23 And He said to them, “You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
23 And He said to them,
Jesus’ response to the Jews’ mocking Him was to elaborate on His statement that they could not go where He was going.
“You are from beneath;
The orientation of the Jews was human viewpoint. They had asked about Jesus’ origin, but Jesus turned to their origins. They were from an earthbound origin. These were people who operated in the sphere of time and space, whereas Jesus was from eternity. They were steeped in an alien world system, but Jesus functioned under divine viewpoint.
I am from above.
Jesus stepped foot on earth from His eternal existence in heaven with the Father. He was from an entirely different order, from the directive of almighty God, from divine viewpoint.
You are of this world;
The Jews believed in a worldview that was not God’s; it was their own assumption about what was true. There is a clear line of demarcation between Jesus and His opponents.
I am not of this world.
Christ’s origin was in eternity past with the Father. Jesus’ idea is that never the twain shall meet—divine viewpoint and human viewpoint are very different worldviews. There is no fellowship with Christ without meeting a certain condition.
PRINCIPLE:
People are inherently opposed to Christ.
APPLICATION:
There is an infinite gulf separating the Christian from the non-Christian. They belong to two entirely different spheres. People cannot come to Christ from a human worldview. Operation bootstraps cannot save anyone. This is the reason God must take the initiative to save a soul (Jn 6:44).
Those who live in this world’s system of values with strictly human viewpoint cannot go to heaven. Most people confine themselves to the present worldview. They do not consider that God intervened in creation and spoke revelation in the Bible.
The difference between believer and unbeliever is one of perspective (presupposition). Non-Christians operate on a worldview without revelation. All they know is the horizontal, not the vertical revelation from God.
Those from the lower realm cannot make a journey to the higher realm of the presence of God. They cannot because they do not understand the divine realm. They have no means of doing so. They can function only within the finite realm. No one can ascend to be with Christ in eternity unless they do it through Him (Jn 14:6).
