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Joh 3:13. Καί) And; you will see this is properly set down, if you change the interrogation at Joh 3:12, with some little time’s reflection, into an absolute [categorical] form of expression. In the preceding and present verse we are marked [characterized] as of ourselves aliens to heaven. Without reposing faith in My words and in Myself, saith Jesus, ye cannot understand or attain to heavenly things. The antecedent is put for the consequent. Similarly καί, and, is used ch. Joh 12:35, “Lest darkness come upon you; for he that walketh,” etc. [καὶ ὁ περιπατῶν. The conjunction for the relative, in which darkness he who walketh].-οὐδείς) no man sprung on the earth. Angels evidently are not excluded: ch. Joh 1:51. Believers do not ascend, but are drawn by the Ascending [Saviour] after Himself, whom they have put on in their baptism. [Hence appears the indispensable need of faith.-V. g.]-εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν, to heaven) He most especially speaks of the heaven of the Divine majesty.-εἰ μή, unless) Here, having changed the past time of the verb ἀναβέβηκεν, hath ascended, into the future, understand ἀναβήσεται, shall ascend: comp. ch. Joh 6:62, “What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before?” Nowhere before His passion has the Lord spoken more clearly concerning His ascension, than in this passage, and in its parallel, ch. Joh 6:62; where similarly He adduces His ascension, as something much more difficult to be believed than those things were, which were then seeming so incredible to His hearers. On the whole, the two discourses, ch. 3 and 6, have a great similarity to one another; and the one treats of the rise, the other of the nourishment of the new life, [each alike] breathing altogether of heavenly things. The objection made to the Saviour is as to the how, τὸ πῶς. He [on the other hand] insists on the whence, and the whither [quorsum, whitherwards the new birth tends].-ὁ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καταβάς, He who descends from heaven) The Son of man, having assumed human nature, whereas He had previously been in heaven as the Son of God, began to be on earth. Therefore That One, saith Jesus of Himself, can of Himself ascend, and will ascend to heaven. Pro 30:4, “Who hath ascended up to heaven, or descended?-What is His name, and what is His Son’s name?”-ὁ ὤν) who was in heaven, and, before the creation of the heavens, [was] with God: ch. Joh 1:1, notes. Thus, we may see, He both descended and will ascend. Comp. evidently ἦν, was, ch. Joh 6:62, “Where He was before:” so ὤν, who was [in the bosom of the Father: not which is, Engl. Vers.], ch. Joh 1:18. Frequently ὤν is used of the imperfect time: ch. Joh 9:25, “Whereas I was blind,” τυφλὸς ὤν, Joh 19:38, “Being a disciple” [i.e. who was a disciple]; Luk 24:44, “I spake whilst I was yet with you,” ἔτι ὤν; 2Co 8:9, “Though He was rich,-He became,” etc., πλούσιος ὤν. So ὤν in this passage is interpreted by Raphelius in his Appendix annot. from Herodotus, p. 682. Nor is he alone in this interpretation.