John 1; 2 are complete in themselves. What Christ was (not relatively, however, but what He was), then what He became (σὰρξ ἐγένετο); then His work and operation, Lamb of God, and Baptizer with the Holy Ghost, and then John's gathering when He is owned as Messiah, and His gathering on earth (specially the remnant in Israel), then the guileless Nazarite, known under the fig-tree, that is, in Israel owning Him, according to Psa. 2, and the Lord assuring Him he should thenceforth see Him, according to Psa. 8, that is, as Son of man, with the highest creatures waiting on Him. Then comes the marriage (of Israel), and the water of purification turned into the wine of joy, and judgment purging His Father's house, His death and resurrection being the warrant for such acts of authority.
But this before His public ministry, which, though in Israel, was not in Judea, brings in the whole new ground of what was coming in. Reception by outward just human conclusions is of no avail; subjectively we must be born again, a new divine life (ἄνωθεν), even for the kingdom, to see or enter in, and Messiah rejected and crucified, the Son of man bringing in redemption and eternal life, association with what is heavenly, meeting man's necessity as Son of man, and revealing God's love as Son of God given, and this for the world, the wind blowing where it listed, though even for Israel's future earthly part in the blessings promised in the kingdom, the teacher of Israel might have known, e.g., from Ezek. 36 that this new state must be. Eternal life is connected with the cross, not with being born again, though it was the action of sovereign grace, and went out where God pleased, as the wind. But men were perishing, and now received eternal life, salvation, through the cross. He did not come into the world to judge it now, but to save it; but then came the responsibility and consequent judgment which hung on the believing on Him or not. This was from light coming into the world, and men loving darkness rather than light.
On the other hand, in the end we have the fall blessing in Him by faith. He is above all coming from heaven, tells what He has seen and heard, and now receives this new kind of knowledge. So verse 11. But His words are God's, the Spirit not being given by measure. Such is His place on earth. Further, as Son the Father loves Him, and has put all into His hand. The believer in Him bas everlasting life; the unbeliever shall not see life, but God's wrath abides on him. He is set up as God's testimony, with God's words from heaven whence He came, and besides, as the loved Son, the Father has put all things in His hand. Eternal life and wrath depend on His being believed in, or the contrary. The responsibility is light come into the world, but the full character of what is involved in His presence. (Vers. 31, 36.) Here we are far away beyond Judaism; even if the bride is taken as Judaism, though it be a generic idea. Chapter 4 begins the history of sovereign grace in a rejected Savior, neither at that mountain, nor at Jerusalem.