Born of Water?

The Eschatology of John Part 9: John 3 Part 1

After Jesus cleansed the temple, he caught the attention of the religious leaders. Could this be the one of whom John spoke? Could this be the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit? What do we need to do to see the kingdom of heaven?

Nicodemus and Jesus

You are a Teacher from God!

Nicodemus approached Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person” (John 3:2).

When Jesus was called “teacher” by people in John, we may read this in a casual way, but as John explained in John 1:38 “teacher” is a translation of “rabbi.” This, then, is a term of respect and a recognition of Jesus’s authority on spiritual matters (cf. John 8:4; John 11:28; John 13:13-14; John 20:16).

Not only is Jesus a teacher, though, he is a teacher who has come from God. Could this be the Prophet of Deuteronomy 18:18? The people in John 6:14 certainly thought so! Regardless, Jesus’s authority is recognized because of the signs he had performed up to this point.

This is another clue that John may not be sticking to a strict chronology. Up to this point in John, Jesus has only performed one sign (John 2:11; cf. John 4:54). It could be that the cleansing of the temple is the sign Nicodemus referred to, but it is more likely that John is either not reporting all the signs Jesus performed or John’s ordering is theological instead of chronological (John 20:30-31).

In response to Nicodemus’ statement, Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” (John 3:3).

This might seem like a strange response because Nicodemus didn’t ask a question. We would expect something like, “Yes, I am a teacher who has come from God, but I am even more than that: I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

But implicit within Nicodemus’s statement is a question, and that question is “is it now time for the restoration of the kingdom to Israel?”

Born from Above

Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” John 3:3

Most versions I have read say “born again” instead of “born of above,” but I have long expected that “born of above” is the correct interpretation and better conveys the intended meaning. There are two reasons for this.

First, in John 3:31, John uses the same word to say this about Jesus: “The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all” (John 3:31).

Second, the “from above” language fits better with a theme that runs throughout John, a theme I drew attention to in the article on chapter 1: “He said to them, ‘You are from below, I am from above; you are from this world, I am not from this world’” (John 8:23). This is an important theme because it tells us of the source, cause, and nature of the kingdom of heaven.

The source of the kingdom is heaven, the cause of the kingdom is the power of God, and the nature of the kingdom is heavenly and not according to the kingdoms of the world. Whenever we see the terms “earthly,” “heavenly,” “below,” “above,” “of this world,” or “not of this world,” we should take note of them because they all have the same major theme in mind.

Note: This theme may help us better understand the “caught up” imagery in passages like Mathew 24:29-31 or 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. When God raises someone from the dead, that is, when someone is born of above, they are transported from the world below to the world above. They are no longer earthly, from below, or of this world; instead, they are heavenly, from above, and not of this world.

There is more to this expression that we need to consider.

Remember, Nicodemus is a leader of the people, a Pharisee, and he is a teacher himself (John 3:10). It could be that he assumes his place in the kingdom is secure. After all, he is one of the more religiously faithful of the people. As John the Baptist said, though,

and do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Matthew 3:9

Entrance into the kingdom is not based upon race, religious affiliation, religious prestige, membership within an elite club, or mastery of the Law; instead, in order for one to even see the kingdom of heaven, one must be completely reborn. God doesn’t care about one’s resume or letters of recommendation.

Asking “can anything good come out of Nazareth” means nothing in the kingdom of heaven. All that matters is a willingness to “come and see.”

One must leave all of that behind and surrender themselves to the working of God.

As John 1 said,

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12–13

Born of Water, that is, the Spirit

I don’t make too much out of Nicodemus’s confusion here. I think Nicodemus, as a teacher, was asking an obvious question to get to the heart of what Jesus was actually saying. He’s saying, “So we both know someone can’t literally be born as an adult, so go ahead and tell me what you mean.”

Jesus clarifies, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit...” (John 3:5).

Notice that “entering the kingdom” and “seeing the kingdom” are the same thing. This reminds me of something Jesus said in Luke’s account of the gospel:

Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” Luke 17:20–21

One can only “see” the kingdom if they are “in” the kingdom.

This is radically different from the kingdoms of the world that are seen by everyone, especially their enemies. Instead, the kingdom of heaven is something to be experienced, and we experience it only through a radical rebirth.

This rebirth, according to Jesus, comes through water and Spirit.

When we read this, the first thing that comes to our mind is baptism, and I will say that this post-resurrection reading of John 3 does make sense from one perspective. The Eucharistic sayings of Jesus in John 6 do not make sense from a pre-resurrection perspective either, but they are often taken to be in reference to the bread and wine of communion.

The original audience of the gospel of John may have naturally read John 3 and John 6 as referring to baptism and communion respectively. Keeping in mind the theological arrangement of the gospel enforces this reading.

However, and this is a big however, would this, or even could this, have been the understanding of the original original audience (i.e. Nicodemus in John 3 and the audience in John 6)? It may be offered that this reading doesn’t matter because of the rampant misunderstanding of Jesus in the gospel of John (see my previous post for a list of seven misunderstandings), but I believe that there is good internal evidence within John to not read John 3 as a passage demanding water baptism as a prerequisite for kingdom living.

Note: there are some opinions that “water” refers to amniotic fluid, but I honestly do not see any exegetical reason to even consider this interpretation in this article. “Born from above” is equivalent to “born of water and Spirit” just as “see the kingdom” and “enter the kingdom” are parallel. This interpretation is often offered as a way to counter the baptism interpretation, but I think this is unneeded and robs the reader of a wonderful truth that can be found in this saying of Jesus.

I believe there are two major reasons for understanding “water” as being symbolic of the outpouring of the Spirit. The first reason has to do with the use of the word “water” throughout John’s gospel. The second is a seemingly obscure but relevant reference to Ezekiel that I believe to be buried within this passage.

Water, Water Everywhere

Beginning in John 1, Jesus is introduced as the one who will baptize with Spirit, not water.

I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ John 1:33

Then, in John 3, John reports that Jesus is baptizing people in the region of Judea (John 3:22, 26). But we learn in John 4:1-3 that Jesus is not actually baptizing anyone at all; instead, his disciples are doing all the baptizing.

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” (although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized), he left Judea and started back to Galilee. John 4:1–3

Why does Jesus not baptize anyone? And why does John ensure we know this? Because Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

Note: It is significant that before Jesus’s death and resurrection, Jesus’s disciples were already baptizing people in Jesus’s name—that is, under Jesus’s authority. We known from the synoptic gospels that this was a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. The popular distinction between the baptism of the great commission and the baptism the disciples administered prior to the Cross seems to hold no water (compare Acts 2:38 with Luke 3:3). What distinguished the baptism administered by John and the baptism administered by the apostles was the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:1-7). This is why those baptized with John’s baptism after the Cross were rebaptized and those baptized by John before the Cross were not.

Further into John 4, Jesus has a conversation with a Samaritan woman. Notice what he tells her:

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” John 4:13–14

What water is this? Is this the water of baptism? I think not, but how do we know that this water isn’t water?

We know it because of John 3:5. Since John told us that one enters the kingdom of heaven following being born of water and Spirit, we know to equate water and Spirit. Craig Keener points out that the rendering of John 3:5 could be “water, that is, the Spirit.”¹

Later in John, in chapter 7, there is further proof that water isn’t always water in the gospel of John.

On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ ” Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive, for as yet there was no Spirit because Jesus was not yet glorified. John 7:37–39

The water and the Spirit are one and the same. This will have astounding implications when we get to Revelation in our study. Of course, there is a lot of John’s writings to cover before we get there, so I’ll offer you one passage:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb Revelation 22:1

Note: if you’re thirsty for more, watch my ten video series on the Holy Sprit by clicking the button below.

Ezekiel 36

John didn’t make up the connection between water and Spirit. It is a theme that is already present in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Jeremiah 2:13, for instance, says that Judah had forsaken the Lord who is a fountain of living water; instead, they built cisterns for themselves which can never hold water. Zechariah 14:8 foresaw a time when living water would once again flow from Jerusalem.

But the passage we’ll be looking at in this study is from the latter part of Ezekiel 36. As I pointed out in the article on chapter 1, I believe there to be several connections between Ezekiel and the gospel of John, which other authors have pointed out as well.

Craig Keener, for instance, observed,

Ezekiel 36:24–27 used water symbolically for the cleansing of the Spirit (cf. especially the Dead Sea Scrolls), so here Jesus could mean “converted by the Spirit” (cf. 7:37–39)—a spiritual proselyte baptism. Whereas Jewish teachers generally spoke of converts to Judaism as “newborn” only in the sense that they were legally severed from old relationships, an actual rebirth by the Spirit would produce a new heart (Ezek 36:26).²

What does Ezekiel 36 actually say? Here’s an extended quotation.

I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. Ezekiel 36:24–28

Being “sprinkled with water” and being filled with the Spirit are the same idea within this passage and set the precedent for using water symbolically in the New Testament.

It is also significant that this chapter (Ezekiel 36) flows right into Ezekiel 37.

Pay close attention to Ezekiel 37:14:

I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act, says the LORD.” Ezekiel 37:14

The Spirit is the agent through which God would cause Israel to be reborn, resurrect her from the grave of sin, and restore her unto himself.

If this connection between Ezekiel 36 and John 3 is valid, then it makes more sense why Jesus would expect Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel, to be familiar with this need for rebirth (John 3:9-10).

That Which is Born of Flesh is Flesh

Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:5–8

If water is to be a separate element from Spirit, would it make sense for Jesus to say “that which is born of water is water?” I don’t think so, and I believe this further illustrates that water and Spirit are the same thing.

Let’s think about this idea that “what is born of flesh is flesh.”

Thinking back to John 1:13, we remember that humans are born “of the will of man.” Jesus’s birth was unique because while he took on flesh his conception was miraculous, although John doesn’t give us any information about the virgin birth. To identify with us in our delusion, Jesus was born of flesh so that he could be flesh. He entered into the world below to offer us a way out of it and into the realm of the Spirit.

In order to take his place as king in the kingdom of heaven, then, would Jesus have to be born from above?

We know from Paul that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven because what is perishable cannot inherit what is imperishable. Thus, a rebirth must take place. Paul says,

What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 1 Corinthians 15:50

While Jesus was from above, it was not until his crucifixion and resurrection that he returned to the glory he had before the world began (John 17:5). Paul, in Acts 13, speaking of Jesus’s resurrection said,

…he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you.’ Acts 13:33

In light of all this, Jesus was able to say, “And now I am no longer in the world…” (John 17:11). Jesus’s resurrection marked the time of his rebirth. One might say that Jesus was the uniquely begotten of the Father according to the flesh but the firstborn of many brethren according to the Spirit (compare John 3:16 and Romans 8:29). That is, nobody will ever be born in the way Jesus was born, but all who are in Christ will be raised as Jesus was raised.

When we are born from above, we cease being “of the flesh” and take on the nature of Christ who is “of the Sprit.”

Note: for an in depth look at this idea, see my commentary on Romans 8 which is available for free through my online store. Click the button below to access it.

A Final Note

This has been a lot longer than I anticipated, so I will have to do multiple parts on John 3. We’ll start back here next week.

If you want this series to continue, please like, comment, or message me to let me know of your continued interest. Also, ask questions, point out typos, and engage in kind discussion.

1. Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993. Print.

2. Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993. Print.