John 3:12

John 3:12. If I told you the earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you the heavenly things? Here our Lord returns to the singular, ‘I told;' for He is not now speaking of the witness of experience, but of instruction which He Himself had personally given. It seems hardly possible, however, that our Lord simply refers to words just spoken. In saying ‘If I told you the earthly things, and ye believe not,' He plainly refers to unbelief after instruction,-unbelief which instruction failed to remove. But if Nicodemus came alone (and there is no doubt that he did), he alone had received this last instruction. Others might be described as unbelievers, but not as remaining in unbelief after having heard the teaching concerning the new birth. We are compelled, therefore, to suppose that our Lord spoke generally of previous discourses to the Jews, and not specifically of these His latest words. But what are the earthly and the heavenly things? Many answers have been given which are Tittle more than arbitrary conjectures. Again the Evangelist must be his own interpreter. As in the next verse ‘heaven' is not used figuratively, it cannot be maintained that heavenly is figurative here. The words ‘earthly' and ‘heavenly' must have their simple meaning, ‘what is upon earth,' ‘what is in heaven.' The things that are in heaven can only be made known by Him who has been in heaven; this is suggested by the connection between this verse and the next. When we come to the last section of the chapter, we shall find that it contains (in some degree) a comment upon these verses. Now there (in John 3:32) we read of Him ‘that cometh out of heaven, who' bears witness of what He has seen and heard, who being sent from God ‘speaketh the words of God' (John 3:34). But this same comment takes note of the converse also. Contrasted with Him who comes from heaven is he that is out of the earth ‘and' speaketh out of the earth (John 3:31). Combining these explanatory words, we may surely say that ‘the heavenly things' are those truths which He who cometh from heaven, and He alone, can reveal, which are the words of God revealing His counsels by the Divine Son now come. The things on earth, in like manner, are the truths whose home is earth, so to speak, which were known before God revealed Himself by Him who is in the bosom of the Father (chap. John 1:18). They are ‘earthly,' not as belonging to the world of sin or the world of sense, but as being things which the prophet or teacher who has never ascended into heaven, but whose origin and home are the earth, can reach, though not necessarily by his own unaided powers. In His former discourses to the Jews, Jesus would seem not to have gone beyond the circle of truth already revealed. Even in His words to Nicodemus He mainly dwells on that which the Scriptures of the Old Testament had taught; and He reproves the teacher of Israel who did not at once recognise His words, thus founded on the Old Testament, as truth. The kingdom of God, the necessity of repentance and faith, the new heart, the holy life, the need at once of cleansing and of quickening-these and other truths, once indeed inhabitants of heaven, had long been naturalised on earth. Having been revealed, they belonged to men, whereas the secret things belong unto the Lord (Deuteronomy 29:29). Those of whom our Lord spoke had yielded a partial belief, but the ‘believing' of which He here speaks is a perfect faith. Nicodemus was a believer, and yet not a believer. If some of the truths hitherto declared had been so imperfectly received, though those who were mighty in the Scriptures ought to have recognised them as already taught, almost as part of the law that was given through Moses (chap. John 1:17), how would it be when He spoke of the things hitherto secret, coming directly out of the heaven which He opens (comp. John 1:51), and for the first time revealed in Him,-part of the ‘truth' that ‘came through Jesus Christ'? (chap. John 1:17).

It will be seen, then, that the truth of John 3:5 would seem to be placed by Jesus rather amongst the ‘earthly' than amongst the ‘heavenly' things. Of some of the heavenly things He proceeds to speak (John 3:14-15).