Bible Commentaries
John 3

Verses 1-36

III 1-21 Nicodemus—The name is Greek (victorious people), but the Talmud also attests its Jewish adoption. Pharisee and Sanhedrist of the order of scribes (cf. 10) were the religious titles of Nicodemus.

2. His nocturnal visit shows timidity but not cowardice (cf. 7:15; 19:39), and he was also probably moved by a desire to have a quiet talk with Jesus. His approach is respectful (Rabbi) and shows a certain conviction, based on the miracles, regarding the divine mission of Jesus. Nicodemus associates himself with others (probably Pharisees or even Sanhedrists—cf. 12:42, though the Pharisees as a body were hostile).

3. The question of the kingdom of God is what is in the visitor’s mind, and it is to this that the solemn answer of Jesus refers: ’Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God’. With the possible exception of Galatians 4:9, NT and even Johannine usage stand for ’from above’ rather than ’again’ as a rendering of ???Te?. So also the Greek Fathers and many moderns. However, unless there is a similarly ambiguous word in Aramaic, our Lord, as interpreted by Nicodemus himself, spoke of second birth, other than one’s first natural birth. This justifies our ’again’, which represents not only the Latin version but also the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopic and Georgian. Without this second birth (which in any case must be ’from above’) a man cannot belong to the kingdom of God (’see’ has the sense of experience, enjoy). Kingdom of God occurs only here, 3, 5, in ’Jn. This term, familiar from the Synoptics, is broadly equivalent to life in Jn and to justice in St Paul. There is no real distinction between seeing the kingdom of God and seeing life, life, 3:36.

4. Nicodemus, probably an old man himself, reduces our Lord’s words to the absurdity of an elder entering his mother’s womb to be born again.

5. The answer of Jesus seems to attach itself closely to the impossibility thus crudely imagined. Water is like the material element giving the new birth, the fecundating power being the Spirit (many MSS of Vg have Holy Spirit). This concept is beautifully expressed in the Roman Rite of Elessing the Baptismal Font; ’From the immaculate womb of the divine font comes forth a heavenly offspring, born as a new creature’. Water, as the Council of Trent defined (Sess. 7, can. 2), is not to be understood in the metaphorical sense. There is no difference (except one of aspect) between seeing the Kingdom of God, 3, and entering into it, 5. 6. Like begets like. ’What is born of the flesh is flesh’—in the physical (not Paulinemoral) sense of the term—’What is born of the Spirit is spirit’, that is, a spiritual being. 7. Jesus forestalls a second expression of wonder from Nicodemus on the subject of re-birth. It is mysterious, but one must not deny its reality because one does not know the whence, and the how and the whither of it.

8. The wind is taken as an analogy or parable. It comes apparently as it wills, and its whisper or growl or howl is heard, but one cannot say where it rises or where is dies away. So, the man born of the Spirit shows effects that are perceptible, but the vital processes of the Spirit are invisible. St Augustine supposes that the Holy Spirit is the subject throughout. If so, there may be a reference to the phenomena of Pentecost.

9. Nicodemus is still puzzled.

10. In view of Scriptural passages like Ez 36:25 f.; Isaiah 44:3, Jesus points to the anomaly of the ignorance of one who (of the two speaking) is the ’master of Israel’, i.e. teacher and interpreter of the Law and Tradition.

11. Then to ’the master of Israel’ and all like him Jesus asserts his own competence as a divine teacher. Ranging himself for a moment with all competent witnesses in any sphere—or using the plural of majesty (?) —he says: ’Amen, amen, I say to thee, that we speak what we know and we testify what we have seen, and you receive not our testimony’.

12. Then, resuming the first singular, he refers to the incredulity provoked by his revelations on things (like regeneration) actualized here on earth, and argues (a minori ad maius) that the revelation of heavenly things—the mysteries of the divine being—will encounter still greater incredulity.

13. The Word Incarnate—for he is the real subject of this sentence—is the only witness of heavenly things. No one has ascended to heaven, so as to be there and know the things of heaven, but he that descended from heaven. Coming to be visibly on earth in human flesh—this is the metaphor of descent —he who is the Son of Man has not ceased to be in heaven. As the last phrase: ’Who is in heaven’ is absent from some of the best MSS, including SB, it may be a gloss, but it is an excellent one, giving splendid prominence to the communicatio idiomatum, or interchange of divine and human predicates. ’Above’ and ’below’ are spoken of the one Person; the Son of God was on earth, the Son of Man was in Heaven. This last sentence, 13, really refers to the Incarnation rather than to the beatific vision, which Christ’s soul possessed.

14 f. With the Incarnation the thought of Redemption is closely connected. Faith in the Word Incarnate must also be faith in the Redeemer. 14. ’Necessity’ is a dominant idea in the whole passage, 7, 14. Here it is the necessity of Christ’s redeeming death that is proclaimed. ’Exaltation’ is crucifixion, 8:28; 12:32, 34. The brazen serpent raised by Moses as a divine remedy for poisonous serpent bite, Numbers 21:49; Wis 16:6 f., was a figure of salvation through Christ crucified. The non-poisonous likeness of a serpent looked upon with faith healed poisoned wounds and preserved, temporal life: the sinless Saviour in the likeness of sinful flesh heals the poison wounds of sin and gives life everlasting. 15. The negative side of salvation, namely, escape from perdition, is not mentioned in the best MSS, and probably comes from 16.

16-21. The arguments for regarding these lines not as words spoken to Nicodemus but as reflexions of the Evangelist, seem strong enough to establish a serious probability. It is pointed out that dialogue ceases, the verbs are in the past tense, several expressions occur which are Johannine but are not heard elsewhere from the lips of Jesus (e.g. ’Only-begotten’, ’believe in the name’, ’do the truth’). The last of these arguments is impressive, but on the other hand the language is extremely like that of the Johannine discourses of Jesus; no clear notice of a change of speaker is given; and the things said are very closely connected with the ideas of Incarnation and Redemption, to the consideration of which Jesus had led Nicodemus.

16. The motive and fount of salvation is God’s love for the world—that is, for mankind. Love made God give and deliver to death his Son (co-equal with himself), his Only-begotten (infinitely beloved), with a view to the salvation of every believer from perdition into eternal life.

17. Salvation not judgement is the direct purpose of the mission of the Son of God. 18. Men make their own judgement by their attitude to him, 3:36; 5:24; 12:48. He who believes incurs no damnation. The unbeliever is already in the state of damnation (?????ta?), for he has established himself as an unbeliever (perfect tense) in the name—that is, in the mission and Godhead—of the Only-begotten Son of God. Note again the insistence on this double title of love and dignity, the order of words being the inverse of 16. The making of one’s individual judgement in this actual terrestrial present is powerfully put in terms of light and darkness. The working of grace is supposed, but the accent is on the dispositions of men in regard to the light. St Augustine’s application is justly celebrated: ’Many loved their sins, and many confessed their sins. He who confesses and accuses his sins is already on God’s side. God (that is the light) accuses your sins: and if you also accuse, you are joined to God. There are, as it were, two things: the man and the sinner. God made man, and man made himself a sinner. Destroy what you made, that God may save what he made. You must hate your own work in you, and love God’s work in you. When that which you made begins, to displease you, then your good works are beginning, in as much as you are accusing your bad works. The beginning of good works is the confession of bad works. You do truth, and you come to the light. What is it—to do truth? You do not fondle yourself, you do not caress yourself, you do not flatter yourself, do not say: I am just, when you are really not—then you are beginning to do truth’, Tr. 12 in Jn. The same saint said: ’Sore eyes hate the light, which healthy eyes love

21. ’ He who does the truth’, that is, he who has the disposition that co-operates with truth, ’comes to the light, that his works may be made manifest as being done in God’, that is, according to God’s pleasure. ’In God’, ’with God’, Genesis 6:9, ’according to God’, Romans 8:27, scarcely differ in meaning. The words of 19 ff., as this phrase indicates, are more general than St Augustine’s comment and refer to the consciousness of general rectitude of life, which is co-operation with God, rather than to the acknowledgement of sin, which, however, is part of the rectitude or honesty of fallen man, cf.1 John 1:8. Good will or a right heart prepares a man to welcome truth.

22-36 Last Testimony of the Precursor —No close student of Jn will escape the inclination to join the many modern commentators who regard 31-36 of this section as reflexions of the Evangelist. Still, there is not the slightest external indication of a change of speaker; the thoughts in 31-36 do not go beyond the Prccursor’s understanding of the mystery of Christ (although we may admit that the Evangelist gives them something of his own personal style); the phrase ’wrath of God’ at the end recalls the stern character of the synoptic accounts of the Precursor’s preaching.

22-26. The time is loosely marked as after the visit of Nicodemus—presumably soon after the Paschal Octave, for after the departure of the pilgrims hostility to Jesus would have made itself more felt in Jerusalem. The text shows us the Divine Master in some country part of Judaea—a place of springs or streams, or perhaps near the Jordan. He stayed a considerable time there with his disciples, whom he commissioned (cf. 4:2) to exercise a ministry of baptism, more probably not that baptism which was to give the Spirit, 7:39, but rather a preparatory rite like that of John.

22. The Precursor had come to the west of the Jordan and moved north. Aenon (Ainon, exactly our English Wells) or Salim nearby is situated 8 Roman miles south of Scythopolis (Beisan) by the Onomasticon of Eusebius, by St Jerome ( Ep.73) and Aetheria. There are still five or seven wells within a small radius in this district. Salim 1 1/4 miles nearer the Jordan seems to have left its name in the modern Tell es-Sarem.

24. The indication: ’John not yet imprisoned’ is a precious explanatory reference to the Synoptics, who could easily give the impression that Jesus’began his work only after the imprisonment of John. 25. The dispute of some disciples of John with a Jew (S corrected, 3, L, A) or Jews (S, Vg) about purificatory rites excited in the former a jealousy or group-selfishness towards Jesus which was indeed a felix culpa, for it occasioned the Precursor’s very striking testimony. (Or was their jealousy really due to the fact that Jesus was now drawing larger crowds than their own master?) 26. The popularity of Jesus was evidently rising, and that of John falling in proportion. This was intimated in the disciples’ report to John. 27-30. No wonder the Catholic Church has always given the Precursor a signal place of honour, due not only to his office but to the high dignity of his humility. These words of his are amongst the greatest and most beautiful ever pronounced by human lips. Their gravity, humility, grandeur, and exquisite beauty need to be ’relished interiorly’.

27. John’s mission was from heaven, Matthew 21:25; Mark 11:30 f.; Luke 20:4 f., but to pretend to more than was given him would be usurpation.

28. He was not the Christ, but his Precursor.

29. Comparing himself to the chief friend attached to a bridegroom, he says that his role and his joy are just like those of such a sincere friend. When the wedding is being celebrated (Christ was already gathering the bridal body of his disciples; cf.Matthew 9:15), the ’best man’ can only rejoice at the joyful voice of the bridegroom already happy in the possession of his bride. In this sense John’s joy is full. 30. Jesus must increase in the esteem of a multitude of disciples, John must decrease. Let us recall the quaint but fascinating comment which we read in the Breviary (Aug. 29): ’John dwindled by decapitation, Christ grew on the cross’.

31-36. There seems to be no really cogent reason why we should not attribute these words to the Precursor. All other mortals and all other Prophets including John himself are compared to Christ.

31. The One whose origin is absolutely from above is over everybody. Terrestrial and celestial (cf.1 Corinthians 15:47) are terms of immense distinction. The earthly has the limitations of earth, the heavenly is supreme.

32. As a witness of the things of God, he who comes from heaven has the authority of One who has seen and heard. No one, however (hyperbole for ’very few’), receives his testimony. 33. To receive his testimony is equivalent to declaring under one’s own hand and seal that God speaks the truth. 34. The Divine Envoy’s words are the words of God. The total definitive revelation of God is delivered by him, for God does not give the Spirit in limited measure to the Word Incarnate. 35. To the Beloved Son, ’in whom he is well-pleased’, God must give and does give the plenitude of all authority. Surrender to him by faith brings life everlasting (begun here, consummated hereafter); on the other hand, unbelief towards the Son means the forfeiture of life and permanence in the state of wrath.