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INTRODUCTION
This is the “eagle” Gospel. It soars into the empyrean with steady wing and searching gaze. The Church has attributed it with consistent tradition to the hand of the Apostle John. The style and spirit and method of thought are so evidently his. There was, indeed, no one else in the first century who could have written it and remained unknown.
Clement of Alexandria says that it was written by the Apostle at the earnest solicitation of his friends; and that he was led by the Spirit of God to compose a spiritual Gospel, which would unfold much that the Synoptic Gospels had omitted.
It was probably written during the last decade of the first century, at Ephesus. It is evident that Jerusalem had already fallen, and that Gnostic heresy was already rife; and it fell to the lot of the Apostle to give this last conclusive demonstration that Jesus was the Son of God, Joh_20:31. It is interesting to study the development of the strife between faith and unbelief, as they became more and more pronounced in respect to the person of our Lord.
You Must Be Born Again
Joh 3:1 Now there was a certain man among the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler (member of the Sanhedrin) among the Jews,
Joh 3:2 who came to Jesus at night and said to Him, "Rabbi (Teacher), we know [without any doubt] that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs [these wonders, these attesting miracles] that You do unless God is with him."
Joh 3:3 Jesus answered him, "I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless a person is born again [reborn from above--spiritually transformed, renewed, sanctified], he cannot [ever] see and experience the kingdom of God."
Joh 3:4 Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother's womb a second time and be born, can he?"
Joh 3:5 Jesus answered, "I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot [ever] enter the kingdom of God. [Eze_36:25-27]
Joh 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh [the physical is merely physical], and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Joh 3:7 Do not be surprised that I have told you, 'You must be born again [reborn from above--spiritually transformed, renewed, sanctified].'
Joh 3:8 The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it is coming from and where it is going; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
Joh 3:9 Nicodemus said to Him, "How can these things be possible?"
Joh 3:10 Jesus replied, "You are the [great and well-known] teacher of Israel, and yet you do not know nor understand these things [from Scripture]?
Joh 3:11 I assure you and most solemnly say to you, we speak only of what we [absolutely] know and testify about what we have [actually] seen [as eyewitnesses]; and [still] you [reject our evidence and] do not accept our testimony.
Joh 3:12 If I told you earthly things [that is, things that happen right here on earth] and you do not believe, how will you believe and trust Me if I tell you heavenly things?
Joh 3:13 No one has gone up into heaven, but there is One who came down from heaven, the Son of Man [Himself--whose home is in heaven].
Joh 3:14 Just as Moses lifted up the [bronze] serpent in the desert [on a pole], so must the Son of Man be lifted up [on the cross], [Num_21:9]
Joh 3:15 so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life [after physical death, and will actually live forever].
For God So Loved the World
Joh 3:16 "For God so [greatly] loved and dearly prized the world, that He [even] gave His [One and] only begotten Son, so that whoever believes and trusts in Him [as Savior] shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Joh 3:17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge and condemn the world [that is, to initiate the final judgment of the world], but that the world might be saved through Him.
Joh 3:18 Whoever believes and has decided to trust in Him [as personal Savior and Lord] is not judged [for this one, there is no judgment, no rejection, no condemnation]; but the one who does not believe [and has decided to reject Him as personal Savior and Lord] is judged already [that one has been convicted and sentenced], because he has not believed and trusted in the name of the [One and] only begotten Son of God [the One who is truly unique, the only One of His kind, the One who alone can save him].
Joh 3:19 This is the judgment [that is, the cause for indictment, the test by which people are judged, the basis for the sentence]: the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. [Isa_5:20]
Joh 3:20 For every wrongdoer hates the Light, and does not come to the Light [but shrinks from it] for fear that his [sinful, worthless] activities will be exposed and condemned.
Joh 3:21 But whoever practices truth [and does what is right--morally, ethically, spiritually] comes to the Light, so that his works may be plainly shown to be what they are--accomplished in God [divinely prompted, done with God's help, in dependence on Him]."
John 2:23-3:8
NEW LIFE FROM ABOVE THE NEED OF ALL
A solemn question is suggested by Joh_2:24. Can Jesus trust Himself to us? We must show ourselves worthy of His trust. In Joh_3:1-36; Joh_4:1-54 we have two remarkable instances of the Lord’s intimate knowledge of the human heart.
Apparently Nicodemus had shrunk from identifying himself with John’s baptism. He was one of the richest men in Jerusalem, and our Lord addressed him as the teacher, Joh_2:10, R.V. He was willing to talk about systems of truth and schemes of philosophy; but the Master knew that more, much more, was necessary; there must be the emergence of His soul into the experience of an enlarged and fuller life. The phrase, “the new birth,” the Jews always used for Gentiles, and it greatly startled Nicodemus to learn that there was needed for himself the same change as was required by Gentiles before entering the Jewish commonwealth. In speaking of water, our Lord probably refers to the baptism of John, in which men confessed their sins and expressed their desire to leave the past behind and to enter a fuller experience of the life of God. The new life begotten by the Spirit of God is as mysterious as the wind. That Spirit, bearing the germ of a new life, rejoices to enter each open casement and to fill each vacuum, wherever one will.
John 3:9-21
LOVE’S GREAT GIFT: RECEIVED OR REJECTED
Though physically on earth, our Lord was spiritually in touch with the heavenly realities. He was living among them and bore witness to them. Notice that must, Joh_3:14. He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and the divine purpose of redemption would fail unless He fulfilled His part in the eternal compact. That which had been resolved upon before the foundations of the hills were laid must be carried out in all its terrible detail. He must be accounted as a sin offering, and go forth as a scapegoat. He must tread the winepress alone, and pour out His soul unto death. Yet He was not rebellious, nor did He turn back. He rejoiced to do the Father’s will. For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the Cross.
Redemption originated in God’s great love. Notice the pairs in Joh_3:16 : God and the Son; loved and gave; the world and whosoever; believe and have; not perish but have life. The judgment is already in process, and the turning point with each who has known the gospel will be his attitude toward the light he has enjoyed. Evil men avoid the light, as an inflamed eye the sun. No true heart fears Christ, and on coming to Him it discovers that unconsciously it has been wrought upon by God.
John 3
Overview
Joh_3:1, Christ teaches Nicodemus the necessity of regeneration, Joh_3:14. of faith in his death, Joh_3:16. the great love of God towards the world, Joh_3:18. and the condemnation for unbelief; Joh_3:22, Jesus baptizes in Judea; Joh_3:23, The baptism, witness, and doctrine of John concerning Christ.
Food for thought:
John
John, who, according to the unanimous testimony of the ancient fathers and ecclesiastical writers, was the author of this Gospel, was the son of Zebedee, a fisherman of Bethsaida, by Salome his wife (compare Mat_10:2, with Mat_27:55-56 and Mar_15:40), and brother of James the elder, whom “Herod killed with the sword,” (Act_12:2). Theophylact says that Salome was the daughter of Joseph, the husband of Mary, by a former wife; and that consequently she was our Lord’s sister, and John was his nephew. He followed the occupation of his father till his call to the apostleship (Mat_4:21-22, Mar_1:19-20, Luk_5:1-10), which is supposed to have been when he was about twenty five years of age; after which he was a constant eye-witness of our Lord’s labours, journeyings, discourses, miracles, passion, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. After the ascension of our Lord he returned with the other apostles to Jerusalem, and with the rest partook of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, by which he was eminently qualified for the office of an Evangelist and Apostle. After the death of Mary, the mother of Christ, which is supposed to have taken place about fifteen years after the crucifixion, and probably after the council held in Jerusalem about A.D. 49 or 50 (Acts 15), at which he was present, he is said by ecclesiastical writers to have proceeded to Asia Minor, where he formed and presided over seven churches in as many cities, but chiefly resided at Ephesus. Thence he was banished by the emperor Domitian, in the fifteenth year of his reign, A.D. 95, to the isle of Patmos in the Agean sea, where he wrote the Apocalypse (Rev_1:9). On the accession of Nerva the following year, he was recalled from exile and returned to Ephesus, where he wrote his Gospel and Epistles, and died in the hundredth year of his age, about A.D. 100, and in the third year of the emperor Trajan. It is generally believed that St. John was the youngest of the twelve apostles, and that he survived all the rest. Jerome, in his comment on Gal VI., says that he continued preaching when so enfeebled with age as to be obliged to be carried into the assembly; and that, not being able to deliver any long discourse, his custom was to say in every meeting, My dear children, love one another. The general current of ancient writers declares that the apostle wrote his Gospel at an advanced period of life, with which the internal evidence perfectly agrees; and we may safely refer it, with Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Mill, Lev. Clerc, and others, to the year 97. The design of St. John in writing his Gospel is said by some to have been to supply those important events which the other Evangelists had omitted, and to refute the notions of the Cerinthians and Nicolaitans, or according to others, to refute the heresy of the Gnostics and Sabians. But, though many parts of his Gospel may be successfully quoted against the strange doctrines held by those sects, yet the apostle had evidently a more general end in view than the confutation of their heresies. His own words sufficiently inform us of his motive and design in writing this Gospel: “These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through his name” (Joh_20:31). Learned men are not wholly agreed concerning the language in which this Gospel was originally written. Salmasius, Grotius, and other writers, have imagined that St. John wrote it in his own native tongue, the Aramean or Syriac, and that it was afterwards translated into Greek. This opinion is not supported by any strong arguments, and is contradicted by the unanimous voice of antiquity, which affirms that he wrote it in Greek, which is the general and most probable opinion. The style of this Gospel indicates a great want of those advantages which result from a learned education; but this defect is amply compensated by the unexampled simplicity with which he expresses the sublimest truths. One thing very remarkable is an attempt to impress important truths more strongly on the minds of his readers, by employing in the expression of them both an affirmative proposition and a negative. It is manifestly not without design that he commonly passes over those passages of our Lord’s history and teaching which had been treated at large by other Evangelists, or if he touches them at all, he touches them but slightly, whilst he records many miracles which had been overlooked by the rest, and expatiates on the sublime doctrines of the pre-existence, the divinity, and the incarnation of the Word, the great ends of His mission, and the blessings of His purchase.
All of this is from E-Sword , The Sword of The Lord
This is the “eagle” Gospel. It soars into the empyrean with steady wing and searching gaze. The Church has attributed it with consistent tradition to the hand of the Apostle John. The style and spirit and method of thought are so evidently his. There was, indeed, no one else in the first century who could have written it and remained unknown.
Clement of Alexandria says that it was written by the Apostle at the earnest solicitation of his friends; and that he was led by the Spirit of God to compose a spiritual Gospel, which would unfold much that the Synoptic Gospels had omitted.
It was probably written during the last decade of the first century, at Ephesus. It is evident that Jerusalem had already fallen, and that Gnostic heresy was already rife; and it fell to the lot of the Apostle to give this last conclusive demonstration that Jesus was the Son of God, Joh_20:31. It is interesting to study the development of the strife between faith and unbelief, as they became more and more pronounced in respect to the person of our Lord.
You Must Be Born Again
Joh 3:1 Now there was a certain man among the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler (member of the Sanhedrin) among the Jews,
Joh 3:2 who came to Jesus at night and said to Him, "Rabbi (Teacher), we know [without any doubt] that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs [these wonders, these attesting miracles] that You do unless God is with him."
Joh 3:3 Jesus answered him, "I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless a person is born again [reborn from above--spiritually transformed, renewed, sanctified], he cannot [ever] see and experience the kingdom of God."
Joh 3:4 Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother's womb a second time and be born, can he?"
Joh 3:5 Jesus answered, "I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot [ever] enter the kingdom of God. [Eze_36:25-27]
Joh 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh [the physical is merely physical], and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Joh 3:7 Do not be surprised that I have told you, 'You must be born again [reborn from above--spiritually transformed, renewed, sanctified].'
Joh 3:8 The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it is coming from and where it is going; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
Joh 3:9 Nicodemus said to Him, "How can these things be possible?"
Joh 3:10 Jesus replied, "You are the [great and well-known] teacher of Israel, and yet you do not know nor understand these things [from Scripture]?
Joh 3:11 I assure you and most solemnly say to you, we speak only of what we [absolutely] know and testify about what we have [actually] seen [as eyewitnesses]; and [still] you [reject our evidence and] do not accept our testimony.
Joh 3:12 If I told you earthly things [that is, things that happen right here on earth] and you do not believe, how will you believe and trust Me if I tell you heavenly things?
Joh 3:13 No one has gone up into heaven, but there is One who came down from heaven, the Son of Man [Himself--whose home is in heaven].
Joh 3:14 Just as Moses lifted up the [bronze] serpent in the desert [on a pole], so must the Son of Man be lifted up [on the cross], [Num_21:9]
Joh 3:15 so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life [after physical death, and will actually live forever].
For God So Loved the World
Joh 3:16 "For God so [greatly] loved and dearly prized the world, that He [even] gave His [One and] only begotten Son, so that whoever believes and trusts in Him [as Savior] shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Joh 3:17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge and condemn the world [that is, to initiate the final judgment of the world], but that the world might be saved through Him.
Joh 3:18 Whoever believes and has decided to trust in Him [as personal Savior and Lord] is not judged [for this one, there is no judgment, no rejection, no condemnation]; but the one who does not believe [and has decided to reject Him as personal Savior and Lord] is judged already [that one has been convicted and sentenced], because he has not believed and trusted in the name of the [One and] only begotten Son of God [the One who is truly unique, the only One of His kind, the One who alone can save him].
Joh 3:19 This is the judgment [that is, the cause for indictment, the test by which people are judged, the basis for the sentence]: the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. [Isa_5:20]
Joh 3:20 For every wrongdoer hates the Light, and does not come to the Light [but shrinks from it] for fear that his [sinful, worthless] activities will be exposed and condemned.
Joh 3:21 But whoever practices truth [and does what is right--morally, ethically, spiritually] comes to the Light, so that his works may be plainly shown to be what they are--accomplished in God [divinely prompted, done with God's help, in dependence on Him]."
John 2:23-3:8
NEW LIFE FROM ABOVE THE NEED OF ALL
A solemn question is suggested by Joh_2:24. Can Jesus trust Himself to us? We must show ourselves worthy of His trust. In Joh_3:1-36; Joh_4:1-54 we have two remarkable instances of the Lord’s intimate knowledge of the human heart.
Apparently Nicodemus had shrunk from identifying himself with John’s baptism. He was one of the richest men in Jerusalem, and our Lord addressed him as the teacher, Joh_2:10, R.V. He was willing to talk about systems of truth and schemes of philosophy; but the Master knew that more, much more, was necessary; there must be the emergence of His soul into the experience of an enlarged and fuller life. The phrase, “the new birth,” the Jews always used for Gentiles, and it greatly startled Nicodemus to learn that there was needed for himself the same change as was required by Gentiles before entering the Jewish commonwealth. In speaking of water, our Lord probably refers to the baptism of John, in which men confessed their sins and expressed their desire to leave the past behind and to enter a fuller experience of the life of God. The new life begotten by the Spirit of God is as mysterious as the wind. That Spirit, bearing the germ of a new life, rejoices to enter each open casement and to fill each vacuum, wherever one will.
John 3:9-21
LOVE’S GREAT GIFT: RECEIVED OR REJECTED
Though physically on earth, our Lord was spiritually in touch with the heavenly realities. He was living among them and bore witness to them. Notice that must, Joh_3:14. He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and the divine purpose of redemption would fail unless He fulfilled His part in the eternal compact. That which had been resolved upon before the foundations of the hills were laid must be carried out in all its terrible detail. He must be accounted as a sin offering, and go forth as a scapegoat. He must tread the winepress alone, and pour out His soul unto death. Yet He was not rebellious, nor did He turn back. He rejoiced to do the Father’s will. For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the Cross.
Redemption originated in God’s great love. Notice the pairs in Joh_3:16 : God and the Son; loved and gave; the world and whosoever; believe and have; not perish but have life. The judgment is already in process, and the turning point with each who has known the gospel will be his attitude toward the light he has enjoyed. Evil men avoid the light, as an inflamed eye the sun. No true heart fears Christ, and on coming to Him it discovers that unconsciously it has been wrought upon by God.
John 3
Overview
Joh_3:1, Christ teaches Nicodemus the necessity of regeneration, Joh_3:14. of faith in his death, Joh_3:16. the great love of God towards the world, Joh_3:18. and the condemnation for unbelief; Joh_3:22, Jesus baptizes in Judea; Joh_3:23, The baptism, witness, and doctrine of John concerning Christ.
Food for thought:
John
John, who, according to the unanimous testimony of the ancient fathers and ecclesiastical writers, was the author of this Gospel, was the son of Zebedee, a fisherman of Bethsaida, by Salome his wife (compare Mat_10:2, with Mat_27:55-56 and Mar_15:40), and brother of James the elder, whom “Herod killed with the sword,” (Act_12:2). Theophylact says that Salome was the daughter of Joseph, the husband of Mary, by a former wife; and that consequently she was our Lord’s sister, and John was his nephew. He followed the occupation of his father till his call to the apostleship (Mat_4:21-22, Mar_1:19-20, Luk_5:1-10), which is supposed to have been when he was about twenty five years of age; after which he was a constant eye-witness of our Lord’s labours, journeyings, discourses, miracles, passion, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. After the ascension of our Lord he returned with the other apostles to Jerusalem, and with the rest partook of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, by which he was eminently qualified for the office of an Evangelist and Apostle. After the death of Mary, the mother of Christ, which is supposed to have taken place about fifteen years after the crucifixion, and probably after the council held in Jerusalem about A.D. 49 or 50 (Acts 15), at which he was present, he is said by ecclesiastical writers to have proceeded to Asia Minor, where he formed and presided over seven churches in as many cities, but chiefly resided at Ephesus. Thence he was banished by the emperor Domitian, in the fifteenth year of his reign, A.D. 95, to the isle of Patmos in the Agean sea, where he wrote the Apocalypse (Rev_1:9). On the accession of Nerva the following year, he was recalled from exile and returned to Ephesus, where he wrote his Gospel and Epistles, and died in the hundredth year of his age, about A.D. 100, and in the third year of the emperor Trajan. It is generally believed that St. John was the youngest of the twelve apostles, and that he survived all the rest. Jerome, in his comment on Gal VI., says that he continued preaching when so enfeebled with age as to be obliged to be carried into the assembly; and that, not being able to deliver any long discourse, his custom was to say in every meeting, My dear children, love one another. The general current of ancient writers declares that the apostle wrote his Gospel at an advanced period of life, with which the internal evidence perfectly agrees; and we may safely refer it, with Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Mill, Lev. Clerc, and others, to the year 97. The design of St. John in writing his Gospel is said by some to have been to supply those important events which the other Evangelists had omitted, and to refute the notions of the Cerinthians and Nicolaitans, or according to others, to refute the heresy of the Gnostics and Sabians. But, though many parts of his Gospel may be successfully quoted against the strange doctrines held by those sects, yet the apostle had evidently a more general end in view than the confutation of their heresies. His own words sufficiently inform us of his motive and design in writing this Gospel: “These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through his name” (Joh_20:31). Learned men are not wholly agreed concerning the language in which this Gospel was originally written. Salmasius, Grotius, and other writers, have imagined that St. John wrote it in his own native tongue, the Aramean or Syriac, and that it was afterwards translated into Greek. This opinion is not supported by any strong arguments, and is contradicted by the unanimous voice of antiquity, which affirms that he wrote it in Greek, which is the general and most probable opinion. The style of this Gospel indicates a great want of those advantages which result from a learned education; but this defect is amply compensated by the unexampled simplicity with which he expresses the sublimest truths. One thing very remarkable is an attempt to impress important truths more strongly on the minds of his readers, by employing in the expression of them both an affirmative proposition and a negative. It is manifestly not without design that he commonly passes over those passages of our Lord’s history and teaching which had been treated at large by other Evangelists, or if he touches them at all, he touches them but slightly, whilst he records many miracles which had been overlooked by the rest, and expatiates on the sublime doctrines of the pre-existence, the divinity, and the incarnation of the Word, the great ends of His mission, and the blessings of His purchase.
All of this is from E-Sword , The Sword of The Lord
