John 3

John 3:3

In him was life. He had life in himself, and hence is a fountain from whence life flows to man. Death could not hold him, because in him is life, and he became “the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25) for us. The life was the light of men. The life that Christ bestows enlightens men. He is the Light of the World (John 8:12 9:5). His light chases away the darkness of the earth, though, when John wrote, the darkness did not receive it. Men, in darkness, had eyes and saw not. All history demonstrates that Christ is the Light of the World; every redeemed soul recognizes the fact.

John 3:5

There was a man sent from God. The writer now speaks of a witness to the Light, John, a man sent from God (John 1:7,8). He was called to his work from his mother’s womb (Lu 1:13-17).

John 3:6

The same came for a witness, to bear testimony of the Light. John came, not so much as a reformer, as a witness. His work, as declared by Malachi, was to be a messenger to go before the Lord (Malachi 3:1). In all his preaching he testified of Christ. He pointed his own disciples to Jesus.

John 3:7

He was not that Light, but [was sent] to bear testimony. An early heretical sect held that John the Baptist was the Messiah. The apostle is explicit, in order to correct this error.

John 3:8

[That] was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. The Revised Version reads, “There was the true light, [even the light] which lighteth every man, coming into the world”. Grammatically, both in the Greek and the English, “coming” may belong to the “light”, or “every” man. We believe that it should agree with “light”. That was the true or real Light who, when he comes into the world, enlightens every man. Jesus says, “I am come a light into the world” (John 12:46).

John 3:9

He was in the world, etc. This verse declares: (1) That he “was” in the world, (2) the world was made by him, (3) it did not recognize him. The world is humanity in general, which “knew him not”.

John 3:10

He came unto his own , etc. This verse states (1) that he “came”, personally, to his own. He took upon himself a fleshly form and came to the race to which he was united by fleshly ties; (2) his own received him not. His own is the Jewish nation, who “received” him not.

John 3:11

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God. The Revised Version reads, “children of God”, which is better. While the nation rejected him, some received him. To such as receive him in every age he gives power to become the children of God. The manner in which he is received is given: [Even] to them that believe on his name. It is not declared that they are made children by believing, but to the believer he gives the “power to ‘become’” a child. When one believes in Christ, his faith becomes a power to lead him to yield himself to God and to receive the Word into his heart.

John 3:12

Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh. The Jews prided themselves on being Abraham’s children, and trusted in their blood for salvation. To be a son of God is not a fleshly birth at all, but the spirit of the subject is “born of God”. The Savior explains the birth more particularly, in John 3:1-8.

John 3:13

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. The Word assumed a human form and became incarnate as the child of Mary. We beheld his glory. His Divine glory. See Lu 9:32 John 2:11.

John 3:14

John bare witness of him. At the time of Christ’s baptism when the Spirit descended. See John 1:33.

John 3:15

Of his fulness. Of grace and truth. See John 1:14. His grace and truth hath blessed “us” (the saints) all. Grace for grace. Grace (favor) has been added to grace; one blessing piled upon another.

John 3:16

The law was given by Moses. It was not a system of grace, nor could it make men perfect; in contrast with it the system of “grace and truth” (John 1:14) was given by Jesus Christ.

John 3:17

No man hath seen God, with bodily eyes, but he was manifested as the Word, and at last the “only begotten Son . . . hath declared him”. “He that hath seen me”, said Christ, “hath seen the Father. The Father is in me, and I in him” (John 14:9 10:38).

John 3:18

This is the record of John. The writer now plunges at once into his history. He passes by the childhood of the Lord, John’s ministry, and comes at once to the time when Jesus, thirty years old, is acknowledged by the Father as the Son of God. When the Jews sent priests and Levites. The Jewish rulers, the Sanhedrin, the court or parliament of seventy-one members who ruled Israel. The delegation sent to John was official. His preaching in the wilderness of Jordan had stirred the whole land, and they were sent to ascertain his character. Matthew, Mark, and Luke use the term “Jews” very seldom (16 times), John often (70 times), a proof that he wrote far away from Palestine and for Gentiles.

John 3:19

He confessed, etc. Some conjectured that John was the expected Christ; others that he was Elijah who was first to come (Malachi 4:5); others that he was “that prophet”, the one predicted by Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15); but he declared that he was none of these.

John 3:21

Who art thou? When the priests and Levites insisted that John should declare who he was, he quoted Isaiah, and said he was The voice of one crying in the wilderness. See Isaiah 40:3. See PNT Matthew 3:3. His work was preparation for the Lord.

John 3:23

Were of the Pharisees. See PNT Matthew 3:7.

John 3:24

Why baptizest thou then? If he were Christ, or Elijah, or “that prophet”, they could understand why he should establish a new religious rite, but if none of these, why should he do so? Their perplexity shows that the baptismal rite was new to them. There is no proof that Jewish proselyte baptism of Gentile converts existed at this period, save the assertion of the Talmud, written two or three centuries after this. Josephus, who wrote in the time of the apostles, is silent about it.

John 3:25

I baptize with water. See PNT Matthew 3:11.

John 3:27

These things were done in Bethabara. The Revised Version says “in Bethany”, a village whose site is now unknown, on the east bank of the Jordan. Bethabara means “the house of the ford”.

John 3:28

The next day John seeth Jesus. Here Jesus first appears, in person, in John’s account, who omits all the details given by Matthew and Luke of his earlier life. He was now thirty years old, and came from Galilee to Jordan to be baptized of John. This interview was after the baptism (John 1:33), and probably after the Temptation. Behold the Lamb of God. Innocent like the lamb, to be offered as a lamb, “led as a lamb to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7). The lamb was commonly used as a sin offering (Leviticus 4:32), and when John points to Jesus as “the” Lamb of God he can only mean that God had provided him as a sacrificial offering. The sin of the world. Not of Jews only, but of Gentiles. John points to Jesus as the world’s Savior.

John 3:29

This is he of whom I said. See John 1:27. He was before me. Existed before I was born.

John 3:30

I knew him not. Knew not that God had chosen him to be the Christ. He knew, however, that he should be manifested in some way through his baptism.

John 3:31

I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove. See Matthew 3:16, and notes. It was revealed to John that the Christ would thus be revealed. Indeed it was the anointing of the Spirit that made Jesus the Anointed, the Christ.

John 3:34

Again the next day after. In John, the account is given of the visit of the priests and Levites, sent by the Sanhedrin to John. “The next day” after this, John sees Jesus and points him out as the Lamb of God, giving a discourse of which, in John 1:19-34, we have a synopsis. On the “next day” after this, the third day after the deputation of the Sanhedrin, and the second after the return of Jesus from the wilderness, John stood, and two of his disciples. One of these two, we learn from John 1:40, was Andrew; the other, we have reason to believe, was John, the apostle.

John 3:35

Behold the Lamb of God! On the preceding day John had recognized Jesus in a public discourse as “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Now he personally points the disciples to him.