John 3:13

And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. AND NO MAN HATH ASCENDED UP TO HEAVEN, BUT HE THAT CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN, EVEN THE SON OF MAN WHICH IS IN HEAVEN. How paradoxical this sounds: 'No one has gone up but He that came down, even He who is at once both up and down.' Doubtless it was intended to startle and constrain his auditor to think that there must be mysterious elements in His Person. The old Socinians, to subvert the doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ, seized upon this passage as teaching that the man Jesus was secretly caught up to heaven to receive his instructions, and then "came down from heaven" to deliver them. But the sense manifestly is this: 'The perfect knowledge of God is not obtained by any man's going up from earth to heaven to receive it-no man hath so ascended; but He whose proper habi...

13._No one hath ascended to heaven. _He again exhorts Nicodemus not to trust to himself and his own sagacity, because no mortal man can, by his own unaided powers, enter into heaven, but only he who goes thither under the guidance of the Son of God. For _to ascend to heaven _means here, “to have a pure knowledge of the mysteries of God, and the light of spiritual understanding.” For Christ gives here the same instruction which is given by Paul, when he declares that the sensual man does not comprehend the things which are of God, (1 Corinthians 2:16;) and, therefore, he excludes from divine things all the acuteness of the human understanding, for it is far below God. But we must attend to the words, that Christ alone, who is heavenly, _ascends to heaven_, but that the entrance is closed against all othe

1-8 Nicodemus was afraid, or ashamed to be seen with Christ, therefore came in the night. When religion is out of fashion, there are many Nicodemites. But though he came by night, Jesus bid him welcome, and hereby taught us to encourage good beginnings, although weak. And though now he came by night, yet afterward he owned Christ publicly. He did not talk with Christ about state affairs, though he was a ruler, but about the concerns of his own soul and its salvation, and went at once to them. Our Saviour spoke of the necessity and nature of regeneration or the new birth, and at once directed Nicodemus to the source of holiness of the heart. Birth is the beginning of life; to be born again, is to begin to live anew, as those who have lived much amiss, or to little purpose. We must have a new nature, new principles, new affections, new aims. By our first birth we were corrupt, shapen in s...

Verse John 3:13. _NO MAN HATH ASCENDED_] This seems a figurative expression for, _No man hath known the mysteries of the kingdom of_ _God_; as in Deuteronomy 30:12; Psalms 73:17; Proverbs 30:4; Romans 11:34. And the expression is founded upon this generally received maxim: That to be perfectly acquainted with the concerns of a place, it is necessary for a person to be on the spot. But our Lord probably spoke to correct a false notion among the Jews, viz. that Moses had ascended to heaven, in order to get the law. It is not Moses who is...

AND NO MAN HATH ASCENDED INTO HEAVENS - No man, therefore, is qualified to speak of heavenly things, John 3:12. To speak of those things requires intimate acquaintance with them - demands that we have seen them; and as no one has ascended into heaven and returned, so no one is qualified to speak of them but He who came down from heaven. This does not mean that no one had Gone to heaven or had been saved, for Enoch and Elijah had been borne there (Genesis 5:24; compare Hebrews 11:5; 2 Kings 2:11); and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and others were there: but it means that no one had ascended and “returned,” so as to be quali

EXPOSITION This is the first of the eleven discourses recorded by this evangelist, and for the most part addressed to the cultivated, hierarcical party in Jerusalem, who questioned him in an unfriendly spirit. On the sources of these records, and the degree to which John's subjectivity coloured his record of them, see Introduction. JOHN 3:1 BUT THERE WAS A MAN OF THE PHARISEES. Is this narrative introduced, as Baur thinks, to give a specimen of wrongly directed faith, to which Christ did _not _entrust himself? and was the evangelist busy at once on his great mission of undervaluing the Jewish parties and nation? Certainly not. We have a clear proof that, in the case of the genuine inquirer, Christ did open His very heart; and to a "ruler of Jews," to a "Pharisee," to a "teacher of Israel," he deigne

AND NO MAN HATH ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN,.... Though Enoch and Elias had, yet not by their own power, nor in the sense our Lord designs; whose meaning is, that no man had, or could go up to heaven, to bring from thence the knowledge of divine and heavenly things; in which sense the phrase is used in Deuteronomy 30:12, and which may be illustrated by John 1:18; wherefore inasmuch as Nicodemus had acknowledged Christ to he a teacher come from God, our Lord, would have him know, that he was the only teacher of heavenly things, as being the only person that had been in heaven, and in the bosom of the Father; and therefore, if he, and the rest of the Jews, did not receive instructions from him, they must for ever remain ignorant; for there never had been, nor was, nor could be, any mere man that could go up to hea

John 3:1. _There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God._ There must be a new birth because a new name is absolutely necessary for the discernment of spiritual things. The natural man cannot comprehend spiritual things, they must be spiritually discerned. The new birth is therefore necessary that we may have a spirit within us which can see or understand the kingdom of God; but until a man is born again, «he cannot see the kingdom of God.» John 3:4. Nicodemus saith u

SON OF MAN (_ See Scofield) - (Matthew 8:20). _...

JOHN 3:13 avnqrw,pou {B} On the one hand, a minority of the Committee preferred the reading avnqrw,pou o` w'n evn tw|/ ouvranw|/, arguing that (1) if the short reading, supported almost exclusively by Egyptian witnesses, were original, there is no discernible motive that would have prompted copyists to add the words o` w'n evn tw|/ ouvranw|/, resulting in a most difficult saying (the statement in John 1:18, not being parallel, would scarcely have prompted the addition); and (2) the diversity of readings implies that the expression o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou o` w'n evn tw|/ ouvranw|/, having been found objectionable or superfluous in the cont...