Does John 3:13 mean that no one went to heaven before Jesus?

Nicodemus can only express his bewilderment: "How can these things be?" he asks. The Lord asks in turn how he can be the teacher of Israel, and yet not know them. Then He affirms His own knowledge, from which He speaks, not with the uncertainty of their traditional teachers. Yet Israel received not His witness, even when He spoke of things upon earth, where what He said could in many ways be tested. New birth was a thing in this way sufficiently within their knowledge: for the work of the Spirit in men had a voice if they could hear it, and the prophets also had borne witness to it. Now if still they believed not, how would they believe if He spoke of heavenly things? of a sphere as to which they would have no witness but His own? For it was plain that there was no one — He is speaking of accessible witness only, as is manifest, not of Enoch or Elijah or the spirits of the dead — no one who had ascended up to heaven, to give any confirmation. His own witness must stand alone. He, the Son of man, had been in heaven; from heaven He had come down; still, by the mystery of His nature, the One who is in heaven. 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. And here at once comes in the witness of heavenly things; which, alas, Israel would reject, as we know they rejected Him who bore the witness, and of whom the witness was.

This wonderful statement was made while the Lord was on earth: "And no man has ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven" (John 3:13). 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, having the right to leave heaven because of who He was. No angel could come down from heaven of his own volition; to do so would be to leave his first estate, which some angels did, and are reserved in everlasting chains awaiting the judgment of the great day.

The 'poor annihilationists,' on the contrary, accept the declaration that the way was not yet manifested while the old economy existed, and that, as Jesus said, No man had ascended into heaven.'" But the fact of Abraham and other saints going to heaven after death, does not imply that the way there was made manifest in the Old Testament, i.e., of course to men before they died. Nor do the Lord's words which he quotes (John 3:13) at all imply even that Enoch and Elias had not "ascended into heaven." Plainly they had, and therefore Mr. R.'s interpretation of them is convicted of untruth. But the Lord is speaking, as the context decisively shows, of available witnesses of "heavenly things." It was no question of Enoch and Elias, who were not there to tell what they might know, still less of the condition of the departed dead, but of there being no other accessible witness of heavenly things, except Himself, the Son of Man, and yet (ho on en to ourano) "subsisting in heaven." "If I have told you of earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man [evidently, none here to give witness] hath ascended up to heaven, save he who came down from heaven, even the Son of Man who is in heaven." To make this clash with Enoch and Elias having gone there is surely a mere straining of the words, and just as much so to infer from it the condition of the righteous dead.

Verse 13 stresses the fact that there is no other competent witness to heavenly things. Though Enoch and Elijah had ascended to heaven, they were not available as witnesses: they had not come down from heaven, as had the Lord Jesus, the Son of Man. Shining through here also is the proof of the uniting of Godhead and Manhood in His blessed person, for even then, He was in heaven, fully acquainted with all that heaven held. (As to this verse there is another possible interpretation, that is, that it may be a parenthesis, not actually spoken by the Lord at the time, but inserted by the evangelist, who of course wrote long after Christ had ascended back to heaven.)

The Lord, it is true, could and did go farther than the prophets: even if He taught on the same theme, He could speak with conscious divine dignity and knowledge (not merely what was assigned to an instrument or messenger). "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." (Verses 11-13) He (and He was not alone here) knew God, and the things of God, consciously in Himself, as surely as He knew all men, and what was in man objectively. He could, therefore, tell them of heavenly things as readily as of earthly things; but the incredulity about the latter, shown in the wondering ignorance of the new birth as a requisite for God's kingdom, proved it was useless to tell of the former. For He who spoke was divine. Nobody had gone up to heaven: God had taken more than one; but no one had gone there as of right. Jesus not only could go up, as He did later, but He had come down thence, and, even though man, He was the Son of man that is in heaven. He is a divine person; His manhood brought no attainder to His rights as God. Heavenly things, therefore, could not but be natural to Him, if one may so say.

There were still the heavenly things. Now if Nicodemus did not understand these earthly things of Israel's blessing, how would he understand if the Lord spoke to him of heavenly things? Now no one had ascended to heaven, so as to be able to bring word of what was there, and of what was necessary to be able to enjoy it, save He who had descended thence, who spoke of what He knew, and bore witness to what He had seen; not the Messiah - that had to do with the earth - but the Son of man, who, as to His divine nature, was in heaven.

Only a few isolated passages remain, which I notice because they refer to scripture. "The verse, 'And no man hath ascended up to heaven, save he that came down,' John 3:13, is intelligible as a free comment near the end of the first century, but has no meaning in our Lord's mouth at a time when the ascension had not been heard of." Now he has quoted only half the verse — it goes on, "from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven; and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness." That is, it is clearly presented as applicable before His death, not after His ascension. What precedes makes it still more evident: — "We speak that we do know and testify that we have seen, and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you of earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?" This He could do because He had come down from heaven and was divinely in it, though no man else had come down to bring word. Christ was then speaking to Nicodemus, and so speaks in the passage; it is no comment, free or unfree. The Evangelist might have added: — and no one has gone up to do it like Him save He who came down, the Son of man who is now there, being gone back. This would have been very intelligible as his remark, without being free at all. But it is not so. They are the Lord's words at the time, only half of which are given by the reviewer; and their meaning is very simple and very evident. How shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things, when you cannot believe the earthly things of your own prophecies, which as a master in Israel you ought to have understood? And if you do not believe them, you must remain entirely ignorant of heavenly things, for nobody has gone up there to bring word back: but I can tell them; I came from heaven, and not only so, but I can, even in all their divine freshness, for I am in my divine nature always there, and it flows in my human nature to tell it according to my perfect knowledge of it.

A. ― They were caught up to heaven. No man had "ascended" up to heaven till Christ. He did so in the calmness of His own divine and indwelling power. Back

In John 3:13 the Lord said, “And no man has ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven.” Elijah had been taken up to heaven: he had not ascended in any rights of his own, but in the sovereign goodness of God had been taken up without dying. How very different the ascension of the Lord Jesus: He had the right to enter into heaven because of who He was, the eternal Son of God, the creator of all things, and He also had the right of entry into heaven because of the greatness of the work He had done upon the cross. It was the same as Enoch as with Elijah: both were taken away from earth without dying because it was God’s good pleasure to take them for His own purposes, and to teach us in this day of His purpose concerning the church, and those who would remain until the coming of the Lord.

I trust you see now how, in this passage in John 3, His ascension is brought forward by Himself, as proof of the competency to speak of heavenly or earthly things. "No man has ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven." A man may be taken up into heaven, you know that. Enoch and Elijah were taken up into heaven, and angels came down from heaven, but no man has ascended up into heaven; no man ever went up there in the way the Lord was speaking here; no one ever went up there in wondrous right. For whilst His incarnation was the witness to how God came down in lowly grace to man, His ascension was the witness to how man had gone up in divine right and righteousness to God. You have there the two realities. In that wonderful child in the manger at Bethlehem, you have the witness to all the lowly grace that was in God, who came down, and stooped, and emptied Himself to become a man. It was not that He laid aside His glory. I do not think that expression is quite correct. He veiled it, if you please; He never laid it aside; faith, I believe, may have pierced the veil, and seen it. I grant you there was very little faith; but wherever there was the smallest exercise of faith, it pierced the veil, and gazed upon His glory. The expression is borrowed from an old hymn, but I do not believe it to be correct. It was God come down here in lowly grace that was witnessed in the incarnation. But when the cross had become a reality, and the Lord Jesus Christ was risen from among the dead, and was ascended into the heavens and exalted to the right hand of God, there we find man gone up to God in right and righteousness. And that is a wonderful thing for ourselves; for, as I tried to press upon you here before, it was not that the Lord Jesus Christ was not perfectly entitled in virtue of the glory of His Person to every expression of divine complacency, for assuredly He was, but it is an immense thing for our souls in connection with Christianity to know that. He won it, He got it in virtue of the completeness and perfection of His work, and that according to the counsels of God.