John 3:10

10. Knowest not these things? Jesus here affirms all that rationalists claim; namely, that, both as a reader of the Old Testament and a rabbi, Nicodemus ought to have known better than to put a bodily construction on the Lord’s words. He implies such an inconsistency to be surprising, and yet strange to say, evangelical commentators, (as Alford, Tholuck, and Lange,) in compliment to their objectors, explain away Nicodemus’s inconsistency, and show that there is nothing surprising about it! That a man may be, in a period of religious declension, as ignorant as Nicodemus on this deep subject, even under a brighter dispensation, and with this third chapter of John to instruct him, may be illustrated by the following passage from the Life of Summerfield, p. 350: “During one of his illnesses he was visited by two highly respectable clergymen, one of whom inquired, ‘How old are you?’ The suffering saint replied, ‘I was born at Preston, in England, in 1798, and born again at Dublin, in Ireland, in 1817.’ The visitor expressed at once his surprise and curiosity at what, to him, was so strange a declaration. Mr. Summerfield rejoined, in the language of Jesus to Nicodemus, ‘Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things?’ and then related to him the history of his own conversion.” The reverend gentleman, after departing, inquired of his clerical companion whether or not he knew anything about this strange doctrine; and finding that he too was the subject of the same happy change, sought and obtained the like blessing.