John 3:5

Ver. 5. “ Jesus answered: Verily, verily, I say unto thee that except a man is born of water and of spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. ”

The words, of water and spirit, substituted for ἄνωθεν (from the beginning) indicate to Nicodemus the new factors, and consequently the totally different nature of this second birth. The first term: of water, agrees better with the idea of a new birth, than with that of a heavenly birth. Spiritualism, embarrassed by the material character of this first means, has often sought to unite it with the second. Thus Calvin paraphrases the expression of water and spirit by the term aquae spiritales; he finds support in the expression baptism of the Spirit and of fire (Luke 3:16). But the spiritual sense of the word fire could not be questioned in that phrase.

It was otherwise with the word water in the saying with which we are occupied, especially at the time when Jesus was speaking thus. The baptism of John was producing at that time an immense sensation in Israel, so that the thought of Nicodemus, on hearing the words, birth by water, must have turned immediately to that ceremony; as it was celebrated in the form of a total or partial immersion, it quite naturally represented a birth. Jesus, moreover, at the moment when He thus expressed Himself, was in a sense coming out from the water of baptism; it was when completing this rite that He had Himself received the Holy Spirit. How, in such circumstances, could this expression: Born of water, have possibly designated on His lips anything else than baptism? Thus, also, is explained the negative and almost menacing form: Except a man...Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and we know that the Pharisees had refused to submit to John's baptism (Luke 7:30); this saying contained, therefore, a very real admonition addressed to Nicodemus. Weiss, laying stress upon the absence of the article before the word water, rejects this special allusion to the rite of baptism. He sees in the water only an image of the purification of sin effected by the new spiritual birth. But the absence of the article simply makes prominent the quality of the means, and does not prevent us from thinking of the special practical use which was made of it by John at that time. Nicodemus must learn that the acceptance of the work of the forerunner was the first condition of entering into the new life.

This first term, therefore, contained a positive invitation to break with the line of conduct adopted by the Pharisaic party towards John the Baptist. But what is the relation between baptism and the new birth (John 3:3)? Lucke makes prominent in baptism the subjective element of repentance (μετάνοια). He thinks that Jesus meant to say: First of all, on the part of man, repentance (of which baptism is the emblem); afterwards, on the part of God, the Spirit. But the two defining words are parallel, depending on one and the same preposition; the one cannot represent something purely subjective and the other something purely objective. The water also contains something objective, divine; this divine element in baptism is expressed in the best way by Strauss. “If baptism is, on the part of man,” he says, “the declaration of the renunciation of sin, it is, on the part of God, the declaration of the pardon of sins.” The baptism of water, in so far as offered and administered on the part of God and in His name, contains the promise of pardon, of which it is the visible pledge, in favor of the sinner who accepts it.

In this sense, Peter says on the day of Pentecost, Acts 2:38: “Be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the pardon of sins; and [following upon this pardon] you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” And it must, indeed, be noticed that he says: “The pardon of sins,” and not of his sins. For it is the idea of baptism in itself, and not that of its individual efficacy, which Peter wishes to indicate. Baptism is, indeed, the crowning-point of the symbolic lustrations of the Old Testament; comp. Psalms 51:4; Psalms 51:9, “ Wash me from mine iniquity...Cleanse me from my sin with hyssop; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. ” Ezekiel 36:25, “ I will sprinkle upon you clean water, and you shall be clean. ” Zechariah 13:1, “ In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. ” Water is, in all these passages, the emblem of the expiatory blood, the only real means of pardon. Comp. 1 John 5:6, where the water, the blood and the Spirit are placed in connection with one another; the water, on the one hand, as the symbol of the blood which reconciles and, on the other, as the pledge of the Spirit which regenerates. To accept the baptism of water administered by John was, therefore, while bearing witness of one's repentance, to place oneself under the benefit of the promise of the Messianic pardon. The condemnation being thus taken away, the baptized person found himself restored before God to his normal position, that of a man who had not sinned; and consequently he found himself fitted to receive from the Messiah Himself the gift of the Spirit. The Spirit: Here is the active, efficient principle of the new birth, of the renewal of the will and of the dispositions of the heart, and thereby even of the whole work of sanctification. Jesus sums up, therefore, in these two words: Of water and spirit, the essential principles of the Christian salvation, pardon and sanctification, those two conditions of entrance into the divine kingdom.

In the following verses, no further mention of water is made, precisely because it has in the new birth only a negative value; it removes the obstacle, the condemnation. The creative force proceeds from the Spirit. The absence of the article with the word spirit, is explained in the same way as with the word water. The question is of the nature or quality of the factors co-operating in this supernatural birth. The expression, εἰσελθεῖν (to enter), is substituted here for the term ἰδεῖν (to see), of John 3:3. The figure of entering into, is in more direct correspondence with that of being born. It is by coming forth from (ἐκ) the two elements indicated, in which the soul is plunged, that it enters into (εἰς), the kingdom. The reading of the Sinaitic MS.: “the kingdom of heaven,” is found also, according to Hippolytus, among the Docetae of the second century; it is found in a recently discovered fragment of Irenaeus, in the Apostolical Constitutions, and in Origen (transl.). These authorities are undoubtedly not sufficient to authorize us to substitute it for the received reading, as Tischendorf does. But this variant must be extremely ancient. At all events, it overthrows the objection raised against the reality of the quotation of our passage in Justin, Apol. 1.61. (See Introd., p. 152, 153.)

In speaking thus to Nicodemus, Jesus did not think of making salvation depend, either in general or in each particular case, on the material act of baptism. The example of the thief on the cross proves that pardon could be granted without the baptism of water. But, when the offer of this sign has been made and the sinner has rejected it, the position is different; and this was the case with Nicodemus. By the two following sentences, Jesus demonstrates the necessity (John 3:6 a), and the possibility (John 3:6 b), of the new birth, by leaving aside the water, to keep closely to the Spirit only.