And no man hath ascended into heaven
Though Enoch and Elias had, yet not by their own power, nor in
the sense our Lord designs; whose meaning is, that no man had, or
could go up to heaven, to bring from thence the knowledge of
divine and heavenly things; in which sense the phrase is used in
( Deuteronomy 30:12 ) (
Romans 10:6 )
, and which may be illustrated by ( John 1:18 ) ; wherefore
inasmuch as Nicodemus had acknowledged Christ to he a teacher
come from God, our Lord, would have him know, that he was the
only teacher of heavenly things, as being the only person that
had been in heaven, and in the bosom of the Father; and
therefore, if he, and the rest of the Jews, did not receive
instructions from him, they must for ever remain ignorant; for
there never had been, nor was, nor could be, any mere man that
could go up to heaven, and learn the mysteries of God, and of the
kingdom of heaven, and return and instruct men in them:
but he that came down from heaven;
meaning himself, who is the Lord from heaven, and came from
thence to do the will of God by preaching the Gospel, working
miracles, obeying the law, and suffering death in the room of his
people, and thereby obtaining eternal redemption for them. Not
that he brought down from heaven with him, either the whole of
his human nature, or a part of it; either an human soul, or an
human body; nor did he descend locally, by change of place, he
being God omnipresent, infinite and immense, but by assumption of
the human nature into union with his divine person:
[even] the son of man which is in heaven;
at the same time he was then on earth: not that he was in heaven
in his human nature, and as he was the son of man; but in his
divine nature, as he was the Son of God; see ( John 1:18 ) ; though this
is predicated of his person, as denominated from the human
nature, which was proper to him only in his divine nature; for
such is omnipresence, or to be in heaven and earth at the same
time: just as on the other hand God is said to purchase the
church with his blood, and the Lord of glory is said to be
crucified, ( Acts 20:28 ) ( 1
Corinthians 2:8 ) , where those things are spoken of Christ,
as denominated from his divine nature, which were proper only to
his human nature; and is what divines call a communication of
idioms or properties; and which will serve as a key to open all
such passages of Scripture: and now as a proof of our Lord's
having been in heaven, and of his being a teacher come from God,
and such an one as never was, or can be, he opens and explains a
type respecting himself, in the following verse.