<p>3:13 <i>No one has ascended into heaven, but he that descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven- </i>Moses' ascents of the mountain were seen as representing an ascension to Heaven; but he had not ascended up to the &quot;heavenly things&quot; of&nbsp;which Christ spoke. Consider the spiritual loneliness of rising to heights no other man has reached, as far as Heaven is above earth. John the Baptist recognised this (Jn. 3:31).</p><p>This man Jesus standing before them was saying in figurative terms that He was in Heaven, had been in Heaven, had ascended there. Surely His abrupt shift of tenses and places is to suggest the Yahweh Name being manifested in Him. The language of &lsquo;coming down&rsquo; is classically used in the OT in the context of Yahweh manifestation in theophany; yet it often occurs in Acts in the context of the preaching of the Gospel, as if our witness is a manifestation of the Name (Acts 8:5; 10:21; 12:19; 14:25; 18:22; 25:6).</p><p>John&rsquo;s Gospel especially makes many references to the idea of Christ&rsquo;s judgment being right now. Why is this? John was clearly written sometime after the other Gospels. The early community of believers were expecting the Lord&rsquo;s return at any moment; but by the time John wrote, it was apparent that He hadn&rsquo;t returned as soon as they had hoped for. Perhaps his point was that much of what we are expecting at the second coming is in essence going on right now. The very &lsquo;coming&rsquo; of Jesus was judgment (Jn. 3:13; 6:62; 16:28). Those who refuse to believe have already been condemned (Jn. 3:17-21). Whilst the other Gospels stress that we will receive eternal life at the second coming (Mk. 10:30; Mt. 18:8,9), John stresses that the essence of the life eternal is our present experience; we have passed from death to life (Jn. 5:24). We will be made children of God at the last day (Lk. 6:35; 20:36); but the essence of being God&rsquo;s children has begun now, when we are born again (Jn. 1:12). Yet John brings out his continuity with the other Gospels by speaking of both future and present condemnation (Jn. 12:48 cp. 3:18; 9:39); of future eternal life and present eternal life (Jn. 12:25 cp. 3:36; 5:24); and future resurrection and present &lsquo;resurrection&rsquo; to new life (Jn. 6:39,40,54 cp. 5:21,24).</p><p>The context of John 3 is the Lord's discourse with Nicodemus. This passages highlights the difference between flesh and spirit, human understanding and spiritual perception, literal birth and the birth &quot;from above&quot; (Jn. 3:3,5). All this suggests that we are to understand 'Heaven' and (by implication) 'earth' in a figurative manner. The Lord Jesus speaks as if He has already ascended into Heaven- yet He spoke these words during His ministry. In any case, He speaks of how &quot;the Son of man&quot; will do these things, and not 'God the Son', as would be required by Trinitarian theology. To suggest that Jesus as Son of Man literally ascended to Heaven and descended to earth during His ministry is surely literalism's last gasp. There are many allusions to Moses throughout John's record, as if both the Lord Jesus and John were seeking to impress upon the audience that the Lord Jesus was indeed the Messianic &quot;prophet like unto&quot; Moses predicted in Dt. 18:15,18. Jewish writings of the time e.g. <i>Wisdom of Solomon</i> spoke of Moses' ascent of Sinai as an ascension into Heaven, descending to Israel with the Law (more references to this effect in Ben Witherington, <i>John's</i> <i>Wisdom: A</i> <i>Commentary</i> <i>on the Fourth Gospel</i> (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995) p. 100). This language is being picked up and applied to the Lord Jesus.</p><p>The Lord Jesus has just spoken of how believers in Him are to be &quot;born from above&quot; and &quot;born of the Spirit&quot; (Jn. 3:3,5). However, the same Greek words for &quot;born&quot; and &quot;Spirit&quot; are found in Mt. 1:20 and Lk. 1:35- in description of the virgin birth of Jesus. He was the ultimate example of one &quot;born of the Spirit&quot;. And yet John's Gospel applies the language of the virgin birth to believers. We have another example in Jn. 1:13- the believers &quot;were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God&quot;- i.e., they were born &quot;of the Spirit&quot;. My suggestion is that the Lord Jesus is saying in Jn. 3:13 that of course, He is the only one fully born of the Spirit, the only one in Heavenly places; but the preceding context makes clear that He is willing to count believers in Him as fully sharing His status. Further, we need no longer complain that His virgin birth makes Him have some unfair advantages in the battle against sin which we don't have. The spiritual rebirth experienced by all those truly born again by God's word, His &quot;seed&quot; (1 Pet. 1:23), is such that we in some way are given all the inclinations towards righteousness which the Lord Jesus had by virtue of His birth.</p><p>&quot;Even the Son of Man who is in Heaven&quot; may be John's comment rather than the Lord's actual words. Any serious student of John's Gospel will have come across this problem of deciding what are John's inserted comments, and what are the actual words of Jesus (e.g. 3:13-17). The problem arises because the written style of John is so similar, indeed identical, to the style of language Christ used. The conclusion from this feature is that <i>the mind of John was so swamped with the words and style of the Lord that his own speaking and writing became after the pattern of his Master.</i> And he is our pattern in this. Not only are his comments within his Gospel exactly in harmony with the Lord's style, but also the style and phrasing of his own epistle reflects that of the Lord (e.g. compare Jn. 15:11; 16:24; 17:13 with 1 Jn. 1:4; 2 Jn. 12). Perhaps he <i>so</i> absorbed the mind of the Master that he was used to write the most spiritual account of the Lord's life. In a different way, Peter also absorbed the Lord's words to the point that they influenced his way of speaking and writing (his letters are full of conscious and unconscious allusions back to the Lord's words). He seems to have noted some of the Lord's catch phrases, and made them his own (as an Englishman may say &quot;I guess...&quot; after prolonged contact with an American). Thus &quot;of a surety / truth&quot; was one of the Lord's catch phrases (Lk. 9:27; 12:44; 21:3; Jn. 1:47; 6:55; 8:31; 17:8), repeated by Peter in Acts 12:11.&nbsp;</p>