John 3:27

John, on this question being raised, does not rebuke his disciples, for fear they might separate, and turn to some other school, but replies gently, John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven; as if he said, No wonder that Christ does such excellent works, and that all men come to Him; when He Who does it all is God. Human efforts are easily seen through, are feeble, and short-lived. These are not such: they are not therefore of human, but of divine originating. He seems however to speak somewhat humbly of Christ, which will not surprise us, when we consider that it was not fitting to tell the whole truth, to minds prepossessed with such a passion as envy. He only tries for the present to alarm them, by showing that they are attempting impossible things, and fighting against God.

Or perhaps John is speaking here of himself: I am a mere man, and have received all from heaven, and therefore think not that, because it has been given me to be somewhat, I am so foolish as to spear: against the truth.

And see; the very argument by which they thought to have overthrown Christ, To whom you bare witness, he turns against them; You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ; as if he said, If you think my witness true, you must acknowledge Him more worthy of honor shall myself. He adds, But that I was sent before Him; that is to say, I am a servant, and perform the commission of the Father which sent me; my witness is not from favor or partiality; I say that which was given me to say.

Who are you then, since you are not the Christ, and who is He to Whom you bear witness? John replies, He is the Bridegroom; I am the friend of the Bridegroom, sent to prepare the Bride for His approach: He that has the Bride, is the Bridegroom. By the Bride he means the Church, gathered from amongst all nations; a Virgin in purity of heart, in perfection of love, in the bond of peace, in chastity of mind and body; in the unity of the Catholic faith; for in vain is she a virgin in body, who continues not a virgin in mind. This Bride has Christ joined to Himself in marriage, and redeemed with the price of His own Blood.

Christ is the spouse of every soul; the wedlock, wherein they are joined, is baptism; the place of that wedlock is the Church; the pledge of it, remission of sins, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost; the consummation, eternal life; which those who are worthy shall receive. Christ alone is the Bridegroom: all other teachers are but the friends of the Bridegroom, as was the forerunner. The Lord is the giver of good; the rest are the despisers of His gifts.

His Bride therefore our Lord committed to His friend, i.e. the order of preachers, who should be jealous of her, not for themselves, but for Christ; The friend of the Bridegroom which stands and hears Him, rejoices greatly because of the Bridegroom’s voice.

As if He said, She is not My spouse. But do you therefore not rejoice in the marriage? Yes, I rejoice, he said, because I am the friend of the Bridegroom.

But how does he who said above, Whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose, call himself a friend? As an expression not of equality, but of excess of joy: (for the friend of the Bridegroom is always more rejoiced than the servant,) and also, as a condescension to the weakness of his disciples, who thought that he was pained at Christ’s ascendancy. For he hereby assures them, that so far from being pained, he was right glad that the Bride recognized her Spouse.

But wherefore does he stand? Because he fails not, by reason of his humility. A sure ground this to stand upon, Whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose. Again; He stands, and hears Him. So then if he fails, he hears Him not. Therefore the friend of the Bridegroom ought to stand and hear, i.e. to abide in the grace which he has received, and to hear the voice in which he rejoices. I rejoice not, he said, because of my own voice, but because of the Bridegroom’s voice. I rejoice; I in hearing, He in speaking; I am the ear, He the Word. For he who guards the bride or wife of his friend, takes care that she love none else; if he wish to be loved himself in the stead of his friend, and to enjoy her who was entrusted to him, how detestable does he appear to the whole world? Yet many are the adulterers I see, who would fain possess themselves of the spouse who was bought at so great a price, and who aim by their words at being loved themselves instead of the Bridegroom.

Or thus; The expression, which stands, is not without meaning, but indicates that his part is now over, and that for the future he must stand and listen. This is a transition from the parable to the real subject. For having introduced the figure of a bride and bridegroom, he shows how the marriage is consummated; viz. by word and doctrine. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. And since the things he had hoped for had come to pass, he adds, This my Joy therefore is fulfilled; i.e. The work which I had to do is finished, and nothing more is left, that I can do.

For which cause I rejoice now, that all men follow Him. For had the bride, i.e. the people, not come forth to meet the Bridegroom, then I, as the friend of the Bridegroom, should have grieved.

Or thus; This my joy is fulfilled, i.e. my joy at hearing the Bridegroom’s voice. I have my gift; I claim no more, lest I lose that which I have received. He who would rejoice in himself, has sorrow; but he who would rejoice in the Lord, shall ever rejoice, because God is everlasting.

He rejoices at hearing the Bridegroom’s voice, who knows that he should not rejoice in his own wisdom, but in the wisdom which God gives him. Whoever in his good works seeks not his own glory, or praise, or earthly gain, but has his affections set on heavenly things; this man is the friend of the Bridegroom.

He next dismisses the motions of envy, not only as regards the present, but also the future, saying, He must increase, but I must decrease: as if he said, My office has ceased, and is ended; but His advances.

What means this, He must increase? God neither increases, nor decreases. And John and Jesus, according to the flesh, were of the same age: for the six months’ difference between them is of no consequence. This is a great mystery. Before our Lord came, men gloried in themselves; He came in no man’s nature, that the glory of man might be diminished, and the glory of God exalted. For He came to remit sins upon man’s confession: a man’s confession, a man’s humility, is God’s pity, God’s exaltation. This truth Christ and John proved, even by their modes of suffering: John was beheaded, Christ was lifted up on the cross. Then Christ was born, when the days begin to lengthen; John, when they begin to shorten. Let God’s glory then increase in us, and our own decrease, that ours also may increase in God. But it is because you understand God more and more, that He seems to increase in you: for in His own nature He increases not, but is ever perfect: even as to a man cured of blindness, who begins to see a little, and daily sees more, the light seems to increase, whereas it is in reality always at the fall, whether he sees it or not. In like manner the inner man makes advancement in God, and it seems as if God were increasing in Him; but it is He Himself that decreases, falling from the height of His own glory, and rising in the glory of God.

Or thus; As, on the sun rising, the light of the other heavenly bodies seems to be extinguished, though in reality it is only obscured by the greater light: thus the forerunner is said to decrease; as if he were a star hidden by the sun. Christ increases in proportion as he gradually discloses Himself by miracles; not in the sense of increase, or advancement in virtue, (the opinion of Nestorius,) but only as regards the manifestation of His divinity.

In the Gospel according to John: “No one can receive anything, except it were given him from heaven.” Also in the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: “For what hast thou that thou hast not received? But if thou hast received it, why boastest thou, as if thou hadst not received it?” Also in the first of Kings: “Boast not, neither speak lofty things, and let not great speeches proceed out of your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge.” Also in the same place: “The bow of the mighty men has been made weak, and the weak are girt about with strength.” Of this same thing in the Maccabees: “It is just to be subjected to God, and that a mortal should not think things equal to God.” Also in the same place: “And fear not the words of a man that is a sinner, because his glory shall be filth and worms. …

Julianus of Telepte said: It is written, “No man can receive anything unless it have been given him from heaven.” If heresy is from heaven, it can also give baptism.

Chapter 9. 10. Now we must see what is said of the baptism of John. For "we read in the Acts of the Apostles, that those who had already been baptized with the baptism of John were yet baptized by Paul," simply because the baptism of John was not the baptism of Christ, but a baptism allowed by Christ to John, so as to be called especially John’s baptism; as the same John says, "A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven." And that he might not possibly seem to receive this from God the Father in such wise as not to receive it from the Son, speaking presently of Christ Himself, he says, "Of His fullness have all we received." But by the grace of a certain dispensation John received this, which was to last not for long, but only long enough to prepare for the Lord the way in which he must needs be the forerunner. …

Chapter 21. 40. Julianus of Telepte said: "It is written, ‘A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven;’ if heresy is from heaven, it can give baptism."

Chapter 31. 70. Petilianus said: "For there is no power but of God," none in any man of power; as the Lord Jesus Christ answered Pontius Pilate, ‘Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above.’ And again, in the words of John, ‘A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.’ Tell us, therefore, traditor , when you received the power of imitating the mysteries."

When, however, the Pelagians say that the only grace which is not given according to our merits is that whereby his sins are forgiven to man, but that that which is given in the end, that is, eternal life, is rendered to our preceding merits: they must not be allowed to go without an answer. If, indeed, they so understand our merits as to acknowledge them, too, to be the gifts of God, then their opinion would not deserve reprobation. But inasmuch as they so preach human merits as to declare that a man has them of his own self, then most rightly the apostle replies: “Who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou, that thou didst not receive? Now, if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?” To a man who holds such views, it is perfect truth to say: It is His own gifts that God crowns, not your merits, if, at least, your merits are of your o …

2. In this prayer, therefore, Jesus may seem to have omitted praying for some of His own, unless we carefully examine His words in the prayer itself. For if He prayed first for those, as we have already shown, who were then with Him, and afterwards for those also who should believe on Him through their word, it may be said that He prayed not for those who were neither with Him when He so spake, nor afterwards believed through their word, but had done so at some previous time either of themselves, or in some other supposable manner. …

Ver. 27 . “A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from above.”

For instance, when commencing he spake thus: “A man cannot receive anything of himself” ( c. iii. 27 ): then after adding a high expression, and saying, “He that cometh from heaven is above all,” he again brings down his discourse to what is lowly, and besides many other things saith this, that “God giveth not the Spirit by measure.” Then he proceeds to say, “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand.” And after that, knowing that great is the force of punishment, and that the many are not so much led by the promise of good things as by the threat of the terrible, he concludes his discourse with these words; “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” Here again he refers the account of punishment to the Father, for he saith not “the wrath of the Son,” (yet He is …

Here the Evangelist saith, even wondering, that one so great, so very great, who came from God and went to Him, who ruleth over all, did this thing, and disdained not even so to undertake such an action. And by the “giving over,” methinks St. John means the salvation of the faithful. For when He saith, “All things are given over to Me of My Father” ( Matt. xi. 27 ), He speaketh of this kind of giving over; as also in another place He saith, “Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me” ( c. xvii. 6 ); and again, “No man can come unto Me except the Father draw him” ( c. vi. 44 ); and, “Except it be given him from heaven.” ( c. iii. 27 .) The Evangelist then either means this, or that Christ would be nothing lessened by this action, since He came from God, and went to God, and possessed all things. …