The following comments come from:
A.E. Harvey, The New English Bible Companion to the New Testament: The Gospels (Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, 1972). The biblical passages quoted come from the New English Bible (NEB).
Jesus answered, ‘Scripture says, “Man cannot lie on bread alone; he lives on every word that God utters.”’ (Matt 4:4)
All of Jesus’ replies are quotations from the Book of Deuteronomy: Deuteronomy 8.3, 6.16 (in answer to the devil’s quotation of Psalm 91.11-12) and 6.13. Furthermore, these verses in Deuteronomy are set in the context of the period of “testing” which the people of Israel underwent in the wilderness. It is clear that the biblical narrative has influenced the form, and perhaps the content, of the story recounted by Matthew and Luke: Jesus was re-enacting, in his own person, the formative experience of the desert generation. But this, of course, is not to say that Jesus did not experience something of this kind. The disciples could well have been aware that Jesus treasured these verses of Deuteronomy and had come to realize their significance during his period of retreat in the wilderness. The remaining details would not have been hard to fill in. (p. 24)
And I say this to you: You are Peter, the Rock; and on this rock I will build my church, and the forces of death shall never overpower it. (Matt 16:18)
This suggests a more concrete image: when men die, the gates of “hell” (understood in the ordinary Greek sense, not a place of torment, but as the shadowy dwelling-place of all the dead) close irrevocably behind them. But or Christians, death is not irrevocable. The church (in a sense) can pass back and forth through the gates. (p. 68 note a, emphasis added).
Jesus answered, ‘In truth, in very truth I tell you, unless a man has been born over again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ ‘But how is it possible’, said Nicodemus, ‘for a man to be born when he is old? Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘In truth I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born from water and spirit. Flesh can give birth only to flesh; it is spirit that gives birth to spirit. You ought not to be astonished, then, when I tell you that you must be born over again. The wind blows where it wills; you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from, or where it is going. So with everyone who is born from spirit.’ (John 3:3-8)
‘Unless a man has been born over again he cannot see the kingdom of God’. This saying, introduced by the solemn and distinctive formula which so often goes with a pronouncement of Jesus in this gospel (‘In truth, in very truth I tell you’) is the substance of the discourse; the rest, in a sense, is commentary. The idea that, by committing himself to a new religion or philosophy, a man might be “reborn”, was not unheard of in antiquity. But what precisely did this mean in Christian terms? In the subsequent experience of Christians, the obvious moment when this “rebirth” took place was at baptism (in Titus 3.5 baptism is actually called “rebirth”). The elements of Christian baptism were the water which symbolized the washing away of sin, and a new spirit which was received; of these, it was the spirit (to this writer at least) gave meaning to the notion of rebirth. It has already been said in the prologue (1.13) that those who accept Jesus as Christ are born, not ‘by fleshly desire’, but ‘of God himself’. There the same point is made by means of the psychology of flesh and spirit (see also Romans 8.5-8). “Flesh” is the whole of the human person as it were in the crude state, untouched by God: physical birth in itself can bring forth nothing more. “Spirit” is that aspect of the personality which is capable of responding to God, and which is brought to lie when the Spirit of God touches it. The argument is an example of the old philosophical principle that “like begets like”. If Christian baptism was “in spirit”, it evidently caused a rebirth in the spirit of man: ‘it is spirit that gives birth to spirit’. Jesus may originally have meant something much less technical; but John, in his commentary, makes sense of the saying about being born over again in terms of Christian baptism. (pp. 314-15)
God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24)
For many Jews, Jerusalem itself was doubtless mainly a symbol: it was not the actual city with its temple which was important, but the deeper realities it stood for. Nevertheless, they felt the need for some focus for their worship. Their conception of God was transcendent, yet it was still localized. Worship meant turning in the direction of Jerusalem, orientating oneself towards that place on earth which God had made particularly his own. To this, Jesus now opposed the conception of worship in spirit and truth. The terms have a rich load of philosophical and religious meaning. There was a sense, for instance, in which any Stoic might have agreed that God is spirit (it was a possible way of defining God’s substance). In the Old Testament, on the other hand, the words would have meant that there is a spirit which is God’s Spirit, and that God therefore has that freedom and spontaneity which goes with wind or spirit. Here, these terms sere to hint at the possibilities of a worship which is totally detached from the limitations of any particular place. (pp. 321-22)
Jesus said, ‘Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers, and tell them that I am now ascending to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.’ (John 20:17)
For all the majesty implied in Jesus’ ascension, his followers remained in close solidarity with him. In their relationship with God, they were privileged to be his equals. (p. 389)
Paypal
