John 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a Jewish leader, comes to Jesus at night, and Jesus tells him no one can see or enter the kingdom of God without being born again, born of water and the Spirit. Jesus goes on to speak about the Son of Man being lifted up as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, about God giving his only Son so that believers would have life forever, and about people loving darkness rather than light. The scene then shifts to Judea, where Jesus is baptizing while John is baptizing at Aenon. When John's disciples report that everyone is going to Jesus, John says he is not the Christ but the bridegroom's friend, and that Jesus must become greater while he becomes less.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • There was a man who belonged to the Pharisees.
   • The man's name was Nicodemus.
   • Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews.
2. 3:2
   • Nicodemus came to Jesus at night.
   • Nicodemus addressed Jesus as Rabbi.
   • Nicodemus said that they knew Jesus was a teacher who had come from God.
   • Nicodemus said that no one can do the signs Jesus does unless God is with him.
3. 3:3
   • Jesus answered Nicodemus.
   • Jesus said, Truly, truly, I say to you.
   • Jesus said that unless someone is born again (the word can equally mean born from above), he cannot see the kingdom of God.
4. 3:4
   • Nicodemus asked Jesus how a man can be born when he is old.
   • Nicodemus asked whether a man can enter his mother's womb a second time and be born.
5. 3:5
   • Jesus answered.
   • Jesus said, Truly, truly, I say to you.
   • Jesus said that unless someone is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
6. 3:6
   • What is born of the flesh is flesh.
   • What is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7. 3:7
   • Jesus told Nicodemus not to marvel that he had said to him, You must be born again (or from above).
   • The command to be born again was addressed to a plural 'you'.
8. 3:8
   • The wind blows where it wishes.
   • You hear the sound of the wind.
   • You do not know where the wind comes from.
   • You do not know where the wind goes.
   • Everyone who is born of the Spirit is like this.
9. 3:9
   • Nicodemus answered Jesus.
   • Nicodemus asked how these things can happen.
10. 3:10
    • Jesus answered Nicodemus.
    • Jesus asked whether Nicodemus was the teacher of Israel.
    • Jesus asked whether Nicodemus did not know these things.
11. 3:11
    • Jesus said, Truly, truly, I say to you.
    • Jesus said, We speak what we know.
    • Jesus said, We testify to what we have seen.
    • Jesus said that they do not receive our testimony.
12. 3:12
    • Jesus said he had told them earthly things.
    • Jesus said they do not believe.
    • Jesus asked how they would believe if he told them heavenly things.
13. 3:13
    • No one has ascended into heaven.
    • The one who came down from heaven is the exception.
    • The one who came down from heaven is the Son of man.
    • The Son of man is in heaven.
14. 3:14
    • Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.
    • The Son of man must be lifted up in the same way.
15. 3:15
    • The purpose is that everyone who believes in him should not perish.
    • The purpose is that everyone who believes in him should have eternal life.
16. 3:16
    • God loved the world so much.
    • God gave his only begotten Son.
    • The purpose was that everyone who believes in him should not perish.
    • The purpose was that everyone who believes in him should have everlasting life.
17. 3:17
    • God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world.
    • God sent his Son so that the world might be saved through him.
18. 3:18
    • The one who believes in him is not condemned.
    • The one who does not believe is condemned already.
    • The reason he is condemned is that he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19. 3:19
    • This is the condemnation.
    • The light has come into the world.
    • Men loved the darkness rather than the light.
    • Their deeds were evil.
20. 3:20
    • Everyone who does evil hates the light.
    • Everyone who does evil does not come to the light.
    • He stays away so that his deeds will not be exposed.
21. 3:21
    • The one who does the truth comes to the light.
    • He comes so that his deeds may be made manifest.
    • His deeds have been worked in God.
22. 3:22
    • After these things Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea.
    • Jesus stayed there with his disciples.
    • Jesus baptized there.
23. 3:23
    • John was also baptizing at Aenon near Salim.
    • There was much water at Aenon.
    • People came and were baptized.
24. 3:24
    • John had not yet been thrown into prison.
25. 3:25
    • A dispute arose between some of John's disciples and the Jews.
    • The dispute was about purifying.
26. 3:26
    • John's disciples came to John.
    • They addressed John as Rabbi.
    • They referred to the one who was with John beyond the Jordan.
    • They said John had borne witness to that one.
    • They said that one is baptizing.
    • They said all men are coming to him.
27. 3:27
    • John answered.
    • John said a man can receive nothing unless it is given to him from heaven.
28. 3:28
    • John said they themselves bear him witness.
    • John said he had said, I am not the Christ.
    • John said he had said, I am sent before him.
29. 3:29
    • The one who has the bride is the bridegroom.
    • The friend of the bridegroom stands and hears him.
    • The friend of the bridegroom rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice.
    • John said this joy of his is fulfilled.
30. 3:30
    • He must increase.
    • John must decrease.
31. 3:31
    • The one who comes from above is above all.
    • The one who is from the earth is of the earth.
    • The one who is from the earth speaks from the earth.
    • The one who comes from heaven is above all.
32. 3:32
    • He testifies to what he has seen and heard.
    • No one receives his testimony.
33. 3:33
    • The one who has received his testimony has set his seal that God is true.
34. 3:34
    • The one whom God has sent speaks the words of God.
    • God does not give the Spirit by measure to him.
35. 3:35
    • The Father loves the Son.
    • The Father has given all things into the Son's hand.
36. 3:36
    • The one who believes in the Son has everlasting life.
    • The one who does not believe the Son shall not see life.
    • The wrath of God remains on him.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1

The Pharisees were a religious party known for strict observance of the law of Moses and the detailed traditions built up around it. "A ruler of the Jews" means a member of the Sanhedrin, the council that governed Jewish religious and civil life in Jerusalem, so Nicodemus comes as an official figure, not a private inquirer.

3:2

Where the King James has "miracles," the Greek word means "signs." John uses it throughout his book for what Jesus does: acts that point beyond themselves rather than displays of power for their own sake. "Rabbi" was the respectful address for a recognized teacher of the law.

3:3

"Verily, verily" renders the Greek "amen, amen," a formula marking what follows as a solemn declaration. The word behind "born again" is anōthen, which means both "again" and "from above"; the Greek carries both senses at once, and the exchange that follows turns on Nicodemus hearing only one of them. "The kingdom of God" means God's rule or reign, the state of affairs in which God is king, rather than a territory on a map.

3:4

The womb is the safe place inside a mother where a baby grows.

3:5

"Of water and of the Spirit" is a single phrase in Greek, with one preposition governing both nouns rather than two separate births. Readers ancient and modern have connected the water to physical birth, to Jewish ritual washing, and to baptism; the wording itself does not settle which.

3:6

"Flesh" here is not the body as opposed to the soul. It is the ordinary human sphere: human beings as they are born, live and die, considered simply as creatures.

3:7

"I said unto thee" is singular, spoken to Nicodemus; "ye must be born again" is plural, spoken to a wider group. Modern English has no way to show this shift, but the Greek makes it, and the King James preserves it with "thee" and "ye."

3:8

The Greek word pneuma means both "wind" and "spirit," and Jesus is using the single word in both senses in the same sentence. The comparison only fully works in Greek. "Listeth" is older English for "wishes" or "chooses."

3:10

"Master" in 1611 English meant teacher or schoolmaster, not owner. The Greek has the definite article, "the teacher of Israel," marking Nicodemus as a recognized authority rather than one instructor among many.

3:11

"Witness" and "testify" are courtroom words in Greek, about giving evidence to something one has personally seen. Both the "we" who speak and the "ye" who do not receive are plural: the conversation has widened out from Nicodemus alone.

3:13

"Son of man" is a title drawn from the Hebrew scriptures, where Daniel sees one "like the Son of man" given everlasting dominion. It is the phrase Jesus uses of himself more than any other in the Gospels. The closing words "which is in heaven" are absent from the oldest surviving manuscripts, which is why many modern translations end the verse at "the Son of man."

3:14

The reference is to an episode in Numbers 21: Israelites in the desert were bitten by poisonous snakes, and Moses was told to mount a bronze snake on a pole so that anyone who looked at it would live. The Greek verb behind "lifted up" means both raised up physically and raised to honor, and John uses it elsewhere of the crucifixion; both senses are in play.

3:15

"Eternal life" translates a Greek phrase meaning literally "the life of the age," the life belonging to the age to come. It carries a sense of a kind of life and of belonging to a coming order, not only of endless duration.

3:16

"So loved" in 1611 English meant "loved in this way" as much as "loved this much," and the Greek word carries the same double sense. "Only begotten" translates monogenēs, which means one of a kind, the only one of its sort; the "begotten" part reflects an old derivation of the word that most scholars now reject. Greek manuscripts had no quotation marks, so it is genuinely unclear whether Jesus' words end at verse 15 or run on to verse 21; translations differ, and this famous verse may be the Gospel writer's own comment.

3:17

"Condemn" here translates a Greek verb whose basic meaning is "to judge." A judgment can come out either way, and the verb does not by itself specify the verdict, though the context here is a verdict against.

3:18

"The name" is a Hebrew way of speaking in which a person's name stands for the person himself and everything known about him. To believe "in the name" is to trust the person as he has been identified.

3:19

"Condemnation" here is the Greek noun krisis, meaning the act of judging or the verdict arrived at. The image is of a trial reaching its decision, and the decision turns out to be what people did when the light arrived.

3:20

"Reproved" in 1611 English meant exposed or shown up for what it is, not scolded or told off.

3:21

"He that doeth truth" is a Hebrew idiom, found in the Old Testament and in the Dead Sea Scrolls, meaning to act faithfully or deal honestly, rather than to state facts accurately. "Wrought" is the old past participle of "work."

3:22

"Tarried" means stayed for a while. "The land of Judaea" means the rural districts of the region, as distinct from Jerusalem, the city where the preceding conversation took place.

3:23

Aenon and Salim have never been identified with certainty; the names look like Semitic words for "springs" and "peace." The note about plentiful water matters because baptizing here meant immersing a person, which needs a river or pool rather than a jar or well.

3:24

John was later arrested and imprisoned by Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee. The other Gospels begin Jesus' public work after that arrest, so this aside marks a period when the two men were active at the same time.

3:25

"Purifying" means the ritual washings that removed ceremonial uncleanness and made a person fit to take part in worship. Such washings were widely practiced, so the baptisms being performed by both John and Jesus would naturally raise questions about how they related to the established rites. Manuscripts differ over whether the dispute was with "a Jew" or "the Jews."

3:26

"Beyond Jordan" means the eastern side of the Jordan River as seen from Judea, the area where John had been baptizing earlier.

3:28

"Christ" is not a surname. It is the Greek translation of the Hebrew "Messiah," meaning "anointed one." Israel's kings and priests were appointed by having oil poured on their heads, and by this period many Jews were expecting a specific anointed deliverer sent by God.

3:29

The bridegroom's friend had a defined role at a Jewish wedding, closer to a best man who made the arrangements and presided over the celebration. His work was over once the bridegroom arrived and the marriage went ahead; his satisfaction came from the other man's day, not his own.

3:30

"Increase" means become greater. "Decrease" means become less.

3:31

Because Greek manuscripts carry no quotation marks, it is unclear whether verses 31 to 36 are still John the Baptist speaking or the writer of the Gospel adding his own comment. Translations divide on it.

3:32

Testimony means what a person tells about what he saw and heard.

3:33

"Set to his seal" is the language of legal documents: pressing a personal seal onto a paper to certify it as genuine and binding. Accepting the testimony amounts to signing one's name under the statement that God tells the truth.

3:34

The Greek does not say who gives the Spirit or who receives it; "unto him" in the King James is supplied by the translators and is printed in italics in many editions to show that. The sentence can mean that God gives the Spirit without limit to the one he sent, or that the one he sent gives the Spirit without limit.

3:35

"Given all things into his hand" is a Hebrew idiom for handing over authority, the way a ruler puts an official in charge of an estate.

3:36

The verb behind "believeth not" is not the negative of the verb behind "believeth" at the start of the verse. It means to refuse or to disobey: an act of will, not a failure to be persuaded. "Wrath" is the standard Greek word for settled anger, the anger of a judge rather than a loss of temper, and "abideth" means remains or goes on resting, describing something already in place that stays there.