Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that
we do know, and testify that we have seen;
and ye receive not our witness. (John 3:11)
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Let's think about these words for a moment. "Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do
know." Some people say that "we" in this verse
refers to Jesus and His disciples, or Jesus and John
the Baptist, but if you look at this passage in context,
you can see that there was no one else there
at the time. Who was Jesus referring to when He
said, "we" here? He was including Himself in the
trinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God
the Holy Spirit. In verse 11, where Jesus says, "ye,"
He was referring to the Pharisees.
He had come to the society of the Pharisees and
taught them, but they did not accept His testimony.
In John chapter 8, Jesus said,
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. . . ye shall seek me, and shall die in your
sins: whither I go, ye cannot come. (John 8:21)
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People asked Jesus, "Who on earth are you?" and
Jesus answered,
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Even the same that I said unto you from
the beginning. (John 8:25)
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When exactly was "the beginning"? In the Old
Testament we read how God said to Abraham in
Ur of the Chaldeans, "Get thee out of thy country,
and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house,
unto a land that I will shew thee" (Genesis 12:1),
and Abraham obeyed and set out on his journey.
At that time, the whole of the nation of Israel was
already in Abraham's loins. All of the Israelites are
the seed of Abraham.
The God who spoke to Abraham continued to instruct
the Israelites through the Old Testament
scriptures. What is this God like? He is God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
So it was that when Jesus came into the world He
said that He was the One who had been speaking
to them from the beginning.
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We speak that we do know. (John 3:11)
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"We speak that we do know." God knows everything.
From His throne on high, He looks down
and knows everything that is going on down here
below, but that is not all that is meant here. Even
while the Old Testament was being prepared, and
the words that God spoke through the prophets
were being written down, God could already see
all the events of the future. When Jesus came into
the world, He knew everything that was going to
happen and this is what He meant when He said,
"We speak that we do know."
Jesus was alone as He spoke to Nicodemus here.
Nicodemus saw Jesus simply as one Man, but when
Jesus used the plural "we," in verse 11, He was
revealing that He was God.
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