THE NEW BIRTH: AN EXEGESIS OF JOHN 3:1-8

THE NEW BIRTH: AN EXEGESIS OF JOHN 3:1-8

By: Daniel McMillin

THE NEED FOR REBIRTH

What do we do with things that are broken or unclean? Sometimes, we throw it out for the sake of time and energy. Other times, we seek professional help to resolve the issue or may attempt to do things ourselves. Now, that’s all fine and dandy when we have a car with a broken headlight or a stain on a white T-shirt. But what do we do with ourselves? In many ways, we are more broken than a car that won’t run and are more unclean than a messy house because we have sin in our lives. So, what do we do? We can’t heal our iniquities ourselves and cannot seem to wash the stain of our sins off on our own. How can we be made whole?  In His famous encounter with Nicodemus, Jesus converses at night about His mission and God’s work to save. He then introduced the kingdom of God and the new birth. According to Jesus in John 3:3, we need to be “born again” to “see the kingdom of God.” Unfortunately, Nicodemus did not fully understand what Jesus was communicating, as we see from John 3:4. And so, in John 3:5, Jesus says, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” In sum, Jesus is telling us that we must be made new by being born again.

Nicodemus, as a Jewish scholar among the Pharisees, upheld his Jewish descent as the guarantee of his salvation and righteousness. His Abrahamic paternity acted as the assurance of his acceptance into the eschatological kingdom. By upholding the Torah and traditions, he would be saved. Nicodemus assumed that God would just let him in simply because of his heritage and occupation, as though God were so lucky to let him into heaven. But he is mistaken. Jesus challenges his ideas about the kingdom of God and insists that until he is “born again,” he cannot enter the kingdom. Notice how Nicodemus, along with the other members of the Sanhedrin (“we”), acknowledges the implications of Jesus’ “signs” in verse 2. “Nicodemus claims he can ‘see’ something of who Jesus is in the miracles; Jesus insists no-one can ‘see’ the saving reign of God at all, including the display of miraculous signs, unless born again. Even more fundamentally, if there is any possibility at all that Jesus is the promised Messiah, it would be more fitting for Nicodemus to ask himself if he is ready for him, rather than to ask if a proper claimant has arrived on the scene.”[1]

Nicodemus did not understand the new birth since he asked, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” From Nicodemus’ perspective, this is a very strange image where we would assume that Jesus is going to somehow take a fully grown adult and cause them to experience birth all over again. However, the problem is that Nicodemus misses the metaphor by being overly literal.[2] As we will see in a moment, Jesus is saying we must be born “again” or be reborn “from above.” The problem here is that Nicodemus’ misunderstanding is not due to a lack of knowledge, so we cannot say, “Bless his heart.” Nicodemus is without excuse; he should have known exactly what Jesus was talking about if he truly was a student and teacher of the Scriptures, but, as Jesus highlights, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” There was clearly a disconnect between the spiritual truths Jesus taught and Nicodemus’ understanding. Guy N. Woods explains, “Nicodemus knew of but one birth—the fleshly one—and he failed to perceive that Jesus by means of a figure was drawing an analogy between the birth which brings one into active physical life and the new birth which introduces one into spiritual life; and he therefore offered what to him was an insuperable objection to the Lord’s statement.”[3] In light of John 2:23-25, we now understand why Nicodemus, along with the many other Jewish elites in the first century, were opposed to and did not believe in the true Messiah. As Andreas Köstenberger writes, “The reason for the Jewish rejection of the Messiah is, at the root, the lack of spiritual regeneration.”[4]

THE NEW BIRTH DEFINED: BORN AGAIN AND FROM ABOVE

According to Jesus, there is one birth (regeneration) and two elements (water and spirit). The new birth means to be born ἄνωθεν (“again” or “from above”). It appears that John uses this term to refer to regeneration as being born again and being born from above. Some choose sides and prefer “again” over “above” and vice versa. However, I believe that John’s use of ἄνωθεν may have a dual meaning. That is, the new birth means being born again and being born from above.  

Experience: “Born again”

John introduced the new birth earlier in the prologue as adoption. “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13). Just as birth introduces us to an earthly family, when we are reborn, we are added to a spiritual family, the household of God. In John 3, Jesus’ description of the new birth is an experience where the one is regenerated by “water” and “Spirit.” In verses 3 and 5, these elements of the new birth are essential to seeing and entering “the kingdom of God.” To be born again is a spiritual transformation that is made possible by God’s activity, that is, through the Spirit. When we are born again, we transition from one state of existence into another. Similarly, as Alexander Campbell said, “The subject of this great change, before his new birth, existed in one state; but after it he exists in another.”[5] 

Origin: “Born from above”

Jesus’ point is that the new birth is from the Spirit, not the flesh. That is, this birth is of a heavenly origin rather than an earthly one. We once experienced a birth from the flesh, but now we experience a spiritual birth from heaven. We need not wonder what the new birth is since Jesus explains it in verse 6, “Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Additionally, the description of regeneration in verse 8 includes the “wind” and “spirit,” which are “from above.” Since the act of regeneration was initiated by God, all eyes are looking up to heaven at God since He took the first step in making me new. God does something new to us to make us new. The new birth evidently contains a heavenly or spiritual meaning since Nicodemus is rebuked for focusing on the things below and missing the things above in verse 12: “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”

NEW BIRTH AS A NEW CREATION

Hiram Kemp describes the new birth by saying, “To experience this rebirth inaugurated by the Spirit of God which culminates in the act of baptism. It is being responsive to God’s Spirit, and that act culminates as a person is immersed in water and rises to walk in the newness of life or new birth.”[6] The new birth transforms and reforms your entire life. Regeneration is a new beginning where we become a new creation through an internal transformation caused by God. When we are born again, we are not the creatures we once were, but we have transformed into new creatures. J.V. Fesko says:

Those who have been born again, according to Augustine, are “lovers of the kingdom of heaven, admirers of Christ who long for eternal life, worshipping God freely.”[8] As new creatures, we enjoy things that we did not before because our priorities and allegiance have changed. Once we have been born again, our lives are never the same.

NEW BIRTH IS REGENERATION

Animals experience an incredible amount of regeneration, like a starfish that can restore limbs, and a lizard can regrow its entire tail. We also experience physical regeneration when we cut our hands or break a bone; our skin and bones are restored. Likewise, the new birth is a removal of the old life and a renewal of the new life. Elsewhere, in Titus 3:5, Paul describes the new birth as salvation according to the “mercy” of God, not according to “works done by us in righteousness.” Rather, “by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” Just as we see in John 3, the new birth requires water and spirit. Here, I believe Paul is alluding to baptism, where we receive salvation and the gift of the Holy Spirit. This new birth is according to the grace of God and is enacted by God’s Spirit to regenerate us as sinners through a spiritual cleansing. In 1 Peter 1:3-5, we see that the new birth is according to the triune God’s “great mercy,” where He “has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” As a result, we receive an inheritance, salvation, and protection. Later, in verses 23-25, Peter explains that the new regeneration is enacted by or accomplished by God alone. He is the agent of the new birth who uses the Gospel to guide and empower us to be regenerated. “Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.”

In John 3, regeneration is a spiritual renewal made possibly by the Holy Spirit. We no longer serve ourselves and live according to the flesh. Rather, our lives are now spiritual because we receive the Spirit through our new birth, this is exactly what Ezekiel promises us (but more on that later). The new birth then leads to us seeing and entering the kingdom of God. According to George R. Beasley-Murray, baptism “is the occasion when the Spirit gives to faith the regeneration that qualifies for the Kingdom.”[9]

NEW BIRTH AS ENTRANCE INTO THE KINGDOM OF GOD

The new birth introduces us to a strange new world, unlike the old life. Our lives are not the same as before once we have been reborn. “Just as an infant, by the very occurrence of his birth, is fitted for a new life in a strange realm, so men must experience spiritual rebirth preparatory to their entrance into the kingdom of God.”[10] According to Jesus, regeneration is the only way to enter the “kingdom of God.” James M. Hamilton Jr. exclaims, “The new birth is brought about by God, and without it people are unable to see/enter the kingdom of God.”[11] Similarly, Merrill C. Tenney says, “Entrance into God’s kingdom is predicated upon spiritual regeneration, a regeneration that is ultimately not merely corporate in the sense of religious national renewal but personal and individual in nature.”[12] To see the kingdom of God, according to D.A. Caron, is “to participate in the kingdom at the end of the age, to experience eternal, resurrection life.”[13] Nicodemus, along with every other religious Jew, desired to experience the promised “kingdom of God.” And yet, the only thing that stood in his way was the new birth. Interestingly enough, this is the same thing today that causes people not to enter the kingdom, rebirth by water and spirit. Those who are not baptized and reborn will never enter the kingdom of God. According to Graham A. Cole, “baptism is an entry motif.”[14] To illustrate this point, when the term “baptism” is used in Acts 2, those who were immersed into Christ did so in water and received the Holy Spirit as a gift (Acts 2:38) and were “added” by the Lord to His kingdom (Acts 2:41, 47). The “kingdom of God” is a realm where Christ reigns as King. As John says in Revelation 11:15, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever.”

NEW BIRTH BY WATER AND SPIRIT

Jesus’ statements in John 3-5 appear to be an allusion to Ezekiel 36:25-27.[15] Ezekiel introduces the new birth in Ezekiel 11:19-20, “I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.” Then, in Ezekiel 36:25-27, we read, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” In other words, “God will revive his people inwardly by performing spiritual heart surgery on them, replacing a hard heart with a responsive one.”[16] A supporting text for Ezekiel’s discussion on the new birth is found in Jeremiah 31:33-34: “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

If this is an allusion to Ezekiel, then a Jewish scholar in the Sanhedrin, like Nicodemus, should have known this text and understood the Spirit’s promise of the new birth. And yet, he did not have a clue what Jesus was talking about. “Jesus recognized that the fundamental problem was not only what was within man (unbelief), but what was not within man (a new heart or spirit). In other words, the problem, says Jesus, is that there is a lack of regeneration by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when Jesus responds to Nicodemus, he pinpoints the central issue. Unless you are born again by the Spirit, you will never believe in who I say that I am, nor enter my Father’s kingdom.”[17] Nicodemus failed to understand the nature of the kingdom and the new birth, along with the life-giving elements of water and spirit.

As we read John 3 in light of Ezekiel 36, the element of “water” signifies cleansing. Water acts as a symbol for the Spirit’s activity as well as a metaphor for belief in Jesus (John 3:1-9, 4:7-15; 5:1-7; 9:1-17; 13:5-10; and 19:34). The element of “spirit” signifies God’s presence. The Spirit is active in the life of the reborn as they serve and worship. And so, when the new order is set into motion by Jesus, we will receive the new covenant, heart, and spirit.

NEW BIRTH IS FROM THE SPIRIT

The Holy Spirit is “the Giver of life.”[18] God’s Spirit imparts this new life in baptism. We are spiritually regenerated by the third person of the Trinity when we enter a new relationship with Him through immersion. One cannot experience regeneration without both water and spirit. Craig R. Koester writes, “The Spirit brings new birth, according to John’s Gospel. Water alone does not. The Gospel does not fully explain the relationship of water and Spirit, but gives both a role in engendering the faith that is new birth. If baptism with water brings new birth, it does so as a context in which God’s Spirit works.”[19] It is God’s Spirit who “recreates and renews life in connection with baptism, but more than that he also takes up residence in the one baptized.”[20] In the new birth, “the Spirit bears us in Christ, thereby bearing us anew in the Father’s love. The Spirit baptizes us in Christ’s humility, making us into his disciples. The Spirit does this because the Spirit is God.”[21]

NEW BIRTH AS BAPTISM

In his massive volume on baptism, the church historian Everett Ferguson traces the development of baptism throughout the first five centuries of the early church. To my surprise, this text became the most popular citation from the earliest theologians on baptism. According to Ferguson, “John 3:5 became the most cited baptismal text in the second century and continued to be important afterward. Despite the overwhelming historical and majority contemporary consensus, there have been insistent efforts to remove John 3:5 from the dossier of baptismal texts.”[22] As I have already alluded to before, I believe that John 3:5 is a reference to baptism. “Baptism as a new birth is one way of describing what God does at baptism. He forgives sins and gives the Holy Spirit. Another way of expressing these gifts is to say that God imparts new life at baptism.”[23] 

Some question the presence of baptism in John 3 and suggest that it does not fit the context. However, John has already alluded to baptism in the ministry of John who was “baptizing with water” (John 1:31). In addition, John notes that “the Spirit descended and remain[ed]” with Jesus when He was baptized (John 1:33). Then, after Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus, John immediately describes the disciples’ activities in the Judean countryside where they were “baptizing,” as though it was an application of Jesus’ teaching (John 3:22). Note especially verse 23 where “John [the baptizer] also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there.” In John’s Gospel, the water and spirit are associated with baptism, during which sinners are reborn and become the children of God.  Jack Cottrell rightly concludes, “Baptism is inseparable from the new birth and thus is a condition for salvation.”[24]

While John 3:5 has historically been identified with Christian baptism, many today object to this interpretation and alternatively argue for a figurative application, where it the water is symbolic of the Holy Spirit, or a physical application, where the water is natural (semen). Ferguson lists five arguments against water baptism:

While there may be some pushback against interpreting the new birth as a description of baptism, I believe the evidence in favor of it is more compelling. Ferguson offers five arguments for John 3:3, 5 being water baptism:

The saddest truth that I hear in the religious world when people, who believe they are saved share their stories, is that they do not know the moment they were saved. They speak with confidence that they are saved, but they are unsure about when they were saved. No wonder there is so much doubt surrounding salvation when there is no clarity on the most important moment of everyone’s lives. While this is a devastating reality in our present age, there still remains a truth that is beautiful and clear, that baptism is the “when” of our salvation. Those who accept this and have experienced it know exactly what I am talking about. Whenever you doubt your salvation, all you have to do is remember the day of your salvation when you were reborn at baptism.

NEW BIRTH THROUGH THE CROSS

How is the new birth made possible? According to Jesus, the “Son of Man” who alone has “descended from heaven” and “ascended into heaven” and was “lifted up” on the cross to give “eternal life” could make the new birth a reality (John 3:15). This is, of course, a reference to Jesus’ crucifixion. Salvation is God’s gift of “love” that motivates Him to send Jesus to suffer and die. God wants us to experience renewal so we may avoid condemnation. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17). Those who have received eternal life are those who have been born again. Christians are, by definition, born again. And born-again Christians are different people than they were before because they have been saved and made new. Are you the same person you were before you were reborn? Have you never changed? Are you the same person you were when you were reborn? Have you not changed since your rebirth? Everyone needs to be born again, and it is possible that someone today needs to be reborn. If you have not been baptized, you can leave reborn today.

END NOTES:

[1] D.A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, 187-188.

[2] “He over-literalized them, and thought Jesus was talking about repeated physical birth, when he was in fact referring to new spiritual birth.” (NET footnote)

[3] Guy N. Woods, John, 61.

[4] Andreas J. Köstenberger, A Theology of John’s Gospel and Letters: The Word, the Christ, the Son of God, 198.

[5] Campbell, The Christian System, 233.

[6] Hiram Kemp, “Eternal Life,” Equipped Conference 2024.

[7] J.V. Fesko, The Giver of Life, 25-26.

[8] Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of John 1-40, 11.223.

[9] George R. Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament, 231.

[10] Tenney, John: The Gospel of Belief, 86.

[11] Hamilton, God’s Indwelling Presence, 130.

[12] Köstenberger, A Theology of John’s Gospel and Letters, 198.

[13] Carson, The Gospel of John, 188.

[14] Cole, He Who Gives Life, 214.

[15] Linda Belleville, “‘Born of Water and Spirit’: John 3:5,” Trinity Journal 1:2 (1980): 125-141.

[16] David J. Reimer, “Ezekiel” in ESV Systematic Theology Study Bible, 980.

[17] Barrett, 40 Questions about Salvation, 145.

[18] The Nicene Creed.

[19] Craig R. Koester, The Word of Life: A Theology of John’s Gospel (Grand Rapids, MI; Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008), 141.

[20] Ferguson, The Church of Christ, 189. “In the context of Judaism of the time water would certainly have been understood literally and in no contradiction to activity by the Spirit of God. When John wrote, a reference to baptism would have seemed self-evident.” (Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 144)

[21] Holmes, The Holy Spirit, 51.

[22] Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries, 143. In the early church, baptism was “the rite of entrance into the church, normally administered by immersion to believers after a period of instruction.” (Ferguson, “Baptism,” in Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 160)

[23] Ferguson, The Church of Christ, 188.

[24] Jack Cottrell, Baptism: A Biblical Study, 41. Jack Cottrell lists five reasons why Nicodemus had good reasons to believe that baptism applied to the new birth: (1) The fame of the ministry of John the Baptist, highlighted by the novelty of his baptizing repentant Jews (rather than allowing them to baptize themselves, as in Essene and proselyte baptisms), cannot be overemphasized. All Israel knew that John baptized in water (see John 1:26-31). Nicodemus could not have helped but connect Jesus’ words with John’s work. (2) Jesus’ own baptism by John, which must have been widely reported in that day and which is recorded for our reading, involved a conjunction of water baptism and the descent of the Spirit. (3) John the Baptist’s teaching contained a strong emphasis on the distinction between water baptism and Spirit baptism. (4) Another aspect of John’s teaching was the relation between his water baptism and the coming kingdom (Matt. 3:2). Thus in John 3:5, when Jesus relates water and the kingdom, it again brings baptism to mind. (5) The last reason for understanding Jesus’ reference to water to mean baptism would apply only to those who know the teaching of the whole New Testament. (Baptism, 35-36)

[25] Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 143.

[26] Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 143-144. See also Carroll D. Osburn, “Some Exegetical Observation on John 3:5-8,” Restoration Quarterly 31 (1989): 129-138.