John 3 - CSB Ancient Faith Study Bible

3:3 Justin Martyr: At our birth we were born without our own knowledge or choice by our parents coming together. We were brought up with bad habits and wicked training. However, so that we may not remain the children of necessity and of ignorance, but may become the children of choice and knowledge and may obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed, there is pronounced over the one who chooses to be born again and has repented of his sins the name of God the Father and Lord of the universe. . . . T]his washing is called illumination because those who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings. The one who is illuminated is thus washed in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets foretold all things about Jesus. First Apology 61.

3:9-10 Chrysostom: Observe how Jesus never accuses Nicodemus of wickedness but only of simplicity and a lack of wisdom. But someone will say: What connection does this birth have with Jewish doctrines? What doesn’t it have in common with them? The first man that was made, the woman that was made out of his rib, the barren that bare, the miracles that were worked by means of water, for instance, Elisha’s bringing up the iron from the river, the passage of the Red Sea, the pool that the angel troubled and Naaman the Syrian’s purification in the Jordan—these were all types and figures of the spiritual birth and purification that would take place in the future. Many passages in the prophets too have a hidden reference to this birth, as for instance . . . “your youth is renewed like the eagle’s” [Ps 103:5] . . . and “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven” [Ps 32:1]. Isaac also was a type of this birth. . . . Referring to these passages, our Jesus says, “Are you a master in Israel, and you do not know these things?” Homilies on the Gospel of John 26.2.

3:14-17 Gregory of Nazianzus: Let us praise the Son first of all, venerating the blood that expiated our sins. He lost nothing of his divinity when he saved me, when like a good physician he stooped to my festering wounds. He was a mortal man, but he was also God. He was of the race of David but Adam’s creator. He who has no body clothed himself with flesh. He had a mother who, nonetheless, was a virgin. He who is without bounds bound himself with the cords of our humanity. He was victim and high priest—yet he was God. He offered up his blood and cleansed the whole world. He was lifted up on the cross, but it was sin that was nailed to it. He became as one among the dead, but he rose from the dead, raising to life also many who had died before him. On the one hand, there was the poverty of his humanity; on the other, the riches of his divinity. Do not let what is human in the Son permit you wrongfully to detract from what is divine. For the sake of the divine, hold in the greatest honor the humanity, which the immortal Son took on himself for love of you. Poem 2.

3:21 Augustine: [I]f God has discovered everyone’s works to be evil, how is it that any have done the truth and come to the light? . . . Now what [Jesus] said is that they “loved darkness rather than light” [Jn 3:19]. He lays the emphasis on that. Many have loved their sins. Many also have confessed them. . . . God accuses your sins, and if you accuse them too, you are joined to God. . . . You must hate your own work and love the work of God in you. And when your own deeds begin to displease you, that is when your good works begin as you begin to find fault with your evil works. The beginning of good works is the confession of evil works, and then you do the truth and come to the light. How do you do the truth? You do not soothe or flatter yourself or say, “I am righteous,” while in actuality you are unrighteous. . . . You come to the light so that your works may be shown to originate in God. And you have come to the light because this very sin in you, which displeases you, would not displease you if God did not shine on you and his truth show it to you. But the one who loves his sin, even after being admonished, hates the light admonishing him and flees from it so that his works that he loves may not be proved to be evil. . . . For little sins, if allowed to accumulate, lead to death. Little drops swell the river. Little grains of sand become a heap that presses and weighs down. The sea coming in little by little, unless it is pumped out, sinks the ship. Tractates on the Gospel of John 12.13–14.

3:29 Ambrose: This means [Christ] alone is the husband of the church, he is the expectation of the nations, and the prophets removed their sandals while offering to him a union of nuptial grace. He is the bridegroom; I am the friend of the bridegroom. I rejoice because he is coming, because I hear the nuptial chant, because now we do not hear the harsh penalties for sinners, the harsh torments of the law, but the forgiveness of offenses, the cry of joy, the sound of cheerfulness, the rejoicing of the nuptial feast. On the Patriarchs 4.22.