εἰ τὰ ἐπίγεια … πιστεύσετε; The reference of τὰ ἐπίγεια is fixed by the εἶπον ὑμῖν. They are such things as Jesus had been speaking of: things verified in human, earthly experience, the necessity of a spiritual birth and the results of it. Regeneration was a change made in this earthly life. The kingdom of regenerate men was to be established on earth, as apprehensible in certain of its aspects as the kingdom Nicodemus was proposing to found. The ἐπουράνια are matters not open to human observation, matters wholly in the unseen, the nature and purposes of God. Cf. the remarkable parallel in Wis 9:16.

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Old Testament