Nicodemus, the learned Pharisee, was clearly troubled by what the Lord had said: that unless a man be born anew of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. And so, our Lord comforted him, saying, “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew’” (Jn 3:7). There are two kinds of astonishment. First, there is the astonishment of devotion, which arises when one considers the marvelous things God has done, as the Psalmist proclaimed, “Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty!” (Ps 93:4), and “Thy testimonies are wonderful” (Ps 118:129). We benefit by this type of astonishment, for it draws us to that which causes us to marvel; it draws us to God. Second, there is the astonishment of disbelief, which arises when one does not believe what was said. This was what happened when Jesus was rejected by the people of Nazareth: “coming to his own country he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, ‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works?’” (Mt 13:54) Because of their disbelief, Christ did not do many great works there (Mt 13:58). It is the astonishment of disbelief that plagues skeptics and agnostics, who remain stubbornly entrenched in their blindness.

Our Lord transformed Nicodemus’ astonishment from one of disbelief into one of devotion as He began to explain a divine truth with an example: In order to reassure Nicodemus, our Lord proposed an example: “The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes” (Jn 3:8a). Spiritus can be taken to mean “wind” or “the Holy Spirit.” If it means wind, as St. John Chrysostom asserted, Christ told us four things about the wind. First, He told us that the wind has power, for “the wind blows where it wills.” Here the will is understood as a natural appetite, a natural inclination, as Job said that God “gave to the wind its weight” (Jb 28:25). Similarly, incense is inclined to rise heavenward, and water has a tendency to flow downstream. Second, Christ gave us evidence for the wind when He said, “and you hear the sound of it,” as the Psalmist said, “The crash of thy thunder was in the whirlwind” (Ps 77:18). Third, He referred to the origin of the wind when He said, “but you do not know whence it comes.” This is to be expected, for God “brings forth the wind from his storehouses” (Ps 135:7), and these places are beyond man’s reach. Man cannot generate wind, except in a miniscule way. Nor can he tame it when it erupts. He can only run from it and hide until it passes. Fourth, Christ mentioned the wind’s destination when He said that man does not know “whither it goes.” The wind comes from and returns to a place inaccessible to men. Christ applied this analogy to those born of the Holy Spirit, saying, “so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.” His meaning is this: if the wind, which is merely a material thing, has a hidden origin and a course that is beyond man’s ability to detect, beyond his understanding, then it is no wonder that Nicodemus cannot understand the nature of a spiritual thing, namely, spiritual regeneration by water and the Holy Spirit.

St. Augustine objected to Chrysostom’s interpretation, noting that, although we do not know where the wind resides, we can, in fact, discern the direction from which the wind comes and to which is goes: north, south, east, west. St. Augustine believed that Christ was speaking here, not about the wind, but about the Holy Spirit. And so, Augustine took Spiritus to mean Spirit. According to this interpretation, Christ told us four things about the Holy Spirit. First, He affirmed the Spirit’s power, for the Spirit goes wherever He wills, as St. Paul said of the Holy Spirit’s gifts, “All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills” (1 Cor 12:11). This refutes the error of Archbishop Macedonius I of Constantinople (342-46, 351-60), who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit and His procession from the Father and the Son, asserting instead that the Godhead is a hierarchy, not a unity. He and his followers were called Pneumatomachi, “fighters against the Spirit.” Macedonianism was condemned at Constantinople I (381), which added to the Nicene Creed an affirmation of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, thereby defining that the Holy Spirit is consubstantial with the Father and the Son. If Macedonius were correct, then Christ would have said in Jn 3:8, “the wind blows where it is commanded.” Instead, He said, “The wind blows where it wills,” that is, the Holy Spirit goes wherever He wills, because He is divine. Second, Christ gave us evidence for the Holy Spirit when He said, “and you hear the sound of it,” that is, the Holy Spirit speaks to us, as the Psalmist exhorted the people, “O that today you would hearken to his voice! Harden not your hearts” (Ps 95:7-8). St. John Chrysostom objected to this interpretation, for Christ was speaking to Nicodemus, who at that time was still an unbeliever, and as such, was not worthy to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. Augustine addressed this objection by explaining that the voice of the Spirit is twofold. In one way, the Holy Spirit speaks directly to the heart; and only believers can hear this voice. It is this voice of which the Psalmist spoke: “Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints, to those who turn to him in their hearts” (Ps 85:8). In another way, the Holy Spirit speaks through Sacred Scripture and through the preachers who teach the Word of God. It is this voice that Christ referred to when he said to the apostles, “it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Mt 10:20). The Holy Spirit speaks to unbelievers in this way, that is, through the written and spoken word, not directly to their hearts. Third, Christ referred to the origin of the Holy Spirit when He said, “but you do not know whence it comes,” even though you may hear His voice in the written and spoken word. This is because the Holy Spirit lives with the Father and the Son, and the Blessed Trinity “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see” (1 Tm 6:16). Fourth, Christ mentioned the Spirit’s destination when He said that man does not know “whither it goes.” This can be understood in two ways. First, the Holy Spirit leads us to a place where we cannot go alone, to an end which we cannot reach solely by our own efforts. This place is heaven, and this end is eternal happiness in union with the Blessed Trinity. “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him, God has revealed to us through the Spirit” (1 Cor 2:9-10). While we wayfarers struggle through this earthly life, the Holy Spirit is “the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (Eph 1:14). Second, we do not know “whither it goes,” because the Holy Spirit enters into a person and leads him to perfection in ways that the human senses cannot detect, as Job observed, “Lo, he passes by me, and I see him not; he moves on, but I do not perceive him” (Jb 9:11).

Christ said, “so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit” (Jn 3:8b). That is to say, those who are born of the Spirit are like the Spirit, for they possess the four qualities of the Spirit which St. Augustine discussed. First, we have the power of the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as He gives us freedom, for “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor 3:17). Thus, St. Paul said, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2). The Holy Spirit has the power to guide us along the road that leads to salvation, as the Psalmist prayed, “Let thy good spirit lead me on a level path!” (Ps 143:10) Second, we manifest evidence that points to the Holy Spirit in this way: when we hear His voice, we come to know His spirituality, and then, by our words and virtuous deeds, we manifest what He has taught us. Third, as the Holy Spirit’s origin is hidden within the mystery of the Godhead, the spiritual origin of a man’s rebirth is hidden. This is seen in the fact that “The spiritual man judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one” (1 Cor 2:15). Human wisdom alone cannot understand the source of spiritual rebirth, which is baptismal grace. Fourth, as the Holy Spirit’s origin is hidden, so is His destination, and so is the destination of those reborn in the Spirit, for human wisdom alone cannot determine that a good man will end the race in heavenly glory. Knowledge concerning the life to come, in which sinners will be justly punished and saints will be raised in glory to eternal union with the Blessed Trinity, escapes human wisdom. Yet, all this has been revealed to us by the Word of God, Whose Spirit guides us along the path that will lead us to that glorious end.

Nicodemus, being carnal, not spiritual, was unable to grasp the meaning of Christ’s statement and the example He provided. But Nicodemus persisted, asking the Rabbi from Nazareth for further clarification: “Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can this be?’” (Jn 3:9) Some people question because of disbelief, as was the case with the priest Zechariah, while others question because of a desire to learn, as was the case with the Virgin Mary. Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, questioned the angel Gabriel because he did not believe what Gabriel said: namely, that his wife Elizabeth would bear a son. Zechariah, in disbelief, asked Gabriel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” But nothing is impossible with God. Isaiah noted that the mind of God is “unsearchable” (Is 40:28). The Virgin Mary questioned the angel Gabriel, not out of disbelief, but because she wanted to learn how the miraculous conception of Christ would come to pass. And so she asked, “How shall this be, since I have no husband?” (Lk 1:34). Those who ask questions in order to learn receive instruction, as did Mary and Nicodemus.

But before Jesus instructed Nicodemus, He reprimanded him for his ineptitude, and this for three reasons: because of Nicodemus’ status, because of Nicodemus’ character, and because of the quality of the things under discussion. First, Christ rebuked Nicodemus because of his status. “Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this?’” (Jn 3:10) Nicodemus claimed to be a rabbi, a man supposedly learned in the law and in the scriptures, a teacher of the people. And yet, he did not understand the truth which Christ had spoken. Nicodemus was presumptuous of his own knowledge and status in the community. He rested on his laurels. Now Christ wanted to humble him so that he might become a fitting temple of the Holy Spirit. The Lord favors the humble, for He said, “this is the man to whom I will look, he that is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word” (Is 66:2). And so, Christ first reminded Nicodemus of his position, saying, “Are you a teacher of Israel”; and then, because he was no ordinary man, but a teacher, Christ rebuked him with the words, “and yet you do not understand this.” Perhaps it is little wonder why Nicodemus the Pharisee did not understand, for he was a teacher of the Old Law, of which Paul, formerly a Pharisee, said, “the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3:6). Similarly, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews chastened his readers: “you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need some one to teach you again the first principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food.” (Heb 5:11-12) One might say that Christ expected too much of Nicodemus, for the rabbi was skilled in the Old Law, not in the New Law of grace. But, figures of the New Law were contained in the Old Law, and they were clear enough that a teacher should have recognized them. For example, the Lord spoke through Ezekiel, saying, “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses” (Ez 36:25). This was clearly a figure of the future baptism of which Christ spoke to Nicodemus: a baptism of water and the Spirit, a total cleansing, not only of the exterior, but of the interior as well. And again, St. Paul, who studied under the Pharisees, knew that baptism was prefigured in the crossing of the Red Sea, for he instructed his Corinthians: “all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor 10:2). Second, Christ rebuked Nicodemus because of his character. If an uneducated person failed to grasp Christ’s meaning, it would have been understandable, but for a learned man in a position of authority to display such ignorance was intolerable. A witness bases his testimony primarily upon sight and hearing. Thus, St. John wrote, “that which we have seen and heard we proclaim” (1 Jn 1:3). When the Lord replied to Nicodemus, He referred to both sight and hearing, saying, “[Amen, amen], I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen; but you do not receive our testimony” (Jn 3:11). When Nicodemus saw the Lord and heard His testimony, he should have understood. Christ knows all things, as St. Peter confessed, “Lord, you know everything” (Jn 21:17), and He knows them in the Father, as Christ Himself said, “I speak of what I have seen with my Father” (Jn 8:38). The knowledge which Christ possesses is clear and certain: “It is clear to the Lord in his holy knowledge” (2 Mc 6:30). When Christ used the plural, saying, “we speak what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen,” perhaps He was alluding to the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, for on a later occasion He would say, “I am in the Father and the Father [is] in me,” and “the Father who dwells in me does his works” (Jn 14:10). Or perhaps, by using the plural He was referring to Himself and to those who have undergone a spiritual regeneration through His grace. Third, Christ rebuked Nicodemus because of the quality of the things under discussion. “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (Jn 3:12) If Nicodemus could not grasp sensible things, like figures contained in Sacred Scripture, how could he hope to understand spiritual things, like the workings of the Holy Spirit? Though the human intellect is powerful, it can only scratch at the surface in its attempt to understand the workings of the universe and divine wisdom, as the wise man pondered: “We can hardly guess at what is on earth, and what is at hand we find with labor; but who has traced out what is in the heavens?” (Wis 9:16) One might object, saying that the Lord did not speak to Nicodemus of earthly things. We can answer this in three ways. First, according to St. John Chrysostom’s interpretation of verse 8 (“The wind [Spiritus] blows where it wills”), Christ was literally talking about wind, not about the Holy Spirit. Since wind is an earthly thing, generable and corruptible, then Christ’s statement, “I have told you earthly things,” is literally true. Second, with Chrysostom, we could say that, although the source of spiritual regeneration is heavenly, its subject, namely, the catechumen, is an earthly creature. Third, according to St. Augustine, when Christ said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19), He was referring to an earthly thing, namely, His human body. In this sense, Christ was saying to Nicodemus: If you do not believe in a spiritual regeneration in time, then how will you believe that the Son was eternally generated from the Father? Or, perhaps Christ was asking: If you do not believe that I have power over My body, how will you believe in the divinity of the Son and Holy Spirit?

When Nicodemus asked, “How can this be?” he was not denying the existence of the Holy Spirit, for the Pharisees believed in the existence of spiritual beings. Rather, he was asking how the Holy Spirit could come from heaven and go back to heaven as He pleases. The reason why Christ said, “how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things,” was to prepare him for the answer He was about to give. The answer concerned spiritual matters, and it was the spiritual that Nicodemus had the most difficulty grasping. Now that Christ had reprimanded Nicodemus for his inexcusable ignorance, He proceeded to instruct him, as Nicodemus had requested, explaining that there are two causes of spiritual regeneration: the Incarnation and the Passion. First, He spoke of His Incarnation (v. 13), then of His passion (v. 14).

“No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven” (Jn 3:13). Here Christ informed Nicodemus that the one who has the power to ascend into heaven is the one who has come down from heaven, namely, Himself. “He who descended is he who also ascended” (Eph 4:10). This divine truth is reflected very well in the physical world, for a body tends to return to the place of its origin, as a heavy object thrown into the air tends to fall back to earth. Now, even carnal persons can understand this. Although they do not know the place wherefrom the Son came, they should nonetheless be able to understand, merely by observing the natural motions of physical objects, that the Son is inclined to return to His place of origin.

Why did the Son of God come down in the first place? The answer concerns the mystery of our redemption. He descended so that, when He returns to His place of origin, He might take the spiritually regenerated along with Him. He opened the way for them, as Moses opened the Red Sea, and He forged a trail for them to follow, as Micah said, “He who opens the breach will go up before them” (Mic 2:13).

Christ’s statement, “he who descended from heaven, the Son of man,” had been misinterpreted in two ways. First, the Christian Gnostic Valentinus (fl. 136-60) believed that, because the “Son of Man” signifies a person with a human nature, and because a human person consists of a soul and a body, Christ received even His human body in heaven and passed through the Virgin Mary without receiving anything from her, as water flows through a pipe. Thus, His body was not human, nor was He a descendant of Adam. But, this is proved false by the words of the Apostle, who said that Jesus Christ “was descended from David according to the flesh” (Rom 1:3). It was fitting that the Savior was a physical descendant of Adam through Mary, so that the same flesh that fell in disobedience might rise in perfect obedience to the will of God (STh III, 16, 7, ad 1). What the first Adam destroyed, the Second Adam restored to life. Second, Origen of Alexandria (185-254) believed that all souls, including the human soul of Christ, were created at the beginning of time, and that each soul descends to earth, one by one, in the course of time, to be joined to a particular body. His belief was influenced by Plato’s conception of pre-existing Ideas. But, we do not believe in the pre-existence of souls.

Rather, we believe that the Son of Man descended from heaven according to His divine nature, not according to His human nature, and that He received His human nature from the Virgin Mary. Since Christ is one person (hypostasis in Greek; suppositum in Latin) with two complete and distinct natures, the divine and the human, no matter what He does, we attribute it to His person. Whether we say “man” or “God,” the Divine Person of Christ is signified (STh III, 16, 4). Whether He performed a miracle according to His divine nature or whether He died according to His human nature, we say that it was the Divine Person of Christ acting. We predicate of the same divine person both the actions He performed according to His divine nature and the actions He performed according to His human nature. Thus, we say that the Son of Man changed water into wine and that the same Son of Man died. Since Christ is also the Son of God, we can say that the Son of God changed water into wine and that the Son of God died. But no matter by which name we call Him, He performed miracles by the power of His divine nature, not according to His human nature, and He suffered and died in His human nature, but not in His divine nature, which is impassible and immortal. We distinguish things pertaining to the God-Man Jesus Christ, not according to His person, which is one, but according to His natures, which are two. Christ descended from heaven according to His divine nature, but not according to His human nature, for “The heavens are the Lord’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the sons of men” (Ps 115:16).

It follows from this that Mary is the “Mother of God” (Theotokos). Christ received a human nature from the Virgin Mary, by which He was able to suffer and die, and He received the divine nature from God the Father, by which He was able to rise from the dead. He received from Mary a human nature, but not the divine nature, and He received from the Father the divine nature, but not a human nature. Since Christ is a divine person, and not a human person, and since Mary is the mother of a person, and not the mother of a nature, she is appropriately called “Mother of God” (STh III, 35, 4), so declared the Council of Ephesus in 431.

Christ added that the Son of Man “is in heaven” to exclude any suggestion that He descended from heaven by local motion. If He had descended by local motion, then He could not have remained in heaven after He became incarnate, for that which moves locally cannot remain in the place from which it came. Christ descended from heaven in a manner that allowed Him to remain in heaven in some way. The Incarnation did not cause His divinity to be enclosed within the human body He assumed. He came down without ceasing to remain above; He became man without ceasing to be God. When the Son of God came down, He did not come to a place where He had not been before; rather, He began to exist here in a new way, as Jesus Christ.

St. Hilary of Poitiers (ca. 315-68) noted that, although the material of Christ’s human body did not descend from heaven, the power by which it was formed did, for this power is the Holy Spirit, through whose power the Virgin Mary conceived Jesus Christ.

One might note that Christ’s statement, “No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven,” presents a problem, for we believe that other holy men and women have gone up into heaven, as St. Paul said, “we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor 5:1). We can answer this by affirming that no one but Christ goes up to heaven by his own power. Christ came down to prepare us for heavenly glory, and God the Father has “raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places” (Eph 2:6). Our preparation for eternal life of glory begins with baptism: “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4).

To explain the relationship between our baptism and our Lord’s passion, Christ cited an Old Testament symbol which prefigured His passion: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (Jn 3:14). This refers to the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up in the desert (Nm 21:5-9). When the wandering Israelites became hungry, the Lord sent them manna to eat. But they thought it was not good enough, grumbling, “there is nothing at all but this manna to look at” (Nm 11:6). They complained to Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” (Nm 21:5). To punish them for their backbiting and to humble them, the Lord sent down “fiery serpents,” which bit them, and many died (Nm 21:6). But when they repented, the Lord instructed Moses to make a bronze serpent and to mount it on a pole as a sign, that whoever looks upon it might be healed and might live. The bronze serpent was a physical and spiritual remedy for the Jews and a symbol of Christ’s passion, as He was lifted up on the cross for all to see. The bronze serpent itself was not poisonous, but was a symbol of poisonous serpents. Likewise, Christ Himself had committed no personal sin, nor did He contract original sin, but the Father sent “his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” so that He might condemn sin in the flesh (Rom 8:3). St. James wrote, “desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death” (Jas 1:15). As the bronze serpent cured those bitten by the snake before the venom had a chance to kill them, Christ cures the insurgence of concupiscence before it has a chance to lead one into spiritual death. He said, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (Jn 12:32). In doing this, He reconciled God and man, “making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col 1:20), that we who were formerly sinners, might now come before God the Father “holy and blameless” in His sight (Col 1:22).

Because the fruit of Christ’s passion is eternal life for those who believe, He added, “that whoever believes in him [may not perish, but have eternal life]“ (Jn 3:15). Whoever looked upon the bronze serpent was healed and his life was saved. Likewise, anyone who believes in the crucified Christ and performs good works as He commanded is healed from the poison of sin and restored to life.