Daily Bible Nugget #775, John 3:13

Contrary to many modern scholars who leave the last clause out of John 3:13, I firmly believe this clause belongs in the text. I have given the evidence in my book, The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and also my digital Bible study resource, The Ultimate Cross Reference Treasury.

Joh 3:13  And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. (KJV)

Joh 3:13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. (ESV)

Notice the ESV does not contain the words “even the Son of man which is in heaven.” (Emphasis added)

Here is the portion of the pertinent note which supports the retention of the words “which  is in heaven”:

which is in heaven. ?FS96C5, +Mat 2:13, Some authorities omit this phrase, but its retention may be argued for on the ground that these words may have been dropped out of the text at an early date as superfluous or objectionable (Thomas Whitlaw, commentary on John, p. 69).

That this text is weighty and difficult, is on this very account the more certainly genuine (Scrivener, Introduction, vol. 2, p. 360). While missing from some MSS., it is attested to by the early versions. The text figured early in controversy, including the Apolinarian, and in some instances even the orthodox were reluctant to cite it. The modern counterparts of the ancient Socinian and Arian heresies seem to have a particular attraction to this text.

Burgon has shown that it was cited many times by the church fathers. The manuscripts which omit this clause are convicted “of the deliberate suppression of one of the most mysterious, yet one of the most glorious, glimpses afforded to us in Scripture of the nature of the Savior, on the side of His Proper Divinity” (Scrivener, p. 361). Burgon, discussing this passage, notes it teaches that “Christ ’came down from heaven’ when he became incarnate: and having become incarnate, is said to have ’ascended up to Heaven,’ and ‘to be in Heaven,’ because ’the Son of Man,’ who was not in heaven before, by virtue of the hypostatical union was thenceforward evermore ’in heaven’” (Causes of Corruption in the Traditional Text, p. 223).

“Hypostatical union” is a term representing Christ as possessing two natures in one Person, human and divine. George Hutcheson explains, “The Son of God hath assumed the human nature into so strict a personal union, that what is proper to either nature is ascribed unto the person under whatsoever name; for, saith he, ’the Son of man which is in heaven,’ which is not to be understood, as if either his human nature came from heaven (for he is speaking of what still is there) or that his human nature were in every place, but that the same person who is the Son of man according to our nature is in heaven according to his divine nature, and yet but one person still” (Commentary, p. 46). God the Son possesses the incommunicable divine attribute of immensity (Psa 139:7 note. *Jer 23:24 note. +*Mat 28:19 note).