What is the meaning of "we speak of what we know" in John 3:11?

"Marvel not," then, He says, "that I said unto you, Ye must be born again." Here He presses the truth home in the most distinct manner - not merely on man - as the want of all men who would enter God's kingdom, but now "Ye must be born again." This eminently leads Nicodemus to put his next question. "Jesus answered and said unto him," (in answer to "How can these things be?") "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness." Obviously this is a statement of the utmost value, as showing the place of our Lord Jesus in this chapter. He speaks as One who is familiar with God; not merely as One who acted from God, but who pronounced with His authority, speaking as One who is absolutely and perfectly at home with God. "We speak," says He, "that we do know;" and the word implies intimate knowledge - intrinsic personal knowledge; not that which was given, which a prophet might utter as presented to him, had he the means of revelation, but as One who knew God and His glory consciously. Such seems the reason why He says in this verse, "We speak that we do know." God alone, He who was God, could thus rightly speak, and none other. In the consciousness of this divine knowledge therefore Jesus speaks. At the same time also He gives His testimony as to what He had seen. It was not only One who came from God, and so went to God, but also One who while He was God speaks of scenes of glory in which He had been. He was with God as well as was God; He had looked round upon that which was suitable, if I may so say, to the presence of God; He was thoroughly acquainted with it all, not only what suited God Himself, but also the sphere where God dwelt.

The Lord Jesus was "all-knowing." At the end of John 2 we read of some who "believed in His name, when they saw the miracles which He did" (John 2:23). The Scripture goes on to say, "But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men, And needed not that any should testify of man: for He knew what was in man." An impression had been made on their minds but the work went no deeper. The impression would soon pass away and their last state would be worse than the first. In view of this we find that in the very next chapter (John 3) the Lord empha­sised the need of new birth. To Nicodemus the Lord's miracles bore their divinely intended character of signs (John 2:11 etc., J.N.D. Trans.). They led him to seek the Lord Jesus (John 3:2; cf. 6:26). Coming to Him by night he was presented with things which as the teacher of Israel he ought to have known (3:10, J.N.D. Trans.). The Lord's next words present the greatest possible contrast with this ignorance: "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that We do know, and testify that We have seen; and ye receive not Our witness." It is the knowledge and language of deity: the Father in the Son speaking by the Holy Spirit. The lead­ers of the nation (ye receive not our witness) refused this divine testimony, though Nicodemus evidently did receive it, even though he was "one of themselves" (See John 7:50, J.N.D. Trans.; 19:39).

John 3:11. In contrast with Nicodemus, and the leaders of Israel who took the place of teachers and yet were ignorant of their own Scriptures, the Lord spoke of truths of which He had perfect knowledge, and testified of things that He had seen. He not only knows what is in man (John 2:25), but He knows all that is in the heart of God. He knows the extent of our need, and He knows the greatness of God's grace to meet that need.

Nevertheless, the Lord has to add, "Ye receive not Our witness". We may indeed question the witness of men, knowing full well it is only according to their limited knowledge: but when One testifies Who has perfect knowledge, and that witness is rejected, it proves the utter hopelessness of man when left to himself.

Nicodemus is now thoroughly aroused by what the Lord had said to him, and he exclaims, "How can these things be?" The Lord tells him that, as a teacher in Israel, he ought to have known what Ezekiel says in Ezek. 36, which we have already considered. And He adds: "Verily, verily, I say to thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness." Man does not care to believe God. You will frequently find people saying, "I cannot believe." You cannot believe whom? Pick up a newspaper, and read of some horrible crime, or accident, and you believe it every word. Take up Bradshaw, to consult his time-tables for a journey, and you trust him implicitly. But you take up God's Word which tells you that you are a lost sinner, and that God in love gave His Son for you, and you say, "I cannot believe it." Yours is a downright bad case. You cannot believe the God of truth! You can believe a man like yourself, but God, the living God, you say you cannot believe. What an insight this gives us of man's heart! The Lord says, "We speak that we do know." He knew God's requirements, and He knew man's necessities, but yet man did not believe.

Having spoken of earthly things, the Lord passes on to tell of heavenly things. He alone was qualified to speak of them. "No man has ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven." He alone knew what suits heaven, what God requires, and what God desires; and He came down from that scene of heavenly light to make all this known, and not only to make known God's requirements, but also to meet the need of man. How He meets that need He now unfolds. He was on earth, He had come down from heaven, and He was going up to heaven again; but, wondrous truth, He was in heaven at the very moment when He spoke to Nicodemus. He says, "No man has ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven." Only the Son of Man, who, as to His divine nature, was in heaven, could bear witness to what suited it, as having come from thence. To quote the words of another: "We have a revelation of heavenly things brought directly from heaven by Christ, and in His Person. He revealed them in all their freshness — a freshness which was found in Him, and which He, who was ever in heaven, enjoyed; He revealed them in the perfection of the Person of Him who made the glory of heaven, whose nature is the atmosphere which all those who are found there breathe, and by which they live; He, the object of the affections which animate this holy place from the Father Himself down to the last of the angels who fill heaven's courts with their praises, He is the centre of all glory. Such is the Son of Man, He who came down to reveal the Father — truth and grace — but who divinely remained in heaven in the essence of His divine nature, in His Person inseparable from the humanity with which He was clothed! The deity which filled this humanity was inseparable in His Person from all the divine perfection, but He never ceased to be a man, really and truly a Man before God." (Notes on the Gospel of John, by J.N.D.)

Let us turn to Hebrews 1, "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets." God had previously given communications, and the prophets uttered those divine communications as coming direct from God; they gave the message they had from God. But that was not Christ. A prophet could only speak what he had got. But Jesus, a man and yet God, as much God as man, truly God and truly man, in communion with the Godhead, spoke what He knew Himself. There is the preciousness of the testimony of Christ. It was not that He received it. There is a. point of exceeding beauty in Hebrews 1 as to the question of testimony and communication of the mind of God. The apostle says, in verse 1, that God spoke through the instrumentality of chosen vessels, to whom He communicated His mind; "Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." But now mark, "Has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son," not spoken by His Son just as He spoke by the prophets, that is not the force of this scripture at all, it neither means nor says that; what it means and what it says is this, that God had spoken "in the Person of the Son," that the Person of the Son down here was God's own voice speaking; if one might use such an expression, it was God speaking to us "Son-wise;" it was not through a medium like a. prophet — a prophet was only a medium, albeit a divine medium, but Christ spoke of things which He Himself knew as God, being God. Look at the difference. He was a divine Person down here in this world, though a man. He was here communicating the things which He knew Himself, "We speak that we do know." Whereas, when you think of a servant, or an ordinary vessel that God may be communicating His mind through, take Paul for instance, look at his utterance, "We believe, and therefore speak." He does not say, "We speak that we do know," but, "We believe, and therefore speak." But Christ could say, "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen, and ye receive not our witness."

But even here the Lord intimates a knowledge to be communicated, as, in fact, it was, first by Himself in Person, then by the Holy Ghost through chosen witnesses, transcending that of the prophets and of a character, not measure only, quite different. "Verily, verily, I say to thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our testimony" (verse 11). It is no vision of things out of the ordinary sphere of him who was inspired to be a prophet, nor a message founded on the authority of Him Who sent His servant with a "Thus saith Jehovah." Jesus only, true man among men, could none the less say, because He was none the less God, We speak that which We know, and bear witness of that which We have seen.67 He knew what was in man, needing no testimony about man (John 2); He knew what was in God, and alone of men could testify of Him without testimony about Him (John 3). I have known Thee, says Himself to the Father later on in this Gospel (John 17:25). But the world knew not the Father; least of all were the Father and the Son known by those who, in persecuting the disciples, thought to do God's service. But, blessed be His name, if none knew the Father but the Son, there were not lacking those to whom the Son reveals Him; and so the Holy Ghost, Who searches all things — yea, the depths of God — reveals what was previously hidden even from prophets, and gives to Christians the mind, or intelligence, of Christ.

But the Lord, not contented with setting Old Testament truth in a brighter light, next intimates a character of knowledge and testimony such as no prophet, however gifted, could propose. They were borne on by the Spirit beyond their comprehension. They had to confess their ignorance of their own inspired utterances (1 Peter 1:10-12). They had to search what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them pointed out, even when they said, Thus saith Jehovah. But the Lord knew things as they are, being the Son, a Divine Person; He knew them in the communion of the Godhead, of which His becoming flesh had in no way deprived Him. He had seen and could testify what was above man's or creature's ken. "Verily, verily, I say to thee, We speak that which we know, and testify that which we have seen; and ye receive not our testimony. If I told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?"

But this brings out the difference, of the Lord's instructions and their character here, from the way in which the prophet had spoken of the matter. He had stated it prophetically, as the practical operation of Jehovah's grace; and that was all right, and in its place. But the Lord had another kind of knowledge. The prophecy had perfect, divine authority, because the prophet said what he had been inspired to say. But the Lord knew the things themselves in their very nature. He could tell absolutely what was needful for God, because He was God, and came from God. This is indeed divine teaching - teaching of infinite price. We learn from Him, who essentially knew it, what is needful for God. It tells us what the Christian is. He has the knowledge of God from God Himself, according to His own nature, and is partaker of that nature - in order to know it, and to be able to enjoy it - without which he does not know it. And this brought down in man to us. But as the Lord spoke that which He knew, so He testified that which He had seen. He could tell of the heavenly glory, and what became it; what was needed to have a part in it. Man did not receive this testimony. The human mind understood human things; what was heavenly and spiritual - not at all. That which was heavenly and spiritual was darkness and foolishness to it. Those who received this witness were born again. (John 1:12-13.)

Here I may mention the competency of the Son of God become Man to witness to God and declare what He is — to reveal Him to man. Being Himself a divine person, one of the dwellers in the unapproachable light, He knows God in a divine way, with absolute knowledge in the essence of His being; He knows what His moral nature and character are; He could, and did say, "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen" (John 3:11). "What He hath seen and heard, that He testifieth," was said of Him by the Spirit through John the Baptist (ver. 32); and Himself said, that He did the works and spoke the words He knew in the Godhead intimacies (John 8:26, 38; 12:49).

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.