting thy generosity

have no disciples at all." The reply to this is one of the noblest and

most affecting utterances that ever came from the lips of man.

27-30. A man, &c.--"I do my heaven-prescribed work, and that is

enough for me. Would you have me mount into my Master's place? Said I

not unto you, I am not the Christ? The Bride is not mine, why should the

people stay with me?? Mine it is to point the burdened to the Lamb of

God that taketh away the sin of the world, to tell them there is Balm in

Gilead, and a Physician there. And shall I grudge to see them, in

obedience to the call, flying as a cloud, and as doves to their windows?

Whose is the Bride but the Bridegroom's? Enough for me to be the

Bridegroom's friend, sent by Him to negotiate the match, privileged

to bring together the Saviour and those He is come to seek and to save,

and rejoicing with joy unspeakable if I may but 'stand and hear the

Bridegroom's voice,' witnessing the blessed espousals. Say ye, then,

they go from me to Him? Ye bring me glad tidings of great joy. He must

increase, but I must decrease; this, my joy, therefore is fulfilled."

A man can receive, &c.--assume nothing, that is, lawfully and with

any success; that is, Every man has his work and sphere appointed him

from above, Even Christ Himself came under this law

(Heb 5:4).

31-34. He that, &c.--Here is the reason why He must increase while all

human teachers must decrease. The Master "cometh from above"--descending

from His proper element, the region of those "heavenly things" which

He came to reveal, and so, although mingling with men and things on the

earth, is not "of the earth," either in Person or Word. The servants, on

the contrary, springing of earth, are of the earth, and their testimony,

even though divine in authority, partakes necessarily of their own

earthiness. (So strongly did the Baptist feel this contrast that the

last clause just repeats the first). It is impossible for a sharper line

of distinction to be drawn between Christ and all human teachers, even

when divinely commissioned and speaking by the power of the Holy Ghost.

And who does not perceive it? The words of prophets and apostles are

undeniable and most precious truth; but in the words of Christ we hear a

voice as from the excellent Glory, the Eternal Word making Himself heard

in our own flesh.

32. what he hath seen and heard--(See on

Joh 3:11

and

Joh 1:18).

and no man receiveth, &c.--John's disciples had said, "All come

to Him"

(Joh 3:26).

The Baptist here virtually says, Would it were so, but alas! they are

next to "none" [BENGEL]. They were far

readier to receive himself, and obliged him to say, I am not the

Christ, and he seems pained at this.

33. hath set to His seal, &c.--gives glory to God whose words Christ

speaks, not as prophets and apostles by a partial communication of the

Spirit to them.

34. for God giveth not the Spirit by measure--Here, again, the sharpest

conceivable line of distinction is drawn between Christ and all

human-inspired teachers: "They have the Spirit in a limited degree;

but God giveth not [to Him] the Spirit by measure." It means the

entire fulness of divine life and divine power. The present tense

"giveth," very aptly points out the permanent communication of the

Spirit by the Father to the Son, so that a constant flow and reflow of

living power is to be understood (Compare

Joh 1:15)

[OLSHAUSEN].

35, 36. The Father loveth, &c.--See on

Mt 11:27,

where we have the "delivering over of all things into the hands

of the Son," while here we have the deep spring of that august act in

the Father's ineffable "love of the Son."

36. hath everlasting life--already has it. (See on

Joh 3:18

and

Joh 5:24).

shall not see life--The contrast here is striking: The one has already

a life that will endure for ever--the other not only has it not now, but

shall never have it--never see it.

abideth on him--It was on Him before, and not being removed in the

only possible way, by "believing on the Son," it necessarily remaineth

on him! Note.--How flatly does this contradict the teaching of many

in our day, that there neither was, nor is, anything in God against

sinners which needed to be removed by Christ, but only in men against

God!