John 3:1-10

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

XII. CHAPTER III.

The first twenty-one verses of the third chapter contain the account of the interview between Jesus and Nicodemus. This interview occurred during the visit to Jerusalem at the Passover, and, when viewed in its close connection with John 2:13-25, it cannot be reasonably doubted that the story is inserted here as a part of the testimony to Jesus. It is the first testimony of the words, which play so important a part in what follows, as the Cana miracle was the first of the works. On this passage the following suggestions may be offered:

1. It is evident that Nicodemus was one of those whose attention was aroused by the “signs” alluded to in John 2:23. His mind must, therefore, have been in a susceptible state, beyond most of those around him, and he came to Jesus honestly to inquire after the truth. The course taken by him on the occasion referred to in John 7:45-52 makes it probable that he was established in his belief in consequence of, and as following upon this interview. His action at the time of John 7:45 ff., was both honorable and courageous. So was that which is related of him in John 19:38-42. The latter action showed love to Jesus of a most tender order. And yet the mere statement of the author of this Gospel that he made his first visit to Jesus by night has been, as it were, the only thing borne in mind respecting him, and has determined the estimate of his character. The author, however, does not say that this first coming was by night because of unworthy fear, much less that Nicodemus was marked in his whole career by this characteristic.

2. That he visited Jesus with a mind open to conviction, and with an honest desire to hear what He had to say, is evident from the second verse as most naturally explained. There is no reason to believe that his first words were spoken in any other than a straightforward and sincere way. We must believe that some conversation on the part of both parties took place between John 3:2 and John 3:3. It is probable that Nicodemus came to inquire as to what Jesus had to say about the Messianic Kingdom, and that, after introducing the whole conversation by the words of John 3:2, he soon raised the question which he had in mind as to that subject. Otherwise, the words of Jesus in John 3:3 have an abruptness which is almost inexplicable.

3. The idea of Nicodemus with regard to the kingdom was, of course, the ordinary one of the time, according to which it was to be a temporal kingdom for the Jews. The entrance into it was through a Jewish birth, so far as the chosen nation was concerned. Jesus strikes at the very foundation of this idea, and makes the entrance to be only through a birth of another sort a birth of the spirit. The difficulty which Nicodemus sets forth in the question of John 3:4 is connected with this marvelously new idea, and is to be interpreted accordingly, and not according to the literalism of its words. The state of Nicodemus' mind is that of John 3:9: “How can these things be?” that is, the new doctrine is incomprehensible. He stood, in this regard, where the Jewish opponents of Paul stood, when he taught the doctrine of justification, not through possession of the law and the being a Jew outwardly, but through a new and living principle, even faith in Jesus Christ.

4. The meaning of the word ἄνωθεν whether from above or anew must be regarded as doubtful. The arguments in favor of the former meaning are: (a) The use of the word in the sense from above in the only other instances in John's Gospel which can be compared with this case. There are, however, only two such instances. In John 19:23 it is used of the tunic of Jesus, which is said to have been woven from the top throughout. (b) One of these two instances is in this present chapter (John 3:31). This fact although the word occurs in the report of the expressions of John the Baptist on another occasion would seem to indicate what the writer understood by it. (c) The Johannean idea of the spiritual birth is that of being born of God, of the Spirit, that is, from above, and not of a new or second birth. Born of the Spirit is an expression found in this very conversation. (d) For the idea of a second birth πάλιν or δεύτερον would have been more naturally selected. On the other hand, it is claimed (a) that the understanding of Nicodemus was that it was a second birth (see John 3:4); (b) that the word was so understood by the translators of the Peshito, Coptic, Old Latin and Vulgate versions; (c) that in the passage from Artemidorus, which is referred to by Godet the only instance in the classics where ἄνωθεν γεννᾶσθαι is used, it has this meaning; so also the adverb in the two other passages cited by Godet in his note from Josephus and the Acta Pauli; (d) that the use in Galatians 4:9 justifies this meaning; (e) that, if Jesus had here meant from above, He would have used the expression ἐκ θεοῦ, instead of this adverb. The tendency of the majority of commentators has been, on the whole, towards the latter view, or towards the position taken by R. V., which places anew in the text, and from above in the margin. If the second view is adopted, it must be observed as is now generally admitted that the word does not mean precisely again (πάλιν) or a second time (δεύτερον), but, as in Galatians 4:9, from the beginning, as indicating the idea of beginning over again, and thus of a completely new birth. The writer of this note would merely express his own view that from above is somewhat more probably the correct rendering of the word, because this meaning seems more in accordance with the general Johannean idea of the spiritual life that it comes, in every sense, from heaven and also because this is evidently the meaning of ανωθεν in John 3:31. That Nicodemus spoke of a second birth does not seem to be the measure for the determination of Jesus' thought. In the bewilderment of his mind as to the words of Jesus, any idea of birth must have seemed to him to suggest a second birth of some sort, and especially as his idea of the kingdom was, that it was to belong to Jews by reason of their birth. Nicodemus was evidently unable to grasp the thought of Jesus with a clear apprehension of it.

5. With reference to John 3:5, the following brief suggestions are offered: (a) If we take the conversation as it stands recorded, we can hardly explain the words of this verse, unless they connect themselves with something which might easily have been before the mind of Nicodemus when the interview began. (b) This thing must have been outside of his old, Pharisaic ideas, for the whole exposition of the entranceway and life of the kingdom is clearly intended to take him wholly away from those ideas to awaken him, as it were, by a startling contradiction of what he had previously had in mind, to a new world of thought. (c) The only thing which can have suggested the words here used must, therefore, have been the teaching and work of John the Baptist. That this work and teaching had affected the mind of Nicodemus we may believe because of his coming to Jesus. His coming, in itself, showed that his attention had been easily turned to the great subject of the kingdom. A mind thus ready could not have overlooked the remarkable work of John, or have failed, if his attention was given to it, to consider the chief elements of John's doctrine. (d) One of the striking expressions of John, in setting forth his office and his relation to Jesus, was that respecting baptism with water and with the Spirit. If Nicodemus had known of John's preaching, it would seem that he must have had his attention drawn to this expression. (e) In explaining the matter of the entrance into the kingdom, therefore, it would not be unnatural for Jesus to turn the mind of Nicodemus away from his past ideas to the ideas belonging to the Christian system by uniting these two words water and spirit. The work for which the forerunner prepares the way, and which He himself introduces and sets on its course, is that by which men are drawn away from the outward and temporal view of the kingdom to individual spiritual life. (f) If there is in the words this uniting of His work with John's, we may easily understand why the word water falls away at once and the further development is wholly in the use of the word spirit. (g) The immediate and primary reference in ὕδατος is, accordingly, not to baptism as found in the Christian system, though, in the fullness of the idea of the sentence in the mind of Jesus, there may have been a secondary reference to it. But whatever may be said as to this point, there can be no doubt that the main thought of Jesus, which was intended to be conveyed to Nicodemus, was that of the spiritual birth as essential to membership in the kingdom.

6. The meaning of σάρξ, as used in John 3:6, is to be limited to the physical idea, and not to be regarded as including the moral. The object of this verse is to confirm, by the contrast here indicated, the necessity of the new birth. The natural birth, as into the Jewish people, can only result in what pertains to the physical or psychical sphere, but the kingdom of God is in a higher sphere. The aim of Jesus is, throughout, to show Nicodemus that his old views were utterly wrong.

7. The thought of John 3:8 is immediately connected with John 3:7. Nicodemus should not marvel at the idea of a new birth of the spirit, for the analogy of nature shows results coming from invisible sources. But it seems not improbable, also, that there is a suggestion here of the origin of membership in the kingdom as being widely different from what he had thought. It is an influence working in an unseen way, which may affect any one of any nation, and may leave any one unaffected which neither moves along the lines of ordinary birth nor is connected with it.

8. The suggestions already made serve to explain the words of Jesus in the tenth verse. The object of what precedes having been to set forth the spiritual nature of the kingdom, the expression of astonishment follows, that one whose office it was, as teacher of Israel, to comprehend the Old Testament in its deepest meaning, should be so unable to grasp the spiritual idea.