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Joh_3:3. In Joh_3:2 Nicodemus had only uttered the preface to what he had it in his mind to ask; the question itself was to have followed. But Jesus interrupts him, and gives him the answer by anticipation. This question, which was not (as Lange thinks, in contradiction of the procedure of Nicodemus on other occasions) kept back with remarkable prudence and caution, is to be inferred solely from the answer of Jesus; and it was accordingly no other than the general inquiry, “What must a man do in order to enter the Messiah’s kingdom?” not the special one, “Is the baptism of John sufficient for this?” (Baeumlein), for there is no mention of John the Baptist in what follows; comp. rather Mat_19:16. The first is the question which the Lord reads in the heart of Nicodemus, and to which He gives an answer,-—an answer in which He at once lays hold of the anxiety of the questioner in its deepest foundation, and overturns all Pharisaic, Judaistic, and merely human patchwork and pretence. To suppose that part of the conversation is here omitted (Maldonatus, Kuinoel, and others), is as arbitrary as to refer the answer of Jesus to the words of Nicodemus. Such a reference must be rejected, because Jesus had not given him time to tell the purpose of his coming. We must not therefore assume, either that Jesus wished to lead him on from faith in His miracles to that faith which effects a moral transformation (Augustine, De Wette, comp. also Luthardt and Ebrard); or that “He wished to convince Nicodemus, who imagined he had made a great confession in his first words, that he had not yet so much as made his way into the porticoes of true knowledge” (Chrysostom); or that “He wished to intimate that He had not come merely as a Teacher, but in order to the moral renewal of the world” (Baumgarten Crusius, comp. already Cyril, and Theophylact); or, “Videris tibi, O Nicodeme, videre aliquod signum apparentis jam regni coelorum in hisce miraculis, quae ego edo; amen dico tibi: nemo potest videre regnum Dei, sicut oportet, si non, etc.” (Lightfoot, approved by Lücke, and substantially by Godet also).
ἐὰν μὴ τις γενν . ἄνωθεν ] except a man be born from above, i.e. except a man be transformed by God into a new moral life. See on Joh_1:13. What is here required answers to the μετανοεῖτε , etc., with, which Jesus usually began His preaching, Mar_1:15. ἄνωθεν , the opposite of κάτωθεν , may be taken with reference to place (here equivalent to ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ; comp. Xen. Mem. iv. 3. 14; Symp. vi. 7; Thuc. iv. 75. 3; Soph. El. 1047; Eur. Cycl. 322; Bar_6:63; Jam_1:17; Jam_3:15), or with reference to time (equivalent to ἐξ ἀρχῆς ); Chrysostom gives both renderings. The latter is the ordinary interpretation
Syriac, Augustine, Vulgate, Nonnus, Luther, Castalio, Calvin, Beza, Maldonatus, etc. (so likewise Tholuck, Olshausen, Neander, and substantially Luthardt, Hengstenberg, Godet)—because Nicodemus himself (Joh_3:4) thus understood it. Accordingly, ἄνωθεν would be equivalent to iterum, again, anew, as Grimm (on Wis_19:6) also thinks. But this is already unjustifiable upon linguistic grounds, because ἄνωθεν when used of time does not signify iterum or denuo, but throughout, from the beginning onwards[150] (and so Ewald and Weiss interpret it), Luk_1:3; Act_26:5; Gal_4:9; Wis_19:6; Dem. 539, 22. 1082, 7. 13; Plat. Phil. 44 D; and, conformably with Johannean usage, the only right rendering is the local, not only linguistically (Joh_3:31; Joh_19:11; Joh_19:23), but, considering the manner of representation, because John apprehends regeneration, not according to the element of repetition, a being born again, but as a divine birth, a being born of God; see Joh_1:13; 1Jn_2:29; 1Jn_3:9; 1Jn_4:7; 1Jn_5:1. The representation of it as a repeated, a renewed birth is Pauline (Tit_3:5, comp. Rom_12:2; Gal_6:15; Eph_4:23-24; Col_3:9) and Petrine (1Pe_3:22). Ἄνωθεν , therefore, is rightly taken as equivalent to ἐκ θεοῦ by Origen, Gothic Vers. (ïupathrô), Cyril, Theophylact, Arethas, Bengel, etc.; also Lücke, B. Crusius, Maier, De Wette, Baur, Lange, Hilgenfeld, Baeumlein, Weizsäcker (who, however, adopts a double sense), Steinfass.
ἰδεῖν ] i.e. as a partaker thereof. Comp. εἰσελθεῖν , Joh_3:5, and see Joh_3:36, also ἰδεῖν θάνατον (Luk_2:26; Heb_11:5), διαφθοράν (Act_2:27), ἡμέρας ἀγαθάς (1Pe_3:10), πένθος (Rev_18:7). From the classics, see Jacobs ad Del. epigr. p. 387 ff.; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. 343. Not therefore: “simply to see, to say nothing of entering,” Lange; comp. Ewald on Joh_3:5. It is to be observed that the expression βασ . τοῦ θεοῦ does not occur in John, save here and in Joh_3:5;[151] and this is a proof of the accuracy with which he has recorded this weighty utterance of the Lord in its original shape. In Joh_18:36 Christ, on an extraordinary occasion, speaks of His kingdom. The conception of “the kingdom” in John does not differ from its meaning elsewhere in the N. T. (see on Mat_3:2). Moreover, the necessary correlative thereto, the Parousia, is not wanting in John (see on Joh_14:3).
[150] This, and not “again from the beginning,” as Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, II. 11) arbitrarily renders it, is the meaning of ἄνωθεν . It is self-evident that the conception from the beginning does not harmonize with that of being born. Nor, indeed, would “again from the beginning,” but simply “again,” be appropriate. Again from the beginning would be πάλιν ἄνωθεν , as in Wis_19:6; Gal_4:9. The passage, moreover, from Josephus, Antt. i. 18. 3, which Hofmann and Godet (following Krebs and others) quote as sanctioning their rendering, is inconclusive. For there we read φιλίαν ἄνωθεν ποιεῖται : “he makes friendship from the beginning onwards,” not implying the continuance of a friendship before unused, nor an entering again upon it. Artemidorus also, Oneirocr. i. 14, p. 18 (cited by Tholuck after Wetstein), where mention is made of a dream of a corporeal birth, uses ἄνωθεν in the sense not of again, but as equivalent to coelitus with the idea of a divine agency in the dream (Herm. Gottesd. Alterth. § 37. 7. 19).
[151] ‘The expression, moreover, βασ . τῶν οὐρανῶν (comp. the Critical Notes) is not found in John.