If I have said the earthly things to you, and ye believe not, how, if I say the heavenly things to you, will ye believe?
Nicodemus came to Jesus as a respected teacher of Israel, yet he could not follow what he heard. Here the Lord separates two levels of truth — one his own Scriptures already held, one nobody had yet heard — and He names the real barrier: unbelief.
The phrase does not mean crude or material things. It means the part of God's kingdom that belongs to this earth.
The meaning of "earthly things" as contrasted with "heavenly things" in John 3:12 is not difficult. God's kingdom includes both. The Old Testament mainly opens up the earthly side. The New Testament dwells almost entirely on the heavenly side. The Lord teaches here that a Jew must be born again even to enjoy the earthly things of that kingdom. Compare Ezekiel 36:25-38. Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel, ought to have known this from it. Even Israel, as a nation, must be born again before they can have their earthly blessings in the coming thousand-year kingdom. If they did not believe this, it was pointless to speak of the higher part of God's kingdom.
The word marks a place, not a moral quality:
God's earthly things were not evil or sinful things. They were the promised earthly portion the Jews were to look for. In that coming day they must be sprinkled with water and receive a new heart from the Spirit before they can inherit. This Nicodemus should have known.
The earthly side was old news. The heavenly side was not, and one writer spells out what Nicodemus was missing:
How! says He, you a teacher in Israel! You ought to understand that Israel must have a new and purified heart to enjoy the promises. How is it that you do not know these things? If you will not take in My words — that you must be born of water and of the Spirit — and you do not understand these earthly things, how can anyone expect you to believe about heavenly things? … How will you grasp the glory of Christ exalted in heaven, and the church, His companion, in that heavenly glory?
The heavenly blessing is also wider than the nation Nicodemus taught:
Then there are the heavenly things, which are better. There is the sovereign acting of His grace. He will take any poor sinners of the Gentiles, as well as the Jews, and bring them into the blessing He has to give.
The two subjects differ in more than height. Anyone could test a claim about earth; only one Person could report on heaven.
Israel did not receive His witness, even when He spoke of things on earth, where they could test what He said in many ways. In this way new birth was well within their knowledge. The work of the Spirit in people had a voice, if they could hear it, and the prophets had also borne witness to it. Now if still they did not believe, how would they believe if He spoke of heavenly things? Of a realm where they would have no witness but His own? His own witness must stand alone.
Nicodemus and his fellow teachers held the Scriptures in their hands. Their failure had a deeper cause than missing information.
The leaders of Israel did not understand what their own Scriptures taught. The reason was simple: they had no real faith in God. How then, without faith, could they receive the "heavenly things" the Son of God had come to make known?
Whichever level of blessing is in view, the same starting point stands. The heavenly things do not replace new birth; they rest on it.
Nicodemus should have learned from passages such as Ezekiel 36:25-28 and Jeremiah 31:33 that new birth was necessary for Israel to have part in God's kingdom. Later in John 3 come the heavenly things of Christianity — the fruit of the cross, and the love of God. But there must be new birth as the foundation in man, whatever the blessing offered.
- Two departments. God's kingdom has an earthly side and a heavenly side. The Old Testament opens the first. The New Testament opens the second.
- Earthly first. Even Israel's promised blessing on earth needed new birth. Ezekiel and Jeremiah had written it down, so a teacher of Israel had no excuse.
- Heavenly next. Above that lay truth no one had heard: Christ glorified in heaven, the church joined with Him there, and grace reaching Gentiles as well as Jews.
- One witness. People could test earthly claims in many ways. For heaven there was no other reporter than the One speaking.
- One door. Unbelief blocked the higher truth, not any lack of clarity. New birth stays the foundation for every blessing God offers, on earth or in heaven.
And no one has gone up into heaven, save he who came down out of heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven.
Nicodemus taught Israel, yet he had just stumbled over an earthly thing — the new birth. So the Lord raises a harder question: who can speak about heaven at all?
Heavenly things need a witness who has been there. No traveller had gone up and come back with a report — and the title that fits the One who can speak is not Messiah.
Nicodemus did not understand these earthly things of Israel's blessing. How then would he understand if the Lord spoke to him of heavenly things? No one had gone up to heaven, so no one could bring word of what was there, or of what was needed to enjoy it. No one, that is, except He who had come down from there. He spoke of what He knew, and bore witness to what He had seen. Not the Messiah — that title had to do with the earth — but the Son of man, who, as to His divine nature, was in heaven.
Scripture does record men reaching heaven. The difference here is not arrival, but right.
Two men, Enoch and Elijah, were taken up to heaven; they did not ascend in their own right and title. But Jesus, the Son of Man, belonged to heaven; it was His home. He came down from heaven, and He had the right to leave heaven because of who He was. No angel could come down from heaven by his own choice. To do so would be to leave the place first given him. Some angels did leave it, and they are kept in everlasting chains, waiting for the judgment of the great day.
So the claim is about witness. Nicodemus had no one else to check the report against:
It was plain that there was no one. He is speaking only of witness that men can reach — not of Enoch or Elijah or the spirits of the dead. No one had gone up to heaven to give any confirmation. His own witness must stand alone.
He says this while standing on earth, speaking to a man in a room at night. The phrase is not a slip; it is the clearest window in the chapter into who He is.
The divine-human Person comes out distinctly here, the One always in heaven, though a man on earth: of no created being could such a thing be said.
Taking a body did not shrink what He is. Commentators read the words as a plain claim to be everywhere at once:
Indeed, at that very moment when He was speaking on earth He was "the Son of man which is in heaven." He is God and as such He is present everywhere at the same time. The incarnation did not change this.
William Kelly puts it in terms of right of entry:
Nobody had gone up to heaven. God had taken more than one there, but no one had gone as of right. Jesus not only could go up, as He did later; He had also come down from there. Though man, He was the Son of man who is in heaven. He is a divine person, and His manhood brought no loss to His rights as God. Heavenly things, therefore, had to be natural to Him.
This is what shapes the whole Gospel of John:
These are the wonderful truths of the Gospel of John. Here we have the words of One from heaven, telling people on this earth what heaven is and what is in heaven. One came to this earth to give eternal life to men. He came to die for sinners on the cross of Calvary, so that there should be no judgment for them. But He came for more: to reveal to them what was in the heart of God, and what their portion was in heaven if they accepted Him.
The next verse turns from coming down to being lifted up. A new nature alone leaves man's guilt unanswered.
If God's nature was revealed, and man's sharing in it meant that he had to do with God, then there must be atonement as well as a new birth. The Son of man took up man's cause. As man He was to hold the inheritance of all things in man's nature. He must be lifted up, like the serpent in the wilderness, made sin for us, so that men might look on Him and live.
- Descent: No one climbed up to bring back news of heaven; the news came down, in a Person.
- Right: Enoch and Elijah were taken up; He came down — heaven was His home, and He left it by His own right.
- Person: He is God, present everywhere at once. So He could stand on earth and still be the Son of man in heaven, and His manhood cost Him nothing of His rights as God.
- Witness: No other voice could confirm Him, so His testimony stands alone. Heavenly things are natural to Him, not learned.
- Cross: The One who came down must be lifted up; a new nature meets what man lacks, atonement meets what man owes.