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Joh_3:14-15. Jesus, having in Joh_3:13 stated the ground of faith in Him, now proceeds to show the blessedness of the believer—which was the design of His redemptive work—in order the more to incite those whom He is addressing to fulfil the fundamental condition, contained in faith, of participating in His kingdom. That this is the logical advance in the discourse, is clear from the fact that in what follows it is the blessedness of faith which is dwelt upon; see Joh_3:15-16; Joh_3:18. We have not here a transition from the possibility to the necessity of communicating heavenly things, Joh_3:13 (Lücke); nor from the ideal unveilings of divine things to the chief mystery of the doctrine of salvation which was manifested in historical reality (De Wette, comp. Tholuck and Brückner); nor from the first of divine things, Christ’s divinity, to the second, the atonement which He was to establish (Hengstenberg, comp. Godet); nor from the Word to His manifestation (Olshausen); nor from the work of enlightenment to that of blessing (Scholl); nor from the present want of faith to its future rise (Jacobi: “faith will first begin to spring up when my ὕψωσις is begun”); nor from Christ’s work to His person (B. Crusius); nor from His person to His work (Lange).
The event recorded in Num_21:8 is made use of by Jesus as a type of the divinely appointed manner and efficacy of His coming death,[160] to confirm a prophecy still enigmatical to Nicodemus, by attaching it to a well-known historical illustration. The points of comparison are: (1) the being lifted up (the well-known brazen sepent on the pole, and Jesus on the cross); (2) the being saved (restored to health by looking at the serpent, to eternal ζωή by believing on the crucified One). Comp. Wis_16:6, and, in the earliest Christian literature, Epist. of Barnabas, c. 12; Ignatius ad Smyrn. 2, interpol.; Justin, Apol. 1. 60, Dial. c. Tr. 94. Any further drawing out of the illustration is arbitrary, as, for instance, that of Bengel: “ut serpens ille fuit serpens sine veneno contra serpentes venenatos, sic Christus homo sine peccato contra serpentem antiquum,” comp. Luther and others, approved by Lechler in the Stud. u. Krit. 1854, p. 826. Lange goes furthest in this direction; comp. Ebrard on Olshausen, p. 104. There is, further, no typical element in the fact that the brazen serpent of Moses was a dead representative (“as the sign of its conquering through the healing power of the Lord,” Hengstenberg). For, apart from the fact that Christ was lifted up alive upon the cross, the circumstance of the brazen serpent being a lifeless thing is not made prominent either in Numbers 21 or here.
ὑψωθῆναι ] not glorified, acknowledged in His exaltation (Paulus), which, following ὕψωσε , would be opposed to the context, but (comp. Joh_8:28, Joh_12:32-33) shall be lifted up, that is, on the cross,[161]—answering to the Aramaean æÀ÷Çó (comp. the Heb. æÈ÷Çó , Psa_145:14; Psa_146:8), a word used of the hanging up of the malefactor upon the beam. See Ezr_6:11; Gesenius, Thes. I. 428; Heydenreich in Hüffell’s Zeitschr. II. 1, p. 72 ff.; Brückner, 68, 69. Comp. Test. XII. patr. p. 739: κύριος ὑβρισθήσεται καὶ ἐπὶ ξύλου ὑψωθήσεται . The express comparison with the raising up of the brazen serpent, a story which must have been well known to Nicodemus, does not allow of our explaining ὑψωθήσ ., as = øåÌí , of the exaltation of Jesus to glory (Bleek, Beitr. 231), or as including this, so that the cross is the stepping-stone to glory (Lechler, Godet); or of referring it to the near coming of the kingdom, by which God will show Him in His greatness (Weizsäcker); or of our abiding simply by the idea of an exhibition (Hofmann, Weissag. u. Erf. II. 143), which Christ underwent in His public sufferings and death; or of leaving wholly out of account the form of the exaltation (which was certainly accomplished on the cross and then in heaven), (Luthardt), and conceiving of an exaltation for the purpose of being visible to all men (Holtzmann), as Schleiermacher also held (Leben Jesu, 345); or of assuming, as the meaning which was intelligible for Nicodemus, only that of removing, where Jesus, moreover, was conscious of His being lifted up on the cross and up to God (Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, 301).
δεῖ ] according to the divine decree, Mat_16:21, Luk_24:26, does not refer to the type, but only to the antitype (against Olshausen), especially as between the person of Christ and the brazen serpent as such no typical relation could exist.
Lastly, that Jesus should thus early make, though at the time an enigmatic, allusion to His death by crucifixion, is conceivable both on the ground of the doctrinal peculiarity of the event, and of the extraordinary importance of His death as the fact of redemption. See on Joh_2:19. And in the case of Nicodemus, the enigmatic germ then sown bore fruit, Joh_19:39.
Adopting the reading ἐν αὐτῷ (see Critical Notes), we cannot refer it to πιστεύων , but, as μὴ ἀπόληται , ἀλλʼ is spurious (see Critical Notes), to ἔχῃ : “every believer shall in Him (i.e. resting upon Him as the cause) have eternal life.” Comp. Joh_20:31, Joh_5:39, Joh_16:33, Joh_13:31.
ζωὴν αἰώνιον ] eternal Messianic life, which, however, the believer already has ( ἜΧῌ ) as an internal possession in ΑἸῺΝ ΟὟΤΟς , viz. the present self-conscious development of the only true moral and blissful ΖΩΉ , which is independent of death, and whose consummation and full glory begin with the second advent. (Comp. Joh_6:40; Joh_6:44-45; Joh_6:54; Joh_6:58, Joh_14:3, Joh_17:24; 1Jn_3:14; 1Jn_4:9.)
[160] Which, consequently, He had clearly foreseen not for the first time in Joh_6:51 (Weizsäcker); comp. on Joh_2:19.
[161] The higher significance imparted to Christ’s person and work by His death (Baur, Neutest. Theol. 379) is not implied in the word ὑψωθῆναι , but in the comparison with the serpent, and in the sentence following, which expresses the object of the lifting up. This passage (comp. Joh_1:29) should have prevented Baur from asserting (p. 400) that the Pauline doctrine concerning such a significance in Christ’s death is wholly wanting in St. John’s doctrinal view. See also Joh_6:51; Joh_6:53-54.