No Man Hath Ascended by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 23, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 24.

“No Man Hath Ascended”

By Editor

Please explain through the columns of your paper John 3:13. I have heard it quoted as proof that Enoch and Elijah were not taken to heaven.

This verse should be understood in connection with those which have preceded. The word “and” in this case is used to show the addition of new thoughts without defining the exact relation in which they stand to what has gone before. After explaining to Nicodemus the new birth, the Saviour leads him to a more correct understanding concerning Himself. No man, with his limited intelligence, has known the mysteries of the kingdom of God. No man has ascended to heaven to bring down to man the knowledge of the mysteries of God, save the Son of God Himself, who by His nature as God had no need to ascend up into heaven in order to learn the things of heaven; for He knew, with a knowledge which mere man never can possess, what was done in heaven.

The connection of our Saviour's argument is something like this: Even earthly things, comparatively speaking, such as the new birth, you could not discover by reason — you can only understand it when revealed to you, and then only by the most familiar explanation. What will you do, then, in the case of higher mysteries than this, in the understanding of what may be called heavenly things? I am the only one who can know; for no man has ascended into heaven and returned again with the explanation of these things. I, as God, fill heaven as well as earth; I therefore know all things, even the things of heaven. Nevertheless you receive not My testimony, you believe not My words. Compare Deut. 30:12; Prov. 30:4; Eph. 4:9, 10; Rom. 11:34.