John 3

CHAPTER III

The Conversation with Nicodemus, 3:1–21.—This conversation connects naturally with 2:23, 24, Nicodemus being one of the “many” there mentioned as believing because of the signs, to whom Jesus would not entrust himself. Yet the conversation with Jesus did not yet bring this man to faith. But the story of Nicodemus is not John’s real concern. As far as that is concerned, the sequel appears in 7:15 and 19:39. Here John’s interest is in the teaching of Jesus as the counterpart to the signs (2:23). Though it is conducted in private, this conversation was a part of Jesus’ public ministry, just as was the conversation with the Samaritan woman.

John records this conversation because it really constitutes a summary of Jesus’ teaching, dealing, as it does, with the kingdom, regeneration, faith, the Son of man, God’s love and the plan of salvation, judgment and unbelief. The observation is correct that, as in the forefront of Matthew’s Gospel the Sermon on the Mount presents a grand summary of Christ’s teaching on the law as related to the gospel, so here in the opening chapters of John’s Gospel this conversation with Nicodemus presents a grand summary of the gospel itself.

This also explains the way in which John records the conversation. Only the first part is dialog (2–10), and the rest is a discourse of Jesus. What else Nicodemus may have asked or said is immaterial for John’s purpose; hence he omits it. In this respect the record of the conversation with the Samaritan woman is different, wherefore also the form of dialog is continued to the end. In the second half of this chapter we have a record only of what Jesus said. We may take it that the conversation continued much longer than the few moments required to read John’s report of it, and that thus toward the end John simply reports the chief and essential things which Jesus told Nicodemus.

We have every reason to think that not only John but also the other five disciples (see 1:35–51) were present at the visit of Nicodemus, just as they were also silent witnesses in 2:17. The historical character of John’s report is beyond question. And this is true not only for the first but also for the last half of his account; for all that Jesus said exactly fits the condition and situation of Nicodemus. The historical character of John’s report should, therefore, not be questioned.

John 3:1

1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The report is introduced by the transitional δέ; R. 1185 has a different view. Nicodemus is described at length. His party connection, his actual name, his official position are stated. First we are told that he belonged to the Pharisees (with the partitive ἐκ), which fact is made emphatic by being placed ahead of his name. On the Pharisees compare 1:24.

All that follows is governed by the Pharisaic character of Nicodemus; a conversation such as this would have been impossible with a Sadducee or a mere Herodian. John is somewhat chary about mentioning names. He records that of Nicodemus, it seems, because of the subsequent acts of this man; the Samaritan woman he leaves unnamed. The Greek has the parenthetical nominative, “Nicodemus name for him.” The fact that Nicodemus was “a ruler of the Jews” must here, in Jerusalem, mean that he was a member of the Sanhedrin; as such he appears also in the session of this body in 7:50. Combined with his being a Pharisee, this means that Nicodemus was one of the “scribes,” a rabbi learned in the Old Testament Scriptures; for the γραμματεῖς that were in the Sanhedrin were Pharisees, the entire body of some seventy consisting of high priests, elders, and scribes. In v. 10 Jesus directly calls Nicodemus “the teacher of Israel.” Incidentally we see how high the first public work of Jesus reached—into the very Sanhedrin itself, 1 Cor. 1:26 (“not many,” but some).

John 3:2

2 This man came to him at night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that from God thou art come as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that thou doest except God be with him. With οὗτος, in the Greek fashion, all that is said in v. 1 is picked up: “this” is the man who did and said what is here told. Two points are implied: he had seen some of the signs, and he had heard some of the teaching. The impression made on him had been so strong that he risked this visit “at night,” νυκτός, the genitive of time within which something takes place. Both this impression and the venturesome visit it produced are part of this man’s attitude toward Jesus, an attitude produced in toto by Jesus himself, in fact, a vital part in the course of his conversion. Caiaphas, other Sanhedrists, kept aloof from Jesus, thrust every favorable impression aside—and were never converted.

Their attitude was due wholly to themselves, it was an abnormal, wilful resistance, 1:11. The fact that Nicodemus came “at night” was, of course, due to fear lest he be seen, and thus his standing be compromised. Yet this is not cowardice but rather careful caution, for, although Jesus had made an impression on Nicodemus, the man was not sure about this young Rabbi from Galilee who might turn out a disappointment after all. So he cautiously investigates. The fact that Nicodemus “came to him,” taking the risk involved, shows his seriousness, shows how deeply Jesus had gripped his heart. He did not ignore or wipe out the impression made on him.

He took a step that was certainly decisive. In the study of conversion Nicodemus, like the Samaritan woman, will always stand out as an illuminating example.

He addresses Jesus with the respectful title “Rabbi” as Andrew, John, and Nathanael had done, see 1:38. The plural “we know” refers not to other Sanhedrists but to the preceding πολλοί, “many,” in 2:23. He, however, does not come as a representative of these others but only for his own sake; yet the fact that others were impressed like himself means a good deal to him. Of what he and others are convinced is, “that from God thou art come as a teacher,” the perfect ἐλήλυθας with its present implication meaning “hast come” and thus art now here. The phrase “from God” is to be understood in the sense, “commissioned by him and thus sent forth from him.” It does not intend to express the divine nature of Jesus but the conviction that Jesus has assumed his office and work not on his own accord but by God’s direction, like the prophets of old. The statement is true as far as it goes.

Yet behind this admission lurks the question whether this man Jesus, who evidently has come from God, may not prove to be the Messiah. This is the real purpose of Nicodemus’ coming, the thing he would like to discover.

On what grounds Nicodemus rests the conviction that Jesus is “a teacher come from God” he himself states, “for no one can do these signs which thou doest except God be with him.” Nicodemus, too, saw “the glory” (1:14) in these signs; what they indicated to him he states. Both ποιεῖν and ποιεῖς are durative, “can be doing” and “thou art doing,” and thus include the signs already done and any others Jesus might still do. The noteworthy point, however, is that Nicodemus connects these signs with the teaching of Jesus. On σημεῖον see 2:11. As a διδάσκαλος Jesus presents these signs; they are his credentials. Nicodemus regards these credentials as proving that this teacher has surely come from God, for who could do such signs “except God be with him?” μετʼ αὑτοῦ, in covenant or association with him; σύν would mean “with him” to help him.

We see just how far Nicodemus has progressed. The signs loom up in his mind, the contents of the teaching is not mentioned and seems not to have entered far into his mind, although he connects the two. This explains the course of Jesus’ instruction: since Nicodemus accepts the signs, Jesus unfolds to him the teaching which these signs accredit and attest. And this teaching centers in Jesus’ person in such a way that Nicodemus at once has also the answer to the question that troubles him—he learns who Jesus really is.

John 3:3

3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Amen, amen, I say to thee, Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God. On the use of ἀπεκρίθη and the doubling of the verbs “answered and said,” see 1:48. Jesus saw what was in the man (2:25) and thus told him what he needed; and the two verbs show that this is highly important. When Jesus “takes the word” (ἀπεκρίθη) he does not begin with his own person although Nicodemus had put this forward. In due time Jesus will cover that point. Jesus begins with the kingdom of God and the entrance into that kingdom.

And we must note that this kingdom and the coming of the Messiah belong together, for he is the King, and only where he is the kingdom is. Nicodemus, too, understood this relation and, like every serious Israelite, desired to see (ἰδεῖν) this Messianic kingdom, i.e., as a member entitled to a place in it. This is the background of Jesus’ statement. So he begins with the solemn formula, explained in 1:51, “Amen, amen (the assurance of verity), I say to thee” (the assurance of authority) and follows with a statement regarding what is essential in order to see the kingdom as one of its members.

This word of Jesus, as also its elaboration in v. 5 and 11, goes back to what the Baptist had preached when he declared the kingdom at hand and called on men to enter it by the Baptism of repentance and remission of sins, meaning the kingdom in its new form with redemption actually accomplished by the Messiah, the Lamb of God, i.e., the new covenant that would supersede the old. This grand concept ἡβασιλείατοῦΘεοῦ must not be defined by generalizing from the kingdoms of earth. These are only imperfect shadows of God’s kingdom. God makes his own kingdom, and where he is with his power and his grace there his kingdom is; whereas earthly kingdoms make their kings, often also unmake them, and their kings are nothing apart from what their kingdoms make them. So also we are not really subjects in God’s kingdom but partakers of it, i.e., of God’s rule and kingship; earthly kingdoms have only subjects. In God’s kingdom we already bear the title “kings unto God,” and eventually the kingdom, raised to the nth degree, shall consist of nothing but kings in glorious array, each with his crown, and Christ thus being “the King of kings,” a kingdom that has no subjects at all.

This divine kingdom goes back to the beginning and rules the world and shall so rule until the consummation of the kingdom at the end of time. All that is in the world, even every hostile force, is subservient to the plans of God. The children and sons of God, as heirs of the kingdom in whom God’s grace is displayed, constitute the kingdom in its specific sense. And this kingdom is divided by the coming of Christ, the King, in the flesh to effect the redemption of grace by which this specific kingdom is really established among men. Hence we have the kingdom before Christ, looking toward his coming, and the kingdom after Christ, looking back to his coming—the promise and the fulfillment to be followed by the consummation—the kingdom as it was in Israel, as it now is in the Christian Church, the Una Sancta in all the world, and as it will be at the end forever. It is called “God’s” kingdom and “Christ’s” kingdom (Eph. 5:5; 2 Tim. 4:1; 2 Pet. 1:11) because the power and the grace that produce this kingdom are theirs; also the kingdom “of heaven” or “of the heavens” because the power and the grace are wholly from heaven and not in any way of the earth. The Baptist preached the coming of this kingdom as it centers in the incarnate Son and his redemptive work.

Jesus tells Nicodemus the astonishing fact, “unless one is born anew” he cannot enter this kingdom. He makes the statement general, “one,” τίς, not singling out Nicodemus as though making an exceptional requirement for him. Not until v. 7 do we hear “thou,” although the application to Nicodemus personally lies on the surface throughout. The requirement of a new birth is universal. The form ἐάν with the subjunctive shows that Jesus counts on some entering the kingdom, i.e., that the new birth will be received by them. While ἄνωθεν may mean “from above” (place, local), here it must mean “anew” (time); for in v. 4 we have δεύτερον, “a second time,” in the same sense.

Nor is ἄνωθεν the same as ἐκΘεοῦ (in John’s First Epistle), for while God bestows this birth, the means by which he does so do not descend “from above” (Word and Sacrament), for which reason also what Jesus says of the new birth belongs to the ἐπίγεια, “earthly things” (v. 12). Not new and superior knowledge is essential; not new, superior, more difficult meritorious works; not a new national or ecclesiastical or religious. party connection that is better than the Pharisaic party; but an entirely new birth, the beginning of a newly born life, i.e., the true spiritual life.

This rebirth is misconceived when the Baptist and Jesus are separated and it is thought that the former was unable to bestow the Spirit. On this subject compare the comments on 1:26. The Baptist’s requirement is identical with that which Jesus makes. The Baptism of repentance and remission of sins bestows the new birth even as it is and can be mediated only by the Spirit. Jesus is not telling Nicodemus, “Go and be baptized by John and then wait until the Messiah gives thee the Spirit (how would he do that?), and thus thou wilt be reborn.” True repentance, the Baptist’s μετάνοια, consists of contrition and faith; and these two, wrought by the Spirit, constitute conversion which in substance is regeneration. All these focus in Baptism: every contrite and believing sinner whom the Baptist baptized was converted, was regenerated, had the Spirit, had forgiveness, was made a member of the kingdom, was ready for the King so close at hand to participate in full in all that the King would now bring. The Baptist stressed repentance and forgiveness in connection with his Baptism because these mediated the great change; in this first word to Nicodemus Jesus names only the great change itself and its necessity, “born anew.” In a moment Jesus, too, will name the means.

Jesus’ word regarding the new birth shatters once for all every supposed excellence of man’s attainment, all merit of human deeds, all prerogatives of natural birth or station. Spiritual birth is something one undergoes not something he produces. As our efforts had nothing to do with our natural conception and birth, so, in an analogous way but on a far higher plane, regeneration is not a work of ours. What a blow for Nicodemus! His being a Jew gave him no part in the kingdom; his being a Pharisee, esteemed holier than other people, availed him nothing; his membership in the Sanhedrin and his fame as one of its scribes went for nought. This Rabbi from Galilee calmly tells him that he is not yet in the kingdom!

All on which he had built his hopes throughout a long arduous life here sank into ruin and became a little worthless heap of ashes. Unless he attains this mysterious new birth, even he shall not “see” (ἰδεῖν) the kingdom, i.e., have an experience of it. This verb is chosen to indicate the first activity of one who has passed through the door of the kingdom.

John 3:4

4 Nicodemus says to Him, How can a man be born when he is old? He certainly cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born? These questions of Nicodemus have sometimes been misunderstood. This is not mere unspiritual denseness that is unable to rise above the idea of physical birth; nor rabbinical skill in disputation that tries to make Jesus’ requirement sound absurd, which Jesus would never have answered as he did; nor hostility to the requirement of Jesus. Nicodemus simply puts the requirement laid down by Jesus into words of his own; and by doing this in the form of questions he indicates where his difficulty lies. He thus actually asks Jesus for further explanation and enlightenment, and Jesus gives him this.

When Nicodemus says γέρωνὤν he is thinking of himself, although his question would apply to one of any age, even to a babe. This touch indicates both that the conversation is truly reported, and that one who saw the old man when he said “being old” remembered and wrote it down. The second question elucidates the first. We must note especially the interrogative μή, which indicates that in the speaker’s own mind the answer can only be a no. This completely exonerates Nicodemus from the charge that he understood Jesus’ words only as a reference to physical birth; or that he tried to turn those words so that they referred only to such a birth. The fact is that he does the very opposite as if he would say, “I know you cannot and do not mean that!” or, “That much I see.” He clearly perceives that Jesus has in mind some other, far higher kind of birth.

But “how can such a birth take place?” He might also have asked, “What is this birth?” and the “what” would probably have explained also the “how.” He did the thing the other way, he asked, “How,” etc., and the manner, too, involves the nature—“how” one is thus born will cast light on “what” this being born really is. As in the word of Jesus, Nicodemus also retains the passive, here two infinitives, γεννηθῆναι, the second after δύναται. The term κοιλία denotes the abdominal cavity and thus is used for “womb.”

Although Jesus’ word must have struck Nicodemus hard, being uttered, as it was, by a young man to one grown old and gray as an established “teacher” (v. 10), Nicodemus shows no trace of resentment. He neither contradicts nor treats Jesus’ statement as extravagant and ridiculous. He takes no offense although he feels the personal force of what Jesus says. He does not rise and leave saying, “I have made a mistake in coming.” He quietly submits to the Word. This attitude and conduct, however, is due to the Word itself and to its gracious saving power. Changes were gradually going on in this man’s heart, some of them unconsciously; not he but a higher power was active in producing these changes.

He was not as yet reborn, nor do we know when that moment came. Enough that Jesus was leading him forward, and Nicodemus did not run away.

John 3:5

5 Jesus answered, Amen, amen, I say to thee, Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. In no way does Jesus rebuke or fault Nicodemus—clear evidence that he who knew what is in a man (2:25) regards the questions of this man as being wholly sincere. Jesus explains his former word—again evidence that Nicodemus really has asked for an explanation. Jesus repeats his former word exactly, adding only one phrase and substituting “enter” for “see,” a mere explanatory detail, for only they who “enter” “see” the kingdom. The preposition ἐκ denotes origin and source. The exegesis which separates ἐξὕδατοςκαὶΠνεύματος, as though Jesus Said ἐξὕδατοςκαὶἐκΠνεύματος is not based on linguistic grounds; for the one preposition has as its one object the concept “water and Spirit,” which describes Baptism, its earthly element and its divine agency.

The absence of the Greek articles with the two nouns makes their unity more apparent. The making of two phrases out of the one is due to the preconception that the Baptist’s Baptism consisted only of water and that figuratively the Messiah’s bestowal of the Spirit can also be called a Baptism—yet leaving unsaid how and by what means the Messiah would bestow the Spirit. The fact that Jesus thus also postpones the very possibility of the new birth for Nicodemus (and for all men) into the indefinite future, when he and others may already have been overtaken by death, is also left unsaid.

In the Baptist’s sacrament, as in that of Jesus afterward, water is joined with the Spirit, the former being the divinely chosen earthly medium (necessary on that account), the latter being the regenerating agent who uses that medium. When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, the latter could understand only that the Baptist’s sacrament was being referred to. This was entirely enough. For this sacrament admitted to the kingdom as completely as the later instituted sacrament of Jesus. Therefore Jesus also continued to require the Baptist’s sacrament, 3:22 and 4:2, and after his resurrection extended it to all nations by means of his great commission. No need, then, to raise the question as to which Baptism Jesus here had in mind, or whether he also referred to his own future sacrament.

It was but one sacrament which was first commanded by God for the use of the Baptist, then was used by Jesus, and finally instituted for all people. Tit. 3:5 thus applies to this sacrament in all its stages. Jesus tells Nicodemus just what he asks, namely the “how” of regeneration. How is it possible? By Baptism! But Jesus cuts off a second how: How by Baptism? by using the description of Baptism, “water and Spirit.” Because not merely water but God’s Spirit is effective in the sacrament, therefore it works the new birth.

Jesus here assumes that Nicodemus knows about the preaching as well as about the baptizing of John. In passing note that the Holy Spirit is here mentioned, and that Nicodemus accepts this mention and all that follows regarding the Spirit without the slightest hesitation, as though he knew this Third Person of the Godhead; compare 1:32. Thus this reference of Jesus to Baptism is not understood by Nicodemus as an opus operatum, a mere mechanical application of the earthly element with whatever formula God had given the Baptist to use, but as being in the Baptist’s entire work vitally connected with μετάνοια or “repentance.” Strictly speaking, this repentance (contrition and faith) itself constitutes the rebirth in all adults yet not apart from Baptism which as its seal must follow; for the rejection of Baptism vitiates repentance and regeneration, demonstrating that they are illusory.

John 3:6

6 Without a connective Jesus takes up the remark of Nicodemus regarding the impossibility of a physical rebirth and carries this to its ultimate limit —even if it were possible, a rebirth in the flesh would reproduce only flesh. Jesus formulates this as a general principle which is self-evident and final in its clearness and then sets beside it the opposite, the Spirit birth, again as a principle with the same evident finality. And the parallelism of the two principles once more brings out the necessity Jesus has twice stated, that only by this latter birth a man can enter the kingdom. That born of the flesh is flesh; and that born of the Spirit is spirit. The Greek has the neuter τὸγεγεννημένον, which states the thought abstractly, by this form emphasizing the fact that a principle is being established, and one without a single exception: anything whatever that is born thus, certainly also including man. In the elaboration Jesus has the masculine ὁγεγεννημένος, “he that is born.” The perfect participle has its usual force: once born and now so born.

Any birth from flesh produces only flesh. A stream never rises higher than its source. The fact is axiomatic. Its statement is its own proof. There is a contrast between σάρξ and πνεῦμα, and this determines that the former does not refer merely to the human body or to nature, or to this with its connotation of weakness and mortality, but to “the flesh” in its full opposition to “the spirit”: our sinful human nature. Thus σάρξ includes also the human soul, the human ψυχή and the human πνεῦμα, for sin has its real seat in the immaterial part of our nature which uses the gross material part as its instrument.

A hundred rebirths from sinful flesh, whether one be old or young, would produce nothing but the same sinful flesh and leave one as far as ever from the kingdom. This is not later Pauline theology, which the evangelist puts into Jesus’ mouth and which is thus beyond the mind of Nicodemus. We meet this same thought already in Gen. 6:3; Ps. 51:5; Job 14:4. In fact, it is so simple that it is clear to any man who has the least idea of what flesh means.

In the second member Jesus does not say, “that born of the water and Spirit,” but only, “that born of the Spirit,” although he refers to Baptism. In this sacrament the regenerator is not the water but the Spirit who uses this medium. This also settles the question as to whether we must regard this second principle in a way that is wholly abstract, “that born of the spirit is spirit,” or more concretely, “that born of the Spirit is spirit.” The entire context decides for the latter, especially also the interpretative expression in v. 8, “one born of the Spirit” (not, “of the spirit”). In addition, the other translation would produce a false contrast, namely that of human flesh and that of the human spirit. Nor is there such a thing as a birth of the human spirit—in English we should say, soul—apart from and in contrast with the human flesh. Only God’s Spirit produces a spiritual birth, a new nature and life, one that is πνεῦμα, the opposite of σάρξ.

Underlying both axiomatic statements is the thought that “the flesh,” our sinful human nature, cannot possibly enter the kingdom but that only the “spirit,” the new life and new nature born of the Spirit, can do so. This, too, casts light on the kingdom itself, on its nature, and on the people who alone are partakers of it.

John 3:7

7 Perhaps astonishment was written on Nicodemus’ face, or a movement and gesture betrayed his thought. It all sounded very strange to this old Pharisee who all his lifelong was set on works—works—works and was admired by the mass of the nation for this very fact, to hear from Jesus: birth—birth—birth by the Spirit, by Baptism, which would bring forth “spirit,” an entirely new nature and creature. The objective tone of Jesus, therefore, takes a subjective, pastoral turn. Jesus lights up the mystery of this birth by describing one who is actually reborn by means of an analogy. Marvel not that I said to thee, You must be born anew. The wind blows where it will, and thou hearest its sound but knowest not whence it comes and whither it goes—thus is everyone that is born of the Spirit.

In prohibitions for the second person the Greek has the aorist subjunctive instead of the aorist imperative, hence μὴθαυμάσῃς, “Do not marvel!” What Nicodemus marvelled at is this new birth on which Jesus insisted instead of urging something else. Jesus uses the plural, “You must be born anew,” for the principle applies to all men alike, of course, including Nicodemus, holy as he, the Pharisee, deemed himself because of his close observance of the law. To be sure, in itself this new birth is marvelous enough, transcending even the wonder of our physical conception and birth. But merely to marvel at it may lead to unbelief and to denial of its possibility. A thing may be marvelous, mysterious, even incomprehensible and yet it may not only be possible but actual, an indisputable fact.

John 3:8

8 Jesus furnishes a striking and pertinent example which was apparently suggested by the two meanings of πνεῦμα, which are found also in the Hebrew ruach and the Aramaic rucha, namely “wind” and “spirit” (“Spirit”). Take the wind, Jesus says to Nicodemus, the reality and fact of it is beyond question, for you hear its sound, you know it is there as a fact; but whence it came, and whither it goes, how it starts, how it stops, these and many other facts “thou knowest not.” With the verbs ἀκούεις and οἶδας Jesus addresses Nicodemus personally. Was there, perhaps, a sound of wind outside as Jesus was speaking? The two clauses “whence it comes” and “whither it goes” do not refer to the mere direction of the wind, north or south, east or west, for this anyone can know; but to the original origin and source of the wind, this vast mass of moving and often rushing air, and to its ultimate goal, where it piles up and stops. Despite all our wise modern meteriological knowledge we still do not know this “whence” and this “whither,” how this vast volume of air leaves one place and goes to another. In both the LXX and the New Testament ποί, “whither,” is replaced by ποῦ, “where,” R. 548; which means that we must not read the latter as though it also meant to indicate where the wind comes to rest.

The application which Jesus makes of this illustration comes as a surprise. He does not say, “thus also is the Spirit of God.” This is one of the numerous and interesting cases, occurring in the sayings of Jesus as well as in the writings of the Apostles, where the thought overleaps an intervening point and at once presents the final point. So here the intervening point is the fact and reality of the working of God’s Spirit. This is taken for granted because it is involved in the fact and reality of the result of this working, namely every man who is actually reborn of the Spirit. In the present case Jesus has to make the comparison in this way. The two features that are alike, one in the wind, the other in the Spirit, must be such as we ourselves can verify.

If the wind did not affect our senses, we should never know its blowing; if the Spirit did not produce reborn men, we should never know his presence and his activity. Thus the fact and reality of the wind that we hear in its activity and its effect illustrates the Spirit whom we observe in his activity and his effect (the regenerated man). Jesus takes only this one effect of the wind, the sound of it that we hear in the rustling breeze or the roaring storm. So also he matches it by only one effect of the Spirit, the regenerate man who himself knows the great transformation that has taken place within him, and whose transformation others likewise can observe and know. To be sure, the wind works also other effects, and the Spirit performs also other works. Jesus has no call here to enter on these points.

The illustration as he uses it fully meets his purpose.

Sometimes this illustration has been misapplied by commentators because they fail to discover the point of comparison. They find three such points, whereas every true comparison has but one. This is also done by those who stress the clause, “wherever it will,” and then speak of the free and unrestricted working of the Spirit. This misconception often becomes serious, for it easily leads to the false dogmatical idea that the Spirit regenerates this or that man at random, passing over the rest. It may also lead to the error that the Spirit works without means, suddenly seizing a man to convert and regenerate (or sanctify) him, whereas the Scriptures teach that the Spirit always and only works to save through his chosen means, the Word and the Sacraments, and through these means equally upon all men whenever and wherever these means reach men. The fact that all who are thus reached by the Spirit are not reborn is not due to a lack of saving will on the part of the Spirit, or to a lack and deficiency in the means the Spirit employs, but to the wicked and permanent resistance of those who remain unregenerate. Matt. 23:37; Acts 7:51–53; 13:46.

Little needs to be said regarding the interpretation that would take these words of Jesus to speak of the Spirit instead of the wind, “the Spirit breathes where he will,” margin of the R. V. and a few expositors. This is done because the ordinary word for “wind” is ἄνεμος, because only here in the New Testament πνεῦμα would denote “wind,” and also because the wind has no will. As to the latter, the expression “wherever it will” predicates no intelligent will when it is used with reference to the wind but conveys only the idea that now it blows one way, now another without apparent control. But this interpretation cannot be carried through consistently. When it is read in this manner, the entire sentence remains confused.

Comparisons are intended to clarify. This comparison greatly clarifies when it is thought of as referring to the effect of the wind; it does the opposite when it is regarded as a reference to the Spirit. In v. 6 πνεῦμα is rightly taken once in one sense, once in another. The fact that in v. 8 Jesus uses πνεῦμα, “wind,” instead of the commoner word, is due to the entire connection in which this word has repeatedly been used. Finally οὕτως, “thus,” makes a comparison; and how the Spirit can be compared with a reborn man, or how the action of the Spirit can be so compared, has never been clearly shown.

John 3:9

9 Nicodemus answered and said to him, How can these things be? Nicodemus has progressed—a little. In v. 4 his “how” questions the possibility itself, especially for an old man like himself. In v. 9 his “how” admits the possibility but questions the manner. “These things” admits that they exist—so much Jesus has attained. And yet Nicodemus does not believe (v. 11 at the end). Why?

Because, after Jesus has so clearly pointed him away from the mystery of the manner, especially by the illustration of the “wind” and has told him that the essential point is the fact and reality of the Spirit birth, Nicodemus still harps on the manner with this second “how.” He is like a man who is told that he must eat yet holds back from eating because he cannot see “how” the food will be digested and assimilated. The fact that the Spirit works the rebirth somehow, and that it is enough for the Spirit to know just how, is not enough for Nicodemus—he, too, must know and thus does not come to faith. That explains the reply of Jesus which scores the man’s unbelief.

John 3:10

10 Jesus answered and said to him, Art thou the teacher of Israel and understandest not these things? Amen, amen, I say to thee, We are uttering what we know and are testifying what we have seen; and you receive not our testimony. The two double verbs “answered and said” in v. 9 and 10 (see 1:48) indicate that both statements thus introduced are weighty—a kind of climax is reached. In v. 4 we have only “says.” The question of Jesus is one of surprise. The article with “teacher” cannot mean that Nicodemus was the teacher, was superior to all others, which would have given an undue sting to the question; but the well-known and acknowledged teacher who even has a place in the Sanhedrin. Of a lesser man less might be expected; of a man who knows his Old Testament as such a teacher does certainly so much at least could be expected.

Jesus says: the teacher “of Israel,” using the honor name to designate the nation: the people of God to whom God had given his Word of revelation and his Spirit in and with that Word. Could “these things” still be hidden from Nicodemus, that the fact and reality of the Spirit’s work in its results is the essential and not the manner in which he brings the results about? The verb γινώσκεις means more than intellectual comprehension, which, even if it were possible in a man like Nicodemus, would be valueless; it means inner apprehension, a knowing which embraces and appropriates in the heart. Knowing what Nicodemus did from his study of the Old Testament, plus what he knew of the teaching of the Baptist, plus what Jesus had just so emphatically and so clearly set before him, Nicodemus still did not understand in his heart. He still laid the stress on the how instead of on the fact; he still let the mystery of the how block his joyful appropriation of the undeniable reality of the new birth. This question of surprise on the part of Jesus is to shake Nicodemus from his foolish how.

John 3:11

11 The surprise is followed by solemn assurance which directly names unbelief as the cause of Nicodemus’ ignorance (7:17). Jesus uses the same formula as he did in v. 3. The plural “we” refers to Jesus and the Baptist. By thus combining himself with the Baptist Jesus acknowledges and honors him. Jesus never uses the majestic plural, and in v. 12, where he refers to himself alone, he uses the singular. The disciples had not yet testified publicly, and the prophets are too far removed from the context. The Baptist was still in full activity, and Nicodemus knew a great deal concerning him; so he at once understood this “we.” The two great witnesses to Israel at this moment were Jesus and the Baptist.

The two statements, “we are uttering what we know,” and, “we are testifying what we have seen,” are the same in substance. The doubling is for the sake of emphasis. Yet to tell what one knows is augmented by the statement regarding testifying what one has seen. Each pair of verbs also corresponds, and those in one pair also correspond to those in the other pair. One naturally tells what he knows; but in order to testify he must have seen. To know is broader than to have seen and thus also more indefinite; hence the more specific having seen is added, concerning which one cannot only tell but actually testify.

The tenses harmonize with this, “we know,” second perfect always used as a present; “we have seen,” regular perfect; “seen once and still have before our eyes.” To tell is less than to testify. In both statements the singular ὅ should be noted, for it points not to a number of things told and testified but to the one thing noted in the context, the fact and reality of the new birth. The Baptist knew and had seen this even as he told and testified of it in preaching and in Baptism; Jesus likewise, even now telling and testifying to Nicodemus. Both knew and even had seen the Spirit who works the new birth. Both, too, were sent to tell and even to testify which includes, of course, that God who sent them intends that they who hear shall believe and thus receive the saving grace which is the content of this testimony.

But what is the result? It is added with καί although its substance is adverse, “and you receive not our testimony.” The inflectional plural is unemphatic yet it includes all those who remain unbelieving. This plural is a gentle touch for Nicodemus, allowing him to include himself in this class if he is determined to do so. It almost sounds as though Jesus pleads that he shall not do this. Here, then, is where the trouble lies: clear, strong, divinely accredited testimony, and yet for one reason or another men decline to receive and to believe it although believing it would work in them the wondrous new birth. The full seriousness of unbelief in the face of such testimony Jesus brings out in v. 19.

John 3:12

12 It should have been easy for Nicodemus and the others to believe this testimony regarding the new birth wrought by the Spirit, for this belongs to the lesser parts of divine revelation, to the abc of the gospel. The greater is the guilt for not believing. Far greater and higher things are included in the gospel and must also be told and testified. If the lesser are met with unbelief, what will happen in the case of the greater? If I told you earthly things, and you do not believe, how, if I shall tell you heavenly things, shall you believe? Here Jesus confronts the “how” of Nicodemus with a “how” of his own.

For that of Nicodemus the answer is always ready, for that of Jesus none exists. Now Jesus omits reference to the Baptist and speaks of himself alone, hence we have the singular in the verb forms. This does not imply that we need to press the point so as to shut out the Baptist from knowing any of the heavenly things or anything at all about them. He had the measure of revelation which he needed regarding these things. Yet he could not testify of them as one who had directly seen them (v. 13 and 1:18).

We now have the plurals τὰἐπίγεια and τὰἐπουράνια, which, of course, are not general: any and all earthly and any and all heavenly things; but specific, those pertaining to the kingdom. Nor are the earthly and the heavenly opposites but are most intimately related, are actual correlatives. The kingdom has an earthly and a heavenly side; the earthly side has an exalted heavenly background. To the earthly belong contrition and faith (μετάνοια, “repentance”), Baptism and regeneration, and many things of like nature. If these are to be fully and properly understood and received, the heavenly must be added, those things which occurred in heaven in order to establish the kingdom on earth: the counsel of God’s love for our salvation (v. 16), the sending of the Son and of the Spirit; and all this not merely for the consummation of the kingdom but equally for its establishment, progress, and continuance to the end.

The first is a condition of reality, “if I told you …, and you do not believe.” It expresses what is a fact. The second is a condition of expectancy, “if I shall tell you …, how shall you believe?” Jesus expects and reckons with this future unbelief. Yet it would be a mistake to think that Jesus admits some justification for unbelief in the heavenly things; or, to put it in another way, that he would more readily excuse this unbelief. The “how” of Jesus is not measuring degrees of guilt, is not justifying or excusing unbelief, but is reckoning with the likelihood of faith with this or that content of the gospel from men who, like Nicodemus, meet already the earthly things of the gospel with their “how” of unbelief.

John 3:13

13 Now as regards both the verity of these heavenly things and any genuine testimony concerning them a word is in place, which Jesus simply adds with “and” (not, “and yet,” R. 1183). And no one has ascended into heaven except he that descended out of heaven, the Son of man, he who is in heaven. If any ordinary man were to become a direct witness of heavenly things, this would necessitate that he first ascend to heaven and then come down again and thus testify what he had seen and heard while he was in heaven. But “no one has ascended into heaven.” The perfect tense ἀναβέβηκεν includes the past act of ascending together with its resultant effect; the one past act of ascending would apply to that person indefinitely, i.e., he could always speak as one who actually has been in heaven. The universal denial in οὑδείς, “no man,” has one grand and notable exception. We are not left without direct testimony regarding heavenly things; we are not dependent only on men like the prophets and such revelations as they may receive from heaven.

This exception is Jesus; εἰμή, as so often, introduces an exception, “except he that descended out of heaven.” Any other person would first have to ascend to heaven, not so this person—he was in heaven to begin with. Hence all he needed to do was to come down from heaven. And this he did as ὁἐκτοῦοὑρανοῦκαταβάς asserts with its historical aorist participle, “he that did descend” when he became incarnate, which also explains the apposition that names this exceptional and wonderful person, “the Son of man,” man, indeed, and yet far more than man; see the exposition regarding this title in 1:51.

A second apposition is added, “he who is in heaven.” For it would be a misconception to think of this person as a mere man who in some unaccountable way had originated in heaven instead of on earth like all other men and then had merely changed his abode from heaven to earth by coming down to us, thus being able to tell us about the things in heaven. Not so is ὁκαταβάς to be understood. This person is God, the Son, himself, whose coming down in the incarnation is not a mere change of residence. Though he came down and now speaks to Nicodemus as the Son of man, he remains ὁὢνἐντῷοὑρανῷ, “he who is in heaven.” He cannot change his divine nature, cannot lay it aside, cannot cancel even temporarily his divine Sonship, his unity of essence with the Father and the Spirit. This is unthinkable although men have tried to think it. To think such a thing is to make also “the Son of man” an illusion, to say nothing of undoing in thought the very Godhead itself and the Trinity of immutable Persons.

This person Who is first ὁκαταβάς and secondly ὁυἱὸςτοῦἀνθρώπου is thirdly ὁὢνἐντῷοὑρανῷ. The participle ὤν is substantivized exactly like καταβάς, the article in each case converting the participle into a noun. The first, an aorist, names the person according to one past act, “he that came down”; the second a durative, timeless present, like ὤν in 1:18, names the person according to his enduring condition or being, “he that is, ever and ever is in heaven.” And this designation ὁὤν dare not be altered into something else such as mere communion with heaven and thus with God. It denotes being. We may have communion with God, and yet who would dare to express that by saying that we ὄντες, “are,” in heaven.

Verse 13, therefore, says nothing about an ascension of Jesus into heaven, which will occur in the future after his resurrection, or has occurred in the past, least of all is it to be understood in the Socinian sense of a raptus in coelum. These words are not figurative, meaning only that Jesus has immediate heavenly knowledge or superior, direct communion with heaven through his mind or soul. All such interpretations, which offer a quid pro quo, fail to grasp and to accept the real sense and offer another in its stead.

The addition of ὁὤν, etc., has caused a good deal of perplexity. Hence the attempts simply to cancel this addition and thus to get rid of the perplexity at one stroke. But the textual evidence is so strong that today cancellation would be arbitrary. The substitution of ἐκ for ἐν, “he who is out of heaven,” changes the sense. Next comes the translation, qui in coelo erat, in old Latin versions and in recent expositions. This is based on the grammatical fact that the present participle ὤν serves for both the present and the imperfect tense, the more since εῖ̓ναι really has no aorist.

While the grammatical point is correct, ὤν means “was” only when it modifies an imperfect tense of the verb and from that verb, like other present participles (all of which serve also for the imperfect tense) derives the sense of the imperfect. In the statement of Jesus no imperfect tense of a verb appears to which ὤν could be attached.

Some interpreters regard ὁὢνἐντῷοὑρανῷ as the equivalent of a relative clause, which is then sometimes attached to ὁκαταβάς as a mere modifier, more frequently to ὁυἱὸςτοῦἀνθρώπου. The article in ὁὤν is thus explained as indicating that the participle is attributive. The fact that Jesus “was” in heaven lies fully and clearly already in the previous participle, “he who came down out of heaven”; for no one can come out of a place unless prior to the coming he was in that place. Others see that the participle must be present, even though it be a timeless present; yet they cling to the idea of a relative clause, a mere modifier. This brings them to the thought that the modifier describes only a quality of the Son of man: having come down from heaven, he has a heavenly nature and character, he is and remains (ὤν) an ἐπουράνιος. This appears to be an escape from the imperfect tense, “who was in heaven,” but it only appears so. For the Son of man so described can have this character only because prior to his incarnation he was in heaven; that he is there now, even while speaking to Nicodemus, is the one thing that, so many think, must be eliminated.

And this brings us to the dogmatical bias back of this interpretation of ὁὤν. What is so evident, namely that Jesus here uses three coordinate titles for himself: he that came down—the Son of man—he that is in heaven, is not seen. In other words, that “the Son of man” is an apposition, and that “he that is in heaven” is likewise an apposition. Again in still other words: he that came down is now here as the incarnate Son of man, and yet, having come down, does not mean leaving heaven—he is both here and is still in heaven. Impossible! is the reply. Why?

This would destroy the unity of Christ’s person and the unity of his self-consciousness! In simple language this dogmatical objection declares: We do not see and understand how one can be in heaven and on earth at the same time, hence such a thing cannot be—Jesus must mean something else; and then the search begins for what he must mean. Thus the story of Nicodemus is here repeated when in v. 9 he asked, “How can these thinks be?” and was told that his question meant nothing but plain, persistent unbelief. Jesus is in heaven though as the Son of man he walks on earth—that fact stands whether it staggers our reason and powers of comprehension or not. Preconceived dogmatical considerations have always been the bane of exegesis. They have vitiated the plainest grammatical and linguistic facts.

The plea about the unity of person and consciousness transfers what would be true of an ordinary human being with only one nature to Christ, the unique divine Being who after his incarnation has two natures. The further plea that from John’s prolog onward Christ’s being on earth or in the world and his being with God (1:1, 2, and 1:10) form an exclusive contrast, reveals how far back this dogmatical preconception reaches and how it misunderstands the prolog. It will do the same with other statements in our Gospel, such as 10:30; 17:11 and 22. When the Spirit in the form of a dove came down out of heaven upon Jesus, he did not thereby remove his person and presence from heaven, nor did he do this when he was poured out upon the disciples on Pentecost. The same is true of Jehovah when he appeared to Abraham, to Moses in the fiery bush, and when he descended on Sinai, to mention only these.

The interpretation that “who is in heaven” is an insertion by the evangelist and means that now, as he writes, Jesus is again in heaven, destroys the entire historical character of John’s Gospel.

Did Nicodemus understand what Jesus here tells him? The same question arises as the discourse moves on. The answer lies in v. 10. He understood and did not understand. But the end toward which Jesus is working with Nicodemus is furthered by the strong impression the words create as Nicodemus now hears and later on as he ponders these words. Jesus counts not on the passing moment alone but on the future when the little that Nicodemus now grasps will grow into fuller insight until faith arrives, and increasing faith learns to see more clearly still.

John 3:14

14 From the great person who came from heaven and can testify to the heavenly things Jesus advances to the great salvation coming through this person. For he shall be far more than a witness, he is the Savior himself. Thus Jesus seeks to kindle faith in Nicodemus, faith in the divine salvation offered him. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, thus lifted up must be the Son of man, in order that everyone believing may in him have life eternal. When describing this salvation in and through the Son of man Jesus employs one of its Old Testament types, Num. 21:8, 9, placing beside it the great antitype, thus aiding Nicodemus both in understanding and in believing what is now told him. To chastise the people who murmured against God he sent fiery serpents among them, from the bite of which many died.

When the people came to their senses and repented, God directed that a brazen serpent be put up on a pole and promised that all who would look upon it when bitten would be cured. The Book of Wisdom 16:6 calls this serpent σύμβολονσωτηρίας, and in church decotions it is constantly used to picture Jesus. Ideas such as that like cures like, or that the serpent was a symbol of blessing for the ancients (a notion that is wholly pagan), darken the miracle instead of casting light upon it. Jesus makes the reference to the type brief, not adding the statement that by merely looking every bitten person should live. Yet v. 15 implies that he includes this in his reference. Jesus here places the stamp of verity on the act of Moses and on the record that recounts that act.

The miracle of the healing by a mere look on a brass serpent is so real for Jesus that it typifies a still greater reality.

The point of comparison lies in the verbs ὕψωσεν and ὑψωθῆναι, wherefore also the latter is placed before δεῖ, “lifted up must be,” and not, “must be lifted up.” But these two upliftings are here not compared abstractly, merely as such, but in their saving significance. This is not a second point in the comparison but the heart of the one point on which type and antitype turn. Debate arises regarding what Christ’s being lifted up includes: the crucifixion? the ascension to heaven? or both? If both are included, the passive infinitive would have to refer to two diverse agents: the wicked men who crucified Jesus and God who lifted him to heaven, Acts 4:10. The parallel with the act of Moses holds us to the one act of raising Jesus up on the cross. In 12:32, 33 Jesus himself confines his being lifted up to “the manner of death he should die”; compare 8:28.

Both acts, too, lift up physically, one on a pole, the other on the wooden cross. The mystery of the sacrificial nature of Jesus’ elevation on the cross is not yet revealed to Nicodemus and to the disciples who stood by listening. In 12:33 John appends the remark that the crucifixion is referred to, much as he does in 2:22. After the lifting up had actually occurred, many of the words Jesus had spoken became fully clear to the disciples. Then, too, Nicodemus fully understood.

The tendency to elaborate the type in allegorical details should be resisted. Thus the brazen serpent itself is made to picture Jesus, the former being without poison, the latter without sin. Luther: Doch ohne Gift und aller Dinge unschaedlich. Also the dead serpent and the dead Jesus are compared, although the serpent never was alive, and Jesus was when he was uplifted. Again, the serpent signifies “the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan,” Rev. 20:2, dead and helpless like Satan whom Jesus conquered on the cross. Suffice it to say that the brazen serpent is thus allegorized nowhere in the Scriptures.

We must leave both type and antitype without allegorical embellishments of our own. The type, the brazen serpent on a pole, was held up to the eyes of the Israelites as the symbol of their own serpent plague, which had come on them through God’s just wrath. It was thus held up so that by obediently looking up to it they might acknowledge their sin and God’s just wrath in true repentance. Wise fellows among the Israelites may have argued, “How can looking at a brass serpent stuck up on a pole cure poisonous snakebites?” Reason, science, philosophy, ordinary human experience, all support this impenitent how; compare that of Nicodemus in v. 9. The antitype, Jesus hung on the cross, not in a symbol but as the Son of man and Lamb of God himself, holds up to the eyes of the whole world of sin the wrath of God for its sin in him who bleeds to death in order to atone for all this sin. And again, the antitype is held up thus for all men to look upon, that seeing what their sin did to Jesus, they may bow in repentance and faith and thus escape.

No allegorical elaborations are needed where the facts themselves are so full of weight. All types of necessity are expressed by δεῖ with the infinitive, our English “must,” or “it is necessary.” The “must” here meant is that of v. 16, the compulsion of God’s purpose of love.

John 3:15

15 This being lifted up and its divine purpose constitute a unit; neither could be possible without the other. When considering both type and antitype this must be retained, “lifted up, in order that.” The universality that lies already in the title “the Son of man” (see 1:51) comes out with wonderful clearness in πᾶςὁπιστεύων, “everyone.” This “whosoever” of our versions is like a check or a deed, signed by God himself, with the place for the beneficiary’s name left blank, thus inviting each one of us (here Nicodemus) by the act of faith to write in his own name. Note the singular: faith, life, salvation are personal. “To believe” (see 1:12) is to have the true confidence of the heart, kindled by the Word, even as this was seeking with its power of grace to win the heart of Nicodemus. The present tense ὁπιστεύων describes the person by its durative action.

The reading ἐναὑτῷ is textually assured. But since John always uses εἰςαὑτόν when he employs a phrase with πιστεύω, we should here not construe, “believing in him,” but leave the participle absolute, “every believer.” In the New Testament πιστεύωἐν is infrequently used. On the other hand, ἔχεινἐν appears in 5:39; 16:33; 20:31. So we read, “may have in him life eternal,” i.e., in union or in connection with him. The objection is ill-advised that the Israelites did not have healing “in” the brazen serpent but in the kind will of God; for they, too, had it only in connection with that serpent—whoever failed to look at it died. The verb ἔχῃ matches the durative πιστεύων. The believer has life the moment he believes and as long as he believes; he is not compelled to wait until he enters heaven.

On ζωή compare 1:4. John has “life eternal” seventeen times. This is the life-principle itself which makes us alive spiritually. Its beginning is the new birth or regeneration of which Jesus spoke to Nicodemus. Nothing dead can give itself life, least of all that life which has its source in the Son of God himself. He bestows it, he alone, but he does this by kindling faith in us.

Thus faith has life, and life is found where faith is. The faith that clasps the Christ uplifted on the cross makes us alive in and through him. A thousand evidences show the change from death to life, namely every motion of that life Godward, Christward, against sin, flesh, world. And this life is “eternal,” it goes on endlessly unaffected by temporal death, except that then this life is transferred into the heavenly world. While its nature is “eternal” and deathless, it may be lost during our stay in this sinful world, but only by a wilful and wicked cutting of the bond “in him,” a deliberate renunciation and destruction of faith.

John 3:16

16 Why a new paragraph should begin at this verse is hard to see since the connection with γάρ both here and in v. 17 is close. The fact that the dialog stops, also all forms of personal address such as “thou” to Nicodemus, is naturally due to the simple didactic nature of what Jesus says and begins already at v. 13, where, if for such a reason a paragraph is to be made, it might be made. The idea that a new paragraph starts with v. 16 because Jesus’ words stop here and John’s own reflections are now added, is contradicted by the two γάρ, by the close connection of the thought, which runs through to v. 21, and by the absence of even a remote analogy for a conversation or a discourse that goes over, without a word to indicate this, into the writer’s own reflection.

Jesus tells Nicodemus that the Son of man must be lifted up for the purpose indicated. This δεῖ is elucidated in v. 16, hence γάρ which so often offers no proof but only further explanation. For thus did God love the world, that he gave his Son the Only-begotten, in order that everyone believing in him should not perish but have life eternal. The “must,” the compulsion, lies in the wonder of God’s love and purpose. By telling Nicodemus this in such lucid, simple language Jesus sums up the entire gospel in one lovely sentence, so rich in content that, if a man had only these words and nothing of the rest of the Bible, he could by truly apprehending them be saved. They flow like milk and honey says Luther, “words which are able to make the sad happy, the dead alive, if only the heart believes them firmly.” What a revelation for this old Pharisee Nicodemus who all his lifelong had relied on his own works! And this testimony concerning what was in the heart of God comes from him who came down from heaven, came down so that he still is in heaven, from the Son of man and Son of God himself, the only ἐπουράνιος, who alone can declare the ἐπουράνια at firsthand, 1:18 and 3:12, who thus in the very highest degree deserves faith.

The word οὕτως, “thus,” denotes manner and degree, “in this way” and “to such an astounding degree” did God love the world. No human mind would have thought it, could have conceived it—God had to reveal it, the Son had to attest it. The verb ἠγάπησεν is placed ahead of the subject and is thus made emphatic, not: God loved the world; but: God loved the world. The verb ἀγαπάω denotes the highest type and form of loving, as distinct from φιλέω, the love of mere affection, friendship, and ordinary human relation; compare the distinction made between the verbs in 21:15, etc. In ἀγάπη lies full understanding and true comprehension, coupled with a corresponding blessed purpose. How could God like the sinful, foul, stinking world?

How could he embrace and kiss it? He would have to turn from it in revulsion. But he could and he did love it, comprehending all its sin and foulness, purposing to cleanse it and, thus cleansed, to take it to his bosom. We see this force of ἀγαπάω whenever it is used, for instance in the command to love our enemies. We cannot embrace and kiss an enemy, for he would smite, revile, thrust us away, as the Sanhedrists did with Jesus at last; but we can see the baseness and wickedness of his action and by the grace of God we can do all that is possible to overcome this enmity. We may fail in this purpose, as Jesus did in the case of the Sanhedrists, but to have it and to adhere to it constitutes “love” in the sense of ἀγάπη.

The attempt is made to deny this distinction between ἀγάπη and φιλία on the ground that Jesus spoke Aramaic which has only one word for all types of love. The answer is that we have only a limited knowledge of Aramaic, and even if we knew all its forms of speech and found there only the one word, there would certainly be other ways of bringing out a difference in the character of love. But in the inspired Greek which God gave us this distinction is so marked that in scores of cases the two words ἀγαπᾶν and φιλεῖν could not be exchanged; especially would it be impossible here to substitute the lower form of love and say, “Thus did God like the world.” Jesus uses the aorist tense because the manifestation of his love toward the world was an accomplished fact. We may call this aorist constative; it reaches back into eternity and culminates in Bethlehem. “God,” here the Father, as the mention of the Son shows, like proper nouns in the Greek may or may not have the article—here it has the article but not in v. 21. There is no real difference but only a slight grammatical variation in certain connections. In this discourse of Jesus with Nicodemus the entire Trinity is mentioned as a subject that is well known (the Spirit from v. 5 onward, Father and Son now). On what this means for the Old Testament and for the Jews at this time see 1:32.

The universality already expressed in the title “the Son of man” (1:51; 3:14) and in “everyone who believes” (v. 15), is brought out with the most vivid clearness in the statement that God loved “the world,” τὸνκόσμον, the world of men, all men, not one excepted. To insert a limitation, either here or in similar passages, is to misinterpret. We know of nothing more terrible than to shut out poor dying sinners from God’s love and redemption. But this is done by inserting a limiting word where Jesus and the Scriptures have no such word. Thus “world” is made to mean only omnes ex toto mundo electos; and “all men” in 1 Tim. 2:4, omnis generis homines; and again, Nullum mundi vel populum, vel ordinem a salute excludi, quia omnibus sine exceptione (i.e., to all nations and orders and in this sense only “to all without exception”) Evangelium proponi Deus velit. Thus “the world,” “all men,” is reduced to signify only that no nation, no class, as a nation or as a class, is excluded; God offers his love and the Savior only to all kinds of men—not actually to all men as such.

The reason for this misinterpretation of the universal promises of God is that the divine voluntas beneplaciti is placed above the divine voluntas signi or revelata, and the latter is interpreted by the former. In other words, the real will of God is said to appear in his acts, in what we see him do, not in what he plainly says in his Word. So we see him damning some men. Hence we are told to conclude that he never loved these men, never gave his Son for them, never intended to save them. Hence we are told to limit all such expressions as “the world” and “all men” in the written will (voluntas signi sive revelata). But this view disregards the fact that we are able to see God’s will only partly, dimly, imperfectly in his acts; we often only think we see it, for as we look at his acts, they are often full of mystery.

But the will as revealed in the Word is always clear. Hence we dare never to interpret what God clearly says in his own Word by our conception of what he does. We must do the exactly opposite: interpret what we see him do or think we see in the light of the Word; and when the two do not seem to us to square, we must abide by the Word, never change it in one iota, and leave what is dark in the acts of God to the light of the future world. Always, always and only, Scriptura ex Scriptura explicanda est and not by anything extra Scripturam.

Even after carefully defining “love” no human intelligence can fathom how God could thus love the world. The revelation of this love distinguishes the Christian religion so radically from all others, that no bridge can possibly connect the two. The former is divine, the latter only human. And this love of God is the pinnacle of his glory, the crown of all his attributes. It makes God supremely attractive to every sinner needing this love, a most efficacious call to trust this love and thus to have all it gives.

“So … that” indicates correspondence: the love and the gift tally. And ὥστε with the indicative expresses the attained, actual result (R. 1000); with the infinitive it would be only the intended result, one toward which this love would tend. The gift was actually made; the aorist marks the past fact. God’s own Son sat before Nicodemus at that very moment. Jesus does not again use “the Son of man” as in v. 13, 14. There it fits as describing what he who came out of heaven became here on earth.

Here the divine act of love takes us into heaven and shows us the gift of that love as it was when the act of giving occurred. That gift was “his Son the Only-begotten.” On the repetition of the article in the Greek see R. 762, 770. This repetition lays equal weight on both terms; it bids us consider “his Son,” secondly, in the same way “the Only-begotten.” The addition of the second lifts this “Son” above all others who in any sense may also be called “sons.” On the meaning of the title “the Only-begotten” see 1:14 and 18.

Strange reasoning argues that because John uses this title in the prolog, therefore this section, v. 16–21, is John’s composition not Jesus’ discourse. This assumes that John himself coined the title “the Only-begotten.” Even when this section is regarded as Jesus’ discourse, its wording is often supposed to be so peculiarly John’s language that he inserted, here and in v. 18, the designation “the Only-begotten,” which Jesus himself never uttered. This strange reasoning must be reversed. This title is so strange, striking, unique, exalted, that it is easier to believe that Jesus coined it, and that John adopted it from Jesus, than to think that John himself coined it. This title is so distinctive and striking in every way that we must say: if Jesus did not use it in this discourse, if it originated in John’s mind during John’s later years, then the fact that John inserted it here as though Jesus used it is unbelievable. Whatever wording of John’s own is found in this discourse must be minor and must leave intact the distinctive terms and expressions that Jesus actually used, quite a number of which may be noted: loved—world—believe—perish—life eternal, etc.

Among the grandest, the most unusual is “the Only-begotten.” If Jesus here used it, John had to preserve it, and he did; if Jesus never used it either here or elsewhere, John would not dare to insert it here, and that twice. All is normal if John here heard Jesus say, “the Only-begotten” and thus placed this title in his prolog; all is abnormal if Jesus never used the expression and John yet writes as he does.

What is said when expounding 1:14 and 18 in regard to the meaning of the title and the fact that it cannot refer to the exceptional human birth of Jesus but must express the eternal relation of the Son to the Father, the generatio aeterna, is made inevitable by the way in which Jesus himself here uses this title. God’s gift of love must here name this gift as it existed in heaven before the time of the giving and at that time. There with the Father in heaven was “his Son the Only-begotten” who was such from all eternity, and as such God gave him to the world. So great, so tremendous was the gift, and so astounding the love that made this gift. Luther’s word must stand, “true God, begotten of the Father from eternity,” expressing, as it does, the conviction of the church of all past ages.

The aorist ἔδωκεν, “did give,” denotes the one historical past act. Jesus speaks objectively throughout, using the third person when speaking of himself and general expressions like “world,” “he that believes,” etc., when speaking of other persons, and thus he here uses the aorist. This verb “gave” really refers to an act that took place in the other world, where any consideration of time would be inadequate, meaning only that we are in a poor human way speaking of things beyond us. Keeping this in mind, we may say that “gave” neither refers to the death on the cross nor to the incarnation alone but to these and to all else by which God bestowed his Savior as a gift. No indirect object follows “gave”—significant omission, for Jesus could hardly say that God gave his Son “to the world,” because the world as such did not on its part receive the Son (1:10). Nevertheless, all is clear when we hear what purpose God had by giving his gift, “in order that everyone believing in him should not perish but have life eternal.” This repeats the purpose clause of v. 15, which see for the explanation.

The repetition links the verses so closely that no new paragraph is in place at v. 16. The gift is a unit act, but the purpose attached to it holds until the end of time. The repetition stresses this purpose clause, even as repetition constantly marks emphasis. Jesus virtually says: Note well once more this fiducia of believing, this personal singular, this universality, this possession, this wondrous life.

But as is the case in many such emphatic repetitions, the emphasis is enhanced by an addition. The object of faith is indicated by John’s usual εἰςαὑτόν, “in him,” where, however, εἰς is not to be stressed as including motion. In the Koine especially this would be a linguistic anachronism, for εἰς here follows verbs of rest and even verbs of being as an ordinary idiom; cf. R. 591, etc., on its static use. John does not need to repeat that the believer “should have ἐναὑτῷ, in him, life eternal,” for this is clearly implied in the other phrase. In εἰςαὑτόν, “him” includes all that has been said of the Son in v. 15, 16.

This wonderful Person is the object of faith. The real amplification lies in the addition of the negative, “should not perish” to enhance the positive, “but have life eternal,” using the strong adversative ἀλλά. “To perish” denotes total and eternal rejection by God, and it is so used especially in the middle voice by John and by Paul, C.-K. 788. The word never means to suffer annihilation. Here the aorist subjunctive μὴἀπόληται is in place to indicate the one final act of perishing in contrast with the present subjunctive ἔχῃ to indicate the present and enduring having of life eternal. Not to perish is to have; not to have is to perish. To perish is defined in what follows as the opposite of being saved (v. 17), as being judged (v. 18), and as being reproved or convicted (v. 20).

In this negative “should not perish” Jesus touches the first great warning for Nicodemus: God does not want him to perish—does he himself mean to perish, nevertheless? He surely will if he becomes obdurate in unbelief.

John 3:17

17 With γάρ this verse links into v. 16. The giving of the Son is wholly an act of love not of justice and judgment, wholly in order that men should escape judgment and be saved. For God sent not the Son into the world in order to judge the world but in order that the world should be saved through him. The explanation introduced by γάρ extends to details. Thus the giving of the Son is now expressed by the aorist: God “did send”; he gave by sending. The gift is the mission.

As being thus sent Jesus was before Nicodemus at that very moment. The briefer designation “the Son” means the same as the fuller “his Son, the Only-begotten.” With the new verb the addition “into the world” makes the action of God clearer, whereas with the verb “gave” such a modifier could not be added. The way in which God “gave” his Son was by “sending him into the world.”

We may say that in order to judge the world God would not have needed to send (certainly not to give) his Son. He could have sent another flood, or fire, or some other cataclysm. The verb “to judge” is a vox media, it means simply to pass a decision. But since the world was lost in sin and unbelief, this could be only a condemnatory decision. Hence the interpretative translation of the A. V., “to condemn the world,” is not really incorrect although Jesus used only the simple verb “to judge.” Its aorist tense implies a final act of judging.

But God’s purpose was not the judgment of the world, worthy of condemnation though it was, but the salvation of the world; hence he sent a Savior into the world. “Not … but,” or “on the contrary,” forms the strongest kind of an antithesis. The same is true regarding the two ἵνα and the verbs, “in order to judge,” and, “in order to save,” which are made stronger by placing the verbs forward. The effect of the whole is heightened by thrice repeating “the world.”

The passive “should be saved” involves God as the agent; but “through him” shows that God will use a Mediator, namely his own Son, διά here and so often being used regarding mediation, the use of a personal or other medium. The verb itself, like the equivalent adjective and the nouns, carries with it the imagery of rescue from the terrible danger referred to in the previous term “perish.” In fact, the passive “to be saved” is the opposite of “to perish.” But the verb always has the strong connotation: to keep sound, uninjured; to preserve sound and safe. Thus “to be saved” = “to have life eternal,” to enjoy eternal safety. The aorist matches that of “to judge.” God’s purpose was actual, complete salvation for the world. By combining the negative and the positive Jesus throws into bold relief the great purpose of God’s love and at the same time intensifies the call to faith for Nicodemus.

John 3:18

18 With God’s purpose of love thus clearly stated, the manner of its realization is again emphasized. But this is altogether personal, for each one as an individual, hence the singular is used in this sentence. While Jesus still speaks objectively, in the third person, he yet aims directly at Nicodemus who would involuntarily turn this third person into the second and regard it as being addressed to him personally. He that believes on him is not judged; he that believes not on him has already been judged, because he has not believed in the name of the Only-begotten Son of God. Though no connective is used, none being needed, what the previous verse states in general in regard to being judged and in regard to being saved is here made personal, and the decisive factor in this is faith. Hence these striking opposites, “he that believes on him”—“he that believes not on him” (μή being the regular negative with a participle).

Both substantivized participles are durative as in v. 15 and 16; continuous believing marking the one man, continuous non-believing the other. The whole world is divided into these two.

Jesus might have used the positive verb “to be saved” in connection with v. 17 and might have said: The believer “is saved,” the non-believer “is not saved.” Instead he takes up the negative verb from v. 17 and says: The believer “is not judged,” the non-believer “has already been judged.” This verb has the stronger tone of warning. Nicodemus must know that escape is accomplished by faith alone, escape now at this very moment, for the tense is present, “is not judged.” He must know that lack of faith is the destructive force, destructive from the very start, for the tense is the perfect, “has already been judged” and thus now stands as one already so judged. In a way this explains why God did not need to send his Son to judge the world. By sending his Son to save the world the judgment takes care of itself. The believers need no judgment. Being saved, they belong to God as his own.

He will institute no trial for them as if he had to decide their case pro or con either now or at any time including the last day. This also is true with regard to the non-believers. Their refusal to believe already judges them; they already have their verdict which, as the perfect κέκριται shows, stands indefinitely.

That is why Jesus uses the indeterminate verb κρίνεσθαι, “to be judged,” instead of the verb κατακρίνεσθαι, “to be condemned,” which, by the way, is not found in John. Even such an act as judging is not at all needed. But will not a grand final judgment take place at the last day? Not in the strict sense of the word. Then all men will already have received their judgment even as Jesus tells Nicodemus at this moment. Immediately after they are raised from the dead they will be ranged either on the right or on the left of the Judge by the angels. That could not be done if they were not already judged. What follows is the public announcement of the verdict which was long before this determined by the Judge, and with the verdict the evidence on which it rests.

Since the believer is not judged, nothing more needs to be added concerning him. He is not judged—that is all. But since the non-believer has been judged, Jesus states the charge against him, using the actual form of a legal indictment. Unfortunately this is lost in our English translation because we have only one negative while the Greek has two, one objective, regarding the fact presented as such, one subjective, regarding the opinion of the speaker. Jesus uses the latter. If he had used οὑ, he would simply have stated the fact regarding the unbeliever: quod non credidit, nothing more.

By using μή he states the charge against the man as God would make it: quod non crediderit. So stated, it includes what God or Christ think and hold against the man. In fact, we may call it more than a charge, for this charge becomes the verdict of God on the man, R. 963. That, too, is why this is stated in such a full and formal way. We need to add only one implied word: Guilty “because he has not believed in the name of the Only-begotten Son of God!” The crime is thus solemnly named. The perfect μὴπεπίστευκεν matches the preceding perfect κέκριται, for they are concurrent as to time, setting in at the same instant and continuing on equally after that.

When stating the charge and the verdict, we again meet τὸὄνομα (compare 1:12): he has not believed “on the name” of the Only-begotten Son of God. In all such connections “the name” denotes the revelation of the Son that is made to a person. Jesus was now making this revelation to Nicodemus. “The name” is thus the Word (v. 11). It tells all about this wonderful Savior and his grace and his work for us. “The name” is thus used in these connections because it contains the trust-producing power. Here all the greatness of this name and revelation is brought out by the genitive: the name “of the Only-begotten Son of God.” Can there be a greater? Could God come to your soul with a more effective trust-producing power?

Hence the outrageousness of the crime named in this indictment. It is not hard to imagine the impact of these words of Jesus on the soul of Nicodemus. Those who regard these words as mere objective reflections of John himself miss the personal urge that throbs in them. We also need not wonder that we have no more dialog, for we can well imagine the significant silence of Nicodemus as he sat there with such words gripping his soul. That, too, is why John placed this discourse into his Gospel: Jesus is making a wonderful revelation of himself, his attestation to his divine nature and his work could hardly be stronger.

John 3:19

19 The connection is close. Speaking of coming not to judge the world (v. 17), then of one man not judged and of another already judged (v. 18), the question is vital: “Just what is meant by this judgment?” Jesus gives a direct answer. Now this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men did love the darkness rather than the light; for their works were wicked. This is the κρίσις or decision of which Jesus is speaking. If all men believed, no κρίσις like this would be necessary (v. 18a). Because men refuse to believe, this “judgment” sets in in the very nature of the case. But in defining this judgment as Jesus here does two revelations are made conjointly: the full inner justice of this judgment together with the inner moral wrong that makes this judgment just and thus inevitably brings it on the guilty man.

Since this description of the judgment is somewhat like a parenthetical statement, we have δέ, “now,” R. 1184. Also the ὅτι clause is in apposition with αὕτη, “This … that,” etc., R. 699; and is not causal as some have supposed, R. 964. “The light” with its significant article really means “the Spirit,” the Son himself (1:4, 5) who as “the Truth” (14:6) brings the complete revelation of God (1:18; 3:11) and makes it shine into men’s minds and hearts. In Jesus all the divine realities (this is the meaning of ἀλήθεια or “truth”) concerning God, his grace and his love, his power to redeem and to save, lie open and bare so that men must see their shining. This Light “has come,” and the perfect tense implies that it is now here and continues thus. In the person, signs (v. 3), and words of Jesus it was shining into Nicodemus’ heart at this very moment. Normally, one would expect that by being made to see these realities men would be led to act accordingly. But no; deliberately they do the very contrary.

“And men loved the darkness rather than the light.” This καί, like so many others in John, should not be taken to mean “and yet” as R. 426 would have it; it simply places side by side the unspeakably blessed fact of the coming of the Light into the world and the unspeakably tragical fact that men preferred the darkness to the Light. This coordination is finer than any disjunction would be. The verb ἠγάπησαν is placed first for emphasis. The aorist states the simple fact. Jesus could use this tense thus early in his work. We need not make it prophetic.

It matches the subject “men,” die Menschen (the generic article). Jesus speaks of his relation to men in a general way not merely specifically regarding what men had already clone. This ἠγάπησαν is the answer of men to the ἠγάπησεν of God (v. 16). Note the identity of the verb. “They loved” with the love of intelligence and of purpose. “They loved,” making a deliberate choice for a deliberate purpose. This purpose is stated in v. 20. Jesus says οἱἄνθρωποι although he does not refer to all men, for he has already spoken of those that believe, and his words cannot be misunderstood.

While it is true that with disjunctives (“rather … than”) the nouns naturally have the article, R. 789, here they are needed also for another purpose: “the Light” and “the darkness” are both decidedly definite. “The darkness” (compare the remarks on 1:5) is not the mere absence of light but is always conceived as a hostile power. It is the specific power of sin and death that actively wars against the Light. As the Light is the actual reality concerning God, his love, etc., so the darkness is the direct opposite, all the unreality that men imagine and invent in their folly regarding God, their souls, and eternity. Not a bit of it is true, yet they stake their very souls upon it and that in the face of all the light which displays the real facts to them. This choosing of the darkness instead of the light is the utterly unreasoning and unreasonable folly of men. Eventually, when they are asked why they chose thus, they will remain dumb. We must construe μᾶλλον … ἥ with the nouns not with the verb, R. 663, because the nouns are placed in contrast, “the darkness rather than the Light.” This, too, is a sad miosis, a soft way of saying that they hated the Light.

Jesus exposes the inner motive for this choice. This is not one which in any degree excuses the choice but one which more fully reveals its utter baseness, “for their works were wicked.” The order of the words in the Greek rests the emphasis on both “works” and “wicked.” “Their works” are not scattered, individual deeds but those that make up and display their real inner nature and will, the net sum of their lives. And πονηρά is always meant in the active sense: doing evil, putting it forth, set on wickedness. To get the force of the adjective we must not think merely of gross immoralities but especially of all forms of ungodliness, all self-righteousness, all religious perversions, carnal and material religious hopes, with every action and practice that displays these inclinations. The implication is not that men helplessly lie in the toils of wickedness but that, when the saving power of the Light comes to them and battles to free them, they fight the Light, hug their wicked works, and continue to make them the sum and substance of their lives.

Jesus here reveals the terrible moral inwardness of all unbelief, laying bare the cold facts. Unbelief never means that a man “cannot see the Light.” The Light cannot be charged with deficiency or weakness. God’s grace is always gratia sufficiens. The trouble is not intellectual but moral. Paul learned this from Jesus. When he describes the heathen ungodliness he, too, goes back to the ἀδικία, “unrighteousness,” the moral motive, Rom. 1:18. Every man who rejects the divine light of truth when it comes to him to draw him from evil unto God and instead determines to hold to the darkness of untruth and lies, does this at bottom for a moral reason, namely because he will not part from the evil that he loves and that thus marks his soul and his life.

John 3:20

20 In v. 19 γάρ establishes the reason why the evil choice is made. In v. 20 γάρ elucidates the reason stated in v. 19. This is quite necessary, for the case is not that when a man chooses the darkness in preference to the light he then leaves the light alone. The moral reason that prompts that choice, i.e., the evil work from which he will not separate himself, does not let him rest but makes him hate and war against the light. For everyone that practices things worthless hates the light and comes not to the light lest his works should be convicted. Here again, as in v. 18, Jesus individualizes and for the same reason.

This moral baseness and the hatred it produces is personal, and the ensuing guilt is personal. The singular thus grips Nicodemus personally, who surely must think of himself as he hears these words.

A radical and far-reaching difference separates the two interpretations of v. 20, 21: the one that Jesus here describes two men who have come into decisive contact with the light that Jesus brings, the one accepting, the other rejecting that light; and the other interpretation that Jesus here adduces only a general rule, namely that any man who does wrong likes to keep it dark while any man who does right is not afraid to come into the light. The words of Jesus can be made to express the latter very ordinary thought only by altering a number of the concepts which Jesus uses in their distinctive sense. Thus “the light” is not daylight or the public light but the light that is Jesus and in Jesus, the light that has come into the world. This is also true with regard to the other expressions. This view leads to the false notion that, to begin with, “the world” is composed of two classes of men: the one inwardly false and hypocritical who forever remain so and thus are not converted; and the other a better class, better from the very start, upright and honest, who before Jesus is brought to them already follow the light and the truth that are found in natural revelation and then embrace Jesus and become converted. Rom. 2 and all that the Scriptures teach concerning man’s sinful condition contradict this view. Jesus’ own words in these two verses shut it out most decidedly.

“Everyone that practices things worthless” refers to all those who have spurned the light and have definitely chosen the darkness instead. Verse 19 puts this beyond question. Jesus characterizes this kind of a man according to his works not according to his act of preferring the darkness to the light, because in v. 19 the inner motive of this preference has been revealed, the determined love of wicked works. The substantivized present participles ὁπράσσων and, in v. 21, ὁποιῶν are exactly like ὁπιστεύων in v. 15, 16, and 18. The continuous action indicated describes the man referred to in each case. The variation between ὁπράσσων in v. 20 and ὁποιῶν in v. 21 is slight, and yet the difference may be noted.

The one verb has the idea of aim: wer treibt, agit; the other has the idea of effecting: wer tut, facit. Hence also the addition in v. 21: that his works “are wrought” in God, εἰργασμένα. In v. 19 the evil works are called πονηρά, “wicked” (actively so), now Jesus uses φαῦλα, “worthless.” Trench, Synonyms, II, 169, etc.: “That which is morally evil may be contemplated on two sides, from two points of view; either on the side of its positive malignity, its will and power to work mischief, or else on its negative worthlessness, and, so to speak, its good-for-nothingness. Πονηρός contemplates evil from the former point of view, and φαῦλος from the latter.” Thus the one term amplifies the other. The latter brings out the utter folly of him who chooses the darkness, for the deeds for which he wants this darkness are absolutely worthless and net him nothing for his life.

But having made his choice for the reason indicated and now practicing such worthless things, he “hates the light and comes not to the light.” Jesus repeats “the light,” which thus plainly, even emphatically, takes up v. 19, reaches back to 1:4, 5, and forms one of the cardinal terms in John’s Gospel. This is the light of the divine truth which always displays everything as it really is. This light, once being definitely rejected for the darkness, this man is bound to “hate”; he cannot tolerate it, he “comes not to the light,” will not let its truthful, revealing rays fall upon him. The light is there, and he knows it is there; it is there for him, and its rays go out to reach him. Deliberately he avoids it. Coming to it would mean that he is attracted by it and by what it does; not coming means that he recoils from it, dreading what it does.

Instead of stating the cause or reason for this hate and avoidance Jesus indicates the purpose, which also is negative, ἵναμή, “lest” or “in order that … not.” Rejecting the light is negative; the following worthless works are negative; hating and avoiding the light is negative; trying to run away from conviction is negative. “Lest his works should be convicted”, ἐλεγχθῇ, not merely, “reproved,” our versions, and still less “discovered,” A. V. margin; but shown up as what they actually are, evil, worthless, fit only for “the darkness.” And “his works” are here again not merely certain individual deeds but the works that sum up and characterize the man as what he really is. Here we see the inner, hidden self-contradiction and self-condemnation of all such doers of evil who in unbelief act contrary to Christ and the gospel. They choose the worthless but they do not want its worthlessness revealed. They want to be undisturbed in thinking the worthless valuable. This they can do only in “the darkness” where they themselves and others cannot see.

Where religious error prevails, as in the delusion of Pharisaic work-righteousness, or in any other aberration, this self-deception literally becomes tragic. When speaking of the wicked and worthless works Jesus is certainly not excluding those that transgress the second table of the law, but just as certainly he has in mind especially those that transgress the first table. The supreme issue for him is and remains faith or unbelief and the works only as evidence and fruit either of the one or of the other. Moreover, the thought behind being convicted is not mere condemnation of the worthless works but a condemnation that produces contrition and repentance and thus turns the heart from these works unto faith and the works that flow from faith.

John 3:21

21 Strong in warning in the last statements, the discourse of Jesus ends with a note of blessedness and joy. Over against the negative Jesus sets the positive. The matter must be made complete. Besides, each casts light on the other. Many may reject the light, but by no means all do so. God’s Only-begotten cannot fail.

But he that does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be made manifest, that they have been wrought in God. No need to repeat πᾶς which is understood without the repetition. The surprising feature is that in describing this man Jesus does not say, “he that does things good,” but that he at once penetrates to the one and only source of all things really good in the sight of God: he that does “the truth.” To do the truth is a pregnant expression and means that one puts the truth which he has received in his heart into his life and actions, so that thus the truth stamps him as “one that is of the truth,” 19:37. Only a believer who has the truth in his heart can do the truth, i.e., live according to it in his life. In this doing the truth the first table of the law will have the first place, and the second will, of course, not come short.

“Truth” sounds very general, and many are thereby misled. On the lips of Jesus who called himself the Truth, being its very embodiment, the word here can mean only one thing: the saving truth of God’s grace in Christ Jesus as it shines forth in both. Testaments. Any wider sense, such as the truth in nature, is shut out by the entire context and by the statement that the works of the doer of the truth (note the article τήνἀλήθειαν) are such because they “are wrought in God,” i.e., in union and communion with God. In no other way than through faith in the Messiah can even a single work be wrought in God. Here, then, is a man to whom “the light” came as to the other mentioned in v. 20.

He, too, up to that time was doing things wicked and worthless like the other. But when the light began to shine into him and to draw him, he did not wrest himself willfully away and cover himself up completely in “the darkness.” The light did its work in him; it entered his will and began to control it—he began to do the truth. The result was “works wrought in God,” works of the gospel, works of faith. The first of these will always be contrition and repentance for all past evil works, confession of faith, and the continuance of these from day to day, to be followed by the entire range of good works. A perfect and complete doing of the truth will not at once be achieved; weaknesses, faults, sins enough will appear. But the doing has begun and by the help of the truth will go on.

What of this man? He “comes to the light.” Once the light came to him, now he is able to come to it. There is no need to specify that this man “loves” the light, whereas the other “hates” it. His coming to the light proves his love for the light. This man has no reason whatever to fear this divine light of truth when it shows up the inward realities of his heart and his life. The idea is not that this light will find nothing to convict in him.

It will show up sins, weakness of faith, and faults enough. But this man wants to be rid of these and gladly submits to the healing power of the light. Jesus passes this feature by, but we may well add it to his brief words. The purpose which Jesus names for this man’s coming to the light is, “that his works may be made manifest, that they have been wrought in God.” To translate ὅτι “because” gives a wrong turn to the thought. The verb “manifest,” applied to this man’s works, requires that what is made manifest be stated. This is “that (declarative ὅτι) they have been wrought in God,” ἐστινεἰργασμένα, the perfect tense saying that, once so wrought, they stand permanently as such.

This is what the light of grace already now does for all such works. It is a kind of judgment of grace. It helps, encourages, confirms, and strengthens us day by day as we fight the darkness that still assails us. What a glorious manifestation that will be when on the last day the unerring “light” seals this approval before the whole universe of angels and men!

Did Jesus say any more? We need not know. The attestation in the words which John reports is full and complete. What did Nicodemus say or think? John is not making this a story about this man but a report of the testimony of Jesus to himself. To say that John’s account is incomplete is to misunderstand what the account really is. We may well say, however, that Jesus’ words must have made an indelible impression upon the old Pharisee and must have shaken him profoundly. In due time he came to faith.

Jesus in Judea and the Last Testimony of the Baptist, 3:22–36.—The historical remarks which John inserts in v. 22–24 serve only to present the situation in which the dispute arose that furnished the occasion for the Baptist’s final testimony regarding Jesus. This testimony is John’s real subject; all else is incidental. After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the Judean country, and he was tarrying there with them and was baptizing. The plural pronoun in the phrase μετὰταῦτα includes all that Jesus had done in Jerusalem (2:12–3:21) although John has given only a slight hint in 2:23 as to what this included. Jesus now moves from the capital “into the Judean country.” No specific locality is named as this is done in v. 23 in the case of the Baptist, probably because, while the latter had a fixed place where he worked, Jesus moved about from one place to another. The verb in the singular followed by “Jesus” as the subject, adding the disciples with “and,” is like 2:2 and makes Jesus the important person.

Why Jesus made this move John in no way indicates. The guess that he was discouraged by what is called his failure in the capital, the addition that he tried less radical measures than the cleansing of the Temple and thus descended to the level of the Baptist’s work, is a good example of judging Jesus according to the standards of ordinary men. He had made no mistake in Jerusalem. There as well as here in the country district he did exactly what best furthered his great purpose. The imperfect tenses which state that in the country he “tarried” or spent some time in company with his disciples (μετʼ αὑτῶν) and “baptized” are the usual duratives to indicate continued action. The fact of his baptizing would indicate that the locality was the neighborhood of the Jordan.

On the subject of this baptism see the remarks on 1:26. Jesus did not baptize in person but did it through his disciples, 4:2.

John 3:23

23 The other evangelists say nothing about Jesus’ baptizing. John’s remark amplifies their account. Yet, lest someone should combine John’s statement with those of the others in an incorrect manner and think that Jesus did not take up this baptizing until the Baptist’s labors were ended, John adds the remark: Now John also was baptizing in Ænon near Salim because much water was there; and they were coming and being baptized. The δέ makes the statement parenthetical. The evangelist himself helps us to determine only two points about the location of Ænon (springs). The way in which the Baptist’s disciples refer to the former testimony of their master as having been made “beyond Jordan,” v. 26, shows that now they were on its hither or western side.

Immediately after the evangelist tells us that Jesus went “into the Judean country” he names Ænon as the place where the Baptist labored, and by adding no name of a country he leaves our thoughts in Judea. On the disputes about the actual site consult the Bible Dictionaries. The place was so named on account of its springs, for which reason also it was suitable for the Baptist’s work. The plural πολλὰὕδατα denotes either the springs themselves or the rivulets that flowed from them and not a large body of water. In the long search for the site of Ænon only such places have been considered which show such springs, and neither ancient nor modern records speak of a place that had water enough to immerse numbers of people. Nor is the consideration here only water for the purpose of baptizing but also and very vitally, where multitudes camped for some time, water for drinking purposes.

The imperfect tense of the verbs, the coming and the being baptized on the part of the people, as in the previous verse, means to state that the Baptist was here carrying on his work for some time.

John 3:24

24 For John had not yet been cast into the prison, elucidates the previous statement. Readers of Mark 1:14 and Matt. 4:12–17 might question our evangelist’s account to the effect that the Baptist and Jesus thus baptized at the same time. So John states that this occurred prior to the Baptist’s imprisonment. This is the reason for the statement and not the self-evident fact that the Baptist’s work ceased when he was cast into prison. That also is why John has the article: had been cast “into the prison,” referring his readers to this well-known prison and the Baptist’s confinement there, of which they had knowledge from the other evangelists.

John 3:25

25 Now follows the episode which occasioned the Baptist’s final testimony. A dispute, accordingly, arose on the part of the disciples of John with a Jew about purifying. With οὗν, “accordingly,” John indicates that this dispute arose out of the situation sketched in v. 22–24, hence was not about purifying in general, i.e., the old Jewish ways and regulations, but about the Baptism of Jesus as compared with that of the Baptist. What the actual question of the dispute was the evangelist does not say since his concern is something more important. All we can gather from the complaint of the Baptist’s disciples in v. 26 is that the Jew maintained the superiority of Jesus’ Baptism over that of the Baptist, which the disciples of the latter refused to admit as it would also involve that men should leave the Baptist and go to Jesus. The dispute started with the disciples, as ἐκ shows (R. 515, ablative).

This preposition is not used in the partitive sense, “some of John’s disciples,” when the construction calls for the genitive or the dative. The suggestion that Ἰουδαῖος here means a Judean not a Jew is strange, since the man’s nationality is of no moment. By calling him a Jew the evangelist classes him with the opponents of Jesus, whom he steadily calls “the Jews.” The man’s interest in the dispute would thus be to cause perplexity and discord.

John 3:26

26 And they came to John and said to him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond the Jordan, to whom thou hast borne witness, behold, this one is baptizing, and all men are coming unto him. These are the disciples alone, and they go to their master who is near at hand. They lay before him not the question of dispute but the situation from which it arose, and this in the form of an aggrieved complaint. Hence they even avoid naming Jesus, they only describe him, but in a way that brings out first, their thought that Jesus is under great obligation to the Baptist and, secondly, that Jesus is showing himself ungrateful to the Baptist. In their complaint lies the question, “Is this right?” They refer to what is recorded in 1:29–34. By saying that this occurred “beyond the Jordan” they specify what testimony they refer to and at the same time indicate that they were now on the western side of the river.

They speak as though the Baptist had done much for Jesus by testifying of him as he did. But, behold, οὗτος (see 1:7), “this man,” is now competing with their beloved master, competing with him after having received so much from him! By adding the exaggeration that “all men” are running after Jesus these disciples betray their state of mind. In the perfect μεμαρτύρηκας we note the effect of the testimony as continuing in the present.

John 3:27

27 The reply of the Baptist which now follows in extenso and is our evangelist’s chief concern is so thoroughly true, so illuminating and at the same time so demonstrative of his perfect humility that it stands as a monument to him forever. He begins with a general truth, one to which every child of God must at once assent, one that applies equally to himself and to Jesus. John answered and said, A man can receive nothing except it have been given to him from heaven. The great importance of the Baptist’s statement is indicated by the doubling: he “answered and said,” compare 1:48. When men arrogate something to themselves, rob others, snatch what does not properly belong to them, they really do not have what they have; for it shall be taken from them, and God’s judgment condemns them. What is really our portion, including our position, work, success, especially in the kingdom of God, is a gift allotted to us, which we thus receive and truly have. “Given” and “receive” correspond.

The doubling of the negatives in the Greek (οὑ … οὑδέν) is common, R. 1162. On the periphrastic perfect subjunctive see R 907: has been and thus remains given, punctiliar-durative.

John 3:28

28 Now the application of the general principle. You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but that (I said), I am one that has been commissioned before him. The Baptist meant and still means what he said on the occasion when the delegation from the Sanhedrin questioned him, 1:19, etc. His entire conduct has borne that out, and his disciples must today give him this testimony. He here briefly states what has not been given to him and, over against that, what has. On that other occasion he did not use the wording, “I am one commissioned before him,” but it certainly sums up what he said in 1:23 and 26, 27.

He may even have spoken these words, either on that occasion or on another, our evangelist merely not recording them. We regard the perfect participle as the predicate of “I am”; ἐκεῖνος is often used with reference to a person that is absent, as in this case.

John 3:29

29 The Baptist really states only what heaven (God) has apportioned to him, yet he does it in such a manner that the disciples at once gather how much more God has apportioned to Jesus. This implication continues in v. 29, 30. The Baptist’s statements through to v. 36 are without connectives, simply being ranged side by side, each standing powerfully by itself. The second has a beauty of its own in that it uses a figure hallowed by the Old Testament yet not as this is used in Isa. 54:5; Hos. 2:18, etc., with reference to Jehovah and Israel, where no room would be found for “the friend of the bridegroom,” but as it is used in the Song of Solomon and was interpreted also by the Jews with reference to the Messiah. He that has the bride is the bridegroom; yet the friend of the bridegroom, he that stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the voice of the bridegroom. This my joy, therefore, has been fulfilled.

The Baptist’s meaning is transparent. Jesus is the bridegroom who has the bride. Thus the Baptist is the friend of the bridegroom. God arranged this relation, and for the Baptist it is blessing indeed. The bride are all they who by faith truly belong to Jesus. If, indeed, “all men” are going to Jesus, v. 26, the Baptist cannot show the slightest touch of envy but can only rejoice in the fact.

No special task is here indicated for the friend of the bridegroom, who, as the article indicates, is the one formally functioning as such during the celebration. We should not transfer into the picture our present weddings with their wedding ceremony in which “the best man” has a function. The Jewish wedding was only a joyful feast at the groom’s home, following the procession in which the groom brought the bride to his home. No special time in the progress of the wedding feast is in any way indicated, although commentators have tried to fix such a time, and some with gross indelicacy. The Baptist pictures only the relation and the proper attitude of the friend to the groom, for which alone also he uses this figure; for he intends to describe his own true relation and his attitude toward Jesus.

So he adds the apposition, “he that stands and hears him.” The two participles are substantivized and united by the one Greek article and thus should not be made a relative clause. The friend’s place is near the groom (ἑστηκώς is always used as a present not as a perfect). So he also hears the groom (αὑτοῦ, the genitive to indicate the person speaking) not his commands during the wedding but the voicing of his happiness and joy. With what feelings the Baptist (friend) does this he is happy to state: he “rejoices greatly because of the voice of the bridegroom.” The article with the genitive points to the specific bridegroom referred to, namely Jesus, a point that is lost by translating, “the bridegroom’s voice.” The Hebrew infinitive absolute is imitated in χαρᾷχαίρει by thus adding the cognate noun as the instrumental dative, R. 94; B.-D. 196, 6; and the sense is that the action takes place in the highest degree, “rejoices greatly,” literally, “with joy.”

With one stroke the picture is transferred to the reality, “This my joy, therefore, has been fulfilled,” or, “has been made full,” R. V., American committee. The perfect tense means: and will remain thus. The Baptist’s desires are satisfied to the uttermost. His joy, hitherto one in anticipation only, is now realized in actuality as he sees men flocking to Jesus. So far removed above all envy and rivalry or any other unworthy feeling is the Baptist’s soul.

John 3:30

30 Hence also the direct reply to the wrong complaint of these foolish disciples: He must increase, but I must decrease. “Must,” δεῖ, as the nature of the two persons and of their offices demands in the blessed will of God. The full development has not yet been reached, but much is already visible. “He must grow,” refers both to the office of Jesus and to his success in winning men. His work had only begun (ἐκεῖνος as in v. 28). “I must become less” likewise refers both to the office and the followers of the Baptist. Presently his task will be entirely done. But it will stand as a great and blessed success.

John 3:31

31 The Baptist has thus far spoken of the relation between Jesus and himself, shutting off the foolish notions voiced in the complaint of his disciples. Now he turns to the other side, the relation of Jesus to men, which includes in particular also his relation to these complaining disciples. The Baptist wants them to follow Jesus as Andrew, John, and the others did. Their whole view of Jesus must be changed accordingly. Thus we receive the supreme part of the Baptist’s final testimony to the Sonship of Jesus. He that comes from above is above all men, he that is of the earth is of the earth and of the earth he speaks; he that comes from heaven is above all men.

The heavenly origin of Jesus makes him supreme over all men, who are wholly of earthly origin. Both substantivized present participles ὁἐρχόμενος and ὁὤν are here used without reference to time, and ἐκ is used to express origin or source. Yet we should note that the former is a standing designation for the expected Messiah. Even now since he has come he is in the eminent sense “the Coming One.” Since the entire contrast from v. 27 onward deals with persons, “above all” must mean not “above all things” but “above all men.” Of him who is “of the earth” nothing can be said except that “he is of the earth,” on a level with all others who are like him and above nobody. Hence also all his speaking, whatever utterance he makes (λαλεῖ), is of the same nature, “of the earth.” On the other hand, “he that comes from heaven” (now using this elucidating phrase) “is above all men” not merely in his speaking but in everything. The two πάντων show that the contrast is here not between Jesus and the Baptist only but between Jesus and all men in general.

This mighty contrast these disciples must know and keep in mind.

John 3:32

32 With this clear, the Baptist proceeds to the speaking of Jesus, save that λαλεῖν is too ordinary a verb to apply to him. What he has seen and did hear, of that he bears witness; and no man receives his witness. That this is, like his origin, testimony of things seen and heard in heaven goes without saying (1:18). Grammarians have difficulty with the two verbs, one a perfect, the other an aorist, “has seen,” “did hear.” They ask whether the perfect is aoristic, or the aorist is used in the sense of the perfect. They certainly can be understood most easily just as they stand. The perfect is extensive: what Jesus has seen in heaven all along; the aorist is punctiliar noting the past fact (historical).

Jesus “has seen” all there is to be seen in heaven and can testify accordingly. The aorist “did hear” is not added as a duplicate of all that Jesus also heard in heaven, all the lovely music and the heavenly language in the conversations with God. This aorist is specific and refers to the punctiliar word or commission which sent the Son forth into the world. It indicates the counsel of God for our salvation, the loving commands of the Father, 7:16; 8:28; 12:49, 50; etc. Of these things Jesus came to testify.

The καὶ coordinates two contrary acts: this superlative testimony and its rejection. Not by mere revelation does Jesus speak as did the prophets of old, but from actual presence in heaven he “bears witness” at firsthand, absolutely directly. Nothing truer and more trustworthy can ever reach men. And the things he testifies thus are the very ones men need most of all, the facts and realities about God in heaven, his will, purpose, and plans concerning men. “And his testimony—this wondrous testimony—no one receives.” The very coordination of the statements lets us feel the enormity of the guilt implied, as in 1:10, 11. To receive testimony = to believe it; not to receive it = to disbelieve it, refuse to trust it, treat it as a lie. The fact that the negation is not meant to be absolute the very next words show.

John 3:33

33 He that did receive his witness did seal that God is true. At this point and through the next verse commentators present views with which we cannot agree. Who is this that received Jesus’ witness and sealed that God is true? The Baptist here does what he has done in his previous statements, he allows us to infer to whom he is referring. Both the aorist participle and the aorist main verb are definite, each denoting a past act. The Baptist refers to himself.

There were, indeed, a few others besides the Baptist who also did receive Jesus’ witness. In a manner the words apply also to these. But in their full sense they apply only to the Baptist himself. As far as the receiving is concerned, he stands first and foremost and helped the first of his own disciples also to receive Jesus’ witness. At this very moment he is trying to make his remaining disciples do the same. The actual situation is sometimes lost sight of, and the comment of some expositors reads as though the Baptist here utters abstract, general statements, like a man who is writing a book not like one who is talking face to face with a few men in order to move them to a definite act.

The Baptist here virtually tells his disciples, “I did receive his witness, I did seal,” etc. To let this aorist ὁλαβὼν refer also to such as in the future will receive Jesus’ witness, is to extend its force too far. Such a thought is an inference not the meaning of the word itself.

When the Baptist speaks of sealing that God is true, veracious, verax, he, of course, does not mean that God’s being true would not be sufficiently certified without such a seal. The declarative ὅτι (R. 1034) states what the seal attests. God is true even if all men called him a liar. A seal is not intended for the person issuing a document but for the one to whom it is issued, to assure him. So God himself adds seals to his truth not for his own sake or for the truth’s sake but for our sakes. What does the Baptist mean by saying, “He that did receive his witness did seal that God is true”?

Here again some generalize: the seal is faith or the saving effect of Jesus’ testimony. This, they say, acts like a seal or proof, helping to assure the believer and others that God is true in his revelation of Jesus. Thus again sight is lost of the actual situation: the Baptist trying to assure his disciples who were finding fault with Jesus. And how about faith and trust in error and deception? Does it, too, “seal” and make error truth? The Baptist is speaking of himself and by no means of himself as an ordinary believer.

He is divinely commissioned (1:6), to him special direct divine revelation was given (1:31, etc.). He had far more than his own personal faith to append as a seal, he had his word and testimony as a prophet of God, the word of the revelation he had received. For his disciples this seal ought to have great weight. There were to be others like this, namely the apostles (1:14). Their personal faith is an entirely minor matter. The seal they present is far higher.

John 3:34

34 The commentators who misunderstand v. 33 are also not clear with regard to v. 34. For he whom God did commission speaks the words of God; for the Spirit gives not from (insufficient) measure. What does γάρ prove or explain? The fact that faith acts as a seal? Impossible. The thought of v. 34 runs in an entirely different line.

Only properly related statements can be joined by “for.” Therefore v. 34 does not refer to Jesus himself but to the Baptist. The simple story is this: John tells his disciples, in order to convince and assure them, that he himself puts the seal of his authority and his person on God’s truth that Jesus is the Messiah; and then, in order to establish the weight of this statement more fully, he explains (γάρ) that he, sent by God, utters nothing less than the words of God, and this he can do because the Spirit gives such utterance to him in adequate measure.

“He whom God did commission” is the Baptist and not Jesus. The claim that only one “from heaven” (v. 31b) can be “commissioned” is contradicted by 1:6 and 1:33, where the Baptist is the one “commissioned.” In v. 31, 32 Jesus is ὁἐρχόμενος, “the One Coming.” Now it is true that Jesus, too, is “sent” or “commissioned,” and that he afterward tells the Jews much about his “Sender.” But here the fact that Jesus is sent is out of line both with what precedes and with what follows. The aorist ἀπέστειλεν indicates the past act when God sent the Baptist on his great mission. Thus sent—let his disciples note it well—“he speaks the words of God,” literally, “he utters the utterances of God.” For λαλεῖν is the opposite of being silent; and ῥήματα are merely utterances, whereas λόγοι are the thoughts put into statements. Of Jesus the Baptist has just said far more in v. 32, namely that he “testifies” the actual things he has seen and did hear in heaven. Why should he now reduce this exalted statement?

But of the Baptist this is, indeed, the highest that can be said: God places his words on his prophet’s lips. He is in the same class with the prophets who were sent before his day.

Another γάρ explains how the Baptist can utter God’s words, “for the Spirit gives not from (insufficient) measure.” It is hard to decide from the Greek whether God is the subject of the sentence, as our versions take it, or whether it is “the Spirit.” The sense, fortunately, is quite the same, for the point to be explained is the Baptist’s ability to convey God’s utterances. He can do this if God gives him the Spirit in proper measure; or if the Spirit gives him the utterances in proper measure. Yet this γάρ clause convinces so many that Jesus is here meant and they do not think that it could be the Baptist. The present tense of the verb, δίδωσι, which means “continues to give,” should give them pause. If Jesus were referred to, this would have to be the aorist ἔδωκε, “did give,” i.e., when the Spirit descended upon him “as a dove.” This continuous bestowal is vouchsafed to the Baptist, as it was to the prophets before him, day by day for his work.

Finally, οὑκἐκμέτρου is taken to mean “unmeasured,” “without measure,” “not by measure,” a litotes for “in complete fulness.” This misconception has led many to refer the entire verse to Jesus. The phrase means: not in narrow or insufficient measure, as though the ordinary limits could not be exceeded. The English has no corresponding idiom; ἐκ is not our English “by.” The Spirit (or if we prefer the other subject: God) gives as he wills, in richest measure, by revelation and by inspiration, the words he wants his messengers to utter. This, indeed, establishes the fact that the Baptist, as God’s messenger, can and does speak God’s own words when he points his disciples to Jesus. The Spirit sees to it that he is properly equipped. The disciples have every reason to believe and to obey his words as being “the utterances of God” himself.

John 3:35

35 After this efficient preparation the Baptist, as one sent of God and fitted out by the Spirit in adequate measure, speaks to his disciples this weighty word of God as the climax of all that he has previously said. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. He that believes in the Son has life eternal; but he that obeys not the Son shall not see life, on the contrary, the wrath of God remains upon him. Let the disciples note well what the Father thinks of the Son (Jesus) as the Baptist here tells them by the Spirit. In the Baptist’s own hearing God had declared, “This is my beloved Son!” Matt. 3:17. The Baptist only echoes that word just as he did that about “the Son of God” in 1:34 (compare the comment made there).

The fact that here again the Baptist refers to Jesus by “the Son” is wholly evident. On the verb ἀγαπᾶν here used compare v. 16—the highest form of love, made even infinitely high by being predicated of the Father with regard to the Son.

As this love is the basis and the adequate reason for giving all things into the Son’s hands, so this supreme gift is the evidence and the proof of that love. The extensive perfect δέδωκεν marks the gift as once being bestowed and then becoming permanent forever. Not in the divinity of the Son but in his humanity must this gift be placed as we think of Jesus. Omnipotence belongs to all three Persons of the Godhead alike and thus cannot be given by one Person to the other. But in and according to his human nature Jesus could and did receive also this gift. The evidence for his possession of this gift lies in the miracles which Jesus wrought during the ministry of his humiliation when he used this gift only at times and in furtherance of his work.

After his exaltation he used it according to his human nature without such restriction. “All things” cannot be restricted to those pertaining only to the kingdom, for even when only the kingdom of grace is thought of, “all things” would extend far beyond its bounds, Eph. 1:10 and 22. The things of the kingdom are the greatest by all odds; why then should the lesser be withheld? Compare also Matt. 11:27; 28:18; John 13:3, where also no restriction appears. “Into his hand” means for Jesus, God’s Son in human flesh, to rule and to command at will. Did the Baptist’s disciples think that their master had merely done Jesus a favor by testifying of him as he did and had thus placed Jesus under obligation to him? Their ideas need a radical modification. And this also for their own sakes.

John 3:36

36 These are not abstract or theoretical propositions that the Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hands. They apply most directly to these disciples—and to us. Since all things are in Jesus’ hands, “life eternal” is included. It is the highest gift dispensed by the Messiah. Therefore everything depends on each man’s personal relation to Jesus. In fact, the Baptist is here doing over again what he did in 1:35, etc., he is urging his own disciples to follow Jesus.

So he places before them the two great alternatives: “he that believes in the Son,” and “he that disobeys the Son” (the dative is the direct object, R. 540). The matter is personal, hence these singulars. Twice again “the Son” is used and not a mere pronoun; and “the” Son, this Jesus who is the Son in the supreme sense. In this thrice repeated “the Son” the climax of the Baptist’s testimony is reached, and for this reason John here records the entire incident, v. 22–36.

The great personal “either—or” is made plain in the two substantivized participles, “he that believes,” and “he that disobeys.” For the second, the Baptist might have used, “he that does not believe.” But ἀπειθέω, “not to be persuaded by the Son,” involves unbelief and is a designation for it; hence “obedience of faith” in Rom. 1:5 is a description of faith. He who trusts the Son, by that very trust obeys the Son; he who will not trust the Son, by that very act of refusal disobeys him. The divine greatness of the Son makes trust and the obedience of trust our only normal and right response to him, and refusal of trust the most desperate challenge of the very character of the Son and of his words and his signs. This disobedience of unbelief is the crime of crimes.

That is why the other two contrasts are bound up in this one of believing and of disobeying. To trust the Son means not only abstractly to rely on him as being trustworthy but to rely on his word and promise concerning life eternal, i.e., to accept this gift by our trust. Hence, the moment we trust the Son we have the gift, ἔχῃ, and continue to have it even as we continue to trust. The glory and the full blessedness of this life does not at once appear, 1 John 3:2, but we do have this life, and in due time its glory will appear. On the terms used here compare the remarks on v. 15. Thus it means the world and all to the Baptist’s disciples that they should stop their blind hostility to Jesus and should trust him with all their heart in a way far beyond any trust they have in the Baptist. Yea, unless they want to distrust the latter, they must give their very souls to Jesus, the Son, in the trust that obtains life eternal.

If anything is yet needed to eradicate the hostility of these disciples to Jesus and to open the way to trust in him, the consequence of disobeying the Son should do this. He who disobeys the Son incurs the worst possible guilt a mortal, sinful being can incur. This at once, by separating him from the Son, cuts him off from life eternal, “he shall not see life” (“see” as in v. 3), shall not “have” it and thus in any way experience what it is, now and in the next world. This is infinite loss. This negative result of the disobedience of unbelief involves the corresponding positive result, “on the contrary (ἀλλά), the wrath of God remains upon him.” His sinful state of life made him subject to the wrath of God in the first place (Eph. 2:3), his disobedience now fixes that wrath upon him forever (unless he should repent). A certain type of exegesis and all types of rationalism have assailed “the wrath of God” as being an impossibility—which it is, indeed, if the unholy conception of it which these men harbor were reality.

Their pictures of a God angry with the passion of a man, cruel, bloodthirsty, etc., are inventions of their own. God’s wrath is the inevitable reaction of his righteousness and holiness against all sin and guilt. While the term “wrath,” like other terms used in the Scriptures with reference to God, is anthropopathic, it clearly expresses the terrible reality that, when God is challenged by human sin and unbelief, God in accord with his very being must cast far from him those who persist in this desperate challenge. A holy and righteous God must come to a final issue with all those who reject him and his saving grace in the Son. They who will not have life by that very fact remain in death.

The Baptist’s last testimony is ended. What did these disciples do? Just as little as John told us the full story of Nicodemus, so little he tells that of these disciples. The unanswered question about them leaves us with the same question concerning ourselves: “What are we doing under the impression of the divine testimony here offered also to us?”

R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.

C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von D. D. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.

B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neugearbeitete Auflage besorgt von Albert Debrunner.