Note 5 — Chapter VII · DISCOURSES OF JESUS IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

These considerations, however, should not create any prejudice against the ensuing conversation, which is the proper object of our investigations. This may still be in the main genuine; Jesus may have held such a conversation with one of his adherents, and our Evangelist may have embellished it no further than by making this interlocutor a man of rank. Neither will we, with the author of the Probabilia, take umbrage at the opening address of Nicodemus, nor complain, with him, that there is a want of connexion between that address and the answer of Jesus.5 The requisition of a new birth (γεννηθῆναι ἄνωθεν), as a condition of entrance into the kingdom of heaven, does not differ essentially from the summons with which Jesus opens his ministry in the synoptical gospels, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. New birth, or new creation, was a current image among the Jews, especially as denoting the conversion of an idolater into a worshipper of Jehovah. It was customary to say of Abraham, that when, according to the Jewish supposition, he renounced idolatry for the worship of the true God, he became a new creature (‏בריה חדשה‎).6 The proselyte, too, in allusion to his relinquishing all his previous associations, was compared to a new-born child.7 That such phraseology was common among the Jews at that period, is shown by the confidence with which Paul applies, as if it required no explanation, the term new creation, καινὴ κτίσις, to those truly converted to Christ. Now, if Jesus required, even from the Jews, as a condition of entrance into the messianic kingdom, the new birth which they ascribed to their heathen proselytes, Nicodemus might naturally wonder at the requisition, since the Israelite thought himself, as such, unconditionally entitled to that kingdom: and this is the construction which has been put upon his question v. 4.8 But Nicodemus does not ask, How canst thou say that a Jew, or a child of Abraham, must be born again? His ground of wonder is that Jesus appears to suppose it possible for a man to be born again, and that when he is old. It does not, therefore, astonish him that spiritual new birth should be expected in a Jew, but corporeal new birth in a man. How an oriental, to whom figurative speech in general—how a Jew, to whom the image of the new birth in particular must have been familiar—how especially a master of Israel, in whom the misconstruction of figurative phrases cannot, as in the apostles (e.g. Matt. xv. 15 f.; xvi. 7), be ascribed to want of education—could understand this expression literally, has been matter of extreme surprise to expositors of all parties, as well as to Jesus (v. 10). Hence some have supposed that the Pharisee really understood Jesus, and only intended by his question to test the ability of Jesus to interpret his figurative expression into a simple proposition:9 but Jesus does not treat him as a hypocrite, as in that case he must have done—he continues to instruct him, as one really ignorant οὐ γινώσκοντα (v. 10). Others give the question the following turn: This cannot be meant in a physical sense, how then otherwise?10 But the true drift of the question is rather the contrary: By these words I can only understand physical new birth, but how is this possible? Our wonder at the ignorance of the Jewish doctor, therefore, returns upon us; and it is heightened when, after the copious explanation of Jesus (v. 5–8), that the new birth which he required was a spiritual birth, γεννηθῆναι ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος, Nicodemus has made no advance in comprehension, but asks with the same obtuseness as before (v. 9), How can these things be? By this last difficulty Lücke is so straitened, that, contrary to his ordinary exegetical tact, he refers the continued amazement of Nicodemus (as other expositors had referred his original question) to the circumstance that Jesus maintained the necessity of new birth even for Israelites. But, in that case, Nicodemus would have inquired concerning the necessity, not the possibility, of that birth; instead of asking, How can these things be? he would have asked, Why must these things be? This inconceivable mistake in a Jewish doctor is not then to be explained away, and our surprise must become strong suspicion so soon as it can be shown, that legend or the Evangelist had inducements to represent this individual as more simple than he really was. First, then, it must occur to us, that in all descriptions and recitals, contrasts are eagerly exhibited; hence in the representation of a colloquy in which one party is the teacher, the other the taught, there is a strong temptation to create a contrast to the wisdom of the former by exaggerating the simplicity of the latter. Further, we must remember the satisfaction it must give to a Christian mind of that age, to place a master of Israel in the position of an unintelligent person, by the side of the Master of the Christians. Lastly, it is, as we shall presently see more clearly, the constant method of the fourth Evangelist in detailing the conversations of Jesus, to form the knot and the progress of the discussion, by making the interlocutors understand literally what Jesus intended figuratively.