16: For God so loved the world that he gave his Only Begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
17: For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.
18: He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the Only Begotten Son of God.
19: And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20: For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
21: But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God.

In the previous section, Christ taught Nicodemus that the cause of our spiritual regeneration is the coming down and the lifting up of the Son of Man, and as we go down with Him in the waters of baptism, He lifts us up to eternal life, which is the fruit of His Incarnation and Redemption. In this section, Christ demonstrates the magnificence of this fruit from the greatness of God’s love for man.

First of all, we should note that the cause of all our good is God, Who is goodness itself. Every good that we possess, including our very existence, is attributable to Him. His will is the cause of all things. To will something good to a person is to love him. By willing our good, God loves us. By willing His creatures to exist, God loves all that He has made: “thou lovest all things that exist, and hast loathing for none of the things which thou hast made, for thou wouldst not have made anything if thou hadst hated it” (Wis 11:24). God is the cause of grace, which is for us a great good. He came to man when man needed Him most, for Adam and his children throughout the generations had stumbled into sin. By coming down to us in the Incarnation and by lifting us up through our Redemption, He demonstrated His great love for us in our darkest hour, as He said, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you” (Jer 31:3). Because of His great love for us, He lifts us up by grace and leads us to glory, which is our greatest good and our final end.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his Only Begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” God’s love for us is the greatest love for four reasons. First, because of the person who loves. Since the lover is God, Who is infinite, His love for us is immeasurable. Therefore, the Evangelist said, “For God so loved.” That is, His love for us is so very great. “Yea, He loved his people; all those consecrated to him were in his hand” (Dt 33:3). Second, God’s love for us is the greatest love because of the condition of the person loved. God did not love us only when we were good and healthy, but He loved us when we had fallen and were living in sin. This demonstrates His extraordinary love for us, as St. Paul said to the Romans, “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). Thus, the Evangelist added that God loved “the world,” that is, the whole world, the just together with and the unjust, the saint and the sinner. Third, God’s love for us is the greatest love because of the greatness of His gifts, for love is expressed in a gift, and a lover proves His love by giving his beloved a gift. The magnitude of his love is revealed in the value of the gift. What could be more precious to a father than his only son? To show the measure of God’s love for us, the Evangelist said that the Father gave us “his Only Begotten Son.” From this act of immeasurable generosity, we can conclude with St. Paul: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?” (Rom 8:32) He said, “Only Begotten” (unigenitum) for three reasons. First, to distinguish Christ, Who is God’s only natural son, from us, who are His adopted sons and daughters through grace. While Christ is consubstantial with the Father, we are not. When the Psalmist said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you” (Ps 82:6), he was referring to God’s adopted children, not to His Only Begotten Son. We become “gods” in the sense that God adopted us and called us to union with Him, as a father welcomes his adopted children into his home. Second, to say that Christ is the Only Begotten Son refutes Arius’ assertion that Christ was a creature, for no creature has the capacity to receive the totality of God’s infinite love. Third, Christ is called the Only Begotten Son in order to show that God’s love is not divided among many natural sons, for “the Father loves the Son, and shows him all that he himself is doing” (Jn 5:20). Since the Son has the Father’s undivided love, and since the Father’s love for the Son is without measure, we can appreciate how great a gift we have received when the Father gave us His beloved Son. Fourth, God’s love for us is the greatest love because of the greatness of the fruit, which for us is eternal life. Christ obtained this great fruit for us when He willingly suffered and died on the cross. As Christ was lifted up on the cross, we are lifted up by Him, and not only lifted out of sin, but raised to eternal life in union with the Blessed Trinity. The ultimate reason why the Father sent His Son was so that “whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Three things are mentioned in this phrase. First, “whoever believes in him” implies that, while grace is offered to all, each person must accept it in order to be saved. God does not restore a creature to life against his will. Second, concerning “should not perish.” Our final end is eternal life; our proper and natural end is eternal life. But as long as we voluntarily remain in sin, we keep turning away from that end. When one dies in the state of sin, in the state of turning away from his proper end, then he is said to perish, for “the way of the wicked will perish” (Ps 1:6). Once he has perished, he cannot be restored; but, while he is still living, there is hope that he will accept the grace of salvation which Christ offers to him. Third, the phrase, “but have eternal life,” demonstrates the immensity of God’s love for us, for by giving us eternal life, He gives us Himself. To enjoy eternal life is to enjoy God, Who is our final end. To give oneself and to offer oneself is a sign of fervent love. St. Paul explained: “God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:4-6).

When God gave us His Son, did He intend His Son to die on the cross? The Father gave His Son the will to suffer and die, and He gave this to His Son in two ways. First, concerning Christ’s divine nature, the Son willed from all eternity to assume flesh and to die for us. He had this will from the Father, for they have the same divine will. This is because everything the Son has, He received from the Father, Who is His principle, His origin (STh I, 33, 1). Second, concerning Christ’s human nature, God infused into the human soul of Christ the will to suffer and die for our salvation. Though God predestined from all eternity that our salvation should be achieved through Christ, the consummation of this plan depended upon Christ’s conforming His human will to the divine will (STh III, 24, 4). This He did freely, of His own accord.

“For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” This excludes any suggestion that Christ became man for the purpose of judging the world. For since Isaiah prophesied, “The Lord has taken his place to contend, he stands to judge his people” (Is 3:13), some might think that the purpose of the Incarnation was not to give man eternal life, but to condemn him in the flesh. But, the Incarnate Word of God explicitly said, “I did not come to judge the world but to save the world” (Jn 12:47). Now is not the day of judgment, but “now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2). Our salvation consists in attaining God, entering into union with Him, for “God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation” (Ps 62:1). Though His first coming was to bring salvation, His second coming will be to render judgment. St. John Chrysostom said that in His first coming He came, not to judge, but to forgive, but in His second coming, He will come, not to forgive, but to judge. Mindful of this, we should, therefore, not presume upon God’s mercy, which was characteristic of His first coming, but should keep ourselves pure, for His justice will be the distinctive feature of His second coming. Of the day of judgment, the Lord said, “At the set time which I appoint I will judge with equity” (Ps 75:2).

When our Lord said, “I did not come to judge the world but to save the world” (Jn 12:47), He seems to have contradicted what He said in Jn 9:39: “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” But there is no contradiction, for He was speaking of two different kinds of judgment: judgment of distinction and judgment of condemnation. Christ’s first coming was for a judgment of distinction, for after He revealed the New Law, men could be easily distinguished according to their deeds: some live by the light of grace, while others languish in the darkness of sin. Christ’s second coming will be for a judgment of condemnation, whereby the just will be rewarded and the sinners punished.

That Christ’s first coming was not a judgment of condemnation was proved by the Evangelist through a process of elimination, first by revealing the destiny of believers, and then by discussing the fate of unbelievers.

Concerning the destiny of believers, St. John said, “He who believes in him is not condemned.” Whoever believes in the Son of God is not judged with a judgment of condemnation, but with a judgment of distinction, for he wins the approval of the Lord. It is this sort of judgment that St. Paul spoke of in 1 Cor 4:4: “I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.” Christ Himself declared, “Amen, amen, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (Jn 5:24).

Origen, who looked forward to a universal restoration of all things (apokatastasis), thought that no believer, no matter how great his sin, will be eternally damned. Even Satan, he thought, will be saved. Origen and others who subscribed to this error imagined that each believer will be given some sort of temporal punishment for his sins, but will be saved on account of his faith, which, they said, is the foundation of one’s salvation. They based this assumption on their peculiar interpretation of St. Paul’s statements, “For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 3:11), and “If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved” (1 Cor 3:15). But their interpretation must be wrong, for elsewhere St. Paul clearly warned his spiritual children to avoid all sorts of evil deeds: “the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Gal 5:19-21). It is clear that the foundation of salvation is not a faith devoid of charity, which is unformed faith, but a faith informed by charity, which is a faith that gives rise to good works. Those who sin undermine the foundation of their faith, and those who sin mortally remove the foundation completely.

He said, “He who believes in him,” not “He who believes him,” for we can believe a thing to be true without loving it. But to believe in a person implies that we tend toward that person in love, for love is an inclination toward a good (STh I-II, 26, 1), and good is both the end and the cause of love (STh I-II, 27, 2). Love seeks either to possess what is loved or to do good to the beloved (STh I-II, 28, 1). Whoever believes in God, loves Him, and whoever loves Him desires to be with Him. He that desires to be with God does not sin mortally, for he knows that mortal sin deprives him of union with God. St. John Chrysostom said that those who sin willfully are not true believers, that is, although they may believe truths about God, they do not believe in God. “They profess to know God, but they deny him by their deeds” (Ti 1:16). Whether they do evil deeds or fail to do good works, it is the same, for St. James clearly stated, “faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (Jas 2:17).

Concerning the fate of unbelievers, St. John said, “He who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the Only Begotten Son of God.” We can interpret this in three ways. First, according to St. Augustine, God does not need to pass judgment on the unbeliever, because, in His foreknowledge, God already knows that the unbeliever would voluntarily remain in sin, thereby meriting condemnation. God knows all our deeds, for “no secret is hidden from you” (Ez 28:3). God knows the mind and heart, for as a shepherd knows his sheep, “The Lord knows those who are his” (2 Tm 2:19). Second, according to St. John Chrysostom, a man condemns himself by the very fact that he refuses to follow the light and chooses instead to live in the darkness of sin. Third, again with Chrysostom we can say that one who does not believe is already condemned, inasmuch as he clearly manifests the reason for his condemnation. He is like the convicted murderer awaiting execution of his sentence. It is said of the man on death row that he is “as good as dead.” Those who have some merit will be subjected to a trial to determine their guilt, as is the case when an accused man is tried in a court of law. But there is no need for a trial in the case of those who clearly renounce the faith, for their manifest unbelief makes their condemnation apparent. “The way of the wicked will perish” (Ps 1:6), for the wicked have no possible defense to justify their egregious actions.

To be judged is to be condemned, and to be condemned is to be permanently excluded from the kingdom of God. There is only one way that leads to salvation, and that Way is Jesus Christ. That is why, in order to obtain our final end, in order to obtain true happiness, we must believe “in the name of the Only Begotten Son of God,” for “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The prayer, “Save me, O God, by thy name” (Ps 54:1), is fulfilled in Christ.

Here He is called Son of God, and not Son of Man, in order to indicate that the power by which He brings us to eternal life is not in Christ as man, but in Christ as God. The power is not in His human nature, but in His divine nature, for the power to create life and to restore a dead creature to life belongs, not to man, but to God. Thus, St. John said of the Word of God, “In him was life” (Jn 1:4), and of the Son of God, “This is the true God and eternal life” (1 Jn 5:20).

Next, the Evangelist explains why the condemnation of the unbeliever is evident from their actions. First he gives a sign, an example of their behavior (vs. 19), and then shows how this sign proves the point (vs. 20). Here is the sign: “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” This verse says three things about the judgment of unbelievers. First, Christ, Who is the light, came into the world in order to lift us out of the darkness of ignorance and sin. He claimed to be the light that we needed to guide us to life: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (Jn 8:12). Zechariah, the father of St. John the Baptist, said of the day upon which the Word of God became man: “the day shall dawn upon us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Lk 1:78-29). Christ had to bring His light to us, since we could not go to heaven to receive it. Heaven is naturally inaccessible to man, for the Lord “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see” (1 Tm 6:16). Second, despite the fact that Christ came to enlighten us, some men preferred to remain in ignorance and ignored the truth that Christ taught. They apparently “loved darkness rather than light.” It was these kind of men that Job had in mind when he said, “There are those who rebel against the light, who are not acquainted with its ways, and do not stay in its paths” (Jb 24:13). Isaiah’s chastisement was directed toward their kind: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Is 5:20). Third, the cause of their perversity is simple: “their deeds were evil.” They did not conform to the light, to the truth that Christ spoke, but preferred the cover of darkness, that they might freely pursue evil, unimpeded by the light and by those who walk in the light. Job mentioned three sins that typify those who rebel against the light: murder, adultery, and theft. “The murderer rises in the dark, that he may kill the poor and needy; and in the night he is as a thief. The eye of the adulterer also waits for the twilight, saying, ‘No eye will see me’; and he disguises his face. In the dark they dig through houses; by day they shut themselves up; they do not know the light.” (Jb 24:14-16). The unbeliever deliberately withdraws himself from the light of Christ, because the light, the truth, is uncomfortable for him to face. St. Paul used the images of light and darkness to encourage the Romans to turn away from sin: “the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day” (Rom 13:12-13).

Not all unbelievers have given themselves over to doing evil deeds, for many pagans have lived righteously. We can explain their actions in two ways. First, St. John Chrysostom noted that it is one thing to act according to virtue and another thing to act according to a natural disposition. For example, one man may live chastely on account of personal virtue, whereas another man may live chastely only because he is not beleaguered by concupiscence. The difference between the two is this: the virtuous man remains chaste, despite annoying inclinations to the contrary, whereas the other man is ruled entirely by his sensual appetite, much like a brute animal which reacts to stimuli and blindly follows its sensual appetite. St. Thomas pointed out (STh III, 15, 2) that the fomes peccati (tinder of sin), which is the inclination to satisfy the sensual appetite, operates entirely outside the sphere of reason. The law of fomes is quite natural in brute animals, but in man, it ought to be controlled by reason. The more reason a person has, the less fomes he should have. The unbeliever whose actions are ruled by his appetites does not effectively utilize his rational faculties, that is, his intellect and will. He acts in a less than human manner. He acts as an animal, but not as a rational animal. Second, another reason why an unbeliever might do good deeds is because he is acting, not out of virtue, but out of vainglory. For example, such a person performs a good act in order to impress others, to elevate his own prestige, or to gain some temporal advantage. He differs from the virtuous man in this: the unbeliever does not do all things well; he does good deeds only when it is to his advantage. His good works are good indeed in the eyes of others, but his self-serving motivation reveals him to be disingenuous at heart. He may believe Christ, that is, he may believe that the truths Christ taught are beneficial to us in many ways, but he does not believe in Christ.

Next, the Evangelist shows how this sign, the fact that the unbeliever loves the darkness, is sufficient evidence for his condemnation. “For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.” He said, “does evil,” rather than “did evil,” because those who repent come into the light and are no longer in the darkness of sin and error, whereas those who persist in evil are unrepentant unto their end. Repentance is a sign of sorrow for sin. The unrepentant man shuns the light, not because the light reveals the truth, but because it unmasks his sins. He may still desire to know the truth of things, but he does not want others to know the truth of his sinfulness. So, he avoids any wise man who can see through him: “A scoffer does not like to be reproved; he will not go to the wise” (Prv 15:12). Those who love the darkness of sin find the wise man and the upright man repugnant: “They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth” (Am 5:10).

Now that St. John has showed us how the unbeliever merits condemnation, he contrasts the unbeliever with the man who loves the truth. “But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God.” While the evildoer hates the light and shuns the light, the believer approaches the light. The unbeliever hides from the light because the light exposes his evil deeds, whereas the believer is not afraid to let his deeds be made known. It is not enough just to seek the truth, for truth is found, not only in thoughts and in words, but in deeds as well. The true believer thinks holy thoughts and speaks the truth in praise of God. But perhaps the most apparent sign that he is a true believer is that he performs good works in Christ’s name.

When is it permissible to allow one’s deeds to be made known? It appears that it is not always appropriate, for Christ scolded the Pharisees for their ostentatious show of piety. It is vainglory for a man to want others to see his good works in order that they might praise him. This was the Pharisees’ sin. But it is permissible, and even beneficial, to reveal one’s good works in three ways. First, it is lawful for a person to want God to see his good works, as Job said, “my witness is in heaven” (Jb 16:20). The Apostle explains the reason for this: “For it is not the man who commends himself that is accepted, but the man whom the Lord commends” (2 Cor 10:18). Second, it is lawful for a person to want his own conscience to become aware of his good deeds, so that he might give glory to God on account of the good he has done: “For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience that we have behaved in the world, and still more toward you, with holiness and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God” (2 Cor 1:12). A clean conscience mirrors God’s purity and excellence. Third, it is even lawful to allow others to see one’s good works, provided this is done for the sake of God’s glory, so that others, upon seeing that a man does good works in God’s name, may have cause to give God praise, as Christ said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mt 5:16). Such a person makes it clear to others that his good deeds are done in accord with God’s commandments. He credits the beginning of his good works to the grace of God which inclined him to do good. The prophet Isaiah said to the Lord, “thou hast wrought for us all our works” (Is 26:12). Whatever good we do, whether it is by good works, or by repentance, or by the avoidance of sin, it is fundamentally attributable to God, Who is the source of good and truth. It is fitting that the good which God began in us, should return to Him in abundance through our good deeds, for His honor and glory.

7: Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’
8: 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; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.”
9: Nicodemus said to him, “How can this be?”
10: Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this?
11: 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.
12: If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
13: No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
14: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15: that whoever believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life.”

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.’” 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.” 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.” 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?’” 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?’” 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.” 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?” 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 (vs. 13), then of His passion (vs. 14).

“No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven.” 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.

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.” 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.” 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.

1: Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
2: This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him.”
3: Jesus answered him, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4: Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
5: Jesus answered, ” Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
6: That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

In the second chapter, the Evangelist had told us of two instances in which Christ manifested His power over nature: first, in performing the miracle at Cana, and second in His bodily resurrection, which He foretold He would accomplish on the third day after His death. Now St. John will show another way in which Christ demonstrated His power over nature: in the spiritual regeneration of fallen man through His gift of grace. He tells us that grace was offered first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles. The Jews are represented by the Pharisee Nicodemus (ch. 3). The Gentiles are represented by two persons: the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn 4:1-42) and the Roman official, whose son Christ healed (Jn 4:43-54). The Samaritans share a common heritage with the Jews, but Jews consider them foreigners because they worship in a different temple and observe different laws. The Romans, however, are total outsiders, having nothing in common with the Jews, except their relationship as conqueror and conquered. The spiritual regeneration of fallen man and his restoration to life began in Judea with Christ and then spread to the Gentile world through the ministry of the apostles.

St. John begins by giving us the occasion for Christ’s teaching. “Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.” He described Nicodemus in three ways: by his religion, by his name, and by his rank. First, as to his religion, St. John said that he was a Pharisee. There were two major sects of Judaism in Christ’s lifetime: Pharisees and Sadducees. Of the two, the Pharisees were closer to us in their beliefs, for they believed in the resurrection and in the existence of angels. The Sadducees believed in neither. Pharisee means “separated one,” for they were somewhat separated from the religious mainstream on account of their beliefs and because of their exacting observance of the law and of purification rites. St. Paul admitted to being a Pharisee. He testified to King Agrippa: “according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee” (Acts 26:5). Pharisees were active mainly in Palestine from the second century B.C. to the first century A.D. Second, as to his name, Nicodemus means “victor” or “victory of the people.” He represents those who overcame the world through faith in Christ, particularly those Jews who became Christians, as St. John wrote, “whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith” (1 Jn 5:4). Third, as to his rank, St. John described him as a ruler of the Jews, most likely a member of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin (from the Greek synedrion, a council of leaders), which was a council or councils composed of Jewish aristocrats, priests, and religious leaders learned in the law. St. Paul noted that the majority of those called to the faith were not wise or powerful by worldly standards, as was Nicodemus, nor were they of noble birth, but rather, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Cor 1:27). Christ did not choose the wise and the powerful at first, lest it be said that the faith is attributed to human wisdom and temporal power. Yet, He still desired to convert some of the wise and powerful, lest His teaching be held in contempt by them as a teaching exclusively for the uneducated and the lowly, and lest they say that His popularity is due to the fact that He deceived the simple-minded and pandered to the poor. His teaching, in fact, appealed to all sorts: to the simple and to the wise, to those of common birth and to nobles, to the common man and to the great. Hence, we read, “many even of the authorities believed in him” (Jn 12:42), and one of these was Nicodemus.

Then the Evangelist tells us the time when Nicodemus came to Jesus: “This man came to Jesus by night.” In Sacred Scripture, the time of a person’s arrival is sometimes mentioned specifically to indicate the level of their knowledge or their state of mind. Because the night is a time when things lie hidden in darkness, and a person’s sense of fear is heightened because he cannot clearly see, it was fitting, for two reasons, that Nicodemus came at night. First, he was fearful that being seen conversing with Jesus may cause him to be ostracized, or even expelled from the synagogue, for we read that “many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, lest they should be put out of the synagogue” (Jn 12:42). Second, he had an imperfect understanding of the truth which Christ taught. The Psalmist said of Nicodemus and of those like him: “They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness” (Ps 82:5). But to those who have the light of Christ, who have been taught His truth and who have received His grace, St. Paul said, “Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Rom 13:12).

Nicodemus affirmed Christ’s office as teacher when he said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God.” Christ affirmed it as well, saying later to the apostles, “You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am” (Jn 13:13). But Nicodemus’ admission is not enough, for it is not a confession; it stops short of confessing that this Rabbi is God. To be a teacher from God is common to all good preachers, as God said: “I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding” (Jer 3:15). It was not unique to Christ that He taught the truth and spoke the Word of God. What is different with Him is that, while all other teachers taught with written or spoken words, Christ also instructed from within a man’s heart. He had a supernatural eloquence that no other rabbi possessed. It is little wonder that He is “The true light that enlightens every man” (Jn 1:9). Moreover, He promised to bestow this special gift of didactic eloquence upon His apostles: “I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict” (Lk 21:15).

Nicodemus then affirmed Christ’s power when he added, “for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him.” He believed that Christ was an authentic teacher because of the miracles Christ performed, for he reasoned correctly that anyone who works such wonders must be sent from God, as Christ said, “he who sent me is with me” (Jn 8:29). Since miracles can only be effected by God, Who alone has power over nature, when a holy man brings about a miracle, we conclude that he must be sent by God, Who is effecting the miracle through him. Though Nicodemus rightly concluded that Christ was from God, it did not occur to him that Christ could be of God as well, that is, of the same divine nature. Nicodemus did not believe that Christ performed these signs by His own power, but that the God of Abraham and Issac and Jacob worked these signs through the Rabbi from Galilee, as He worked signs though other holy men of the past, like Elijah and Elisha. When God raised a widow’s child to life at the hands of Elijah, the grateful woman said to the prophet, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth” (1 Kgs 17:24). Nicodemus believed that God was with Christ in the same way that God was with Elijah: not by a unity of essence, but by an indwelling of grace.

Next, the Evangelist shows man’s need for spiritual regeneration: “Jesus answered him, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you.’” “Amen” sometimes means “truly,” and sometimes “so be it.” Here it means “truly.” St. John is the only evangelist to quote Jesus using the emphatic double form, “Amen, amen.” This is because, while the other evangelists are concerned mainly with matters pertaining to Christ’s humanity, St. John deals mainly with things that pertain to His divinity, which are hidden from human wisdom and human experience, and therefore, require a more emphatic declaration. Nicodemus already knew that Jesus was a holy man from God. Now Christ wanted to lead him to a deeper understanding of the Son of Man.

When Christ said, “unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” He was explaining to Nicodemus why His true nature was not apparent to him. Christ was justifying Nicodemus’ ignorance, despite the fact that he was apparently learned in the law and in the scriptures. For no matter how learned one may be in human wisdom, one cannot know hidden divine things until one has undergone a spiritual regeneration. Fallen man must have the scales washed from his eyes before he can see God again, as Adam once had seen Him. Nicodemus, like all of us, needs to be born again, for spiritual things cannot be seen by the sentient faculties, as St. Paul said: “The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14). We said above (ch. 1, lect. 4) that any truth we know is a participation in the Truth, Who is the Word of God. Similarly, whatever spiritual vision we have is due to the Holy Spirit within us, for “no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Cor 2:11). But, the Holy Spirit is given through the cleansing of spiritual regeneration. Therefore, we must undergo spiritual regeneration in order to have spiritual vision, to see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus’ knowledge about Christ was incomplete because he lacked spiritual vision. But this could be remedied if he would be spiritually regenerated, that is to say, “born anew.”

Note that the kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom, not an earthly kingdom, as St. Paul explained to the Romans: “the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17). Nicodemus could not see the glory and dignity of God, Who stood before him in the Divine Person of Christ, for his human eyes could see only the material world, not the spiritual reality before him. The mysteries of salvation are seen through the eyes of faith. Now, the patriarchs had faith, yet they had seen the mysteries of the kingdom only “from afar” (Heb 11:13), only imperfectly, for they lacked the spiritual regeneration of grace. The New Law renews us inwardly by grace, but it does not renew anyone outwardly by making the human body at once incorruptible. Spiritual regeneration begins now, but perfect regeneration will be accomplished in heaven, where we will be renewed both inwardly and outwardly, where a physically regenerated body, that is, a glorified body, will be reunited with its spiritually regenerated soul. At that time, Nicodemus will understand, for “when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:2). Then he shall see clearly, for “now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Cor 13:12). Moses saw only God’s back (Ex 33:23), but Nicodemus will see His face. Just as one does not have bodily vision unless he is born of a woman, one cannot have spiritual vision unless he be reborn in the Holy Spirit.

By this spiritual regeneration we are transformed into a greater likeness of the Son of God, for “those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29). Because Christ was generated from above, eternally begotten of the Father, our regeneration must also come from above, whereby we become adopted sons and daughters of the Father. This is why Christ said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (Jn 6:44).

It is not surprising that Nicodemus failed to understand, for he had not yet been spiritually born anew. He could only understand in a sensual, carnal manner, not in a spiritual manner. Unless one receives the Holy Spirit and becomes an adopted child of God, one cannot see the hidden things of God, for God reveals Himself more to His sons and daughters than to others. It seemed impossible to Nicodemus, for two reasons, that a grown man might be born again. First, because of the irreversibility of human life, for an old man cannot return to youth. And so he asked Jesus, “How can a man be born when he is old?” Time flows in one direction, as Job noted: “when a few years have come I shall go the way whence I shall not return” (Jb 16:22). Second, regeneration seemed impossible because of the mode of carnal generation, whereby the human person naturally grows from a very tiny size to adulthood. The physical size of the womb can accommodate a human life for only nine months or so. An adult cannot return there to be reborn. And so, Nicodemus asked, “Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Of course, both of his questions concerned physical birth, not spiritual birth. Christ and Nicodemus were talking about two different things. Yet Nicodemus’ objection is true in one sense: just as a man who is physically born cannot be physically born again, so too a man who is spiritually born in baptism cannot be baptized again, for there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4:5). Nicodemus understood the physical constraints of being born again, but he was blind to the spiritual reality, even though Pharisees believed in spiritual things like angels and the resurrection. Moreover, Pharisees were learned in the law and in the scriptures, yet Nicodemus did not see that at least two psalms alluded to spiritual regeneration: “your youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (Ps 103:5), and “From the womb of the morning like dew your youth will come to you” (Ps 110:3).

“Jesus answered, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.’” Christ explained that it was not carnal generation that He was talking about, but spiritual regeneration. Note that Christ said above, “unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (vs. 3), whereas here He said, “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (vs. 5). In order to see the things of the kingdom of God, one must enter the kingdom of God. That is to say, a true knowledge of hidden divine things is beyond the grasp of intellectuals who study them merely out of curiosity. Faith is lived. The truth must be believed to be understood.

Why must we be reborn with water? Water is necessary for spiritual regeneration for three reasons. First, because of the condition of human nature. Because a man consists of body and spirit, he must be born of water and the Holy Spirit, so that not only his soul is regenerated, but his body as well. Because both his soul and his body are regenerated, his glorified body will rise on the last day to be reunited with his soul. Second, water is symbolically necessary for human knowledge. God provides for each creature according to its own nature. Man’s knowledge begins with sense knowledge; he learns by obtaining information from the sensible world through his five senses. Man can obtain knowledge either supernaturally, as is the case when the natural law is infused into his mind, or naturally, from sense experience. So that man might come to a knowledge of spiritual things naturally, it was fitting that something sensible from the material world might be used in his regeneration. It was most fitting that water be used, for just as it cleanses the exterior of the body, baptism cleanses the soul of both original sin and personal sin. Third, the water of baptism corresponds to the tomb from which Christ arose. The cause of our regeneration is the Incarnate Word, Who gives us “power to become children of God” (Jn 1:12). Since the sacraments derive their efficacy from the power of Christ, it was fitting that each sacrament have a spiritual element corresponding to the Word and a material element corresponding to the body. In baptism, we are submerged in the water, as Christ was buried in the tomb, so that we might emerge cleansed and prepared for glory, even as Christ arose from the tomb in glory, as St. Paul explained: “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).

Why must we be reborn of the Spirit? One who is generated is generated in the likeness of the one generating, as a son bears a likeness to his father. We are regenerated into the likeness of the Son of God; as a consequence, we become adopted sons and daughters of God. This regeneration takes place by our receiving the Holy Spirit, for He is the Love between the Father and the Son. Thus, St. Paul concluded that “Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Rom 8:9). St. John wrote: “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his own Spirit” (1 Jn 4:13). Nicodemus could not understand, because he did not have the Holy Spirit, for “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail” (Jn 6:63).

Spiritual rebirth affirms the divinity of the Holy Spirit. We are reborn of God, “not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn 1:13). But we are reborn by the Spirit. Therefore, the Holy Spirit must be God.

It is said that there are three kinds of baptism, baptism of water, baptism of blood, and baptism of desire, and that one can enter the kingdom of God by any of these three ways. According to a different classification, we can say that the three kinds of baptism are (1) baptism of water in deed; (2), baptism of desire, which is experienced by martyrs and catechumens who die before their desire is fulfilled; and (3) baptism of sign, which pertains to the patriarchs of the faith. Those who freely come to the waters of baptism are baptized in deed, the deed being the pouring of water. Those reborn by the blood of martyrdom do not experience regeneration in deed, but by desire. Likewise, catechumens who die before their baptism, have the baptism of desire. The patriarchs of the faith were not baptized with water, nor did they explicitly desire to follow Christ. Now, regeneration by water and the Spirit takes place in either of two ways: in truth or in symbol. Although the patriarchs did not receive baptism in truth, they had a symbolic rebirth, because, although they had not known of Jesus Christ, they nonetheless had seen signs which prefigured Christ and the true baptism, and they lived their lives according to the will of God. Accordingly, they were reborn and entered the kingdom at the moment when Christ paid the price for our salvation by dying on the cross.

Pelagians derived their error from the statement, “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” They claimed that children are baptized, not to cleanse them from original sin, for they asserted that children have no such sin. Rather, they said that children are baptized only so that they might enter the kingdom of God. But St. Augustine proved their opinion to be false. He said that it is unfitting that man, who was created in the image and likeness of God, should be excluded from the kingdom of God, except for some real obstacle. Sin, which tarnishes man’s image, is the obstacle keeping fallen man from heavenly glory. Since infants and young children do not have the intellectual and moral capacity to voluntarily commit personal sin, some other sin must be responsible for their exclusion from the kingdom. That other sin is original sin, which is removed by baptism.

Christ proved the necessity of baptism when He said, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” No one can enter the kingdom of God unless his carnality is transformed and he is made spiritual; but no one is made spiritual, except by the Holy Spirit; therefore, no one can enter the kingdom of God, unless he is reborn of the Holy Spirit. What is born out of flesh is itself flesh, but what is born from the power of the Holy Spirit is spiritual. In Adam, all men died, but in Christ all men rise to life, as St. Paul said: “The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven” (1 Cor 15:47).

Notice the use of the preposition ex: “That which is born of the flesh [ex carne] is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit [ex Spiritu] is spirit.” This preposition sometimes designates a material cause, as when we say that a knife is made “of iron” (ex fero), and at other times it designates an efficient cause, as when we say that a knife was made “by a blacksmith” (ex ferrario). The phrase, “That which is born of the flesh [ex carne]” can be interpreted according to either material or efficient causality. Accordingly, generation is of three types. First, there is a material generation, in which flesh begets flesh. This is common to all living things in the process of biological generation. Second, there is an effective generation, in which we are spiritually reborn by the grace of the Holy Spirit as adopted children of God. Third, there is a generation that pertains only to Christ the God-Man. He was generated materially from the flesh of the Virgin Mary, but effectively by the Holy Spirit. Thus, the angel spoke to the Virgin Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (Lk 1:35). He took His human nature materially from the Virgin Mary, and His divine nature from the Father.

18: The Jews then said to him, “What sign have you to show us for doing this?”
19: Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
20: The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”
21: But he spoke of the temple of his body.
22: When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.
23: Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did;
24: but Jesus did not trust himself to them,
25: because he knew all men and needed no one to bear witness about men; for he himself knew what was in man.

At the outset of chapter two, the Evangelist had recounted the first great sign by which Christ manifested His divinity and His power over nature: the changing of water into wine at Cana (vs. 1-11). The remainder of chapter two deals with the greatest sign, the greatest miracle: His resurrection. We have already seen the occasion which prompted Christ to foretell His own rising from the dead: namely, the cleansing of the temple (vs. 12-17). Now the Evangelist recounts the prediction itself (vs. 18-25).

In driving the merchants and money-changers from the temple, Jesus demonstrated His virtue and displayed His authority. His virtue was apparent in that He acted in accord with justice and with zeal for the house of God. They could not ask Christ to justify His virtue, for everyone who acts virtuously acts lawfully. But they were not being unreasonable when they asked Him to provide a sign that would explain why He could act with authority. Therefore, “The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign have you to show us for doing this?’” They did not dispute the righteousness of His action, for that must have been apparent. What they did want to know was by whose authority He drove out the merchants and money-changers. By all appearances, He was an ordinary man. He was not dressed as a priest or as someone else in authority. He did not seem to have the requisite office, yet He acted as if He did. Did He have some sort divine authority? Was His act a work of the devil? Or did He simply take it upon Himself to speak out? A similar confrontation occurred the week before He was crucified: “when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, ‘By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority? (Mt 21:23)’” It was common for Jews to ask for signs, as St. Paul noted: “Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom” (1 Cor 1:22). The reason for this is that Jews were called to the law by signs: “there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land” (Dt 34:10-11). And when they did not receive signs, they complained, saying, “We do not see our signs” (Ps 74:9). When they asked Jesus for a sign of His authority, they did not ask in order to believe in Him, to believe that the Son of God had authority to cleanse the temple of wrongdoers. Instead, they hoped to discredit Him, for they did not think He could produce a sign, a miracle to demonstrate His power to the priests.

“Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’” Because they asked with an evil intent, Christ did not give them a clear sign, but one wrapped within a symbol, a sign concerning the resurrection of his human body, which He spoke of symbolically as a temple. The erection of Solomon’s temple was a magnificent feat of engineering and architectural splendor, but the raising of a human body from the dead is far more spectacular. Because only God has the power to create life and to restore it, Christ’s resurrection would surely be the definitive sign that He acted with divine authority. Now, the prophet Elijah raised a body from the dead (Sir 48:5), and in doing so, acted with divine authority; but it was by the power of God that he restored life. However, for a man to raise himself from the dead, as Jesus Christ proposed that He would do, implies that He Himself must be divine, for only the Giver of life can restore life using His own power. Therefore, Christ, in foretelling His resurrection, claimed that He was divine.

On another occasion, Christ explained the meaning of this sign to the skeptical scribes and Pharisees: “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Mt 12:39-40). Since the scribes and Pharisees were experts in Sacred Scripture, the meaning that Christ intended to convey should have been reasonably clear to them.

Before the Incarnation, God told King Ahaz of Judah (735-15 B.C.) that He would reveal a sign of Christ’s coming: “Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Is 7:14), which means “God is with us.” Similarly, before the Resurrection, Christ gave us a sign, and it is this sign of which we now speak. By these two signs, the divinity of Christ was definitively revealed, for in the first, God became a man, and in the second, He raised man up to union with God.

Christ called His human body a “temple,” for a temple is a place where God dwells: “The Lord is in his holy temple” (Ps 11:4). God dwells in the soul that is pure and righteous; He makes His home in the soul that is in the state of grace, as St. Paul said, “you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you” (1 Cor 3:16). Because God dwells in Christ’s human body, His body is a temple of God. Now, God dwells in us by grace, but this indwelling is in the intellect and will, not in the body. But God dwells in the human body of Christ according to a union of person, and this union includes both His human soul and His human body. Thus, the human body of Christ is God’s temple.

Nestorius (386-451) cited this verse to support his claim that the Person of the Son of God was distinct from the Person of the Son of man, and that these two persons were brought together in five ways accidentally, not substantially: (1) by an indwelling, as the Word of God dwells in man; (2) by intention, as a moral union or agreement of divine and human wills; (3) by operation, inasmuch as the man Jesus was the instrument of the Word, (4) by honor, as honor shown to the Word is shown to the man Jesus as well; and (5) by equivocation, inasmuch as we call Jesus Christ both God and Son of God (STh III, 2, 6). Nestorius asserted that Christ consisted of two persons, one divine, the other human. But we believe that the indwelling was in His human nature, not in His person, for His person was always divine. The Word of God assumed a human nature, not a human person. God did not assume one man, but assumed human nature, that He might restore, not only one human person, but the fallen human nature of all mankind (STh III, 4, 3), since He is “the first-born of all creation” (Col 1:15). Christ is one person, a divine person, the Word of God, the Only Begotten Son of God. The Word has always been one divine person, and He has always possessed the divine nature. But ever since the Word of God assumed a human nature in the Incarnation, it has been true to say that He possesses two complete natures, one divine, the other human. If Archbishop Nestorius of Constantinople erred in splitting Christ into two persons, his monk Eutyches of Nicerta erred in denying that Christ’s two natures remained distinct, asserting instead that Christ was consubstantial with the Father, but not with man. The archbishop split one person into two, while Eutyches melded two distinct natures into one. But we believe that the hypostatic union took place substantially in the divine Person of the Word of God. The theologically orthodox position is midway between two heretical positions: the monophysitism of Eutyches, which located the union in the essence, and Nestorianism, which regarded the union as accidental, and not substantial.

Christ said, “Destroy this temple,” not “this temple will be destroyed” or “I will destroy this temple,” lest anything think that He took His own life. Rather, He was immolated by others, though it was a death He humbly accepted, according to the prophecy: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth” (Is 53:7). He willed to suffer and die for our salvation. “Destroy” is not a command, but a prediction. When He said, “Destroy this temple,” without adding an objection, He implied that they would do this thing to Him with His permission, as He said to Judas, “What you are going to do, do quickly” (Jn 13:27). Christ explained why He gave His permission: “I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father.” (Jn 10:17-18).

By “Destroy,” he meant the death of His human body. When a body dies it undergoes a dissolution, because the soul immediately separates from the body. After men die, their bodies sooner or later return to dust. But with Christ it was different, for although He did experience a dissolution when His human soul separated from His human body at the moment of His death, His dead body did not begin to molder or to disintegrate, but miraculously remained intact, though lifeless, until it was raised in glory on the third day. This was to fulfill what had been written: “my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also dwells secure. For thou dost not give me up to Sheol, or let thy godly one see the Pit.” (Ps 16:9-10)

Christ gave them the sign they asked for when He foretold the resurrection of His body, saying, “in three days I will raise it up.” Note that He did not say “It will be raised up,” nor did He say “the Father will raise it up,” but He said clearly, “I will raise it up.” By saying this, He affirmed that He has the power over life, and hence, that He is divine. But this is not to deny that the Father and the Holy Spirit have the power, for Christ said that whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise (Jn 5:19), and St. Paul credited the Father with raising His Son from the dead. There is no contradiction here, for the power is the same in each of the three divine persons. St. Augustine taught (De Trinitate i, 12) that when one divine person acts, it is three acting as one, and not severally. St. Thomas added that whatever belongs to one divine person belongs to all three acting in common (STh III, 23, 2).

“In three days” may be understood in two ways. First, in a literal sense, He said, “in three days,” not “after three days,” because He did not remain in the tomb for three whole days. “In three days” is an example of synecdoche, a figure of speech which substitutes a more inclusive term for a less inclusive one; it takes a part for the whole. Second, in a mystical sense, according to Origen, the first day is the law of nature to which everything is subject, the second day is the written law given to Moses, and the third day is the law of grace given by Christ. As the Word of God dwells in Christ through the grace of union (the hypostatic union), the Word dwells in His Body, the Church, through the grace of adoption. In each of the three days, one aspect of the body is raised, until the spiritual resurrection of the Church is accomplished in its entirety on the third day.

Next, the Evangelist gives us the Jews’ faulty interpretation of Christ’s prediction, for they thought He was speaking of the temple on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. “The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’” The first temple was completed during King Solomon’s reign (965-26 B.C.) (1 Kgs 6-8; 2 Chr 2-4) and was looted and burned in 587 by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon (605-562). The second temple was built on the site of Solomon’s temple between 520 and 515, during the restoration following the Babylonian exile. It was desecrated by the Greeks in 325 and by the Romans in 63. The third temple was actually a major renovation and embellishment of the second temple, which took place during the reign of King Herod the Great (37 B.C.-A.D. 4). It was burned by the army of the Roman general Titus in 70. The first temple is known as Solomon’s Temple; the second is sometimes called Zerubbabel’s Temple, named for Zerubbabel, the governor of the Persian province of Yehud (Judah); the third is known as Herod’s Temple. It was in Herod’s Temple that Christ taught and prayed.

According to Origen, the reference to “forty-six years” refers perhaps to Solomon’s Temple, which may have taken that many years to build, if one reckons the start of construction from the day King David (1005-965) first discussed the project with the prophet Nathan (2 Sm 7:2-3) until it was completed by King Solomon (965-26). David certainly spent a great deal of time making plans, amassing funds, and procuring materials and craftsmen for the project. It is not unreasonable to suggest that the entire project, from inception to completion, may have taken forty-six years.

Next, the Evangelist gives us the true meaning of Christ’s words: “But he spoke of the temple of his body,” that is, He spoke metaphorically.

Then St. John tells us when the apostles will fully understand this: “When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.” The apostles came to learn things concerning the faith only gradually. There are two reasons why Christ’s statement was not easily understood until after His resurrection. First, because it asserted that God is contained in some real way within the human body of Jesus. This goes beyond human experience, and hence, is difficult for human wisdom to grasp. The presence of the divinity within His body is a real presence, not a figurative one, otherwise Christ could not have called His body a temple, for a temple is a structure wherein God dwells on earth. Second, Christ’s statement was not easily understood before the Resurrection because it made reference to the unthinkable: His passion, death, and resurrection. On a later occasion when our Lord predicted His passion, Peter was so shocked that he rebuked Christ, saying, “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” (Mt 16:22) But soon after the Resurrection, they began to see how recent events had been foretold by the prophets. For example, Hosea prophesied: “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up” (Hos 6:3). And the sign of Jonah that Christ made reference to (Mt 16:4) became clear: “Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (Jon 1:17), as Christ’s body rested in a tomb hewn from rock, then “the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land” (Jon 2:10), as Christ arose from the tomb on the third day.

In an anagogical sense, we understand that, at the resurrection of the dead, the entire body of Christ, that is, His Church, will be given a most certain knowledge of all the things we now accept on faith alone. Looking forward to that day, the Apostle said, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Cor 13:12).

Next, the Evangelist shows the fruit of the signs Christ gave: namely, that many began to believe. “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did.” Some believed because of the signs, the miracles they witnessed, while others believed because He revealed things hidden in the prophecies. Those who believed because of what He revealed are more commendable than those who believed because they witnessed miracles, for miracles appeal more to the senses, whereas the revelation of the truth appeals to the mind. Miracles and wonders appeal to all sorts of people, but only the more spiritually advanced can appreciate and understand prophecy, as St. Paul noted: “prophecy is not for unbelievers but for believers” (1 Cor 14:22).

What signs did they see? St. John recounted only two signs so far: the miracle at Cana and the cleansing of the temple. Origen responded to this question by making two points. First, it is possible that Christ worked many miracles at this stage in His public ministry, but not all of them are recorded. For it was not St. John’s intention to record every detail of Christ’s life, but only those events that were necessary in order to instruct the faithful. The Evangelist himself concluded his gospel by admitting, “But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (Jn 21:25). Second, Christ may very well have performed other miracles before this time, but the most significant to date was the cleansing of the temple.

The attitude of Christ toward His believers is shown when the Evangelist wrote, “but Jesus did not trust himself to them.” Some might suggest that Christ said this because the faith of some disciples was not genuine. But, this cannot be the case, for the Evangelist affirmed that they had faith when he wrote, “many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did.” We can solve this in two ways. First, according to St. John Chrysostom, they believed in Him imperfectly, for their minds were not yet ready to understand and their wills were not yet prepared to fully accept the mysteries of Christ, such as His Incarnation and Resurrection. Accordingly, Christ did not reveal everything to them at first. He even confessed as much to His apostles, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (Jn 16:12). In a similar manner, the Apostle wrote to his Corinthian converts: “I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet you are not ready, for you are still of the flesh.” (1 Cor 3:1) Thus, we come to learn the divine mysteries gradually, step by step. Now, the Evangelist, in order to indicate that the disciples believed only imperfectly, said that they believed “in his name,” rather than “in him.” To believe “in him” would imply that they believed in His divinity, but to believe “in his name” means merely that they believed what others had said about Him. Second, according to St. Augustine, those who believe imperfectly are the catechumens. They believe in Christ name, that is, in what is said about Him, but because their faith is not perfect, the Church does not allow them to receive the body of Christ in the Eucharist, until after they are baptized with water and the Spirit.

The reason why Christ knew that He should not entrust Himself completely to them is “because he knew all men.” One normally presumes the good in a person, unless the contrary is proven, just as, in our criminal justice system, one is assumed to be innocent until proven guilty. But there is nothing in a man’s heart that is unknown to Christ. In His divine intellect, He knows all things (STh III, 9 1); and in His human intellect, He has knowledge of all things that the human intellect can possibly know (STh, III, 9, 3) and all the things that God has revealed to mankind (STh III, 11, 1). Thus, Christ knew with certainty that their faith was imperfect. And so, He “did not trust himself to them” at that moment in time.

One person can come to know another person in great depth, as is the case with intimate friends. But Christ knew even what lay hidden in the hearts of total strangers, for He knew these things, not by the powers of human observation, but by the power of His divinity, as the wise man said, “the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter than the sun; they look upon all the ways of men, and perceive even the hidden places” (Sir 23:19). Because Christ as God sees perfectly into the hearts of men, He “needed no one to bear witness about men; for he himself knew what was in man.” He has perfect knowledge, not only of exterior things, but of hidden interior things as well, as the Psalmist proclaimed in wonder, “Thou searchest out my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.” (Ps 139:3-4). Or as the proverb goes, “Sheol and Abaddon lie open before the Lord, how much more the hearts of men!” (Prv 15:11)

12: After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples; and there they stayed for a few days.
13: The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
14: In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers at their business.
15: And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple; and he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.
16: And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; you shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade.”
17: His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for thy house will consume me.”

We have seen the first sign which manifested Christ’s divinity: the changing of water into wine at Cana (vs. 1-11). Now we will hear Christ speak of the ultimate sign: His own resurrection from the dead. First, the Evangelist gives the occasion for Christ’s prediction of His resurrection: the cleansing of the temple (vs. 12-17). Then he recounts the prediction itself (vs. 18-25). Both miracles, Cana and the Resurrection, demonstrate Christ’s power over nature. He performed the first to confirm the faith of His newly converted disciples; he will rise from the dead to convert the people.

“After this he went down to Capernaum.” After the miracle at Cana, Christ went to Capernaum, which is on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, less than three miles from the Jordan River. Capernaum means “village of Nahum,” and Nahum means “consolation” or “compassion.” Some have suggested that St. John’s report of Christ’s visit to Capernaum seems to conflict with what St. Matthew said. St. Matthew reported that, at the time Jesus went to Capernaum, John the Baptist had already been placed under arrest (Mt 4:12), whereas when Jesus went to Capernaum in Jn 2:12, the Baptist was still free, for St. John has the Baptist speaking with his disciples in Jn 3:26. However, there is really no conflict in the historical sequence of events, for each of them was referring to a different trip to Capernaum. The one mentioned by St. John (Jn 2:12) occurred before the Baptist was arrested, whereas the one mentioned by St. Matthew (Mt 4:12) took place shortly after John had been arrested by King Herod.

Christ traveled “with his mother and his brothers and his disciples.” Two errors have arisen with respect to the term, “brothers.” First, Helvidius asserted that these “brothers” were natural children of Mary and Joseph, conceived in the usual manner. But we believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary. Second, others have suggested that Joseph fathered sons by another wife, and that he was a widower when he married Mary. But St. Jerome argued that, since the Lord entrusted the care of His mother to the virgin disciple (Jn 19:27), it seems reasonable to assume that Joseph, who was the special guardian of Mary and Jesus, had also been a virgin throughout his life.

To say that Christ had brothers does not imply that He had siblings, for the term “brother” is used throughout the Bible to denote either a blood relative or a close companion unrelated by blood. It is reasonable to assume that the “brothers” mentioned here in Jn 2:12 and elsewhere are related to Mary or to Joseph by some degree of consanguinity, though not as natural sons. We cannot, however, identify Christ’s “brothers” with His “disciples,” for not all His kinsmen followed Him, as we read, “even his brothers did not believe in him” (Jn 7:5).

Which of his disciples went to Capernaum? If we follow the historical order of the Gospel of St. John, we may conclude that Christ had four or five disciples at that point in time: Andrew (Jn 1:40), his brother Simon Peter (Jn 1:42), Philip (Jn 1:43), Nathanael (Jn 1:47), and an unnamed disciple (Jn 1:35), who may have been Philip, St. John the Evangelist, or someone else. The first four apostles mentioned by St. Matthew are two pairs of brothers: Simon Peter and Andrew (Mt 4:18), and James and John, the sons of Zebedee (Mt 4:21). But St. Matthew has it that they were not called by Christ until after the Baptist was imprisoned and after Christ had gone down to Capernaum: “when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth he went and dwelt in Capernaum by the sea” (Mt 4:12). Now, as we discussed above, St. John and St. Matthew are talking about two different visits to Capernaum. And so, there is no discrepancy as to the timing of the visits. As to the discrepancy concerning the names of the disciples who accompanied Him, we can offer two explanations. First, St. Augustine suggested that St. Matthew did not intend to follow the objective historical order. Rather, he summarized events according to a subjective ordering in such a way as to tell the story of Christ in his own distinctive manner. Consequently, he related events that actually took place before the Baptist’s imprisonment as if they had occurred afterwards. Second, St. Augustine noted that one should not equate “apostle” with “disciple,” for many others beside the Twelve were called disciples. This is apparent from Lk 6:13: “he called his disciples, and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles.” Therefore, it is possible that some of the disciples who went with Christ to Capernaum were not apostles.

“And there they stayed for a few days.” First, according to a literal interpretation, the reason why Christ did not stay there for very long was because the people of Capernaum were not eager to receive His teaching. They failed to believe in Him, even though they had seen His miracles. Thus, He rebuked them, saying, “And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.” (Mt 11:23) Second, according to the mystical sense, some people can bear only a few of Christ’s words at a time, for they lack the intellectual capacity to take it all in at once, as Christ said to His disciples, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (Jn 16:12).

Next, the Evangelist mentions the occasion for Christ’s journey from Galilee to Jerusalem: “The Passover of the Jews was at hand.” The Passover feast (Pesach) was prescribed for every household to celebrate on the fourteenth of Nisan (Ex 12:17), which was reckoned as the first month of the year (Ex 12:2). Christ observed the major feasts, for in doing so, He observed a law which He, the Word of God, decreed. Thus, He said, “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them” (Mt 5:17).

The Gospel of St. John mentions three Passover celebrations. The first one followed the miracle at Cana (Jn 2:12), which is the one we are now discussing; the second one followed the feeding of the five thousand (Jn 6:4); and the third one was the Passover when Christ celebrated His last supper with the apostles (Jn 13:1). From a careful reading of Mt 14:13-21 and Jn 6:4 we can deduce that John the Baptist was beheaded shortly before the second Passover. Mt 14:13-21 tells us that when Jesus heard the news of the beheading, he withdrew by boat to a lonely place, but crowds followed him; He took pity on them, healed their sick, and fed the five thousand. From Jn 6:4, we know that this feeding took place immediately before the second Passover. Hence, we conclude that the Baptist was executed shortly before Christ celebrated the second Passover.

According to tradition, Christ performed the miracle at Cana exactly one year after He was baptized, and He was baptized exactly thirty years after the wise men came bearing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Thus, we commemorate, on the same day, the adoration of the magi, Christ’s baptism, and the miracle at Cana. If there was a Passover shortly after Cana, then there was one shortly after He was baptized. Since Christ began to preach and to baptize sometime after His own baptism, we can deduce that He preached for more than three years, but less than four. That is, He preached for part of the year between His baptism and the miracle at Cana; He preached the entire year between Cana and the beheading, the entire year between the beheading and the feeding of the five thousand, and the entire year between the feeding and the Last Supper.

The Evangelist said, “Passover of the Jews,” for two possible reasons. First, he said “Passover of the Jews,” instead of “Passover of the Lord,” perhaps because the people celebrated it in an unbecoming manner, for their own pleasure, rather than for the Lord. “Was it for me that you fasted?” asked the Lord (Zec 7:5). Second, perhaps the Evangelist said, “Passover of the Jews” to differentiate it from our Mass, for the Passover lamb was but a symbol of the Lamb of God, and the immolation of the lamb was but an imperfect figure of the true sacrifice of Christ on the cross. St. Paul instructed the Corinthians, “Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Cor 5:7)

“And Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” Jesus expelled merchants from the temple on two occasions. The first occurred before the Baptist’s imprisonment; this is the one reported by St. John the Evangelist here. The other occasion, reported by St. Matthew (Mt 21:12), occurred during the Passover on which He died. It was not unusual for Christ to perform a particularly significant action more than once. For example, He healed two blind men near Capernaum in Galilee (Mt 9:27-31) and two other blind men just outside of Jericho in Judea (Mt 20:29-34).

In a mystical sense, the name “Jerusalem” was understood in biblical times to mean “city of peace.” It signifies for us eternal happiness. Christ had to first go down to Capernaum before He could go up to Jerusalem. He had to suffer and die before He could rise. He condescended to become a man, that He might raise fallen human nature. The same divine person who came down to us in the Incarnation, arose and ascended in glory, as St. Paul said, “He who descended is he who also ascended far above all the heavens” (Eph 4:10). His disciples did not enter Jerusalem with Him on this, their first Passover as His disciples, for their ascent must follow upon His ascent: “No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man” (Jn 3:13). This signifies that Christ is “the first-born among many brethren” (Rom 8:29).

Next, the Evangelist recounts the historical event that prompted Christ to speak of the greatest of signs: His own bodily resurrection. First Christ exposed the avaricious behavior of the merchants and money-changers; then He applied a suitable remedy.

“In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers at their business.” Greed is a dangerous vice that afflicts the rational animal. The devil appeals to man’s inclination to cupidity in order to denigrate, and even to destroy, sacred things. The prophet lamented: “The dogs have a mighty appetite; they never have enough. The shepherds also have no understanding; they have all turned to their own way, each to his own gain, one and all.” (Is 56:11) Even the priests of Jerusalem fell prey to the vice of avarice. When it came time to go up to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice, the faithful who lived nearby brought their own animals, while those coming from a distance purchased sacrificial animals in Jerusalem. The priests of the temple saw to it that merchants had a sufficient supply of animals on hand for the pilgrims, and they allowed the merchants to conduct their business within the temple precincts, that is, inside the outer wall that separated the sacred from the profane. Three land animals were used for sacrifice according to the law: oxen, sheep and goats. Two birds were used: doves and turtle doves, the latter being a wild pigeon (tor in Hebrew). It sometimes happened that a pilgrim came without coin that was acceptable in Judea. To remedy this, the priests allowed money-changers to be seated in the courtyard in order to exchange foreign coinage or to provide the pilgrims with money in exchange for merchandise which they brought along with them. All this business–the currency exchange and the sale of animals–was done within the temple precincts, thereby profaning a holy place. And if it were the case that the priests had made a profit from the business, then they would be guilty of profaning their sacred office as well.

We can also interpret this verse in a mystical sense in three ways. First, the merchants signify those who buy and sell spiritual goods for the Church, for the oxen, sheep and pigeons signify spiritual goods. The oxen symbolize the apostles and doctors of the Church, for spiritual goods are consecrated and authenticated by them: “Where there are no oxen, there is no grain; but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox” (Prv 4:14). The sheep represent the martyrs, as St. Paul said of them, “For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered” (Rom 8:36). And the pigeons signify the Holy Spirit, Who descended upon Christ at His baptism in the form of a dove (Jn 1:32). Therefore, those who presume to sell spiritual goods should realize that they are giving away the treasury of apostolic teaching, the merits earned by the martyrs, and the gifts received from the Holy Spirit. Second, it sometimes happens that prelates “sell” the oxen and the sheep and the pigeons, not overtly by simony, but covertly through negligence, by neglecting the spiritual welfare of three classes of people entrusted to their care. In this sense, the oxen signify preachers, for Isaiah said, “Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the ass range free” (Is 32:20). This means that prelates ought to minister to both the wise, represented here as the ox, and the uneducated, represented as the ass. The sheep represent all those engaged in the active life, like Martha, the sister of Lazarus (Lk 10:40). The sheep depend upon their shepherd for guidance, as we look to Christ the Good Shepherd: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (Jn 10:27). The pigeons represent contemplatives, like Martha’s sister Mary, as the Psalmist mused, “O that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest; yea, I would wander afar, I would lodge in the wilderness.” (Ps 55:6-7) Third, “the temple” may represent the spiritual soul, for the soul is the form of the body, and St. Paul said, “For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are” (1 Cor 3:17). The oxen, because they are used to plow the fields, represent earthly desires. The sheep, who remain fixed in place until a shepherd leads them, signify man’s obstinacy. The pigeons, who fly about freely, represent man’s instability. The meaning is this: he who sells oxen and sheep and pigeons gives free reign to vice and sells himself to the devil. But just as Christ drove out the merchants and money-changers, He can drive out the vices from within men’s hearts.

And here is Christ’s remedy, which came in the form of an action (vs. 15), followed by explanatory words (vs. 16). First, the action: “And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple; and he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.” We can make five points here. First, Christ’s bold and unprecedented action displayed His divine power, for “The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nought; he frustrates the plans of the peoples” (Ps 33:10). Second, although the merchants and money-changers had been performing a useful service, Christ did not cast them out for the good they were doing, but because the priests had been using them for their own profit, and not solely for the glory of God. Third, if Christ condemned something that had a certain aspect of liceity, because it was ordained to the worship of God, then He shall more readily condemn those sinful acts that are not directed to higher goods. Fourth, His action pointed to the day when all temple sacrifices would cease, and the true worship of God would be taken up by Gentiles who accepted the gospel, as Christ said to the Jews two years later in the temple: “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it” (Mt 21:43). This pronouncement was in line with the parable of the talents (Mt 25:14-30; Lk 19:12-27), in which the servant who mismanaged his master’s money, lost his coin to the other servants and was cast out into the darkness. Cast out, too, was Simon Magus, who tried to buy a spiritual thing with money, that is, to commit the sin of simony. St. Peter said of him: “Your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money!” (Acts 8:20) Fifth, St. Augustine noted that Christ made a whip from cords because He forms from our own sins the matter of our punishments. Sin is like a cord which binds us, taking away our freedom: “The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is caught in the toils of his sin” (Prv 5:22). Christ said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin” (Jn 8:34), but then He added, “if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (Jn 8:36). St, Paul told the Romans, “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom 6:6). Similarly, he explained to the Galatians: “when we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. . . . So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir.” (Gal 4:3-5, 7)

Christ then followed his action with words: “And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away.’” Christ first warned those who sell pigeons, that is, those who buy and sell spiritual goods, as Simon Magus wanted to do. The pigeons, as we said, represent the Holy Spirit. One cannot buy or sell His gifts, nor put a price on grace, for grace, by its very nature, is that which is freely given, not that which is owed as part of a bargain. Grace and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit cannot be bought or sold for any price. To try to do so is futile and presumptuous, a sign of human hubris.

Then Christ said, “You shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” We have three things to note here. First, In saying this, Christ fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah, who said, “And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day” (Zec 14:21). Second, Christ said, “my Father’s house” in order to exclude the error of those who held that the God of the Old Testament was not the God of the New Testament. This heresy was preached by Marcion of Sinope, who was the son of a bishop from Pontus. Marcion arrived in Rome in 140 and was excommunicated by 144. This heresy was also propagated by Bishop Priscillian of Avila (d. 385) and by the Albigensians or Cathari (katharoi, pure), who were neo-Manichaeans who flourished in France from the eleventh century to the fourteenth century. There is no substance to the claim that the God of Israel is not the God of Christians. Both Jews and Christians believe that there is one God. The temple in Jerusalem was the focal point of Jewish cultic worship. It was the place where the people believed that the God of Israel dwelt. For Christ to say that the temple is His Father’s house, is to say that the God of Israel is His Father, the same God the Father that Christians worship and adore. Third, the reason why the Jews were not disturbed to hear Jesus call God His Father is because they presumed He meant that He was God’s adopted Son, not His natural Son. It was not uncommon in Jewish literature to see oneself as an adopted son of God, for God Himself said, “I thought you would call me, My Father” (Jer 3:19). But, though many of us are God’s children by adoption, Christ is the God the Father’s only natural Son, His Only Begotten Son. The Psalmist says of Christ, the natural Son of God: “You are my son, today I have begotten you” (Ps 2:7). The Jews did not persecute Christ when they thought He was claiming to be an adopted son of God. They began to persecute Him when they realized that He was claiming to be God’s natural son, and hence, of the same divine nature: “This was why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God” (Jn 5:18).

“His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for thy house will consume me.’” This refers to Ps 69:9: “zeal for thy house has consumed me, and the insults of those who insult thee have fallen on me.” Love is the movement toward an object, and zeal is an effect of love, arising from the intensity of love (STh I-II, 28, 4). Zeal is a love so intense that the lover refuses to tolerate anything repugnant to his love. One who zealously loves God, as Christ loved the Father, cannot patiently endure anything that dishonors God, as the Psalmist proclaimed, “O Lord, I love the habitation of thy house, and the place where thy glory dwells” (Ps 26:8). Such holy zeal leads one to defend the truth and to correct perversity. If one cannot do so, one experiences sorrow. Like Christ, Elijah had a holy zeal, as he confessed to God, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the people of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thy altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword” (1 Kgs 19:10).

1: On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there;
2: Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples.
3: When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
4: And Jesus said to her, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”
5: His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
6: Now six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.
7: Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.
8: He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the steward of the feast.” So they took it.
9: When the steward of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward of the feast called the bridegroom
10: and said to him, “Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.”
11: This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

In the first chapter, the Evangelist has shown the dignity of the Word of God. In chapters two through eleven, he demonstrates how the Incarnate Word revealed His divinity to the world, particularly through these seven signs: the wedding feast at Cana (Jn 2:1-11), the healing of the son of an official (Jn 4:46b-54), the healing of a lame man on the Sabbath (Jn 5:1-9a), the feeding of the five thousand (Jn 6:1-13), the calming of the sea (Jn 6:16-21), the healing of the blind man (Jn 9:1-7), and the raising of Lazarus from the dead (Jn 11:1-44). Beginning with chapter twelve, the Evangelist demonstrates how Christ revealed His divinity in His passion and death.

Chapter two begins with St. John recounting Christ’s first miracle, the changing of water into wine at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. This event marked the beginning of His public ministry and it demonstrated Christ’s power over nature, for He transformed the nature of a thing: water into wine. This He did to strengthen His disciples’ faith and to lead others to believe that He is the Son of God.

On the Feast of the Epiphany, it was customary to celebrate three events which manifested Christ’s divinity: the adoration of the magi, Christ’s own baptism, and the miracle at Cana. First, His divinity was manifested by the adoration of the magi, for when they saw the child with Mary his mother, “they fell down and worshiped him” (Mt 2:11). Second, His divinity was revealed at His baptism some thirty years later, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove and a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17). Third, His divinity was manifested when He changed water into wine at Cana. This miracle marked the beginning of His public ministry of teaching and healing, which lasted a little less than three years.

The Evangelist gives us the setting for this miracle: “On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee.” First, he tells us the time when these events took place: on the third day after Christ called Philip and Nathanael. In a mystical sense, it is significant that the marriage took place on the third day, for the first day signifies the law of nature, the second day signifies the written law, the law of Moses, but the third day is the time of grace, when the Lord will raise us up. The prophet Hosea said, “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him” (Hos 6:2). Second, St. John gives us the occasion which prompted the miracle: a wedding feast. Throughout the Old and New Testaments, marriages and wedding banquets provided a wealth of rich spiritual imagery. In His parable of the wedding feast, Christ likened heaven to a wedding feast that a king prepared for his son (Mt 22:2). In a mystical sense, the wedding at Cana signifies the union of Christ with His bride, the Church. St. Paul, in his discourse to the Ephesians, compares the love of husband and wife to the union of Christ and His Church (Eph 5:32). An angel revealed to the writer of the Book of Revelation: “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rv 19:9). The wedding feast of the Lamb and His bride has already begun, and his Bride, the Church, has made herself ready (Rv 19:7). Though the feasting has commenced, this marriage will be consummated only in heaven, when the Lamb leads His bride into His home, into heavenly glory. Third, the Evangelist discloses the location where this occurred: Cana, which was a village in the Province of Galilee in the vicinity of Nazareth. The exact location of Cana is no longer known. Cana is mentioned in three places in the Gospel of John: (1) it is the site of the wedding feast (Jn 2:1); (2) it is the place where the official asked Jesus to heal his son, who was sick at Capernaum (Jn 4:46); and (3) it is the home of Nathanael (Jn 21:2). Cana is mentioned nowhere else in the Bible.

The Evangelist mentions the persons invited: “And the mother of Jesus was there; Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples.” First, there was Mary. Note that she was named first. There are two explanations for this. Perhaps she was mentioned to indicate that Jesus was still unknown at that time. He was not invited as a famous person, but as One Who was “also invited,” coming along with His mother. Another explanation might be that Mary was invited because host was uncertain whether or not Jesus would have come alone, for He exhibited great piety, and perhaps was unaccustomed to attending celebrations. Second, Jesus was “also invited.” The fact that He came, even though He was not the main guest, demonstrates His great humility, for as St. John Chrysostom noted, He did not hesitate to come to the marriage of servants, just as He did not hesitate to empty himself, to take the form of a servant in becoming a man: “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:6-7). Christ said to His disciples, “learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart” (Mt 11:29). Note also that, by attending the wedding feast, Jesus refuted those who condemn marriage as sinful or base. Third, Jesus’ disciples were with Him at Cana. At that time He had four: Andrew, Simon Peter, Philip, and Nathanael.

In a mystical sense, the Virgin Mary is present at spiritual betrothals as the one who arranges the marriage, for it is through her intercession that we are joined to Christ through grace. Christ is present as the Groom, Who unites Himself to the soul. The disciples are His groomsmen, facilitating the union of Christ and His bride, the Church.

“When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’” The role of Mary here was to superintend the miracle; the role of Christ was to perform it; and the role of His disciples was to witness it. As mediatrix, Mary performed two functions: she interceded with her Son and she instructed the servants. We note three things concerning her intercession. First, she was kind and full of mercy, for she took steps to relieve the distress of the steward, who ran short of wine. Similarly, St. Paul was a man of mercy and empathy, for he said, “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?” (2 Cor 11:29). Second, Mary shows great reverence for Christ, for she did not order Him about, nor did she even recommend to Him a course of action. She simply informed Him of the deficit, for she took pity on the steward in his time of need. Third, Mary has great concern and care for those in need, even as the Lord cares for us: “Thou, O Lord, hast not forsaken those who seek thee” (Ps 9:10). Mary did not wait until the cups were dry; she did not wait until the situation became critical. Rather, she acted as soon as the last of the wine had been poured out into the cups.

In a mystical sense, note that, before the Incarnation, three wines were running out: the wine of justice, the wine of wisdom, and the wine of charity. First, wine is like justice in that it stings: “Thou hast made thy people suffer hard things; thou hast given us wine to drink that made us reel” (Ps 60:3). The Good Samaritan poured wine and oil onto the wounds of the injured man (Lk 10:34). Wine signifies the severity of justice, and oil represents the sweetness of mercy. Justice was imperfect under the Old Law, as Christ noted, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:20). But Christ came to bring the law to perfection, to correct its deficiencies. Second, wine is like wisdom, inasmuch as both wine and wisdom cheer the heart. God has given “wine to gladden the heart of man” (Ps 104:15). Of wisdom it is said, “companionship with her has no bitterness, and life with her has no pain, but gladness and joy” (Wis 8:16). Before the Word of God came in the flesh, wisdom was running out, insofar as it was largely hidden, elusive, and difficult for learned men to grasp. But Christ brought wisdom to light and made it accessible to even the simple fishermen. “He taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Mt 7:29). Third, wine is a symbol of charity, for after wine intoxicates, one is moved to act. The wine of charity was running out, in that the people served God largely out of fear, not out of love. And their fear of God was not a filial fear, born out of love, as a son loves his father; but theirs was a servile fear, as a slave fears his master. But Christ raised us up to be children of God by adoption, as St. Paul said, “you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship” (Rom 8:15), and “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Rom 5:5). And so, Christ taught us to pray, not as slaves yoked to the law, but with the freedom of adopted sons and daughters of God: “Our Father who art in heaven” (Mt 6:9).

“And Jesus said to her, ‘O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.’” These words of Christ have been misinterpreted in three ways. First, by those who thought that Christ does not have a real human body, but an imaginary one. This was held by the Manichaeans and by the popular Christian Gnostic Valentinus, who was educated in Alexandria and preached in Rome beginning in 136. Valentinus understood “O woman, what have you to do with me?” to mean that Christ did not receive His human nature from Mary. But this is contrary to Sacred Scripture, for St. Paul said, “God sent forth his Son, born of woman” (Gal 4:4). Jesus could not have been born “of” her unless He received something from her. Indeed, He received a human nature from His mother Mary, as He received the divine nature from God the Father. Christ is generated eternally from the Father and was temporally generated from the Virgin Mary (STh I, 43, 2, ad 1). We should note also that, in the same pericope, the Evangelist identified Mary three times as the mother of Jesus (vs. 1, 3, 5). If Christ had nothing more than an illusory body, and not a true human body, St. John would not have called Mary His mother. Second, the fact that Christ addressed Mary as “O woman” has given rise to the false notion that she lost her virginity in giving birth. The Ebionites, who were a second century sect of Judaizers, asserted that Christ was the natural son of Joseph and Mary, that He was conceived by the conjugal union of Joseph and Mary, and that He did not exist before He became man. Thus, they denied the divinity of Christ, the virgin birth, and the perpetual virginity of Mary. The Roman layman Helvidius likewise denied the perpetual virginity of Mary, asserting that the “brothers” of Jesus were products of the sexual union of Mary and Joseph after the birth of Jesus. But, “brother,” in Sacred Scripture, often refers to persons others than siblings. Helvidius was soundly refuted by St. Jerome in De perpetua virginitate beatae Mariae (also known as Contra Helvidium or Adversus Helvidium), who insisted that both Mary and Joseph were virgins so that a virgin Son might be born of a virginal wedlock. We believe that Christ was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:35), that the mother of God was a virgin before Christ’s birth, that she miraculously remained a virgin during His birth, and that she remained a virgin throughout her entire life. As Christ is the Father’s Only Begotten Son, He is also the only natural Son of Mary. Christ’s address, “O woman,” does not imply a loss of virginity, but merely refers to her gender, for in Sacred Scripture, “woman” denotes any adult female, whether she be a virgin or not. When Eve was still a virgin in Paradise, Adam said of her, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree” (Gn 3:12). Christ, in addressing Mary as “woman,” in no way implied that she was not a virgin. Third, some have used Christ’s statement, “My hour has not yet come,” to support their claim that all actions of men, including those of Christ, are predetermined according to fate. This, of course, is to deny the freedom of the human will. But reason and free will, because they are spiritual, are not subject to that which is material. On the contrary, the soul animates and directs the body, not vice versa, for spiritual things are naturally superior to material things. Moreover, since the human soul is not subject to its body, much less, then, is Christ subject to His human body, for through the Word of God, all things were made. Those who assert that all our actions are predetermined out of necessity are refuted by the wisdom of Sirach. To the question, “Why is any day better than another, when all the daylight in the year is from the sun?” (Sir 33:7), the answer of Sirach is this: “By the Lord’s decision they were distinguished, and he appointed the different seasons and feasts; some of them he exalted and hallowed, and some of them he made ordinary days.” (Sir 33:8-9) Thus, the occurrences of things are differentiated, not according to chance, nor by necessity, but by divine providence, by the foreknowledge of the Lord, Who knows everything that will happen. When Christ said, “My hour has not yet come,” He was referring to His passion, the time of which He knew with certainty, for in His divine intellect He knew all there is to know (STh III, 9 1), and in His human intellect He knew all that the human mind can possibly know (STh, III, 9, 3) and all that God has revealed (STh III, 11, 1).

There are at least two possible reasons why Christ said, “O woman, what have you to do with me?” First, according to St. Augustine. He noted that some actions are appropriate to Christ in His human nature, while other actions are appropriate to Him in His divine nature. For example, Christ suffered and died in His human nature, but He performed miracles with His divine nature. Just as God cannot suffer and die, because the divine nature is impassible and immortal, man cannot perform miracles, because human nature lacks the power to abrogate the laws of nature established by God. The reason why Christ asked His mother this question was because, although He received from her a human nature, He did not receive from her the power to do miracles, for that belongs to the divine nature. Performing miracles is a matter between Christ and His Heavenly Father, for He received from His Father the power to perform miracles in His divine nature. Now, since He received His human nature from Mary, and along with it the power to suffer and die, His passion and death is matter between Him and His mother. Thus, when He said, “My hour has not yet come,” He was promising to recognize her at the time of His passion. Accordingly, He spoke to her from the cross, saying, “Woman, behold, your son!” (Jn 19:26) Second, according to St. John Chrysostom, who explained it differently, Mary was afire with such zeal for the honor of her Son that she wanted Him to perform this miracle immediately, so that others might see His glory. But Christ knew that the time was not ripe for the miracle, for the guests should first become aware that the wine has run out, so that they might better appreciate the benefit of the miracle Christ was to perform later that day.

“His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’” Mary understood that her Son was acting with justice, but she did not lose hope that His mercy would exceed His justice. Perfect justice consists in obeying God, as He commanded, “Thus you shall do to Aaron and to his sons, according to all that I have commanded you” (Ex 29:35). Thus, Mary instructed the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” We are not always obliged to obey men, for men err, but we must always obey the divine law, as St. Peter and the apostles declared, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

“Now six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.” Since the Jews observed several daily ritual washings of their bodies and of their eating utensils, and since there was a frequent shortage of water in the region, they were accustomed to storing an ample supply of pure water in large stone vessels. The Evangelist made it clear that these jars held pure water designated for use in their purification rites. He said this lest anyone suggest that the jars were previously used to store wine, and that the dregs of the wine had flavored the water which Jesus had the servants put into the jars. Moreover, he mentioned the large capacity of the jars so that, even if the jars had contained leftover wine, the dregs could not sufficiently flavor the water so as to fool the guests. It is clear from what St. John describes that only a miracle could change such a quantity of water into wine.

In a mystical sense, the six jars signify the six eras of the Old Testament: (1) the era of the patriarchs, (2) the era of the judges, (3) the united monarchy, (4) the divided monarchy, (5) the restoration of Ezra and Nehemiah, and (6) the Maccabean era. During those eras, the hearts of the chosen people were being prepared to receive the Incarnate Word. They were made ready by following the law, which God gave to Moses, and by listening to the Word of God, as He spoke through the prophets. When at last the Word of God came in the flesh, Christ filled the six jars to the brim, signifying that He fulfilled the law and the prophets completely. The seventh era is the era of Christ, from Whom we receive the grace of salvation, as St. Paul proclaimed, “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2).

“Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim.” We can make three points here. First, Christ asked the steward’s servants to fill the jars so that the servants might be witnesses to the miracle He was about to perform. Second, He chose to transform the water into wine, rather than to create wine out of nothing, for three reasons. First, a literal explanation was offered by St. John Chrysostom. To create something out of nothing is more marvelous, and hence, more unbelievable, than to transform one existing substance into another substance. On that occasion, Christ chose to transform, rather than to create, so that more people might believe and less might be skeptical. Second, Christ often used visible substances in performing miracles in order to demonstrate that the things God created are good in themselves, according to the creation account: “And God saw that it was good” (Gn 1:10, 12). This refuted dualists, like the Manichaeans and the gnostic Marcionites, who both held that the material order was created by an evil force, whereas the spiritual order was created by God. Third, according to the mystical sense, Christ brought forth wine from the water that was already present at the site in order to show that He came, not to reject and replace the Old Law, but to fulfill it: “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them” (Mt 5:17). What was prefigured and promised in the old was fully disclosed and revealed by the Incarnate Word: “Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures” (Lk 24:45). Third, the effect of Christ’s miracle was immediate, for as soon as the servants filled the jars, Christ changed the fresh water into wine. There was no time for the liquid to ferment or to change its appearance naturally.

“He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the steward of the feast.’ So they took it.” In order to make the effect of this miracle apparent, Christ had the servants take a cup of wine to the architriclinus. The triclinium was the place where three rows of dining tables were located. Guests would take their supper by reclining on low couches around these tables. There are two explanations as to the identity of the architriclinus. First, according to St. John Chrysostom, the architriclinus was the one in charge of the banquet. In a wealthy household, this would have been the steward. Christ wanted him to be the first to taste the wine, because, since he would have been too busy to dine, his senses would not have been dulled by food and drink. Therefore, he was in the best position to judge the quality of the wine and to discern whether the water had in fact been turned into wine. If the wine had been taken directly to the guests, it could have been claimed that the guests were drunk, and so, they could not even tell water from wine. Second, according to St. Augustine, the architriclinus was the guest of honor. According to this explanation, Christ sought his opinion first, because this guest was highly respected among those at table.

We can make two points concerning the mystical sense. First, the servants who poured water are preachers of the Word of God, as Isaiah said, “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that day: “Give thanks to the LORD, call upon his name; make known his deeds among the nations, proclaim that his name is exalted.” (Is 12:3-4) Second, the architriclinus is one who is versed in the law, as was Nicodemus (Jn 3:9-10), St. Paul, and Paul’s teacher, Rabbi Gamaliel. When the truth of the gospel, which lies hidden under the letter of the law, is shown to scholars of the law, it is like the wine made from water that was shown to the architriclinus. As water is changed into wine by Christ, the Old Law is fulfilled in the New Law by Christ. As the architriclinus either accepts or rejects the new wine, the scholar either gives his assent to the Word of God and accepts the faith, or he rejects the Word and remains buried under the weight of the law.

“When the steward of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew).” The servants became Christ’s witnesses, as we are His witnesses to the world. As the steward knew nothing of the miracle until the servants revealed the substance of the miracle to him, so too did the nations know nothing of Christ until He was revealed to them by the apostles.

“The steward of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.’” We notice three things here. First, Christ did not produce mediocre wine, but the finest. His miracles are not merely satisfactory, but most perfect. When He healed Simon’s mother-in-law, her fever completely left her (Mk 1:31), and at once she arose and served Him (Mt 8:15). Again, He so fully healed the paralytic, that the man at once arose, took up his mat, and walked (Jn 5:9). Second, Christ allowed the steward’s mediocre wine to be served before His most excellent wine in order to show that, at the outset of one’s spiritual journey, one encounters many things which are bitter and hard to accept, for “the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life” (Mt 7:14). Yet, if one perseveres in the faith and seeks the truth, which the Word of God has to offer, the way becomes more pleasant, as the Lord said, “I have taught you the way of wisdom; I have led you in the paths of uprightness. When you walk, your step will not be hampered; and if you run, you will not stumble.” (Prv 4:11-12) Though we experience bitterness and suffering in the world, as He said, “you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice,” yet to those who persevere in the faith, He promised, “your sorrow will turn into joy” (Jn 16:20). This led St. Paul to conclude, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18). Third, men sometimes serve the better wine first in order to deceive. They entice their hearers by soothing words and promises, but only later, after the guests have been intoxicated by the potent wine, does he reveal his evil intent. The proverb warns us of the wiliness of such wine: “Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. At the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like an adder.” (Prv 23:31-32) Those who are served the good wine first are those who begin to live a virtuous life, but who later fall back into sin. St. Paul scolded his backsliding Galatians: “Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” (Gal 3:3)

“This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee.” St. John assured us that the miracle at Cana was Christ’s first miracle. Some noncanonical gospels spuriously reported that Jesus performed miracles during His childhood. He performed no miracles as a child, lest those who witnessed such things might regard them as childhood pranks or illusions. Christ waited until He reached a sufficient maturity of years, beyond the frivolity of childhood, beyond the rashness and inexperience of young adulthood, so that His public ministry would be taken seriously.

The reason that Christ performed this miracle at Cana, the first of many signs, was because it “manifested his glory,” as the Psalmist proclaimed, “Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory!” (Ps 24:10)

“And his disciples believed in him.” One might ask how this event caused His disciples to believe, for if they were His disciples, then surely they must have already believed in Him. We can answer this in two ways. First, sometimes a thing is described, not as it is in the present, but as it will be in the future, as when we say that the apostle Paul was born at Tarsus, whereas it was actually Saul who was born there, but who later became an apostle. Similarly, at the time when Christ called Andrew, Simon, Philip, and Nathanael, they were not yet true disciples. Second, we can argue that the disciples previously believed that Christ was a good man, and that His words were just, but only after they had witnessed the miracle at Cana did they begin to believe that He was divine.

43: The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. And he found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”
44: Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.
45: Philip found Nathanael, and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
46: Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
47: Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!”
48: Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”
49: Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
50: Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You shall see greater things than these.”
51: And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”

Previously, we had seen the fruit of the Baptist’s preaching, for when John had pointed out the Lamb of God to his disciples, two of them began to follow Christ (vs. 35-37). Then we saw the fruit of his disciple’s preaching, as Andrew led his brother Simon to the Lord (vs. 41-42). Now we shall discuss the fruit of Christ preaching, as He called Philip to follow Him (vs. 43-44), and then we shall see how Philip brought Nathanael to the Lord (vs. 45-51), even as Andrew had led Simon Peter to Christ.

The Evangelist first describes the setting: “The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee.” There are three reasons why Jesus left Judea for Galilee after having been baptized by John. First, He left the area where John was preaching so that His presence might not overshadow the Baptist. By quieting slipping away, Christ paid honor to the Baptist. Along these lines, St. Paul admonished the Romans: “love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honor” (Rom 12:10). Second, the Pharisees claimed that “no prophet is to rise from Galilee” (Jn 7:52). To demonstrate the greatness of His power, Christ deliberately went into Galilee, and in doing so, proved the Pharisees wrong. In that spiritual desert where no prophet had ever spoken a word, the greatest of all the prophets, the Word of God, would speak the most sublime words of wisdom and grace, for “He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water” (Ps 107:35). Third, according to the mystical sense, Galilee means “passage,” for Christ passed from Judea to Galilee on “the next day,” that is, on the day of grace, on the day of salvation, to show that salvation belongs, not to Jews alone, but to Gentiles as well. Several months later, when Jesus said He would be going away, the Jews asked themselves, “Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks?” (Jn 7:35), for they understood that His going into Galilee was part of His ministry to seek out and to ave those who were lost.

“And he found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’” We note two things here. First, a disciple’s vocation is to follow his master. When Christ said to Philip, “Follow me,” He called him to discipleship. Second, sometimes man finds God, as is written, “he who finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord” (Prv 8:35); and sometimes God finds man, as when He said, “I have found David, my servant; with my holy oil I have anointed him” (Ps 89:20). While Andrew and Simon Peter found Christ, Christ found Philip, calling him to a life of faith and grace. Christ did not call every one of His disciples, but waited for some to be led to Him by other disciples, for men are more readily moved to action by the example of others than by words alone.

Andrew followed Christ after the Baptist pointed Him out, and Peter followed Christ after Andrew introduced him to our Lord, but Philip followed Christ immediately, on nothing more than Christ’s invitation to follow Him, to have faith in Him. One might ask why Philip followed Christ so readily. We can give three possible explanations. First, perhaps Philip was in fact the other disciple of the Baptist who followed Christ along with Andrew. Second, perhaps Christ’s words had a special effect upon Philip, speaking directly to his heart, drawing him near, as the Lord said to the prophet Jeremiah, “Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer which breaks the rock in pieces?” (Jer 23:29) A teacher persuades by appealing to a student’s intellect with profound arguments, but the Teacher has the power to persuade, not only by addressing the human intellect, but by speaking directly to the human heart. Third, since the Evangelist said, “Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter,” one may assume that Andrew and Peter told Philip about Christ. Bethsaida, which means “house of the fisherman” or “house of the hunter,” is located on the northeast corner of the Sea of Galilee, near where the Jordan River flows into the sea. It is significant that Simon Peter and the others came from this small fishing village, for Christ said to Peter and Andrew, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Mt 4:19). When the Lord delivered His people from Egypt and gathered together those He had dispersed, He declared, “I will bring them back to their own land which I gave to their fathers. Behold, I am sending for many fishers, says the Lord, and they shall catch them; and afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.” (Jer 16:15-16)

Now that we have seen how Christ’s preaching has born fruit in Philip, we shall see how Philip bore fruit in leading Nathanael to Christ. First, we hear the invitation of Philip, and then the response of Nathanael.

“Philip found Nathanael.” Just as Andrew was eager to lead his brother Simon to Christ, so too was Philip eager to lead his friend Nathanael to our Lord. The fact that Philip was moved to lead another soul to Christ proves that his conversion was perfect, as was Andrew’s. Nathanael means “gift of God.” It is a fitting name, for anyone converted to the faith is a gift of God to the Church. Because the name Nathanael is conspicuously absent from the other gospels and from acts, some have identified him with one of the other apostles–perhaps Bartholomew. It was not uncommon for people to go by two names, nor was it uncommon for a name to be changed to signify an important event in one’s life.

Then Philip said to Nathanael, “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” The fact that Philip chose a scriptural argument to persuade Nathanael suggests that Nathanael was a learned man who knew the scriptures. In order to lead Nathanael to Christ, Philip identified Christ as the Messiah, for he knew that Nathanael was well acquainted with the messianic prophecies. Philip used his firsthand knowledge of Christ to lead his friend to encounter the object of his scriptural studies face to face. Christ is the object of the law and the prophets, which is to say that He is the object of the Jewish scriptures. Regarding the law, we may say that it was given by the Word of God to Moses, as Christ said, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me” (Jn 5:46). Regarding the prophets, we read: “To him all the prophets bear witness that every one who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43).

Philip said three things about Christ that are in accord with scripture. First, concerning His name, Philip said, “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth.” The name, Jesus means “savior.” This agrees with the prophecy given to Isaiah, that the Lord “will send them a savior” (Is 19:20). Second, concerning His family, Philip called Him the “Son of Joseph,” for it was customary that a son be known by his father. Although Christ derived His divine nature from His Father Who is in heaven, He derived His human nature from the Virgin Mary, though not from Joseph, for He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Both Mary and Joseph were of the house of David; so, Christ, insofar as His human origin is concerned, is from the house of David through Mary. Philip called Christ “the son of Joseph,” because he knew that the husband of Mary was of the house of David and that the messiah would arise from that same line, as God had promised through the words of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Isaiah prophesied the coming of the Messiah: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.” (Is 11:1-2) Jesse was from Ephrathah, which is the region where Bethlehem is located. Jesse was the father of King David; David was his youngest son. The Lord also spoke through Jeremiah: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely.” (Jer 23:5-6) Third, concerning His homeland, Philip said that Christ was from Nazareth, which was a small village in hill country of Lower Galilee, near the heavily-traveled Via Maris trade route. Although Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which is five miles south of Jerusalem, He was raised in Nazareth. Philip identified Him as “Jesus of Nazareth,” rather than “Jesus of Bethlehem,” because few people knew of His birth, while many knew of the place where He had been raised and lived for some thirty years.

“Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’” This can be interpreted either as an assertion or as a question. First, St. Augustine understood it as an assertion, meaning that indeed some good came out of Nazareth. From the root of Jesse came Christ, in Whom was seen the flowering of virtue and the purity of holiness. Second, St. John Chrysostom interpreted Nathanael’s remark as a question, suggesting incredulity. Although Jesus’ name means “savior,” and although He is of the line of David, from whence the messiah was expected to arise, it perhaps seemed unlikely to Nathanael that Jesus could be the messiah, for the anointed one was expected to come, not from Nazareth in the northern hill country, but from Bethlehem, David’s city. After the wise men had visited King Herod the Great (40-4 B.C.), the king inquired of his advisors in Jerusalem about the messianic prophecies. The chief priests and learned scribes told him that the messiah was to be born “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet: ‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel’” (Mt 2:5-6). Evidently, Nathanael did not know that Jesus had been born in Bethlehem, thereby fulfilling this messianic prophecy.

Philip replied to Nathanael by simply saying, “Come and see.” This is a suitable reply, whether one takes Nathanael’s remark as an assertion or as a question. First, if it is an assertion, then Philip is saying that the good news he announced to Nathanael is too marvelous to express in words. Therefore, Nathanael must “come and see” for himself, as the Psalmist urged: “O taste and see that the Lord is good! Happy is the man who takes refuge in him!” (Ps 34:8) Second, if we take Nathanael’s remark to be a question, then Philip is saying that once Nathanael meets Jesus face to face and hears Him speak, then he will come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Philip was not discouraged by Nathanael’s reluctance, but persisted, so that he might share the treasure, Who is Christ, with his friend. He was confident that Nathanael would become a believer.

“Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him.” There are two ways in which people are converted. One is by external signs, that is, by experiencing miracles either in themselves or in others. The other is by internal insights, through prophecy and foreknowledge of the future. The second way is more efficacious, for while magicians and devils can simulate miraculous external signs, true internal enlightenment comes only from God, for those who know the future with certainty speak the mind of God: “Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods” (Is 41:23). Those who believe, based upon hearing a prophecy, are to be commended more than those who believe because they witnessed a miracle. Nathanael’s conversion is most commendable, because Christ drew Nathanael to the faith, not by miracles, but by making known to him hidden things of the present, of the past, and of the future.

1. Concerning hidden things of the present. When Christ read what was in Nathanael’s heart, saying, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile,” He revealed something hidden in the present. We can make three points here. First, the name Israel, from the Hebrew yishra (he strives) and el (God), was given to Jacob after his successful struggle with a divine being at Peniel on the banks of the Jabbok (Gn 32:23-32). Since the twelve tribes descended from Jacob, the Jewish nation is collectively known as Israel. To say that Nathanael is an Israelite without guile is to praise him for his simplicity and purity of heart. Because of his purity, he was privileged to have seen God in the person of Jesus Christ, as our Lord said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). Second, Christ said, “Behold an Israelite,” not after He had met Nathanael, but while the latter was still approaching. Third, our Lord added, “in whom there is no guile,” lest we think that Nathanael said “Can anything good come out of Nazareth” out of malice. Christ’s assessment of his heart and mind tells us that Nathanael said what he said in order to understand, not to belittle. St. Augustine interpreted this differently. He pointed out that the guileful are sinners who outwardly pretend to be just. Christ praised Nathanael because the latter admitted his sinfulness and looked to Christ to heal his soul.

2. Concerning hidden things of the past. Christ knew that Nathanael was simple and pure of heart before Nathanael revealed himself to Christ in word and in deed. Only God knows the secrets of the heart, as He said to Jeremiah, “I the Lord search the mind and try the heart, to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings” (Jer 17:10). Thus, the Psalmist prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!” (Ps 139:23) The fact that Christ could reach into the depths of Nathanael’s soul, troubled the young man, for he knew that only God could read the mind and heart. He wanted to know how Jesus obtained such intimate knowledge of him. And so, “Nathanael said to him, ‘How do you know me?’” The answer lies in what the Lord once said to Samuel: “the Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Sm 16:7). Thus, Nathanael must have suspected that Jesus was the Lord.

Notice Nathanael’s humility. He did not savor the Lord’s compliment concerning his purity. He did not take it as flattery. He pressed on to understand the nature of this man from Galilee.

Jesus revealed something of the past when he replied to Nathanael, saying, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael might have thought that Christ learned about him from someone who knew Nathanael intimately. To remove his suspicion, Christ mentioned the incident at the fig tree, which was know only to Philip, to Nathanael, and to God. This incident can be interpreted in three ways, First, according to the literal sense, Nathanael was actually sitting under a fig tree when Philip found him. This was known to Christ, for “the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter than the sun; they look upon all the ways of men, and perceive even the hidden places” (Sir 23:19). Second, according to the mystical sense, the fig tree signifies sin, for Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves after they had sinned (Gn 3:7), and Christ cursed the fig tree, for it bore large showy leaves, but no fruit (Mt 21:19). Christ is saying this: while Nathanael was sitting under the fig tree, that is, in the shadow of sin and death, He called him to a life of grace in fellowship with Him. When Christ said, “I saw you,” He meant “I saw you from all eternity, sitting there in your sinful condition.” The great mercy of God is seen in the fact that, even though He knew that we would be sinners, He nonetheless predestined us to be His adopted children in Christ, as St. Paul said to the Ephesians: “he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ.” (Eph 1:4-5) Third, another mystical interpretation is that the shadow of the fig tree is the shadow of the Old Law, for “the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities” (Heb 10:1). Christ makes possible the greatest blessings for us: eternal life in union with God.

Having witnessed Christ’s power to reveal secrets of the past, Nathanael’s doubts melted away. At that moment he began to believe and broke into a song of praise: “Nathanael answered him, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’” In this confession of faith, he said three things about Christ. First, he confessed the fullness of Christ’s knowledge when he addressed Him as “Rabbi,” Teacher. He is the perfect Teacher, as Christ later told the apostles, “you have one master, the Christ” (Mt 23:10). Second, Nathanael confessed the excellence of Christ’s grace when he said, “you are the Son of God!” We become sons and daughters of God by adoption through grace, which God freely gives. The union of the divine and human natures in the divine Person of the Son, which is the hypostatic union, is also a grace, for it was freely given. The Incarnation was a gift because it was given without any preceding merits (STh III, 2, 10), for since Christ did not live a human life before the Incarnation, He had no opportunity to merit the Incarnation (STh III, 2, 11). The grace of union is not natural to Christ according to His human nature, for if the Incarnation were caused by some property of human nature, then we all would be Incarnate. Rather, the grace of union is natural to Christ, inasmuch as He possesses the divine nature, which is the active principle of grace (STh III, 2, 12, ad 3). Third, Nathanael confessed the greatness of Christ’s power when he said, “You are the King of Israel!” Daniel the prophet spoke of the Messiah in a vision: “to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed” (Dn 7:14).

“Jesus answered him, ‘Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe?’” The reason Jesus asked Nathanael why he made this confession of faith was so that the young man might better understand the motivation for his belief. Many months later, Simon Peter confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” to which Christ responded, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona!” (Mt 16:16-17). The reason why Peter merited a blessing, but Nathanael did not, is because Peter acknowledged that Christ is the Son of God by nature; that is, He is man, yet truly God, for Christ possesses both the divine nature and a human nature. Nathanael, on the other hand, simply confessed that He is the Son of God, which could mean that he is either a natural son or an adopted son. If He were merely an adopted son, then he would be a god in the sense of Ps 82:6: “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you.” But He is more; He is the Only Begotten Son of God, the only natural Son of the Father. Because Peter’s confession was complete, Christ immediately promised that He would build the Church upon him (Mt 16:18), whereas because Nathanael’s confession was incomplete, He first needed to raise Nathanael to greater things, to a knowledge of His divinity, so that his faith might be perfected.

3. Concerning hidden things of the future. In order to reveal His divinity more deeply to Nathanael, Christ promised to show him still greater things, saying, “You shall see greater things than these.” Because what Christ said of past events was true, it was easier now for Nathanael to believe what He would say of future things. In response to Christ’s revelation of the past, Nathanael confessed Him as the adopted Son of God. Now Christ promises to reveal hidden things of the future, so that Nathanael will believe that He is the natural Son of God: “And he said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.’” We can make three points regarding Christ’s statement. First, Christ said that angels minister to Him in order that Nathanael might believe that He is divine, for the Psalmist said that angels minister to God: “Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word” (Ps 103:20). Here Christ is teaching Nathanael, who was well acquainted with Sacred Scripture, that the Son of God is more than an adopted Son, that He is the natural Son of God, that He is divine according to His nature. The Letter to the Hebrews says of the Only Begotten Son: “Let all God’s angels worship him” (Heb 1:6). When we read that angels were “ascending and descending” upon Him, we should understand that this refers to Christ as Man, for in His human flesh, He was a little less than the angels (Ps 8:5), but in His divinity, He is above all angels. Second, St. Augustine noted that the angels’ movement calls to mind Jacob’s vision at Bethel, in which “the angels of God were ascending and descending” upon a ladder between heaven and earth (Gn 28:12). When Jacob awoke from the vision, he marked the stone upon which he lay his head and anointed it with oil (Gn 28:18). Upon this stone a cultic shrine was erected. Christ is the “stone which the builders rejected” (Ps 118:22), the stone which has been anointed by the Holy Spirit and has become the cornerstone of the Church (Mt 21:42; Mk 12:10; Lk 20:17). Christ is the only cornerstone, the only foundation for His Church: “For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 3:11). Since Nathanael is a true Israelite, that is, an Israelite “in whom is no guile” (Jn 1:47), he should confess that the stone anointed by Jacob truly signified Christ, Who is the foundation of the Church, the people of God. Third, St. Augustine also suggested that the “angels” of this verse are really preachers of the Word of God, for God has sent angels to us as messengers: “Go, you swift messengers, to a nation” (Is 18:2). The preacher ascends by contemplation, as St. Paul recounted, “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven–whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows” (2 Cor 12:2), and the preacher descends by teaching others about Christ. Heaven is “opened” to him because he needs the grace of God to ascend and to descend.

We have already mentioned that because the name Nathanael is not found outside the Gospel of St. John, some have identified him with one of the other apostles. Another explanation might be that, although Christ called him to be a disciple, He did not choose him to be an apostle, as He said, “many are called, but few are chosen” (Mt 22:14). The reason, perhaps, Nathanael was not chosen was because he was quite learned in the scriptures, whereas Christ rather liked to choose simple men and uneducated men to spread the gospel. St. Paul noted that God chose the foolish to shame the wise, the weak to shame the strong, and the lowly to bring down the mighty, so that no one might boast of himself, but rather, boast only of the Lord (1 Cor 1:26-31).

35: The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples;
36: and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”
37: The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.
38: Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, “What do you seek?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?”
39: He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying; and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.
40: One of the two who heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.
41: He first found his brother Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ).
42: He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him, and said, “So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).

In the first chapter, we read that St. John the Baptist gave witness to Christ three times, on three successive days: first, in response to the Pharisees’ questions (vs. 19-28), then when he saw Christ in public the next day (vs. 29-34), and then when he pointed out Christ to his (John’s) disciples on the third day (vs. 35-37). On the first occasion, John testified in response to questions, but on the next two occasions, he gave testimony on his own initiative, first in public, and then in private to his disciples. The result of this third testimony was that two of John’s disciples left him to follow Christ.

The Evangelist begins by describing the setting: “The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples.” By “next day” he means the day after the priests and Levites from Jerusalem questioned the Baptist. There are three things to note here. First, John’s manner of teaching was different from that of Christ and the apostles. John taught in one place, on the Jordan River, and he waited for people to come to him. “John was standing with two of his disciples,” that is, standing and waiting for crowds to gather. Christ, however, “went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people” (Mt 4:23). The apostles, too, went out, but took in an even greater audience, traveling throughout the known world, in accord with Christ’s command: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation” (Mk 16:15). Christ and the apostles traveled about performing miracles so that the power of Christ might be made known to many people, so that, by seeing their miracles firsthand, they might come to believe in the gospel. “John did no sign” (Jn 10:41), that is, he performed no miracle, but people were drawn to him because of his holiness of life. It was fitting that the Baptist served as a spiritual magnet, so that those who came to him might reform their lives and prepare themselves for the coming of Christ. His mission, after all, was to prepare the way for the Lord’s coming (Lk 3:4; Is 40:3), not to spread the gospel. It was not necessary that he draw attention to his teaching by performing miracles, but rather, that he turn people’s hearts and minds to the Messiah. Second, John stood firm in his faith and persevered in the truth, for “everything that John said about [Christ] was true” (Jn 10:41). Third, in an allegorical sense, to “stand still” means to “stop flowing.” John stood still when Christ came; his career came to a glorious end in martyrdom soon after Christ began His public ministry. When Truth came, the figure passed away, as the Baptist said to his disciples, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:30). John’s mission ended when Christ appeared, for the Old Law gave way to the New Law. As Christ took the Baptist’s message of repentance to a higher level by offering the grace of salvation to all, the Old Law, with its promises of temporal happiness, was surpassed by the New Law, which enabled the faithful to attain the greatest blessing of all, eternal life.

“And he looked at Jesus as he walked.” We can learn two things from this statement. First, the Baptist’s testimony was certain because it was based on sight. He did not merely hear about Christ, as the early Christians did, nor did he read about Him, as we do today. Rather, he saw Christ in person. The prophets of Israel bore witness to Christ: “To him all the prophets bear witness” (Acts 10:43). The apostles bore witness to Christ around the globe, as He said they would: “you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). But the testimony of the prophets and the apostles concerned one who was absent. The Baptist, however, was privileged to testify about one who was present in the flesh, as the prophet foretold, “Hark, your watchmen lift up their voice, together they sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the Lord to Zion” (Is 52:8), and as the Psalmist proclaimed, “Behold our shield, O God; look upon the face of thine anointed!” (Ps 84:9) Second, when we read of Christ walking, our attention is drawn to the Incarnation, which suggests a certain motion from heaven to earth, as Christ said, “I came from the Father and have come into the world” (Jn 18:28).

The Baptist then gave his testimony, saying, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” We notice two things about this testimony. First, the appellation, “Lamb of God,” not only expresses the power of Christ, but an admiration for Him as well, for this Lamb was victorious over the lion, that is, over the devil. The devil was often depicted as a voracious lion, as St. Peter cautioned his readers: “Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour” (1 Pt 5:8). But the Lamb has conquered sin and death: “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered” (Rv 5:5). Second, the Baptist’s testimony is brief: “Behold, the Lamb of God!” It is brief because he had already instructed his disciples about the Messiah and His coming. Now, all that was necessary was to point Him out. He did not counsel them to follow Christ, for if he had done so at that moment, it may have looked like they were doing John a favor by following Jesus. Instead, John left it up to each of them to choose whether or not to follow the Lamb of God.

Though John did not send his disciples to Christ, his testimony, nonetheless, bore fruit, for “The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.” We note four things in this event. First, Christ was silent while John spoke the words which led his two disciples to Christ. Christ is the groom, and the Church is His bride. John is the groomsman. The groomsman presents the bride to the groom and speaks with her to secure her verbal agreement, while the groom remains silent out of modesty. Thus did John present his disciples to Christ, while Christ remained silent. After John had finished his testimony, Christ welcomed the two disciples and began to teach them, as a groom takes his bride into his home after the groomsman has finished his business with her. “The marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready” (Rev 19:7). Second, no disciple of John’s ran to Christ when John extolled Christ’s dignity, as when he said, “He who comes after me ranks before me” (vs. 15), or “he who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie” (vs. 27). Instead, his disciples ran to Christ when John spoke of Christ’s humility, for the “Lamb of God” was sacrificed for our sins. We are moved more by Christ’s humility than by His greatness. More than moved, we are awestruck by the Incarnation, by which God, in His great mercy, became one of us, to die in our place that we might live with Him forever. The Song of Solomon begins: “your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is oil poured out,” that is, the oil of mercy by which we obtain salvation, “therefore the maidens,” that is, the Church, the Bride of Christ, “love you” (Cant 1:3). God’s mercy draws us ever close to Him. Third, not all of the Baptist’s disciples went over to Christ that day–only two. A preacher’s words are like seeds: some bear fruit, others do not. There were other disciples of John who distrusted Christ and were envious of the apostles. St. Matthew records Jesus’ encounter with them: “Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?’” (Mt 9:14-15). Fourth, the two disciples who went to Jesus did not immediately question Him, but simply began to follow Him, waiting patiently for the proper time and place to be instructed in the ways of the Lord, as it is written, “every matter has its time and way” (Eccl 8:6).

“Jesus turned, and saw them following.” He “turned” for three reasons. First, in order to bolster their confidence, for they were vulnerable. The two disciples had just left John and were hoping that Christ would accept them. They were like sheep without a shepherd. But our Lord turned to them with compassion as He turned to the crowds who were “like sheep without a shepherd” (Mt 9:36). What John began, Christ completed. Second, He turned to them that they may see Him. He turned to fallen man by becoming a man, so that we might gaze upon His face in heavenly glory. While we live in this world, we see only His back, as the Lord said to Moses, “you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen” (Ex 33:23). But His saving grace made it possible for us to someday see Him face to face, to live in union with the Blessed Trinity in the beatific vision, as the Psalmist pleaded, “Restore us, O God; let thy face shine, that we may be saved!” (Ps 80:3) Third, He turned to them and He turns to us to bestow His grace and mercy, as Moses prayed, “Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on thy servants!” (Ps 90:13)

Christ then questioned the two disciples, asking, “What do you seek?” We note two things concerning Christ’s question. First, all who follow Christ do not follow Him for the same reason: some seek temporal goods, others seek spiritual goods. Christ did not ask this question because He did not know the answer. Rather, He asked the question so that the two disciples may come to recognize their own intentions. Some ask questions to learn, others, to teach. Christ asked questions only to teach (STh III, 12, 3, ad 1), for His divine intellect knew all there is to know (STh III, 9 1), and at the moment of His conception, the Word of God infused into His human intellect the intelligible species of all things which it can possibly know (STh, III, 9, 3) and all the things that God revealed to mankind throughout history (STh III, 11, 1). Second, it was fitting that these were the first words spoken by Christ in the Gospel of St. John, for the Lord asked them their intention, and the first thing God requires of a person is a proper intention.

“And they said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’” The disciples answered Christ’s question with a question, but with their question they made two statements. First, by addressing him as “Rabbi,” they implied that they wanted Him to be their master, their teacher. They did not want a second teacher in addition to John, but a new teacher in place of John, as John would later instruct his disciples: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:30). Moreover, Christ later said to his disciples, “you have one master, the Christ” (Mt 23:10). Now that the groom had arrived, they left the company of the groomsman in order to gather around the groom. Second, by asking Jesus, “Where are you staying?” they were really making a statement. We can understand this statement in three ways: in a literal sense, in an allegorical sense, or in a moral sense. According to a literal interpretation, they wanted to know where Jesus lived so that they could visit Him often to learn from Him, as Sirach the wise man advised, “If you see an intelligent man, visit him early; let your foot wear out his doorstep” (Sir 6:36), or as the proverb declared, “Happy is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors” (Prv 8:34). It is as if they were echoing the words of Solomon: “Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you pasture your flock, where you make it lie down at noon; for why should I be like one who wanders beside the flocks of your companions?” (Cant 1:6) They were not content to question Christ for a day, but desired to sit at His feet and learn from Him for a lifetime, for the Baptist had told them so many great things about Christ. According to an allegorical interpretation, God lives in heaven, as the Psalmist cried out, “To thee I lift up my eyes, O thou who art enthroned in the heavens!” (Ps 123:1) They asked Christ where He lived, because we follow Christ so that He might lead us to His home, to heavenly glory. According to the moral sense, asking Christ where He lived amounted to asking Him what qualities they should possess, what virtues they should cultivate, so that Christ might feel at home with them. Along these lines, the Apostle told the Ephesians that they are being made into “a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Eph 2:22).

He said to them, “Come and see,” that is, come and see where I live. But how could He say this, for elsewhere He said, “the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head” (Mt 8:20)? We can explain this in two ways. First, according to a literal interpretation, St. John Chrysostom admitted that Mt 8:20 implies that Christ had no house of His own, but he added that this pericope does not exclude the possibility that Christ stayed with others as their guest. Hence, in Jn 1:39 He bid them to “come and see” where He was staying as a guest. Second, according to the mystical sense, the dwelling place of God, whether this refers to His glory or to the grace which enables us to obtain glory in the life to come, cannot be explained in words, but must be experienced. Thus, Christ bid them to “come” by believing and by doing good works, and to “see” by experiencing and by understanding His truth.

We attain knowledge of the truth in four ways. First, by good works. Hence, He said “Come,” in reply to the Psalmist’s longing: “When shall I come and behold the face of God?” (Ps 43:2). Come now. Now is the time. Second, we attain knowledge by the stillness of the mind: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps 46:10). Contemplation requires that the mind be at rest. Understanding of the truth does not come to the mind that is occupied with mundane affairs. Third, we attain knowledge by tasting the divine sweetness: “O taste and see that the LORD is good! Happy is the man who takes refuge in him!” (Ps 34:8) Fourth, knowledge of the truth follows from acts of devotion. Thus, Jeremiah urged them, “Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven” (Lam 3:41), and the risen Lord said to them, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see” (Lk 24:39).

The Evangelist demonstrated their obedience when he wrote, “They came and saw where he was staying; and they stayed with him.” Christ said, “Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me,” for the prophets said, “they shall all be taught by God” (Jn 6:45). Those who recognized Christ as the Light of the world, the Way and the Truth, gladly remained with Him that day. It was like the day that the Queen of Sheba visited King Solomon and said to him: “Happy are these your servants, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom!” (1 Kgs 10:8).

The Evangelist said that the two disciples stayed with Christ “that day.” He did not say that they stayed “that night,” for there is no night where the Light of the world shines, where the Sun of justice reigns.

“For it was about the tenth hour.” First, in the literal sense, the “tenth hour” is near the end of day, when no one is eager to learn or to conduct business. Yet, Qoheleth wisely advises, “In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand; for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good” (Eccl 11:6). That the disciples remained with Christ until the tenth hour demonstrates their perseverance and fervor for understanding the teaching of Christ. They simply could not get enough of Him. We see, too, their moderation and self-discipline, for they were not drowsy from taking an excess of food or wine, yet their thirst for His wisdom increased by the hour. Having been disciples of St. John the Baptist, who ate simple fare and drank only water, they learned to discipline their bodies in order to strengthen their souls. Even the weariness of their bodies could not prevent their minds from seeking a deeper understanding of the truth. At an hour when most people prepare for sleep, they kept their minds keenly awake and receptive to receive the wisdom Christ had to offer. Second, according to St. Augustine, the “tenth hour” signifies the law, which was given to Moses in ten precepts (Ex 20; Dt 5). Since the law of Moses had not been faithfully kept by the people, Christ Himself taught the disciples at the tenth hour so that the law might be fulfilled in Him.

“One of the two who heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.” We can garner four facts about St. Andrew from this verse. First, Andrew’s privilege. The fact that Andrew leads another person to Christ tells us that he was the first disciple to be perfectly converted by our Lord. As St. Stephen was the first martyr (Acts 7:58-60), St. Andrew has the distinction of being the first Christian. Second, Andrew’s relationship. He is described as “Simon Peter’s brother.” This indicates that Andrew is the younger of the two, else Simon would have been described as Andrew’s brother. Though younger in age, Andrew was the first to reach spiritual maturity in faith. Third, Andrew’s discipleship. He is presented as a special disciple, because the name of the other disciple is not even mentioned. Three explanations for this have been suggested. First, it is possible that the other disciple was actually St. John the Evangelist, who, out of humility, did not name himself. Second, St. John Chrysostom suggested that there was no need to mention the name of the other disciple, because he had not done anything that was noteworthy. A similar situation is found in Lk 10:1, where St. Luke described the disciples whom the Lord appointed and sent as “seventy others,” without naming each one. Third, Alcuin of the court of Charlemagne suggested that the unnamed disciple was Philip, for the next disciple mentioned, after Andrew and Simon Peter, was Philip (vs. 43). Fourth, Andrew’s zeal and devotion. The Evangelist pointed out that Andrew “followed” Christ. He did not turn back after this initial meeting, even as Job proclaimed, “My foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and have not turned aside” (Jb 23:11).

Now the Evangelist shows the fruit produced by Andrew, in that he introduced his brother Simon to the Lord. First, he tells us that Andrew looked for Simon. Secondly, he tells us what Andrew said to Simon. And thirdly, he shows the fruit of Andrew’s effort, its effect upon Simon.

“He first found his brother Simon.” The first thing Andrew did after finding the Lord was to share Him with his brother, so that they who were related in blood became related also in faith. Andrew could not contain his joy at having found the pearl of great value, but wished to share the treasure. A sign of perfect conversion is that the one converted seeks to convert those who are closest to him. Andrew did a great service, not only for his brother, but also for all the faithful, present and future, for he brought to Christ the rock upon which He would build His Church. Thus, “A brother helped is like a strong city” (Prv 18:19).

Andrew then announced to Simon, “We have found the Messiah.” To say that one has found something implies that one has been searching for it all along. Pious Jews had been waiting for the coming of the Messiah (Gk. Christos; Lat. Unctus, anointed one) for many, many years. They kept watch, lest they might miss his appearance. Now Andrew tells Simon the extraordinary news that they have found the Messiah. He is filled with joy, for “Happy is the man who finds wisdom” (Prv 3:13). Andrew did not say that Christ was merely a messiah, but that He was the Messiah, for while all the saints are anointed, Christ was anointed in a singular manner, as was written of Him: “God, thy God, has anointed thee with the oil of gladness beyond thy comrades” (Heb 1:9).

The Evangelist shows us the fruit Andrew produced: “He brought him to Jesus.” We note two things here. First, Andrew did not bring Simon to himself to be instructed, for he realized his own weakness and deficiency. Instead, he took him to Christ, Who is the Truth. This teaches us that preachers should not strive to win over people to themselves, that is, for their personal benefit and honor, but to win over souls for Christ, for His glory and honor, as St. Paul said, “what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor 4:5). Second, the obedience of Simon Peter is noteworthy, for he came without delay, without question. God gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey him (Acts 5:32).

“Jesus looked at him, and said, ‘So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas’ (which means Peter).” Here Christ began to raise up Simon Peter to have faith in His divinity, and He did this by revealing to him three things. First, He revealed things hidden in the present when He said, “So you are Simon.” How could Christ have known his name? They had never met before that day. Nor do we have any indication that Andrew mentioned his brother by name. But God knows all things. If Christ knew his name, then Christ must be God. Second, Christ revealed things hidden in the past when He called him “son of John.” John, in Hebrew, means “God shows His favor.” This tells us that God gives His grace to those who come to Him in faith. Third, Christ revealed things hidden in the future when He said, “You shall be called Cephas,” for one day He would say to Simon, “you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church” (Mt 16:18).

Why did Christ name him at their first meeting rather than will that his name be Cephas from birth? Two answers have been given. First, according to St. John Chrysostom, the fact that Simon received a second name indicates that he received a certain spiritual grace the day he came to Christ. When God confers a special grace, He often gives the recipient a new name to mark the event, as was the case with Abraham and Sarah: “No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations” (Gn 17:5), and “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name” (Gn 17:15). Others receive a special grace from their birth, as was the case with St. John the Baptist. Accordingly, he received his name before he was born, for he had been sanctified while still in the womb, as the angel said to Zechariah, “you shall call his name John . . . . he will be great before the Lord, . . . and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb” (Lk 1:13, 15). St. Peter received a special grace when he came to follow Christ, for Christ would one day appoint him to be the prince of apostles and leader of the Church; hence, he received a new name on the day he received from Christ a special grace to assist him in leadership. Second, according to St. Augustine, his named was changed to call attention to the mystery of the Church, for the Church was built upon his confession of faith: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). Cephas is Aramaic for “rock,” and petra is Greek for “rock.” Christ, in fact, is the immovable rock upon which is built the Church. Since Simon Peter signifies the Church, he is called “Rock.”

When did Christ name him Cephas? St. John indicated that he was named when they first met (Jn 1:42), but St. Matthew reported that Christ called him by his new name after he professed his faith in Christ: “you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church” (Mt 16:18). There are two opinions concerning this question. St. Augustine was of the opinion that Simon was named by Christ when they first met, and that Christ reminded him of his special name and special office after he made his profession of faith. Thus, St. Matthew was not saying that Christ named Simon on that occasion, only that Christ reminded him of the name He had previously given to the fisherman. Others, however, are of the opinion that the event recorded by St. Matthew marks the occasion when Christ gave the name to Simon, and that the earlier event mentioned by St. John was a foretelling of what would occur later.

Where were Andrew and Simon when they were called by Christ? St. John indicated that they were near the Jordan, where John preached and baptized, whereas St. Matthew mentioned the Sea of Galilee: “As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother” (Mt 4:18). This can be explained by asserting that there was a triple calling. Their first calling was a calling to knowledge and faith. This was reported by St. John in Jn 1:35-42. Their second calling was a calling to apostleship, which was reported in Mt 4:18. Their third calling took place when Christ outlined the duties of their office, saying, “henceforth you will be catching men” (Lk 5:10). This third calling was perfect, for after this time, they did not return to their former livelihood: “when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him” (Lk 5:11).

29: The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
30: This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, for he was before me.’
31: I myself did not know him; but for this I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.”
32: And John bore witness, “I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven, and it remained on him.
33: I myself did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’
34: And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”

In the first chapter, we read that St. John the Baptist gave witness to Christ on three occasions: in response to the Pharisees’ questions (vs. 19-28), when he saw Christ in public the next day (vs. 29-34), and when he pointed out Christ to his (John’s) disciples (vs. 35-37). The first witness the Baptist gave was prompted by the questions of the priests and Levites from Jerusalem. The second time he gave witness, he did so on his own initiative.

The Evangelist describes the circumstances surrounding this second testimony of John. First, as to the time: “The next day.” The Baptist bore witness to Christ frequently, according to the psalm, “Every day I will bless thee, and praise thy name for ever and ever” (Ps 145:2). Note how he progressed in courage and resolve: his first testimony followed from the Pharisees’ questions, but his second was made spontaneously in public. This is characteristic of the man of faith, as the Psalmist said, “They go from strength to strength; the God of gods will be seen in Zion” (Ps 84:7). Second, the Evangelist mentions the manner of John’s testimony: “he saw Jesus coming toward him,” that is, coming from Galilee to Judea, as St. Matthew wrote of our Lord’s baptism: “Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him” (Mt 3:13). The fact that the Baptist gave witness to Christ after seeing Him suggests that he was sure of his testimony, for that which is based on sight is more certain than that which is based on any other bodily sense.

The Baptist then gave witness to the power of Christ as he pointed to Jesus and exclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” As John leapt in the womb of his mother Elizabeth when the Mother of God with Child came to visit (Lk 1:41), so now the Baptist cried out “Behold!” upon seeing Christ coming his way. Christ came to John that day for two reasons. First, to give the Baptist an opportunity to point Him out as the one he spoke of the day before, when he was being questioned by the Pharisees. On that occasion, the Baptist spoke of the one “who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie” (vs. 27). Second, Christ came to John so that he might identify Christ as the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of world.” This was necessary to dispel any suggestion that Christ came to John for baptism in order to be cleansed of sin. Only God can forgive sins, and God is without sin. Since Christ is the Lamb of God, He must be God and must be without sin. The fact that our sinless God became man demonstrates the depth of His humility and the immensity of His love for us, as it was written, “great is the might of the Lord; he is glorified by the humble” (Sir 3:20). The Baptist thus attested to the power of Christ by calling Him the Lamb of God.

Under the Old Law, five types of animals were offered in the temple: a heifer, a goat, a sheep, a turtle dove (a wild pigeon, tor in Hebrew), and a dove. Each of these prefigured the ultimate sacrifice, in which Christ died that we might live, as St. Paul said to the Ephesians, “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph 5:2). In the temple, a yearling male lamb was offered every morning and every evening, as prescribed in Nm 28:3. This was the principal offering, the daily sacrifice offered every day on behalf of the people of God. In calling Him the Lamb of God, the Baptist asserted that Christ is the principal sacrifice. If holy men and women merit anything through their virtuous works and suffering, they do so because they attach their sacrifices to the one complete sacrifice which Christ made once and for all on the cross. It is significant that the lamb was offered twice daily in the temple in Jerusalem. The morning offering pertains to “morning knowledge,” the contemplation of intelligible divine truths. The evening offering pertains to “evening knowledge,” which shows us how to wisely use temporal things without falling into sin.

Christ is called the Lamb of God because the Father gave Him to us to be used as an oblation to take away our sins. When Isaac asked his father Abraham, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham replied, “God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” (Gn 22:7-8) And so He did in sending us His Only Begotten Son to suffer and die that we might have life through Him. St. Paul said that the Father “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Rom 8:32).

St. Anselm of Canterbury, in his Cur Deus Homo, reasoned as follows. Because we humans commit sin, it was fitting that some human atone for sin. But because of the gravity of sin, which so greatly offends an infinitely good God, it lies beyond human power to make sufficient reparation for sin. The ideal Redeemer must, therefore, be both true God and true man: true man because a man must atone, true God because only God has the ability to atone. Hence, the Incarnation of the God-Man Jesus Christ.

Along these lines, St. Thomas added that it was fitting that Christ be a physical descendant of Adam, so that the same flesh that fell in the first Adam’s disobedience might rise in the Second Adam’s perfect obedience to the will of God (STh III, 16, 7, ad 1). St. Paul noted that sin and death entered the world through one man, Adam; and life enters the world through Jesus Christ (Rom 5:12-17). “As one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.” (Rom 5:18-19)

Christ is a fitting Lamb for three reasons. First, because of His purity, for the law prescribes: “Your lamb shall be without blemish” (Ex 12:5). St. Peter wrote, “you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Pt 1:18-19). Second, Christ is a fitting Lamb because of His gentleness in suffering and dying, as the prophet said of Him: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth” (Is 53:7). Third, Christ is a fitting Lamb because of His fruit, for a lamb provides us with both clothing and food. With respect to clothing, it was written, “lambs will provide your clothing” (Prv 27:26); and so St. Paul said, “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 13:14). With respect to food, Christ said, “he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn 6:54).

The Letter to the Hebrews contrasts the shortcomings of the Old Law and its rituals with the perfect sacrifice made by the Lamb of God. The Letter explains that the Old Law is “but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities” (Heb 10:1). Although lambs had been sacrificed twice daily, and other animals and first-fruits had been sacrificed throughout the year, none of these had been able to perfect those who drew near to the temple. If these holocausts and sacrifices could have perfected the worshippers and taken away their sins, then these offerings would have one day ceased when they had accomplished what they were supposed to do. But the fact that they continued day after day and year after year was a constant reminder of sin and of the failure of these holocausts to take sin away. In fact, “it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins” (Heb 10:4). But the blood of Christ, the Spotless Lamb, takes away sin, for “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Pt 2:24) Christ resembles the Suffering Servant, whom a prophet wrote about during the Babylonian exile (587-38 B.C.): “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.” (Is 53:4-5)

After the Baptist had given witness to the power of the Lamb, he then gave witness to the dignity of the Lamb when he said, “This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, for he was before me.’” John compares himself to Christ in three respects. First, concerning their office and their preaching, he said that “after me,” that is, after I am gone, a greater One will come to preach and baptize. Christ is the “man” named by John, but He is the only man who possesses the perfection of all virtue. Isaiah spoke figuratively of this man when he prophesied, “seven women,” that is, the virtues, “shall take hold of one man in that day” (Is 4:1). Zechariah, as well, prophesied of Him: “Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall grow up in his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord” (Zec 6:12). Christ is a “man” because He is the Bridegroom of the Church, as Hosea prophesied: “in that day, says the Lord, you will call me, ‘My husband,’ and no longer will you call me, ‘My Ba’al’” (Hos 2:16). On that day, the Church, the people of God, will cling to her Spouse with faithfulness and true devotion, casting aside her former adulterous life of chasing after the gods of this world. Second, John compared himself to Christ with respect to their dignity when he said, “who ranks before me.” Although John preached and baptized before Christ began to do so, the latter is immeasurably greater in dignity than the former. Therefore, the Baptist told his disciples, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:30). Third, John compared himself to Christ with respect to their duration when he said, “he was before me,” that is to say, the eternal Word of God existed before John was conceived. Although Christ came after John in time, He existed before John in eternity. It is fitting that Christ should outrank the Baptist in dignity, for the eternal is far greater than the temporal, the immortal greater than the ephemeral.

The statement, “he was before me,” refutes two heresies: that of Paul of Samosata and that of Arius of Alexandria. First, Paul of Samosata, Patriarch of Antioch (260-68), advocated adoptionism (dynamic monarchianism). He thought that Jesus was a man, better than us in every respect, but that He was not the Word of God. Monarchianism, which asserted that there is only one divine person, arose in the second century as a reaction against the Gnostics’ belief in aeons, which they said were intermediate deities between God and the world. Some historians argue that the orthodox doctrines of the Logos and of the Blessed Trinity were developed in reaction to monarchianism. Monarchianism can be divided into two branches: adoptionism (dynamic monarchianism) and modalism (modal monarchianism). Adoptionism, which was propagated by Alogi, Theodotus, Artemon, Paul of Samosata, and others, held that Jesus was a man upon whom the one God bestowed divinity. Most of them believed that this took place at Jesus’ baptism, when the voice from heaven spoke, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17). Modalism, which was held by Noetus of Smyrna, Praxeas of Asia Minor, Sabellius of Libya, Priscillian of Avila, and others, merged the divinity of Christ into the essence of the Father. They recognized no independent personality of Christ, and they regarded the Incarnation as a mode of the Father’s existence. They believed that the one God manifested Himself in various modes: as Creator, as Redeemer, and as Sanctifier. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were merely aspects or modes of the same subject, of the same divine person, appearing to us like three faces or masks (prosopa). Their definition of “person” was quite different from the one that had developed in orthodox Trinitarian tradition. Concerning Patriarch Paul of Samosata, three synods were held at Antioch between 264 and 268 to deal with his heresy. The third (268) declared him deposed and condemned his misuse of the word homoousios (consubstantial) to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son, for he asserted that consubstantial implies that the Father and Son are the same person. Paul did not recognize the distinction of divine persons, but gave the name of “Father” to God Who created, “Son” to God Who was man, and “Spirit” to the grace which rested upon the Apostles. His “trinity” was a trinity of names only. Now, the heresy of Paul of Samosata was refuted when St. John the Baptist said, “he was before me,” for if Christ had taken His existence only from the Virgin, and not from the Father as well, then the Baptist could not say that Christ existed before him, for John was conceived before Jesus was conceived. When John said, “he was before me,” he was referring, not to His human origin in Mary, but to His divine origin in the Father. St. Thomas noted (STh I, 43, 2, ad 1) that Christ has an eternal origin in the Father and a temporal origin in the Virgin Mary; He is generated eternally from the Father and temporally from Mary. Second, Arius of Alexandria (ca. 270-336) thought the Word was a creature, the first creature. But this is not supported by the words of the Baptist, for St. John said, “he was before me,” that is to say, “Christ existed before me.” If the Baptist believed what Arius believed, St. John would have said, “Christ was made before me.” The Son of God, Who proceeds eternally from the Father by an act of generation, existed before He brought any creature into being. The Word was not created, but generated eternally. He possesses the same divine nature as the Father; they are consubstantial, one in being. The Word of God commented upon His origin in the Father: “Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth” (Prv 8:25). Concerning His role in the creation of all things, the Word said: “When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman” (Prv 8:27-30).

Some have suggested that the reason the Baptist bore witness to Christ was because they were friends. But the Baptist disproved this when he said, “I myself did not know him.” Nor do we have any reason to believe that John knew about the miraculous events surrounding Christ’s birth, such as the Magi and the star over Bethlehem. Nor have we any reason to believe that Christ’s power over nature was known to John, for Christ worked no miracles in public until He changed water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana (Jn 1:1-11). Although Christ possessed the power to perform miracles from the moment of His conception, He chose not to display this power until He began His public ministry. As a child and as a young man, He “increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man,” (Lk 2:52), lest anyone think that He was not fully human and not a man like us in all things but sin. He remained hidden with respect to His external mission among us until the time was ripe, as the prophet declared, “Truly, thou art a God who hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior” (Is 45:15).

Because the public had not yet seen any signs of Christ’s divine nature, the Baptist did what he did in order to reveal Him. Therefore, he said, “but for this I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” The Baptist’s mission was to reveal Christ, to point out to the world the Light of the world. “[John] was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light” (Jn 1:8). He said, “I came baptizing with water,” in order to distinguish himself from Christ, Who baptized with water and the Spirit, which confers sanctifying grace. The baptism of John was merely a sign, a sacramental; the baptism of Christ is a sacrament, for it bestows grace.

The fact that John baptized helped to make Christ known in three ways. First, because of the novelty of the rite of baptism, crowds were drawn to the desert by their curiosity to hear what John had to say. The novelty of baptism allowed John to reach more people, to prepare more of them to receive Christ. Second, when Christ submitted to John’s baptism, He demonstrated His profound humility. This also teaches us that, no matter how exalted our station in life, we should humbly receive the sacraments from His ordained ministers. Third, the dignity of Christ was made manifest at His baptism by the presence of the dove and by the voice from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17).

“And John bore witness.” Now the Evangelist gives us the testimony of St. John the Baptist. First, he presents John’s vision (vs. 32), then he explains its meaning (vs. 33), then he tells us what the Baptist learned from his vision (vs. 34).

1. The Baptist’s vision. This is how the Baptist described his vision: “I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven.” St. John the Evangelist does not specify when this vision took place, but the synoptists report (Mt 3:13-17; Mk 1:9-11; Lk 3:21-22) that it took place immediately after John baptized Christ in the Jordan: “when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’” (Mt 3:16-17). The Gospel of St. John mentions the dove, but not the voice. None of the gospels indicate that the vision was seen by anyone other than Christ and the Baptist. Both St. Mark and St. Luke indicate that the Father addressed Christ directly, saying “Thou art my beloved Son” (Mk 1:11; Lk 3:22), but St. Matthew has the Father speaking to a third person or persons as He identifies Christ, saying, “This is my beloved Son” (Mt 3:17). So, we may conclude that Christ and the Baptist witnessed the vision, but we do not know whether anyone else had seen the dove or heard the voice.

It was fitting that the Holy Spirit should manifest the Son, for the Holy Spirit has His origin in the Father and Son. Likewise, it was fitting that the Son, Who is the Word of God, should manifest the Father, for the Son has His origin in the Father. Accordingly, Christ said to His Father, “I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world” (Jn 17:6).

Further, it was fitting that all three divine persons should be present at Christ’s baptism–the Father in the voice, the Son in His human nature, and the Holy Spirit in the dove–for when we baptize, we invoke the names of all three, as Christ commanded: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19).

Why did the Holy Spirit descend? It is significant that the Spirit descended from heaven to earth. A descent has two termini: a starting point above and an ending point below. There are two spirits, so to speak: one of the world, the other of God. The spirit of the world is the love of worldly things. This spirit is not from above, but from below. It pulls us down to its base level, enticing us to seek material things as ends in themselves, but these things quickly pass away. By contrast, the spirit of God is the love of God. It is also a living person, a divine person, the Holy Spirit, Who is the Love between Father and Son. The Holy Spirit descends in order to raise us up, as the prophet Ezekiel said, “the Spirit lifted me up” (Ez 8:3). He lifts us up, ultimately, in order to have a share in divinity, to live forever in union with the Blessed Trinity. Thus St. Paul said to the Corinthians, “we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God” (1 Cor 2:12). We cannot obtain this union by our own power, but the just and virtuous man receives it as a gift from God above, for “every perfect gift is from above” (Jas 1:17). Thus, it is fitting that the Holy Spirit descended, for His descent at Christ’s baptism prefigured His descent to us, which began on Pentecost.

Why did the Holy Spirit appear in the form of a dove? First, the nature of a spirit is that it is invisible to human eyes. Thus, “The Spirit blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes” (Jn 3:8). So that human eyes could see that He came from above, the Holy Spirit descended, not in His own nature as a spirit, but “as a dove.” Second, it was fitting that the Son of God, who was made visible by the Incarnation, was made manifest by the Holy Spirit in the visible form of a dove. While the Son of God assumed human nature, the Holy Spirit did not assume the nature of a dove. While the Holy Spirit descended on the banks of the Jordan in order to manifest the Son, the Son came not to manifest, but to redeem fallen man as his Savior. To accept the role of Redeemer, it was necessary for Him to assume a human nature, for only a person with a human nature could atone for human sins, as St. Anselm pointed out (Cur Deus Homo). Third, it is advantageous for us that our Exemplar and Teacher should have a human nature like us. Because the Holy Spirit appeared only to manifest the Son, it was not necessary for Him to assume a nature; rather, it was sufficient for Him to appear in the form of a creature that human eyes can see.

Was the dove a real dove or an illusion? It is reasonable to believe that this dove was a real dove, for if the Holy Spirit came to manifest Christ, Who is the Truth, it was fitting that He should be manifested only by that which is true.

Did this dove exist prior to its appearance on that day? It is reasonable to hold the opinion that the dove did not exist prior to that day, but rather, was formed directly by the power of God, for God has the power to create a dove without sexual copulation, even as the human body of Christ was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit without sexual intercourse.

Why a dove and not some other creature? St. Cyprian of Carthage (200-58), in his De ecclesiae unitate (On Church Unity), offered several reasons for the suitability of the dove: it is simple and harmless, it does not bite, it does not have fierce talons like raptors which tear apart their prey, it coexists peacefully with men, it dwells in nests in community with its own kind, together they raise their young, together they soar, living amicably in mutual cooperation, they signify peace, and their lifestyle exhibits harmony in all things.

There are at least six reasons why the Holy Spirit appeared as a dove, and not as some other creature. First, the dove is simple. The Holy Spirit is most interested in those who focus their minds and hearts on one thing: God. St. Augustine noted that the Holy Spirit was manifested on two occasions: as a dove at Christ’s baptism and as fire over the heads of the apostles on Pentecost. Some of the apostles were simple but lukewarm, and some were fervent but cunning. So that the simple ones may not grow tepid, He came as fire, and so that the fervent ones may be cleansed of their guile, he came as a dove. Second, the dove is a symbol of charity: “My dove, my perfect one, is only one, the darling of her mother” (Cant 6:9). The Holy Spirit, Who is the Love between the Father and the Son, came as a dove to signify the unity of the Church in the bond of charity. Each member of the Body of Christ has a different set of gifts to share, but all gifts come from the same Spirit: “there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit” (1 Cor 12:4). The Holy Spirit’s appearance as tongues of fire signifies the variety of gifts, and His appearance as a single dove signifies that all those gifts come from the same Holy Spirit. Third, the dove is known for its plaintive groaning, as in Nahum’s vision, the maidens of Nineveh lament, “moaning like doves” (Na 2:7). The Holy Spirit “intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Rom 8:26). Fourth, the dove is fertile, a naturally prolific creature. Under the Old Law, the poor could offer a dove as a sin offering (Lv 5:7). The Holy Spirit appeared as a dove to symbolize the fruitfulness of grace, which is found in the Church. Fifth, the dove is cautious. Resting in the bushes along a stream, it cleverly gazes into the water to spot the hawk overhead. It is said of the wise man: “His eyes are like doves beside springs of water” (Cant 5:12). As the waters of a stream save the dove’s life, the waters of baptism save our lives. Sixth, the dove bearing a fresh olive branch (Gn 8:11) was a sign of God’s mercy to Noah’s kin, who endured the flood. Similarly, the appearance of the Holy Spirit as a dove signifies God’s mercy in washing away our sins through baptism and conferring upon us supernatural grace.

“And it remained on him,” that is, the Holy Spirit remained with Christ after He was baptized. Likewise, the Holy Spirit remains with us after our baptism. There are two reason why the Holy Spirit might not remain with a person. First, on account of sin. Because Christ was conceived without original sin and never committed a personal sin, the Holy Spirit always remained with Him. Second, holy men and women sometimes possess the power to perform miracles and prophets sometimes have the spirit of prophecy, but Christ always had these powers, even from the moment of His conception. And so, the Holy Spirit was always with Christ as Man, of Whom it was said, “the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord” (Is 11:2).

2. The meaning of the vision. The phrase, “I myself did not know him,” refutes Judaizers, such as the Ebionites (from the Hebrew ebyo, destitute, poor in spirit). They were a second century Jewish Christian sect that held a modified form of gnosticism, believing that Jesus was the human son of Mary and Joseph, that His messiahship, along with the Holy Spirit, descended upon Him when He was baptized. They revered Jesus as the most righteous man on earth, and because of His righteousness, they believed that God adopted Him on the day He was baptized. As God’s Son, He was then given the task of fulfilling the Jewish expectation for a messiah and was rewarded for accomplishing His mission by being raised from the dead. But the Ebionites’ doctrine is not supported by Sacred Scripture, for they claimed that Jesus began to be the Son of God when He was anointed with the Holy Spirit at His baptism, but St. Luke tells us that He was the Savior at least from the time of His birth, for the angels proclaimed to the shepherds, “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Lk 2:11). The Holy Spirit did not descend upon Christ as if Christ needed to be sanctified. Rather, He descended for our benefit, to point out Christ, to manifest the grace that was already within Him, Who is the Fountain of all grace. The Holy Spirit needed to call attention to Christ, for “the world knew him not” (Jn 1:10), and even the Baptist confessed that he did not know Him.

“But he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’” If we understand the sender to be the Father, there is no difficulty here. But if the Son sent John to baptize, then how could he say, “I myself did not know him”? Moreover, John must have known Christ before our Lord came to him for baptism, for he spoke to Jesus as if he knew Him: “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” (Mt 3:14) This difficulty can be resolved in four ways. First, according to St. John Chrysostom, John knew of Christ by reputation, but not familiarly. Moreover, “I myself did not know him” may refer to the past, whereas “I need to be baptized by you” refers to their present encounter. We may understand by this distinction that the Baptist became familiar with Christ only shortly before His baptism, perhaps because of Christ’s frequent visits to hear John preach. Second, according to St. Jerome, John knew that Christ was the Son of God and our Savior, but he did not know these things on account of Christ’s baptism. Third, according to St. Augustine, the Baptist knew some things, but was ignorant of other things. He did not know that Christ would commission His apostles to baptize, and assumed that Christ would reserve the power of baptism for Himself. Therefore, John said that the one who sent me to baptize, namely, Christ, is the one who will baptize others, not with water as I do, but with the Holy Spirit. Fourth, when John saw the Holy Spirit descending upon Christ, he came to know Christ by an external sign, but when he said, “I need to be baptized by you” (Mt 3:14), he knew Christ by an interior revelation. Thus, there are two ways of coming to know Christ. When the Baptist said, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend,” he was referring to the external sign, and when he said, “he who sent me to baptize with water,” he was referring to an internal revelation.

In the rite of baptism, we see that Christ has a threefold power. First, we see the power of efficiency, inasmuch as Christ cleanses the soul of sin through the sacrament. Since only God can forgive sin, this cleansing cannot be the work of the person administering the sacrament, but rather, it is the work of Christ, working through the sacrament and its minister. Second, we see in the sacrament the power of ministry, which Christ shares with those commissioned to baptize: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19). Christ is both a minister Himself and the Head of all ministers serving His Church. Third, we see the power of excellence in the sacraments. This power belongs to Christ alone and shows itself in four ways. First, in the institution of the sacraments. No mere man and no mere body of men could institute sacraments that bestow invisible supernatural grace. Only God can dispense grace, and He does so in the measure that pleases Him. Second, the power of excellence is manifest in the efficacy of Christ’s merits, for the sacraments derive their efficacy from the grace Christ merited for our salvation. He merited this grace by suffering and dying on the cross. Thus, St. Paul can say, “all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” (Rom 6:3). Third, Christ’s power of excellence is seen in the fact that He alone can confer the effect of baptism, namely the remission of sin, along with the rite of baptism. The priest performs the rite of baptism, but it is Christ, not the priest, Who confers the grace of the sacrament. Fourth, Christ’s power of excellence is seen in the fact that, at first, baptism was conferred only in the name of Christ, as when He began baptizing others. He could have allowed His disciples to baptize in the name of Peter or in the names of the others, but fortunately this was not done, lest schisms should arise within the Church. When the Baptist testified that the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ and remained with Him, he was teaching us that Christ alone has the power to confer the grace of baptism, which is a baptism, not of water, but of the Holy Spirit.

3. What the Baptist learned from his vision. “And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.” There are many adopted children of God, and each of them bears a certain likeness to the Son of God, as St. Paul said: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29). But God the Father has only one natural Son. Because Christ is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit, St. John the Baptist concluded that He must be the natural Son of God. It is through His baptism in the Spirit that we become adopted sons and daughters of God, as St. Paul said to the Romans, “you have received the spirit of sonship” (Rom 8:15). The Word of God came to us to enlighten us with His truth, that we might “know him who is true,” and to redeem us with His grace, that we might be “in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ” (1 Jn 5:20).

24: Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.
25: They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”
26: John answered them, “I baptize with water; but among you stands one whom you do not know,
27: even he who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”
28: This took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

St. John the Baptist gave witness to Christ on several occasions. The first (vs. 19-28) was prompted by a visit from a distinguished delegation of priests and Levites from Jerusalem, who questioned the Baptist in public. We have already seen how St. John responded to them concerning his person (vs. 19-23), namely, by declaring that he was neither the messiah, nor Elijah, nor Elisha the prophet. Now we see how he responded to their questions concerning his office (vs. 24-28).

“Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.” The Pharisees were a prominent and influential religious group that flourished from the second century B.C. to the first century A.D. They advocated the strict observance of Jewish laws, especially those concerning ritual purity. They interpreted Scripture more liberally than the Sadducees on some points. For example, the Pharisees believed in resurrection. On this account, they were in agreement with Christ. The name “Pharisee” most likely means “separated one” in Hebrew, for they had a unique religious philosophy, and their particular manner of observance and piety seemed to set them apart from the majority of practicing Jews.

There are two opinions as to the identity of the questioners. First, according to Origen, the first three questions that the Baptist faced (vs. 19, 21) were asked by priests and Levites from Jerusalem, whereas the question that followed in verse 25 was posed by other men, namely, those sent by the Pharisees. The first group asked the Baptist humbly and respectfully whether he was the messiah, or Elijah, or Elisha. But the delegation sent by the Pharisees used judgmental language: “They asked him, ‘Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?’” The priests and Levites were well-educated and respectful in their demeanor, whereas the Pharisees, on this and many other occasions, displayed an overconfidence that frequently gave way to arrogance, self-righteousness, and hypocrisy. They frequently insulted Christ, accusing Him of casting out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons (Mt 12:24), and they connived with the Herodians to entrap Jesus with His own words (Mt 22:15). Second, according to St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom, those who asked the question in verse 25 were from the same group who asked the previous three questions, and all of them had been sent by the Pharisees. The reason that priests and Levites were sent was because they possessed religious authority and the prestige of the priesthood. The reason the Evangelist mentions that they were Pharisees was to imply that their intentions were dishonorable. They asked John who he was, not in order to learn, but to discredit him, for since they had a disdain for Christ, it seems likely that they would have a similar disdain for His forerunner. The fact that so many people had flocked to the Jordan to be baptized by John and to hear him preach caused disquiet among the Pharisees. His rite of baptism was something foreign to the Law and to the Pharisees’ teaching. Perhaps they were envious of the Baptist, too, for his popularity exceeded their own. Consequently, they took steps that day to discredit him by attempting to demonstrate that he had no right to baptize, based on the fact that he was neither the messiah, nor Elijah, not Elisha the prophet. Their verbal assault upon the Baptist is characteristic of vicious and envious men, as Isaiah said of such ones: “they are a rebellious people, lying sons, sons who will not hear the instruction of the Lord; who say to the seers, ‘See not’; and to the prophets, ‘Prophesy not to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more of the Holy One of Israel’” (Is 30:9-10).

“John answered them, ‘I baptize with water,’” as if to say, “I am not the messiah. My baptism is imperfect, for it merely washes the body. But the One Who will come after me will baptize with water and the Spirit. His baptism will cleanse the soul, for the soul is cleansed only by the Spirit.” The Baptist is telling the Pharisees that his baptism is only a symbol, a sacramental; it is not a sacrament that bestows sanctifying grace. Before Christ ascended into heaven, He promised to send the Holy Spirit to His disciples, saying, “John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5).

Next, the Baptist gives witness to Christ, both in relation to the Jews and in relation to himself.

1. The Baptist’s testimony in relation to the Jews. St. John the Baptist gives witness to Christ when he proclaims, “but among you stands one whom you do not know.” He points to Christ, Who will complete the his work, and Who will baptize with a more efficacious baptism. We can interpret the phrase, “but among you stands one whom you do not know,” in four ways. First, with St. Augustine, we may take it to mean that Christ was among us in the flesh, as He said, “I am among you as one who serves” (Lk 22:27). “Whom you do not know” tells us that many of those who knew Him in the flesh failed to see that He was divine, as Elihu lamented, “God is great, and we know him not” (Jb 36:26). Because they did not recognize the Christ, John was sent to point Him out, as the Psalmist said, “I have prepared a lamp for my anointed” (Ps 132:17). St. John the Baptist was the lamp that God sent, so that Christ, the Light of the world, might be found by us. Second, Origen interpreted “among you stands” as referring to the Word of God, Who was present in the world from the moment of its creation, conserving all things that were made through Him. The Lord asked Jeremiah, “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” (Jer 23:24) “Whom you do not know” echoes what the Evangelist said earlier concerning the Word: “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not” (Jn 1:10). Third, Origen also suggested that we may interpret “among you stands” as referring to the causality of knowledge. The Word is the cause of all human wisdom, for any truth that is known is a participation in His truth. Whatever wisdom exists in men is a participation in the one Truth, Who is the Word of God. He “enlightens every man coming into the world” (Jn 1:9). His Wisdom stands among us, for wisdom resides within each human intellect. Fourth, we may take “among you stands” as referring to the many Old Testament prophecies concerning the coming of the messiah. In this sense, the Baptist’s answer is directed especially to the Pharisees, who claimed to be experts in Sacred Scripture, yet failed to recognize the Messiah in their midst. Christ chided their spiritual blindness, saying to them, “You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me” (Jn 5:39).

2. The Baptist’s testimony in relation to himself. St. John the Baptist compared himself to Christ when he said, “even he who comes after me.” John preceded Christ as the imperfect precedes the perfect, for “it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical” (1 Cor 15:46). The whole purpose of John’s ministry was to prepare the people for Christ, as his father Zechariah said: “you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins” (Lk 1:76-77). Though John preceded Christ in time, Christ precedes John and all of us, as the perfect exemplar precedes the copy, as He said, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mt 16:24). St. Peter echoed this teaching when he wrote, “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Pt 2:21).

“The thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” We can interpret this phrase in three ways. First, according to a literal interpretation, the Baptist here attempted to express the magnitude of Christ’s superiority. To untie another person’s sandal is a most menial task. John’s humility is not unlike that of Abraham, our father in faith, who replied to the Lord at Sodom, “Behold, I have taken upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes” (Gn 18:27). Similarly, Job said humbly to God, “I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Jb 42:5-6). Isaiah, after he had seen the glory of God, exclaimed, “All the nations are as nothing before him” (Is 40:17). Second, according to a mystical interpretation, the sandal, which is manufactured from the hides of dead animals, represents mortal human nature, which the Word of God assumed. The thong represents the union of the divine and human natures in the divine Person of the Son of God. The fact that John cannot untie this leather strap signifies that the hypostatic union is a mystery that mortal man cannot fully comprehend. Third, according to the levirate law (Dt 25:5-10), if a man died without issue, his brother was obliged to marry the widow and raise their children as if they belonged to the dead man. If, however, the brother refused to marry, the widow was instructed to pull off his sandal in the presence of the elders. Accordingly, the sandal which John is unworthy to untie may be seen as the Church, for only Christ, not John, is worthy to have the Church as his bride. John himself confessed, “I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice; therefore this joy of mine is now full.” (Jn 3:28-29).

“This took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.” This is not the Bethany that is located on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, two miles east of Jerusalem, where Christ raised Lazarus from the dead (Jn 11:1-44), where He visited Mary, Martha, and Lazarus (Jn 12:1-8), where he began his triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Mk 11:1-11), and where He was anointed in the house of Simon the leper (Mk 14:3-9). The Bethany where John was baptizing was located “beyond the Jordan,” that is, on the east bank of the Jordan River. Its exact location is unknown, though some believe it to be Bethabara, near the traditional site of Christ’s baptism. The Jordan signifies baptism, for it separated those who received the inheritance from Moses on the east side and those who received it from Joshua on the west. Just as the Jews had to cross the Jordan to enter into the promised land, one must be baptized, either by water, blood, or desire, in order to enter into eternal life. The fact that John preached on the far side of the Jordan signifies that he preached repentance to sinners, not to the righteous. Likewise, Christ said of His own mission, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mt 9:13).