The pharisees and religious leaders of the Jews are presented in John's
gospel as stubborn, unwilling to believe, hostile to Jesus. Nicodemus is the
exception. Though still belonging to the darkness (3:2), he wanted to come to
the light (3:20-21). He acknowledged Jesus as a teacher from God (3:2). He
spoke up in Jesus’ defence (7:50-53). After Jesus’ crucifixion, he
anointed Jesus’ body with myrrh and aloes ( 19:39-40). Nicodemus is the
model of a seeker; or rather of a catechumen waiting for the light of faith.
It was natural for John to make Jesus’ discussion with Nicodemus the setting for Jesus’ most explicit words on the spirit. What a person like Nicodemus needs, says Jesus, is to be born from above (3:3), to be born a second time, this time from water and the spirit. If Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus serves as a compendium of the entire gospel,(1) we may rightly surmise that birth from the spirit is the central event that makes a person a child of God and a disciple of Jesus. What event was Jesus talking about?
Both the ecclesiastical context—catechumens are prepared for initiation rites- and the wording “from water” link the event to baptism. Attempts to explain the phrase “from water” in other ways: as referring to semen (2) or to placental water, (3) are not convincing. Nor can it be upheld to be a later gloss without the support of a single textual variant. John opposes the Baptist’s baptismal practice to Jesus’ baptism with the holy spirit ( 1:30-33), as elsewhere in the New Testament (Acts 19: 17). Both involved the use of water as is clear from the protests of the Baptist’s followers who complained about unfair competition. (4) Both the Baptist and Jesus baptized at Aenon near Salim, we are told, because there was plenty of water there. Jesus drew the larger crowds. “Here he is, baptizing, and all flock to him” (3:22-26)! The birth ‘from water and the spirit’ could only be understood by John’s readers as implying Christian baptism. But it would also be understood as implying much more.
If baptism were merely a ritual, signifying a change of attitude and no more, it would hardly be more than the Baptist’s baptism. We have already seen that the coming of the spirit always connotes an experience: the experience of being overwhelmed by God (chap 2). By this experience the individual knows that God is at work (chap 3). For John, it is precisely not the external ritual but the inner transformation that counts (chap 4). In Johannine circles it would be unthinkable for Jesus to suggest that a ritual could satisfy the needs of a seeker like Nicodemus. Rather, Jesus’ words imply that a person’s psychology needs to be recreated spiritually by the gift of new life. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit is spirit”(3:6).
The comparison with physical birth, which is real and produces tangible life, requires an equally real and tangible result on a higher plane. “When someone is born of God . . . God’s seed is in that person” (1 Jn 3:9). “The true life is regarded as a kind of higher essence inherent in the divine nature, analogous to the life principle in man, but different in quality—spiritual instead of earthly.... Man requires to undergo a radical change, not in heart merely, but in the very constitution of his nature.”(5)
This change in nature, however, is not to be conceived of as purely, or mainly, an infusion of invisible grace, as was held by the scholastics. In harmony with the requirement that it be a conscious experience, it needs to involve an opening of the mind, an awareness of new feelings. “Submission to the rite of baptism by itself cannot effect the new birth. There must be present not only the life-giving principle of the Spirit, but conscious experience of the Spirit on the part of the believer”.(6)
May we press further and ask what this conscious experience consisted in? I believe there can be no doubt about this. Jesus’ words refer to the gift of faith. The rebirth through the spirit consisted in a person suddenly discovering new existential meaning: that the Father is a loving God who heals and saves through his Son (3:16). This discovery, which we know even from our contemporary experience to be an exhilarating and transforming event, was something the Early Christians treasured as the beginning of their life in the spirit. It is this birth of faith which Jesus calls being ‘born from above’ and ‘being born a second time’.(7)
This interpretation can, first of all, be substantiated by the Nicodemus story itself. Seekers like Nicodemus require faith.(8) The Son of Man will be lifted up “that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (3:15); and “that whoever believes in him should not perish” (3: 16). People will be condemned or saved on the strength of one norm only: whether they believe or not (3:18). This centrality of faith dominates the whole of John’s gospel. The situation is summed up by John in the concluding fifteen verses of chapter twelve. On the one hand, the Jewish people “did not believe in him although he had performed so many signs before them” (12:37). On the other hand, for those who believed in him, Jesus was the light (12:46).
The interpretation is also confirmed by a look at the parallel passage on rebirth in John:
"His own people did not receive him.
But all who did receive him,
those who believed in his name,
he empowered to become children of God,
those who were born.. . of God” (1:11-13).
ln this central statement and ‘pivot’ of the prologue, (9) John expresses that it is those who believe that are reborn as God's own children. The coming about of faith was clearly seen to have two components: a person’s own openness to God and God’s overwhelming gift. The two together brought on the new experience by which people could receive from Jesus’ fullness one grace after the other ( 1 :16) and see his glory ( 1: 14). Belief in Jesus involved knowing and seeing: knowing oneself a true child of God and seeing new dimensions of life.
We can be sure that the Nicodemus story reflects the polemic between the Johannine community and anti-Christian Jews. (10) How would the disciples of John try to convince their opponents? By arguing from Scripture, no doubt (5:39-46); by pointing out the signs Jesus had performed (3:2; 7:31; 9:16); but no less by witnessing to their own spiritual transformation. I find it curious that in Jesus’ admonition to Nicodemus, during which Jesus speaks in the first person singular, there is a sudden switch to the plural:
“Truly, truly, 1 say to you:
We speak of what we know
and bear witness to what we have seen” (3:11).
This is unmistakably the Church speaking to the Synagogue. True, Jesus himself is the only one who has seen the Father directly ( 1: 18), the only one to ascend to heaven as the Son of Man (3:13). But through his spirit the disciples, too, had part in his experience. They could testify to what they had heard, what they had seen with their own eyes, what they had touched with their hands. And this reality they testified to was not the physical life of Jesus, but the spiritual fellowship with the Father and the Son (1 Jn 1:3).
We can reconstruct the being born of the spirit also from parallels provided by the gospel. The Hebrews in the desert had been stung by snakes and were doomed to die. However, when they looked up at the bronze serpent Moses had erected, they were healed and found new life (Num 21:9). Rabbinical commentators stressed the act of looking up, the seeking of a new vision. “Every time that lsrael direct their gaze on high and make their heart subservient to their Father who is in heaven, they are healed”. (11) Philo says the looking at the serpent with the faculties of the soul was changed into a looking at God himself. “Then (the victim) will live. Only' let him look and contemplate”. (12) Looking at Jesus lifted up on the cross as the serpent had been (3:14), the Early Christians did not see a tortured body on an ugly beam of execution; rather, they saw salvation and God’s love (3:161). “Unless a person is born from above he cannot see the kingdom of God” (3:31)
Seeing the kingdom (3:3) and entering the kingdom (3:5) were two metaphors that reminded people of OT images. It may well be that the Nicodemus story should be read in conjunction with Numbers 13-14. (13) There we are told how scouts were sent out by Moses to reconnoiter the promised land. They came back with a mixed report. Like Nicodemus they acknowledged the values of the new life offered; yet they shrunk back from entering the land by lack of trust in God (Num 14:12). The act of faith requires a surrender to God so that he can fill us with his spirit (Num 14:24) and take us to a land of plenty.
Scholars tell us that our verse on spiritual rebirth derives from a logion of Jesus also transmitted in the synoptics (Mt 18:3; Mk 10:15; Lk 18:17). The Aramaic original read: “Amen I say to you, unless one becomes like a child again, one cannot enter the kingdom of God”. The Greek version of ‘like a child again’ (hôs paidion anôthen) was ambiguous. The Johannine community translated it as ‘like a child from above’. (14) Whereas the Aramaic logion may have stipulated simplicity and childlikeness as a condition for entering the kingdom, John linked it to being a child of God, being born from above, being born of the spirit. The two kinds of childhood are actually not far separated. Whoever is humble and simple as a child will readily accept God’s offer in faith and then become a child of God. (15) Since this transition was normally linked to the sacrament of baptism, it is small wonder that another association was added. ‘To become like little children’ was understood as ‘being baptized’. (16)
This brings us full circle to where we began. A Christian has to be born from water and the spirit. Baptism, faith and the action of God’s spirit belong together. We can now answer the questions we raised in chapter one. Being born of water and the spirit, receiving the spirit and being baptized with the spirit do refer to one and the same reality: the birth of faith which is sealed by baptism.
Once Christians have been filled with the spirit, they can live a life of supernatural dimension. They can grasp Jesus’ words, for his message is spirit and life (6:63). They can worship the Father the way he wants to be worshipped, that is, in spirit and in truth. For God is spirit (4:24). They can see things the way Jesus sees them for they can see the kingdom of the Father (3:3). They can be sent on missions of ministry as Jesus was sent by the Father when the breath of Jesus’ spirit tells them to (20:22). The spirit will continuously encourage and guide them so that his inspirations in their heart are welling up like springs of living water (7:38). Indeed, there is no end to what Jesus’ disciples may expect to experience in their life; “it is not by measure that God gives the spirit” (3:34).
1. R.F. Collins, “Jesus’ Conversation with Nicodemus,” The Bible Today 93 (1977) 1409-1419.
2. H. Odeberg, The Fourth Gospel, Grüner, Amsterdam 1974, pp. 48-71.
3. Pamment, “John 3:5. ‘ Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God,’” Novam Testamentum 25 (1983) 189-190.
4. Zimmermann, “Die Christliche Taufe nach Joh.3,” Catholica 30 (1976) 81-93. S. Legasse, “Le Baptême administré par Jésus (Jn 3:22-26, 4:1-3) et l’origine du baptême chrétien”, Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique 78 (1977) 3-30.
5. E.F. Scott, Fourth Gospel, its purpose and theology, Edinburgh 1926, p. 258.
6. R.H. Strachan, The Fourth Gospel, London 1920, pp. 93-94.
7. De La Potterie, “Naître de l’eau et naître de l'Esprit,” Sciences Ecclésiastiques, 14 (1962) 414443.
8. L. Walter, “Jean III, 1-21: selon la foi et l'incrédulité,” Esprit et Vie 87 (1977) 369-378; 385-390.
9. R.A. Culpepper, “The Pivot of John's Prologue”, New Testament Studies 27 (1980) 1-31
10. K. Tsuchido, “The Composition of the Nicodemus-Episode, Jn ii 23—iii 21,” Annals of the Japanese Biblical Institute 1 (1975) 91-103.
11. Mishnah, Rosh hash-shana 3,8; Odeberg, o.c. p. 107.
12. Leges Allegoricae 2,81. cf. Dodd, o.c. p. 306.
13. H. Bojorge, “La entrada en la sierra prometida y en el Reino. E1 trasfondo teológico del diálogo de Jesús con Nicodemo (Jn 3)”, Revista Biblica 41 (1979) 171-186.
14. B. Lindars, “John and the Synoptic Gospels: A Test Case”, New Testament Studies 27 (1981) 287-294.
15. I. De La Potterie, o.c. p. 438.
16. J. Jeremias, Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries, SCM, London 1960, pp. 48-52.