In the first chapter heavenly flowers fall on both the Buddha and his listeners, indicating the equality of both. That idea is extended in chapter 3 with the idea that the Buddha preaches only to bodhisattvas. The point is that to preach the Dharma is to be a bodhisattva — and to hear the Dharma is to be, to that degree, a bodhisattva. This is because really hearing is to take it into one’s life, thus to practice it, thus to be a bodhisattva. Thus, it can be said that the buddhas come into the world only to transform people into bodhisattvas.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, The Lotus Sutra as Radically World-affirming, Page 192