Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John: Tractate XII
6. “Nicodemus answered and said unto Him, How can these things be?” And, in fact, in the carnal sense, he knew not how. In him occurred what the Lord had said; the Spirit’s voice he heard, but knew not whence it came, and whither it was going. “Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things?” Oh, brethren! what? do we think that the Lord meant to taunt scornfully this master of the Jews? The Lord knew what He was doing; He wished the man to be born of the Spirit. No man is born of the Spirit if he be not humble, for humility itself makes us to be born of the Spirit; “for the Lord is nigh to them that are of broken heart.” The man was puffed up with his mastership, and it appeared of some importance to himself that he was a teacher of the Jews. Jesus pulled down his pride, that he might be born of the Spirit: He taunted him as an unlearned man; not that the Lord wished to appear his superior. What comparison can there be, God compared to man, truth to falsehood? Christ greater than Nicodemus! Ought this to be said, can it be said, is it to be thought? If it were said, “Christ is greater than angels,” it were ridiculous: for incomparably greater than every creature is He by whom every creature was made. But yet He rallies the man on his pride: “Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things?” As if He said, Behold, thou knowest nothing, thou art a proud chief; be thou born of the Spirit: for if thou be born of the Spirit, thou wilt keep the ways of God, so as to follow Christ’s humility. So, indeed, is He high above all angels, that, “being in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking upon Him the form of a servant, being made into the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man: He humbled Himself, being made obedient unto death” (and lest any kind of death should please thee), “even the death of the cross.” He hung on the cross, and they scoffed at Him. He could have come down from the cross; but He deferred, that He might rise again from the tomb. He, the Lord, bore with proud slaves; the physician with the sick.
If He did this, how ought they to act whom it behoves to be born of the Spirit!—if He did this, He who is the true Master in heaven, not of men only, but also of angels. For if the angels are learned, they are so by the Word of God. If they are learned by the Word of God, ask of what they are learned; and you shall find, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The neck of man is done away with, only the hard and stiff neck, that it may be gentle to bear the yoke of Christ, of which it is said, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
7. And He goes on, “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not; how shall ye believe, if I tell you heavenly things?” What earthly things did He tell, brethren? “Except a man be born again;” is that an earthly thing? “The Spirit bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest its voice, and knowest not whence it cometh, or whither it goeth;” is that earthly? For if He spoke it of the wind, as some have understood it, when they were asked what earthly thing the Lord meant, when He said, “If I told you earthly things, and ye believe not; how shall ye believe, if I tell you heavenly things?”—when, I say, it was asked of certain men what “earthly thing” the Lord meant, being in difficulty, they said, What He said, “The Spirit bloweth where it listeth,” and “its voice thou hearest, and knowest not whence it cometh, or whither it goeth,” He said concerning the wind. Now what did He name earthly? He was speaking of the spiritual birth; and going on, saith, “So is every one that is born of the Spirit.” Then, brethren, which of us does not see, for example, the south wind going from south to north, or another wind coming from east to west? How, then, know we not whence it cometh and whither it goeth? What earthly thing, then, did He tell, which men did not believe? Was it that which He had said about raising the temple again? Surely, for He had received His body of the earth, and that earth taken of the earthly body He was preparing to raise up. They did not believe Him as about to raise up earth. “If I told you earthly things,” saith He, “and ye believe not; how shall ye believe if I tell you heavenly things?” That is, if ye believe not that I can raise up the temple cast down by you, how shall ye believe that men can be regenerated by the Spirit?
8. And He goes on: “And no man hath ascended into heaven, but He that came down from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven.” Behold, He was here, and was also in heaven; was here in His flesh, in heaven by His divinity; yea, everywhere by His divinity. Born of a mother, not quitting the Father. Two nativities of Christ are understood: one divine, the other human: one, that by which we were to be made; the other, that by which we were to be made anew: both marvellous; that without mother, this without father. But because He had taken a body of Adam,—for Mary was of Adam,—and was about to raise that same body again, it was an earthly thing He had said in saying, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” But this was a heavenly thing, when He said, “Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he shall not see the kingdom of God.” Come then, brethren! God has willed to be the Son of man; and willed men to be sons of God. He came down for our sakes; let us ascend for His sake. For He alone descended and ascended, He who saith, “No man hath ascended into heaven, but He who came down from heaven.” Are they not therefore to ascend into heaven whom He makes sons of God? Certainly they are: this is the promise to us, “They shall be equal to the angels of God.” Then how is it that no man ascends, but He that descended? Because one only descended, only one ascends. What of the rest? What are we to understand, but that they shall be His members, that one may ascend? Therefore it follows that “no man hath ascended into heaven, but He who came down from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven.” Dost thou marvel that He was both here and in heaven? Such He made His disciples. Hear the Apostle Paul saying, “But our conversation is in heaven.” If the Apostle Paul, a man, walked in the flesh on earth, and yet had his conversation in heaven, was the God of heaven and earth not able to be both in heaven and on earth?
9. Therefore, if none but He descended and ascended, what hope is there for the rest? The hope for the rest is this, that He came down in order that in Him and with Him they might be one, who should ascend through Him. “He saith not, And to seeds,” saith the apostle, “as in many; but as in one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” And to believers he saith, “And ye are Christ’s; and if Christ’s, then are Abraham’s seed.” What he said to be one, that he said that we all are. Hence, in the Psalms, many sometimes sing, to show that one is made of many; sometimes one sings, to show what is made of many. Therefore was it only one that was healed in the pool; and whoever else went down into it was not healed. Now this one shows forth the oneness of the Church. Woe to them who hate unity, and make to themselves parties among men! Let them hear him who wished to make them one, in one, for one: let them hear him who says, Be not ye making many: “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. But neither he that planteth is anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.”
They were saying, “I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas.” And he says, “Is Christ divided?” Be ye in one, be one thing, be one person: “No man hath ascended into heaven, but He who came down from heaven.” Lo! we wish to be thine, they said to Paul. And he said to them, I will not that ye be Paul’s, but be ye His whose is Paul together with you.
10. For He came down and died, and by that death delivered us from death: being slain by death, He slew death. And you know, brethren, that this death entered into the world through the devil’s envy. “God made not death,” saith the Scripture, “nor delights He in the destruction of the living; but He created all things to be.” But what saith it here? “But by the devil’s envy, death entered into the whole world.” To the death offered for our entertainment by the devil, man would not come by constraint; for the devil had not the power of forcing, but only cunning to persuade. Hadst thou not consented, the devil had brought in nothing: thy own consenting, O man, led thee to death. Of the mortal are mortals born; from immortals we are become mortals. From Adam all men are mortal; but Jesus the Son of God, the Word of God, by which all things were made, the only Son equal with the Father, was made mortal: “for the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”