John 3:8

John 3:8. The words of this verse point out to Nicodemus why he must not thus ‘marvel' at the new teaching, must not cast it away with incredulous surprise. Nature itself may teach him. In nature there is an agent whose working is experienced and acknowledged by all, while at the same time it is full of mystery; yet the mystery makes no man doubt the reality of the working.

The wind breatheth where it listeth, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh and whither it goeth. From the beginning the wind seems to have been the divinely-intended witness and emblem in the natural world of the Spirit of God. Ever present, it bore a constant witness. A commentator (Tholuck) has conjectured that, whilst Jesus spoke, there was heard the sound of the wind as it swept through the narrow street of the city, thus furnishing an occasion for the comparison here. It may well have been so; every reader of the Gospels may see how willingly our Lord drew lessons from natural objects around Him. Such a conjecture might help to explain the abruptness with which the meaning of the word is changed, the very same word which in John 3:5-6 was rendered spirit being now used in the sense of wind. Nothing but the abruptness of this transition needs any explanation. The appointed emblem teaches the lesson for which it was appointed. The choice of terms (breatheth, listeth, voice) shows that the wind is personified. It is perhaps of the gentle breeze rather than of the violent blast that the words speak (for the word pneuma is used with much more latitude in the Greek Bible than in classical Greek); in the breath of wind there is even more mystery than in the blast. Thou hearest its voice, it is present though invisible; thou feelest its power, for thou art in its course; but where the course begins, what produces the breath, whither the course is tending, what is the object of the breath,-thou knowest not. Nicodemus, unable to question this, would remember Old Testament words which spoke of man's not knowing ‘the way of the wind' as illustrating man's ignorance of the Creator's works (Ecclesiastes 11:5).

So is every one that hath been born of the Spirit. As in the natural, so is it in the spiritual world. The wind breatheth where it listeth; the Spirit breatheth where He will. Thou hearest the sound of the wind, but canst not fix the limits of this course, experiencing only that thou thyself art in that course: every one that hath been born of the Spirit knows that His influence is real, experiencing that influence in himself, but can trace His working no farther, knows not the beginning or the end of His course. Our Lord does not speak of the birth itself, but of the resulting state. The birth itself belongs to a region beyond the outward and the sensible, just as none can tell whence the breath of wind has come.

It ought perhaps to be noted before leaving this verse, that many take the first part of the verse as having reference to the Spirit, not the wind: ‘The Spirit breatheth where He will, and thou hearest His voice, but knowest not whence He cometh and whither He goeth; so is every one that hath been born of the Spirit.' The chief arguments in favour of this translation are the following: (1) It does not involve a sudden transition from one meaning to another of the same Greek word. (2) On the ordinary view there is some confusion in the comparison: the words are not, ‘The wind breatheth where... so is the Spirit;' but, ‘The wind breatheth where.. . so is every one that hath been born of the Spirit. ' These two arguments have substantially been dealt with above. As to the first point the sudden transition from the thought of spirit to that of its emblem in nature-perhaps no more need be said. The second argument has not much real weight. The language is condensed, it is true, and the words corresponding to the first clause (The wind bloweth where it listeth') are not directly expressed, but have to be supplied in thought. The chief comparison, however, is between the ‘thou' of the first member and the ‘every one' of the second, as we have already seen. On the other hand, the difficulties presented by the new translation are serious, but we cannot here follow them in detail.