John 3:31

Ver. 31. “ He that cometh from above is above all;he that is of the earth, is of the earth, and speaketh as being of the earth; he that cometh from heaven is above all. ” With his own earthly nature John contrasts the heavenly origin of Jesus.

῎Ανωθεν, from above, is applied here, not to the mission for that of John is also from above but to the origin of the person. The all denotes the divine agents in general. All, like John himself, are to be eclipsed by the Messiah. The words three times repeated: of the earth, forcibly express the sphere to which John belongs and beyond which he cannot go. The first time they refer to the origin (ὤν ἐκ): a mere man; the second, to the mode of existence (ἐστί): as being of the earth, he remains earthly in his whole manner of being, feeling and thinking (comp. the antithesis John 3:13); the third time, to the teaching (λαλεῖ): seeing the things of heaven only from beneath, from his earthly dwelling-place. This is true of John, even as a prophet. No doubt, in certain isolated moments and as if through partial openings, he catches a glimpse of the things from above; but even in his exstacies he speaks of God only as an earthly being. So, while inviting to repentance, he does not introduce into the kingdom.

This estimate of John by himself is in harmony with the judgment of Jesus, Matthew 11:11: “ The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. ” And the shaking of his faith, which followed so soon, was not long in demonstrating the justice of it. After having thus put in their proper place, as contrasted with Jesus, all the servants of heaven, John returns to the principal theme: He. If, with some of the Mjj., we reject the last words of this verse: is above all, the words he that cometh from heaven must be made the subject of the verb bears witness, John 3:32 (rejecting the καί). But the fullest and richest reading is also the one most accordant with the spirit of the text. By the last words, John returns to the real subject of this part of his discourse, Jesus, from which he had turned aside, for a moment, in order to make more prominent His superiority by the contrast with himself.