ascended, who was lifted up. Thereby they receive eternal life. Those who according to Merkabah Judaism ascended to the realms above expected to see there things about which they could not speak after their return to earth. By their ascent they had gained esoteric information which they could not share. According to John makes the point that those who see the Son of man lifted up receive eternal life, rather than new knowledge. As a result they are to become witnesses of life. They must share their life with others and thus promote life. This gospel offers in this way an argument against those who claim to be in possession of visions or revelations that give them esoteric, secret knowledge.
This is the Gospel of the gospel According to John: to believe in the One who was lifted up to show the love of the Father, from whom he came and to whom he is going, is to be drawn to the one who ascended. To believe in the one who was “lifted up,” the only one who “ascended into heaven” is to “be born from above.” What Jesus provides believers is not knowledge, but life, even while living in the world below.
In the dialogue with Nicodemus, Jesus informs him that it is necessary for him to “be born anothen.” Once again we encounter here the irony of this evangelist. Anothen is a Greek word with double meanings. The context alone can tell us how to understand it.
As is to be expected in a dialogue in this gospel, what Jesus says is misunderstood by his interlocutor – it does not matter with whom he is speaking. Nicodemus imagines that he must be born again “from his mother’s womb,” what nonsense! Jesus is telling him that he must be born from above of “the Spirit” (3:5). This is necessary because those who are from below, those who are of the flesh, live in a world where death is the ultimate certainty. Birth from above is the birth of faith, and the Son of Man came to provide the definitive object on which faith must rest. What women and men must see is not what they are anxious to see in journeys to the higher spheres. Seeing the Son lifted up brings about a birth “from above.” The higher spheres are not opened to those who climb on Elijah’s chariot, as Merkabah mysticism promised. Eternal life, the life of the higher spheres is accessible now only because the ascent of the Son on the cross.
The Prologue has already said it in a nutshell: “To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (1:12–13). Here we are told different ways to be born below and one way to be born “from above” (anothen). Since we live twenty centuries later it is difficult to distinguish with any certainty the three ways one can be born from below. I can offer only tentative suggestions.
To be born of blood may refer to birth from a tribal marriage. To be born of the will of the flesh may refer to birth from a passionate sexual encounter. To be born of the will of a husband (andros) may refer to birth from the need of the husband to have descendants, particularly among those with a tribal mentality. These are the ways in which people are born in the world below. Those who believe in his name, those who see the Son lifted up, are empowered, authorized children of God, because, as a matter of fact, they are “born of God.” Such are no longer from below. They are born of the Spirit, born from above. In the same way in which a flag lifted up on its pole draws together a people and constitutes it a nation, the Son of Man lifted up on a cross draws toward himself all who believe and constitutes them “born of God.”
Those who are born from above, even while in the realm below, are not confined to the realm below. Their faith makes them live in eternal life. Only those whose origin is from above can participate in the glory of the one who was lifted up and glorified. The cross that lifts up the Son offers the object on which faith must rest. The object of faith is not doctrinal knowledge. It is seeing the Son on the cross ascending to the Father who sent him. The Son who is lifted up is the way, the only means of access to the heavenly regions. As a means of transportation that makes possible the ascent to the Father who causes us to be born from above and gives us eternal life, Elijah’s chariot is no competition to the Son of Man who was glorified on a cross.
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