Bible Study Series: John 3:1-15. This may be the most important section in all of the Bible, for it leads you from darkness into light, from emptiness to the fullness of the Spirit. A rich post.
Friendly greetings and a warm welcome to this Bible study! I write to learn, so let’s learn together how to apply these truths to our lives.
I also translate to learn. The translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. If you would like to see many others, please click here:
For the Greek text, click here:
At that link, I provide a lot more commentary.
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: John 3:1-15
1 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do the signs which you do, unless God was with him.” 3 In reply, Jesus said to him, “I tell you the firm truth: unless someone is born again, he will not see the kingdom of God.”
4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a person be born, when he is old? He cannot go into his mother’s womb a second time and be born, can he?” 5 Jesus replied: “I tell you the firm truth: Unless someone is born from water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 What is born of the body is bodily, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not wonder that I say to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it came from or where it is going. And it is this way for every person who has been born of the Spirit.
9 In reply, Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 In reply, Jesus said to him, “You are a teacher of Israel and you do not know these things?
11 “I tell you the firm truth: We speak of what we know, and what we see we testify to it, and you do not accept our testimony. 12 If I speak to you of earth-bound matters and you do not believe, how will you believe if I speak to you of heavenly matters? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, in this way the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” (John 3:1-15)
Comments:
Introduction
Since the verb believe and the noun faith are so important in John’s Gospel, I have to say that believing (verb) and faith (noun) are very important to God. We live on earth and by faith see the invisible world where God is. We must believe he exists; then we must exercise our faith to believe he loves us and intends to save us.
A true acronym:
F-A-I-T-H
=
Forsaking All, I Trust Him
One has to surrender to the Lordship of Jesus.
The bottom line is that for John’s Gospel believing and faith must not get stuck in an intellectual assent. “I believe that God exists and Jesus lived.” Instead, everyone who believes or has faith must put their complete trust in God’s Son.
Word Study on Faith and Faithfulness
Let’s keep going in the introduction.
First off, many commentators believe that v. 13 is when John takes over from Jesus’ speech and reflects and meditates on what Jesus just said, so v. 12 would end Jesus’s dialog or direct speech. So I could include vv. 13-15 in the next pericope (pronounced puh-RIH-koh-pea) or unit or section. Alternatively, some claim that John begins his meditation with v. 16, so vv. 13-15 should remain where I have it now.
Second, Jesus said that he did not need anyone’s testimony because he knew all men (John 2:24-25). Now, however, he goes into several conversations in which “he instantly gets into the hearts of individuals with highly diverse backgrounds and needs” (Carson, p. 185): Nicodemus (3:1-15, the Samaritan woman (4:1-26), the Gentile official (4:43-53), the man at the pool of Bethesda (5:1-15), and others.
John, the author of the Fourth Gospel, describes a poor reception of Jesus, but then follows it up with some exceptions (1:10-13; 3:19-21; 6:66-69).
Let’s cover the passage verse by verse.
1-2:
Nicodemus came to Jesus at night probably because he feared his peers suspecting him of being a sympathizer (cf. Joseph of Arimathea who “feared” the Jews; 19:38). Another option: Rabbis often continued their dialogs into the night.
Nicodemus says that Jesus is a teacher sent from God, but the Jewish leader does not see the signs as yet pointing to Jesus’ Messiahship and Sonship. For Nicodemus, Jesus is not even the prophet Moses said would come (Deut. 18:15-18). Nicodemus calls him the collegial “Rabbi,” but this has not the same technical meaning, as it will after A.D. 70 and the destruction of the temple. For now it means “teacher.”
The signs Jesus performed indicates that at least the ruler of the Jews (Nicodemus belonged to the Sanhedrin) was not so fanatical that he concluded Jesus worked them by the power of Satan (8:48, 52).
Commentator Klink believes that Nicodemus was an antagonist, not a sincere seeker. This dialogue “is part of the larger conflict between Jesus and the religious authorities, that is, between God and humanity” (p. 193; comment on 3:2). “Nicodemus embodies broken religion and broken humanity” (p. 192). Nicodemus did see Jesus as “the Prophet” of Deut. 18, but only in a mocking way. It is possible that the member of the Sanhedrin was slightly antagonistic and a genuine seeker. People often have mixed motives.
3:
Jesus is answering Nicodemus’s question, but not in the way he (or we) expects. Borchert: “Jesus’ response to Nicodemus is a vivid contrast to Nicodemus’s introductory words that no one is able (dunatai) to “perform the miraculous signs.” Jesus’ reply is a play on “ability”; namely, unless one is born from above, such a person is not able (ou dunatai) to “see the kingdom of God.” This contrast sets up a further series of statements about what is possible according to Nicodemus’s finite mind-set and what is actually possible according to Jesus (cf. also 3:4a, 4b, 5, 10)” (comment on v. 3).
Commentator Morris offers three standard interpretations for water: (1) water for purification, with a backward look at John’s baptism. (2) Water means procreation, as in a natural birth. (3) Water refers to Christian baptism, looking ahead. Morris favors the second interpretation.
“I tell you the firm truth”: it literally read, “amen, amen, I tell you.” It could be translated as “truly, truly” or with the older translations: “verily, verily.”
“Truth” comes from the word amēn (pronounced ah-main and comes into English as amen). In the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) Jesus says amen only once, but in John he very often says the word twice, so I translate the double word as “firm truth.” It expresses the authority of the one who utters it. The Hebrew root ’mn means faithfulness, reliability and certainty. It could be translated as “Truly, truly I tell you” or I tell you with utmost certainty.” Jesus’s faith in his own words is remarkable and points to his unique calling. It means we must pay attention to it, for it is authoritative. He is about to declare an important and solemn message or statement. The clause appears only on the lips of Jesus in the NT.
The phrase “born again” (vv. 3 and 7) can definitely be translated as “born from above.” And the more I read vv. 12 and 31, the more I realize that the best translation is “born from above.” The Spirit comes from above. The Father sends the Spirit from heaven, not from earth. However, the adverb can also be translated again (Gal. 4:9). I decided to leave the translation as “born again,” because Nicodemus misunderstands it in this way. The Greek adverb is versatile enough to be understood in this way. It can have both meanings at the same time, so Jesus is toying with the ambiguity. It therefore means both “born again” and “born from above.” So far Nicodemus wants to find out how he can assess Jesus and his signs. God was with him, Nicodemus concludes, but he does not believe Jesus preexisted his birth. Instead of answering the question directly, Jesus exposes Nicodemus as missing the mark. Jesus goes right into spiritual matters—new birth.
Regeneration: What Is It and How Does It Work?
First, people are born into this world and are not neutral. When they hear the message and do not believe it, God’s wrath or judgment remains on them (v. 36). They need a rebirth, to be born a second time. Only the Spirit can produce the new life in those who believe in Jesus, the Son of Man. The result is that the believer, now born again, can enter the kingdom of God. Therefore, one enters the kingdom of God at the new birth.
Here are verses that speak of rebirth or new birth (all from the NIV):
Recall John 1:12-13:
12 But to all who received him, to the ones who believe in his name, he gave the authority to become children of God, 13 not the ones born from blood, neither by the will of the flesh, nor by the will of a husband, but from God. (John 1:12-13)
Peter must have heard Jesus teach on rebirth:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Pet. 1:3, emphasis added)
Peter again:
For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. (1 Pet. 1:23)
Paul picks up the image of rebirth, so it must have circulated in the earliest Christian communities:
4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior… (Titus 3:4-6, emphasis added)
John picks up the theme again:
If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him. (1 John 2:29)
No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. (1 John 3:9)
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. (1 John 4:7)
1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. … 4 or everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. … 18 We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them. (1 John 5:1, 4, 18)
It seems, then, that the image of rebirth was strong and early in the Christian communities. Paul in his epistle to Titus connects washing with rebirth, similar to what Jesus does in the verses in John’s Gospel. This lends credence to my interpretation that water is symbolic, which must not be over-read. It’s the new birth that is salvific, not water in itself, even water that is prayed over and sanctified into a sacrament. The Spirit causes new birth or regeneration.
Basic Biblical Regeneration: What Is It and How Does It Work?
Jesus said, we will (not) “see” the kingdom of God. “See” in this context means to experience it; then people who have experienced being born again and entered the kingdom can speak of what they know. They can testify about it.
Here are some of my posts on a more formal doctrine of the Spirit (systematic theology):
The Spirit’s Deity and Divine Attributes
The Spirit in the Life of Christ
The Spirit in the Church and Believers
Now let’s look a little deeper into the kingdom of God.
What is it? As noted in other verses that mention the kingdom in this commentary, the kingdom is God’s domain over which he exercises power, authority, rule, reign and sovereignty. He exerts all those things over all the universe (his universal domain) but more specifically over the lives of people. It is his invisible realm, and throughout the Gospels Jesus is explaining and demonstrating what it looks like before their very eyes and ears. It is gradually being manifested from the realm of faith to the visible realm, but it is not political in the human sense. It is a secret kingdom because it does not enter humanity with trumpets blaring and full power and glory. This grand display will happen when Jesus comes back. In his first coming, it woos people to surrender to it. We can enter God’s kingdom by being born again (John 3:3, 5), by repenting (Matt. 4:17; Mark 1:5), by having the faith of children (Matt. 18:4; Mark 10:14-15), by being transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son whom God loves (Col. 1:13), and by seeing their own poverty and need for the kingdom (Matt. 5:3; Luke 6:20; Jas. 2:5).
Here it is the already and not-yet. The kingdom has already come in part at his First Coming, but not yet with full manifestation and glory and power until his Second Coming. Yet the kingdom of God is not exclusively in the future. Some of the kingdom can come down in our lives right now. And we must be born again to enter it.
5 The Kingdom of God: Already Here, But Not Yet Fully
Bible Basics about the Kingdom of God
Questions and Answers about Kingdom of God
Basic Definition of Kingdom of God
1 Introducing the Kingdom of God (begin a ten-part series)
4:
It is a startling fact that a major leader in Israel—a member of the Sanhedrin, the highest court and council in Judaism- the very Sanhedrin which will put Jesus to death–does not understand this symbol. He must have been too preoccupied with legalism, like ceremonial washing before dinner and the detailed discussions of what constituted working on the Sabbath. A man like Nicodemus would have understood the kingdom as coming in the next age, and God allows entry into it at that time, not now and not by this odd concept of being born again. Therefore, Nicodemus’s aim had to be lifted up to spiritual things, things that really mattered, like new birth and the kingdom of God. All the old ceremonies were about to be swept aside.
Mounce: “To see God’s kingdom means to enter into and have a part in the final establishment of God’s sovereign rule. As a Jew, Nicodemus would have understood the kingdom of God in the long-awaited age to come. To ‘see’ this kingdom would mean to experience resurrection life at the end of the age. What he did not understand was that to have a part in that kingdom required a second birth” (comment on v. 4).
5:
What does “born of water” mean?
Baptism in water, at a minimum, is a physical act. We can discuss whether it goes deeper, and it does. How could water–H2O–wash the soul without the Spirit? No, physical water has no effect or power to reach into a human’s inner being, so the Spirit has to wash the soul, and the water symbolizes this inner cleansing done by the Spirit.
John the Baptizer connects water and the coming of the Spirit when Jesus was baptized, though Jesus was without sin.
Further, John testified, saying: “I saw the Spirit like a dove coming down from heaven and remained on him. 33 I did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize in water—he told me, ‘On whomever you see the Spirit coming down and remaining upon him—this is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit!’ (John 1:32-33)
I see no power in the water itself during his baptism. But I see the work of the Spirit at work in the candidate himself (Jesus). Whether communion or water baptism, I connect the Spirit in the partaker during communion or the one baptized. I see nothing extra-spiritual in the H2O or the bread or wine or (grape juice).
However, I have now adjusted my beliefs, as seen here:
Why Our Churches Must Consider Communion Elements and Baptismal Waters As Sacred
Then these verses connect water with the Spirit:
38 The one believing in me, just as the Scripture says: Out of his inner most being rivers of living water will flow. 39 But he said this about the Spirit whom those believing in him were about to receive, […] (John 7:38-39)
The Spirit surging through believers like water also supports the claim that water in John 3::5, 5 = water baptism, but not H2O containing power in its own molecules. Instead, baptismal water symbolizes the cleansing and washing of the Spirit.
8. Do I Really Know Jesus? He Was Sinless.
The Lord’s Supper in Synoptic Gospels + Church Traditions
Now let’s move on from my view and look at the view of (real) commentators and scholars.
We just read in the previous chapter that the master of the banquet knew about six stone water jars, which were used for ceremonial purification. However, Jesus himself transformed the water into wine, and this transformation leads to a new way, a new life. Jesus was enacting an action parable, which says he is now the master of the banquet, and his banquet is heavenly or kingdom-centered. Here in this pericope of Scripture, Jesus is calling Nicodemus to be born of water, but not by a ceremonial water imposed by Jewish rituals, but the water that will cleanse the inner being, not just the dirt off the body or food off the plate.
It is understandable that John would speak of the waters of baptism because in the earliest Christian communities, as soon as someone was converted or regenerated or born again, he got water baptized. So it is not clear that they made such fine-line distinctions as professional theologians do today.
The Samaritans were baptized as soon as they believed Philip’s message:
12 When they believed Philip who was preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized. (Acts 8:12)
The Ethiopian Eunuch was baptized as soon as he believed Philip’s message, and they came across water:
36 As they were going along the road, they came on some water, and the eunuch said, “Look! Water!” What’s to prevent me from being baptized?” 38 And he ordered the wagon to stop, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. (Acts 8:36, 38)
Cornelius and his household were baptized immediately after the Spirit fell on them and empowered them:
Then Peter answered, 47 Who can refuse water to baptize these who have received the Holy Spirit, as we also have?” 48 He ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. (Acts 10:46-48)
Paul picks up the reality of cleansing (washing) through water and the Spirit:
4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior … (Titus 3:4-6, NIV)
So of course the earliest Christian communities would seemingly merge water baptism with conversion or at least see them closely connected.
The background is the Spirit being poured out in the OT. These OT passages speak of an eschatological outpouring of the Spirit:
until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high,
and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. (Is. 32:15, ESV)
For I will pour water on the thirsty land,
and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring,
and my blessing on your descendants. (Is. 44:3, ESV)
26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezek. 36:26-27, ESV)
And I will not hide my face anymore from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, declares the Lord God. (Ezek. 39:29, ESV)
“And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
29 Even on the male and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit. (Joel 2:28-29, ESV)
In the previous three passages, the promise was given to Israel. In Joel’s prophecy, the Spirit is poured out in all flesh or all of humanity. Each of those above passages speak of obeying the law of God and living righteously. Now this obedience comes from the inside out and by the power of the indwelling Spirit. Don’t let any teacher tell you that you don’t have to worry about living righteously. You absolutely do. So does right believing always lead to right living? Maybe, but anyone who believes right could also live wrong. True, right living is done by the overflow and outflow of the Spirit in conformity to Scripture.
The Spirit in the Old Testament
This passage from Ezekiel combines water and the outpouring of the Spirit:
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ezek. 36:25-27, NIV)
No, John the Baptizer or Immerser did not sprinkle, but those verse do speak of an inward work by the Spirit—not by the water.
Commentator Klink notes that in the Gospel, water is about cleansing (9:7; 13:5) or restoration and newness or sustaining life by quenching thirst (4:10-14; 6:35; 7:37-38) and is even directly connected to the “Spirit” in 7:39. The Spirit can be the “life-giving Spirit (6:63) or the agent of purification (1:33) (Klink, comment on v. 5).
I like what Carson says: “What is emphasized is the need for radical transformation, the fulfillment of OT promises anticipating the outpouring of the Spirit, and not a particular rite. If baptism is associated in the readers’ minds with entrance into the Christian faith, and therefore with new birth, then they are being told in the strongest terms that it is the new birth itself that is essential, not the rite” (comment on v. 5, p. 194)
Let’s not quarrel with churches who teach that the water of baptism is a sacrament, having salvific (salvational) power in it. This is their article of faith, and they may be closer to the truth than we are, though I personally agree with Carson, that it is rebirth, not the water ritual that saves.
6-7:
What is born of flesh is flesh and spirit is spirit simply means that human flesh and human spirit are a unit, but they are distinct. Humans reproduce a new human and the Spirit reproduces a new spirit in the human.
8:
The wind blowing where it wills = the Spirit’s sovereignty
Before modern meteorology, people saw the leaves rustle, felt air blowing against their face, felt their hair get mussed up, saw the sails in the ship puff up, and concluded, simply enough, that the cause was the wind; they did not take the time to figure out where it came from and where it was going, as if it had a goal in mind. I like, though, how Jesus says the wind blows where it “wishes,” but let’s not make too much of the personification; the wind goes where it goes. The Spirit, pneuma in Greek (and ruach in Hebrew), can either mean wind or Spirit. Jesus is drawing the parallels between the two. We must allow the Spirit to blow in our hearts so he can cause new birth. We were born once, through our parents’ bodies, and so we too are bodies, but now we must be born of the Spirit, so our human spirit can come alive for God.
9-10:
Jesus expresses his surprise that the teacher of Israel does not understand spiritual truths. Jesus expressed the same surprise in v. 4, and you can scroll back up to see the comments there. Nicodemus may have approached Jesus as a genuine seeker. Or he may have also—at the same time, with mixed motives—approached Jesus as an antagonist, to catch him in an error. Now Jesus turns the table on him. It is Nicodemus who is losing the challenge.
Borchert adds:
At this point the reader of John should be reminded of the importance of the questions Jesus asks of people. These questions are a significant feature in the Johannine repertoire of literary tools. Many of these questions come at decisive points in a story (cf. 1:50) and direct the reader to watch for important affirmations in a teaching segment (cf. 3:12). With the present question Nicodemus ceases in this story to be important to the evangelist, and the focus of attention shifts to Jesus and his personal witness. But the evangelist [John] will return to Nicodemus and reveal his development toward believing in his quest for having a fair hearing in the Council concerning Jesus (7:50–51) and later in his willingness to provide a proper burial for Jesus after the unjust condemnation and death of Jesus (19:39–42). (comment on vv. 9-10)
11:
Jesus shifts from the singular “you” to the plural “you.”
So here is a retranslation, using “y’all” to illustrate the shift to plural (y’all is a contraction of “you” and “all”):
11 “I tell you [singular] the firm truth: We speak of what we know and what we see we testify to it, and y’all do not accept our testimony. 12 If I speak to y’all of earth-bound matters and y’all do not believe, how will y’all believe if I speak to y’all of heavenly matters?
Evidently, Jesus is addressing the Jewish leadership through the one person of Nicodemus. They will soon not accept Jesus’s testimony. They speak of the law of Moses, while he speaks to them of things he has seen in the heavenly realm. They are law-bound; he is heaven-liberated. He can speak of what he knows.
Jesus shifts over to “we.” Who are they? “Our testimony” means the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and even Moses and his law..
Once again, since the Spirit is so important in this chapter, please see these posts for further study:
The Spirit’s Deity and Divine Attributes
The Spirit in the Life of Christ
The Spirit in the Church and Believers
“testify … testimony”: “The theme of witness … pervades the whole Gospel. The witness to the truth of God’s self-revelation in the Word is manifold: it comprises the witness of the Father (5:32, 37; 8:18), of the Son 8:14, 18), of the Spirit (15:26); the witness of the works of Christ (5:36; 10:25), the witness of the scriptures (5:39), the witness of the disciples (15:27), including the disciple whom Jesus loved (19:35; 21:24). The purpose of this manifold witness, as of John’s witness, is ‘that all might believe’: it is the purpose for which the Gospel itself was written (20:31)” (Bruce, comment on 1:6-8). The terms “witness” or “testimony” carries a legal meaning “of testifying or bearing witness to the true state of affairs by one who has sufficient knowledge or superior position” (Klink, comment on 1:7).
12:
Jesus had along been talking of earthly things in the new birth, and the earthly birth from a woman is the starting point of illustrating spiritual birth. One is done by the flesh; the second birth is accomplished by the Spirit.
13:
Jesus seems to imply that he ascended into heaven earlier. However, Carson is right again. It can be translated more expansively as “No one [else] has ascended into heaven and remained there [so as to be able to speak authoritatively about heavenly things] but only the one who has come down from heaven [is equipped to do so].” He gets the translation from the Greek contrasting terms ei mē (pronounced ay may), which we do not need to discuss here. Too complicated for a general readership.
My interpretation: No, at a time unknown to us, Jesus had not ascended into heaven sometime before he launched his ministry. He is simply saying that only he who came down from heaven can speak authoritatively about heavenly things. No one else has ascended and come back down again, not even Enoch (Gen. 5:21-24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11-12). Both of them got the privilege of being taken into some version of heaven (or an unspecified afterlife of sorts) without dying, but they have not come down again to teach and reveal heavenly things. Only the Son of Man has his origins in heaven and has come down and is currently teaching heavenly truths. We should not separate “ascending” and “descending.” They go together and speak of his unique and divine authority to teach and deliver God’s word.
Now let’s look at other commentators, since Christians are concerned about the story of Enoch and Elijah contradicting Jesus’s claim that “no one has gone up to heaven.”
You can read them here, after you scroll down to v. 13:
And so these commentators are right to steer us away from Jesus’s seemingly absolute claim that no one like Enoch and Elijah went up into some version of heaven or at least an unspecified afterlife. John’s aim is related to the first century and the Jewish belief that an earth-born man like Moses went up to heaven to receive the Torah and descended from there to deliver it. No one has done this (and neither has Enoch and Elijah). Jesus is superior because he came down from heaven–unlike Moses, Enoch, or Elijah–and he will ascend to heaven through his death, resurrection and ascension.
Further, Jesus is bridging heaven and earth right now. He is the heaven-originated divine Son of Man, unlike any OT saint in the past. As I noted in my earlier comments, don’t separate the two verbs “has ascended” and “descended.” Only Jesus has done both but from heaven first. So the sequence has been switched: heaven first and then descent to earth second. Moses, Elijah, and Enoch cannot claim this.
4. Do I Really Know Jesus? He Took the Form of a Servant
5. Do I Really Know Jesus? He Came Down from Heaven
“Son of Man”: It both means the powerful, divine Son of Man (Dan. 7:13-14) and the human son of man—Ezekiel himself—in the book of Ezekiel (numerous references). Jesus was and still is in heaven both divine and human. It can also be translated as “Son of Humanity.”
4. Titles of Jesus: The Son of Man
14-15:
John (or Jesus) says that that as the image of a snake in Num. 21:6-9 was lifted up on a pole to stop a plague of judgment, so also the Son will be lifted up to stop the judgment of God for those who believe in him.
First, let’s look at the passage in the OT.
6 Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8 The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived. (Num. 21:6-9, NIV)
John applies this story symbolically. We must not over-apply it (just as we must not over-apply water in being “born of water”).
Jesus being lifted up refers to his crucifixion and his exaltation—together. Jesus is humanity’s Redeemer and Savior and Healer. He will stop the judgment of God.
What Is Redemption in the Bible?
“eternal life”: see v. 16 for more comments, in the next post.
GrowApp for John 3:1-15
1. Study Titus 3:5. Have you been born again?
2.. What does it mean biblically and to you personally? Tell your story.
RELATED
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
12. Eyewitness Testimony in John’s Gospel
4. Church Fathers and John’s Gospel
3. Archaeology and John’s Gospel
SOURCES
For the bibliography, click on this link and scroll down to the very bottom:
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 