John
3 records the conversation between Christ and Nicodemus.
This conversation is one of the most important passages
in the entire Bible. We are informed how Nicodemus
came to Jesus by night to ask direction in religious
matters.
Who was Nicodemus? What type of a man was he?
He was among the best of his day. He was a sincere
religious man. He was a Pharisee. He belonged to
that strict Jewish sect that adhered very diligently
to the law of God. Furthermore, he is called a “ruler
of the Jews.” This denotes that Nicodemus
held a high ecclesiastical position. He had become
so knowledgeable in God's law and lived such a
strict moral life that he was appointed a member
of the select group of Jews called the Sanhedrin.
The Sanhedrin consisted of seventy-one members,
all men of the highest calibre. It served as a
religious Supreme Court. Its members were obliged
to conform to the highest religious codes. They
lived a clean moral life. Therefore it is not an
exaggeration to assert that Nicodemus was one of
the best of his day.
This man came to Jesus under the cover of darkness
for he feared that people might see him going to
the contemptible Jesus of Nazareth. Since Nicodemus
himself was assumed to be a master of Jewish law,
he was reluctant to be seen going to Jesus for
direction in religious matters. That is why Jesus
was visited by this highly esteemed religious ruler
of the Jews during the night.
What purpose did Jesus have in saying “you
must be born again” to Nicodemus and thereby
to all men? Jesus meant to say: “Nicodemus,
you have religion, honor and power; but more is
necessary. You must be born again.” The Lord
Jesus recognized the real need of Nicodemus. He
saw that Nicodemus had a heart concealed under
his long robe that was hungry for more than he
presently possessed. Christ sensed that Nicodemus
was not satisfied either with his power and position
or his piety. Christ knew that Nicodemus could
not find rest or peace with God in the rites, strictness
and ceremonies of the Pharisees. Consequently,
he had been driven to Christ by night.
Therefore Jesus informed him of the new birth.
It was as if He said, Nicodemus, your trouble is
within. Your trouble is not cured by putting on
a new front and living religiously. You must be
brought into a new relationship with God. Your
heart must be renewed. It is necessary that God
again makes His dwelling place in your heart. The
Holy Spirit must make you a new man and work a
new nature in you.
My dear people of God, Jesus recognized
the real need of Nicodemus and He also knows your
real need. You may possess wealth and position,
religion and esteem, pleasure and joy and hopes
and intentions. However, you need something better
than these. You need God in your heart and life.
You need to be made a new man. “You must
be born again.” Your soul must be completely
remodeled and re-molded by the Holy Spirit. Your
trouble is within. As long as the problem is not
solved, nothing will avail. You must be made new
within or you can never see the kingdom of God.
When a goldsmith makes a vessel of gold that is
a failure, he has no choice but to melt down the
vessel of dishonor and remold it into a vessel
of honor. Thus it is with man respecting his spiritual
state. Man has become totally corrupt because of
sin. He is entirely disjointed by the fall. Every
faculty of the soul is as it were dislocated. In
regeneration, by the power of the Holy Spirit,
the Lord loosens every joint and sets it in its
proper position.
When a Catholic says that he has been "born
again," he refers to the transformation that
God’s grace accomplished in him during baptism.
In Greek, this phrase is, literally, "born
of water and Spirit," indicating one birth
of water-and-Spirit, rather than "born of
water and of the Spirit," as though
it meant two different births—one birth of
water and one birth of the Spirit. In the
water-and-Spirit rebirth that takes place at baptism,
the repentant sinner is transformed from a state
of sin to the state of grace. Peter mentioned this
transformation from sin to grace when he exhorted
people to "be baptized every one of you in
the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of
your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the
Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38).
The context of Jesus’ statements in John
3 makes it clear that he was referring to water
baptism. Shortly before Jesus teaches Nicodemus
about the necessity and regenerating effect of
baptism, he himself was baptized by John the Baptist,
and the circumstances are striking: Jesus goes
down into the water, and as he is baptized, the
heavens open, the Holy Spirit descends upon him
in the form of a dove, and the voice of God the
Father speaks from heaven, saying, "This is
my beloved Son" (cf. Matt. 3:13–17;
Mark 1:9–11; Luke 3:21–22; John 1:30–34).
This scene gives us a graphic depiction of what
happens at baptism: We are baptized with water,
symbolizing our dying with Christ (Rom. 6:3) and
our rising with Christ to the newness of life (Rom.
6:4–5); we receive the gift of sanctifying
grace and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (1
Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:27); and we are adopted as God’s
sons (Rom. 8:15–17).
After our Lord’s teaching that it is necessary
for salvation to be born from above by water and
the Spirit (John 3:1–21), "Jesus and
his disciples went into the land of Judea; there
he remained with them and baptized" (John
3:22).
Then we have the witness of the early Church that
John 3:5 refers to baptismal regeneration. This
was universally recognized by the early Christians.
The Church Fathers were unanimous in teaching this:
In A.D. 151, Justin Martyr wrote, "As many
as are persuaded and believe that what we [Christians]
teach and say is true . . . are brought by us where
there is water and are regenerated in the same
manner in which we were ourselves regenerated.
For, in the name of God the Father . . . and of
our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit
[Matt. 28:19], they then receive the washing with
water. For Christ also said, ‘Unless you
are born again, you shall not enter into the kingdom
of heaven’ [John 3:3]" (First Apology 61).
Around 190, Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons, wrote, "And
[Naaman] dipped himself . . . seven times in the
Jordan’ [2 Kgs. 5:14]. It was not for nothing
that Naaman of old, when suffering from leprosy,
was purified upon his being baptized, but [this
served] as an indication to us.
For as we are lepers in sin, we are made clean,
by means of the sacred water and the invocation
of the Lord, from our old transgressions, being
spiritually regenerated as newborn babes, even
as the Lord has declared: ‘Except a man be
born again through water and the Spirit, he shall
not enter into the kingdom of heaven’ [John
3:5]" (Fragment 34).
In the year 252, Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage,
said that when those becoming Christians "receive
also the baptism of the Church . . . then finally
can they be fully sanctified and be the sons of
God . . . since it is written, ‘Except a
man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he
cannot enter into the kingdom of God’ [John
3:5]" (Letters 71[72]:1).
Augustine wrote, "From the time he [Jesus]
said, ‘Except a man be born of water and
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
heaven’ [John 3:5], and again, ‘He
that loses his life for my sake shall find it’ [Matt.
10:39], no one becomes a member of Christ except
it be either by baptism in Christ or death for
Christ" (On the Soul and Its Origin 1:10
[A.D. 419]).
Augustine also taught, "It is this one Spirit
who makes it possible for an infant to be regenerated
. . . when that infant is brought to baptism; and
it is through this one Spirit that the infant so
presented is reborn. For it is not written, ‘Unless
a man be born again by the will of his parents’ or ‘by
the faith of those presenting him or ministering
to him,’ but, ‘Unless a man be born
again of water and the Holy Spirit’ [John
3:5]. The water, therefore, manifesting exteriorly
the sacrament of grace, and the Spirit effecting
interiorly the benefit of grace, both regenerate
in one Christ that man who was generated in Adam" (Letters 98:2
[A.D. 408]).
The truth that regeneration comes through baptism
is confirmed elsewhere in the Bible. Paul reminds
us in Titus 3:5 that God "saved us, not because
of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue
of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration
and renewal in the Holy Spirit."
Paul also said, "Do you not know that all
of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore
with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ
was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
we too might walk in newness of life" (Rom.
6:3–4).
This teaching—that baptism unites us with
Christ’s death and resurrection so that we
might die to sin and receive new life—is
a key part of Paul’s theology. In Colossians
2:11–13, he tells us, "In [Christ] you
were also circumcised, in the putting off of the
sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by
the hands of men but with the circumcision [of]
Christ, having been buried with him in baptism
and raised with him through your faith in the power
of God, who raised him from the dead. When you
were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision
of your sinful nature, God made you alive with
Christ" (NIV).
Often people miss the fact that baptism gives
us new life/new birth because they have an impoverished
view of the grace God gives us through baptism,
which they think is a mere symbol. But Scripture
is clear that baptism is much more than a mere
symbol.
In Acts 2:38, Peter tells us, "Repent, and
be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you
shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." When
Paul was converted, he was told, "And now
why do you wait? Rise and be baptized, and wash
away your sins, calling on his name" (Acts
22:16). Peter also said, "God’s patience
waited in the days of Noah, during the building
of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons,
were saved through water.Baptism, which corresponds
to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt
from the body, but as an appeal to God for a clear
conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1
Pet. 3:20–21). Peter says that, as in the
time of the flood, when eight people were "saved through
water," so for Christians, "[b]aptism
. . . now saves you." It does not do
so by the water’s physical action, but through
the power of Jesus Christ’s resurrection,
through baptism’s spiritual effects and the
appeal we make to God to have our consciences cleansed.
These verses showing the supernatural grace God
bestows through baptism set the context for understanding
the New Testament’s statements about receiving
new life in the sacrament.
