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Joh_3:12. How grievous the prospect which your unbelief regarding the instructions I have already given opens up as to the future!
τὰ ἐπίγεια ] what is on earth, things which take place on earth (not in heaven). We must strictly adhere to this meaning of the word in this as in all other passages (1Co_15:40; 2Co_5:1; Php_2:10; Php_3:19; Jam_3:15. Comp. Wis_9:16, and Grimm, Handbuch, p. 189). To the category of these earthly things belonged also the birth from above (against Baeumlein), because, though brought about by a power from heaven, it is accomplished on earth; and because, proceeding in repentance and faith, it is a change taking place on earth within the earthly realm of our moral life; and because it is historically certain that Christ everywhere began His work with this very preaching of μετάνοια . The Lord has in His mind not only the doctrine of regeneration just declared to Nicodemus, but, as the plural shows, all which thus far He had taught the Jews ( εἶπον ὑμῖν ); and this had been hitherto only ἐπίγεια , and not ἐπουράνια , of which He still designs to speak.[157] It is therefore wrong to refer the expression to the comparison of the wind (Beza) or of corporeal birth (Grotius), as prefiguring higher doctrine; for the relation to the faith spoken of did not lie in these symbols, but in the truths they symbolized. The meaning of the words is quite altered, moreover, if we change the word ἐπίγεια into “human and moral” (B. Crusius), or take it as meaning only what is stated in the immediate context (Lücke), or, with De Wette, make the point of difference to be nothing more than the antithesis between man’s susceptibility of regeneration as a work within him and his susceptibility of merely believing.
The counterpart of the ἐπίγεια are the ἐπουράνια , of which Jesus intends to speak to them in future, things which are in heaven (so in all places, Mat_18:35; 1Co_15:40; 1Co_15:48-49; Eph_1:3; Php_2:10, etc.). To this category belong especially the Messianic mysteries, i.e. the divine decrees for man’s redemption and final blessedness. These are ἐπουράνια , because they have their foundation (Wis_9:16-17) in the divine will, though their realization commences in the present αἰών , through the entire work, and in particular through the death of Jesus and the faith of mankind; but while still unaccomplished, belongs to the divine counsel, and shall be first consummated and fully revealed in the kingdom of the Messiah by the exalted Christ, when the ζωὴ αἰώνιος will reveal itself at the goal of perfection (Col_3:4), and “it will appear what we shall be.” To the ἐπουρανίοις , therefore, does not first belong what is to be said of His exaltation, Mat_26:64 (Steinfass); but that very statement, and indeed as the first and main thing, which Jesus immediately after delivers in Joh_3:14 ff., where the heavenly element, i.e. what is in the counsels of God (Joh_3:15-16), is clearly contained. According to the connection, it is to be inferred that what is heavenly is difficult to be understood; but this difficulty has nothing to do with the word itself, as Lücke holds.
[157] εἶπον is dixi, not dixerunt, as Ewald thinks, who regards the ancients in the O. T. as the subject, and upon too feeble evidence reads ἐπιστεύσατε instead of πιστεύετε . This new subject must have been expressed, and an ἐγώ should have stood over against it in the apodosis. Comp. Mat_5:21-22. The earthly might be appropriate to the law (following Col_2:17; Heb_9:5; Heb_10:1), but not to the prophets.