“Who is the ‘we’ that Jesus referred to in John 3:11?”
A very good question, indeed…and the answer is, that as our Lord Jesus was speaking, he used the word “we” to refer to himself, and the Spirit of his Father that was in him (also known as the Holy Ghost).
“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.”
God anointed his Son Jesus with his Holy Spirit when he was baptized, and so God was in Christ; and so, being that Prophet (Deuteronomy 18:18), he spoke the words that God his Father commanded him to speak.
“I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.”
As the Lord Jesus said in another place:
“For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.”
John 12:49
The Bible says that God was in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:19), and that God sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world to make man in the image of God by his death, burial, and resurrection (Genesis 1:26).
God made man in his image (Genesis 1:27), and then that man sinned and brought death upon himself and his seed (Romans 5:12), and thereafter began to beget children in his own image and likeness (Genesis 5:3).
And so, God sent his Son Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15); and from thenceforth it came to pass that all those who were born after the image of Adam, when they would obey the gospel of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38), would be made in the image of God by his gospel.
Christians have been made in the image of God.
Those who are not Christians are in the image of Adam.
And so, as it is written, God was in Christ; and therefore when Jesus said “we”, he was referring to himself, and God who was in him.
Amen.