In our verses today, the Lord Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus. The Lord gives Nicodemus a glimpse of the greatness of His Person. First of all, the Lord speaks of what He personally knew, and what He had personally seen. He was an eyewitness of the necessity of new birth in fallen mankind, as well as the need for a new life, since the natural life we all had received from Adam has become corrupted by sin. The Son of God Himself, from heaven, had observed the terrible effects of sin. In saying, “We,” He may refer to what both He and His Father had witnessed together. “Jehovah looketh from the heavens; He beholdeth all the sons of men” (Ps. 33:13–14). What He knew and had seen with the Father, He bore witness to.

Then He again presents the greatness of His Person. He announces to Nicodemus, as He would later give more details in chapter 6, that He had come down from heaven. Then He gives Nicodemus the astounding statement, “the Son of Man who is in heaven”! Surely this involves the mystery of His Person. Though Son of Man, born into this world, yet He is also the eternal Son of God. And so, He can speak of the Son of Man in heaven! He never ceased to be God, who is omnipresent—in all places all the time—when in wondrous grace He became the Man of God’s counsel. This is also why it was not a difficulty for Him to heal from a distance, as with the nobleman’s son in John 4:50–53. This is why when we meet together on the Lord’s Day morning, He can be present in numerous assemblies of His people gathered together in His name at the same time (Mt. 18:20).