In John 3, Jesus brought up the necessity for a person to be "born of the Spirit". What does this mean? We will examine the passage in detail to find out what Jesus said on this important subject.

First we want to know what Jesus was not talking about. In another place, I wrote about baptism in the Spirit. That is not what Jesus was teaching in this chapter.

Another thing he did not mention even once in this section is baptism in water. That is an entirely different matter. I remember a man who believed this passage may refer to that subject. He told me one day that without that assumption, the terms used make little sense. When Jesus talked about being born of water, if what he meant is the birth of the flesh, he was speaking about a trivial subject. Why would Jesus even mention common birth in such an important place, when birth is something people already understand?

I replied to the man that he seemed to have missed the flow of the incident. Since a careful reading explains his misgivings, I encouraged him to read the passage slowly and note each part as it happened. I will do that here. When did Jesus introduce the subject, "born of Spirit"? Right at the beginning and what we will find is that it was the person to whom Jesus was speaking, Nicodemus, who introduced what is less than supernatural.

Nicodemus needed special handling. He was hard-headed. Perhaps a kinder way to say this is that he misunderstood Jesus from the very start. He seems to have been a typical dull-minded Pharisee, a ruling class Jew of that time, much steeped in traditions, but short on spiritual insight. To be born of God was an idea that went over his head.

The following verse shows clearly that from the beginning, Jesus told this Pharisee exactly what he needed, if he wanted to see the kingdom of God:

John 3:3 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

It appears that Jesus intended to launch right into the subject, "born of Spirit". What prevented that was the response of Nicodemus. He just did not catch on:

John 3:4 How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?

Where does a great teacher go from here? That response by Nicodemus throws a kink into the conversation. The discussion comes to a halt. It will have to be explained to this Jew that an earthly birth is not what Jesus wants to talk about. That word, "born", is only an analogy being used by Jesus to teach about something much more lofty.

Jesus must now explain the difference between the analogy of birth and the object of that analogy -- being "born again", "born of the Spirit".

Anyone who cannot understand the use of analogy in the human thought process will find understanding the New Testament difficult. Here is where a dictionary comes in handy. Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms gives this definition:

An analogy is "a comparison between things essentially or generically different, but strikingly alike in one or more pertinent aspects". Webster gives this familiar illustration: "God cannot be described except by analogy."

Every analogy has its object. Often that object is obscure, especially when it is found in the Bible. Some are less difficult. Let's start with something easy and observable: The "leg" of a table is not a leg at all. But, like a man's leg, a table "leg" can support something. The correspondence with the human leg is found in that function of support.

A familiar example to Bible students is the parable. It is one kind of analogy, designed to relate information about Christ's spiritual kingdom to human beings, who cannot experience that kingdom using their senses of sight and hearing.

Since human beings experience things through their physical senses alone, people must be taught about God's kingdom using a less direct method. They must come to understand how relationships that exist in the physical realm sometimes also exist in the spiritual realm.

What I mean by "relationships" will become clear as we go along. For now, understand that when you come across an analogy, a comparison is being made between two dissimilar things. Something that takes place in the one situation is being compared to what happens in another. In this chapter, the relationships that come about through physical birth are being compared to the relationships that exist between God and his "children".

Nicodemus was confused. To answer him, Jesus went back to where the man was, stumped on that word, "born". All the man could relate to was his earthly birth. Jesus would have to get the man out of that mindset. Jesus decided to start with that man's birth situation, and life situation, but then to explain that another kind of "birth" is what is necessary to see God's realm. Jesus used two expressions to restate the physical aspect of the birth analogy:

1. A person is "born from water", verse 5
2. A person is "born from the flesh", verse 6

Those two phrases mean exactly the same thing, the time when mother's water sack broke and a child was born into the world. In both verses, natural birth is contrasted with spiritual birth. Here are Jesus' words as they appear in the King James Version of the Bible. Notice how Jesus varied his expression here. When he first addressed Nicodemus, Jesus talked about seeing the kingdom of God. Here Jesus speaks of entering that kingdom:

John 3:5 Except a man be born of water and [of] the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
John 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
John 3:7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

It is good that Jesus changed the wording. It draws our minds toward his real meaning. He did not have in mind some casual observation, but the kind of sight one has when he participates in what he sees. Jesus meant that unless a person has a spiritual birth, he will not encounter God's spiritual Kingdom. We know that because of the way John uses the verb "see" elsewhere, e.g., John 8:51. The new birth is an absolute requirement if mankind is to have an opportunity to participate in God's kingdom.

The parallels here are so striking that no one should have a problem seeing that "born from water" and "born from the flesh" mean the same thing. When we let the Word of God interpret itself by allowing the context to explain the text, that is the only conclusion possible. It is interesting how Robertson's Word Pictures handled verse 5. Robertson mentioned that some people think water baptism could be meant here. If that is so, he asked, "Why is water mentioned only once in the three demands of Jesus?" In fact, water is mentioned only once in this entire passage of 21 verses and it refers to birth, not baptism.

Jesus made a clear statement about the fleshly birth and then about the spiritual birth. Over and above a man's birth into this world, he must be born again in order to enter into the kingdom of God. He must be born of Spirit, born of God. Nicodemus was stuck on the first birth, thinking it was enough. Jesus had to somehow break through that barrier to understanding.

By now the reader should be able to draw the conclusion that whatever is born of flesh is not spiritual. And what is born of Spirit is not his flesh. The two realms are exclusive. That is why a person who is simply born of flesh cannot even see, let alone enter, the kingdom of God. His kingdom is spiritual, not fleshly. To enter that kingdom, a man must have some kind of spiritual quality to him. God has to change that person, or add something to him.

There is a similar idea in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians:

1 Cor. 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;

That was a general concept Paul had adapted to a specific situation. Jesus and Paul are in agreement. Human birth isn't enough. There must be some kind of spiritual transformation before a person can enter God's kingdom. That is true now with respect to God's spiritual kingdom, and it will be true with respect to the physical kingdom Jesus may set up when he returns to this earth. Spiritual change is indicated and without that change, men have no chance. They must be born of Spirit or they will remain strangers to God's kingdom.

The first century Jew was unaware of that. He was trained to think that by his birth he was automatically in God's kingdom. His proof was that the Old Testament economy under Moses included a distinct physical, visible kingdom. If that kind of realm were all the Bible reader needs to know about, then it might be argued that birth by water into a Jewish family is the thing that is necessary for entrance into God's kingdom. Jesus would not have needed to confront Nicodemus over the issue of a new birth.

However, what Jesus knew is that there is more to God's kingdom than meets the eye. Much of what God reigns over is invisible to the natural human eye. Compare this thought from Paul:

1 Cor. 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.

That is what Jesus had to get across to this man who was stuck on his Jewish traditions. Men do not see God's true kingdom. They may see symbolic representations of it, but those representations are not the real thing, and certainly not the most important thing. Men always make a big deal out of what they can see and interact with in their flesh. The more they do that, the blinder they become to the invisible realities that are so important to God.

In John, we also find that favor with God is not automatic, or based on one's physical heritage. In fact, a person's family linage does not count with God at all. Man must have a different kind of birth, an experience with God through Jesus Christ, thought of as being born of Spirit. Only then will his position have meaning. His new relationship to God through the Holy Spirit will count.

Since John wrote this history of Jesus' words and actions, it pays to look at what John said elsewhere on the subject of the new birth. In the prologue to his Gospel, John mentioned three things that bring no relationship to God -- a man's blood relationship to Jews, the will of the flesh and the will of man:

John 1:11 [Jesus] came unto his own, and his own received him not.
John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name:
John 1:13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Since the things in that last verse are what ordinary Jews thought must be most important to their salvation, that verse is a perfect explanation for what is contained in John's third chapter. In both places, birth into the Jewish world is shown to be utterly worthless in God's eyes compared to spiritual birth. Without the new birth experience, being a Jew doesn't count in the least.

That is an attitude which is found everywhere in the New Testament. There is almost a contempt for what is fleshly. When Jesus arrived on the scene, all of man's institutions, no matter how good they seemed to be, were relegated to the position of comparative worthlessness, next to his teachings. Nearly everything that had gone before was considered to be man's measly effort to please God. That was especially true of Jewish practices and customs. The attitude toward these things is no where more apparent than in Jesus and Paul. Things like circumcision, which had become a Jewish symbol for correctness, were derided as useless. Hear Paul's words concerning that custom:

Phi 3:7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
Phi 3:8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things [but] loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them [but] dung, that I may win Christ,
Phi 3:9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, the [kind] which is [prescribed] by the [Mosaic] law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

In John 3, Nicodemus failed to understand that being part of the Jewish world was not essential to his being in fellowship with God. It is not the important thing. We can generalize from that fact to our own circumstances today. Being a child of God has nothing to do with the physical circumstances of your life. You do not become God's son because you have the right parents, or because you associate with the right group of people. Taking up someone's religious rituals is of no eternal benefit either. Those things may be of benefit to you in your social life, but they cannot bring you into a state of fellowship with God. The only thing that can do that is the personal experience with God that Jesus explained using the birth analogy.

Jesus got back to his main theme as quickly as possible. What does that say to teachers of the Bible today? He set the stage for us. What he emphasized, we must emphasize. He passed over the physical, water birth quickly and went right back to his original idea, spiritual birth. That is our cue. Here are the important verses in the passage:

John 3:3 Unless a man be born again, he is not able to see the kingdom of God.

Once Jesus got back to that subject, he forbade Nicodemus to trivialize the subject or to question Jesus' conclusions:

John 3:7 You are not allowed to wonder about what I said to you, 'Ye must be born again.'

Nicodemus cannot do what he did before. He will not be allowed to derail the conversation. Discussion on the physical aspect of the analogy is closed. From now on, Jesus will talk about what the analogy means:

John 3:8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

Notice how Jesus has made the subject personal. People who are born of Spirit will have things about them that resemble the wind, at least in the sense that men cannot see the wind. What is important in the kingdom of God is what is invisible, rather than what is visible. With that Paul agreed:

2 Cor. 4:18 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen [are] temporal; but the things which are not seen [are] eternal.

Paul was contrasting what is physical with what is spiritual. So did Jesus but his words were not good enough for Nicodemus. Even after all Jesus has said, this guy wants to argue about the new birth, "born of Spirit":

John 3:9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be?
John 3:10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?

That may be a bit of a slam. Nicodemus was a ruler in what was considered by Jews to be God's visible kingdom, but Nicodemus did not even know what was essential and what wasn't.

It may be that Nicodemus was beginning to sense that Jesus was speaking of something otherworldly. If so, this was the perfect place for Jesus to appeal to his own deity. He now said something that might resemble our English idiom, "I ought to know about this". How could Jesus know he is right when he is alluding to what is heavenly, and therefore by definition unseen and unseeable by the eyes of man? Jesus can testify to it because he came down from heaven:

John 3:13 And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, [even] the Son of man which is in heaven.

That ends the matter. If Jesus came from heaven, he is right and all other opinions are wrong. From this point on, correctness will be determined by what Jesus says.

Jesus then sent out a searing warning to Nicodemus, and to everyone else in this world, saying that they must not reject what he is or what he teaches. To do so is certain condemnation.

From the start, the passage contains one main contention, that to enter God's kingdom, men must be born of Spirit. There is no reference to any intervening human forms or rituals. The reference to physical birth could have been left out completely if Nicodemus could have become aware of spiritual relationships without a visual aid. Since he was unable to grasp what is spiritual without the analogy, Jesus had to mention water birth. He immediately explained that expression by saying that what is born of flesh is flesh. Water birth is simply physical birth, and that kind of birth is not emphasized in the rest of the New Testament as having any power to make a man a child of God. On the other hand, John makes it clear both here and elsewhere that to become the sons of God, people must be transformed through a new kind of birth, a spiritual birth. They must be born of God through the work of Holy Spirit in the human heart.

There is a caution here. Let the simple analogy of how birth creates relationships in the physical realm teach us about relationships in the spiritual realm, but resist the temptation to look for an outward resemblance between the physical and spiritual realms. People become children of their parents by birth into a family. They do not become children of God by a similar act of procreation, but by believing in Jesus Christ. Jesus made that clear, John recorded it and Paul affirmed it:

Gal. 3:26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

No where in the New Testament is it taught that people become children of God through some kind of bodily process. We are not presently God's children in the same way we are children of our natural parents, through physical reproduction. Rather, those who have been "born again" are God's "sons" in a spiritual sense, by the direct operation of his spirit.

The reader should by now have at least a vague idea of what happens when the Holy Spirit operates on a person who believes in Jesus Christ. It is an actual experience for that believer, although of a different kind than he has ever experienced before.