BORN OF WATER AND OF THE SPIRIT

Some read the word “water” and immediately assume that Jesus was speaking about water baptism. John 3:5 is then used to teach that a person cannot be saved until he has entered physical water and completed a religious ceremony.

But Jesus did not mention baptism in His conversation with Nicodemus. He spoke about birth: being born again, being born of the flesh, and being born of the Spirit.

The subject is regeneration—the supernatural work by which God gives spiritual life to a sinner who is spiritually dead.

Nicodemus was not an openly immoral man. He was a Pharisee, a teacher, a ruler, and a respected religious leader in Israel.

He possessed knowledge, position, discipline, tradition, and outward morality. Yet Jesus did not congratulate him for being nearly ready for the kingdom.

Christ told him that he needed an entirely new birth. Religious privilege could not repair his sinful nature or give him spiritual life.

Jesus did not present the new birth as an advanced experience for unusually devoted believers. He declared that no one can see the kingdom of God without it.

A person does not need merely more education, stronger willpower, improved habits, deeper religion, or a better environment. He needs life from God.

The words “born again” describe a beginning that human effort cannot manufacture. Just as a person did not cause his first birth, he cannot produce his own spiritual birth.

Nicodemus understood the language of birth only in a physical sense. He knew that an old man could not return to his mother’s womb and begin his natural life again.

Jesus was not commanding him to repeat his physical birth. He was contrasting the birth Nicodemus already possessed with the spiritual birth he still lacked.

The first birth brought him into the family of Adam. The new birth was necessary to enter the kingdom of God.

In the immediate conversation, Nicodemus has spoken of entering his mother’s womb and being born a second time. Jesus answers by distinguishing the natural birth from the birth produced by the Holy Spirit.

On this reading, being born of water refers to the first, physical birth, while being born of the Spirit refers to the second, spiritual birth.

A person may possess natural life and still remain spiritually dead. Physical existence does not automatically make anyone a child of God.

Verse 6 explains the distinction introduced in verse 5. Natural birth produces flesh. The Holy Spirit produces spiritual life.

Flesh cannot improve itself until it becomes spirit. Education, discipline, ceremonies, sincerity, and religious effort cannot transform the old nature into a new one.

A spiritual birth requires the direct work of the Spirit of God. What man cannot create, God must give.

Some Bible-believing teachers understand the water in John 3:5 as a picture of the inner cleansing accomplished through the Word of God and the work of the Holy Spirit.

They connect Christ’s words with Ezekiel’s promise that God would cleanse His people, give them a new heart, and put His Spirit within them.

This interpretation differs from the natural-birth view, but it reaches the same essential conclusion: Jesus was not teaching baptismal regeneration. The cleansing and new life are works of God, not powers contained in physical water.

Titus 3:5 joins washing, regeneration, and the renewing work of the Holy Ghost. Yet the verse begins by excluding works of righteousness performed by man.

The washing is not an outward ceremony that earns salvation. It is the inward cleansing connected with the life-giving work of God.

The sinner is saved according to God’s mercy, not because water, religious merit, or personal achievement places God under obligation.

The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to expose sin, reveal Christ, and bring the truth of the gospel to the heart.

A person cannot believe a gospel he has never heard. The Word declares who Christ is, what He accomplished through His death and resurrection, and what God promises to those who believe.

The Word is the incorruptible seed, while the Spirit is the divine Person who gives life. Neither truth supports the claim that an outward baptismal act creates regeneration.

James says that God begat believers by His own will through the Word of truth. The new birth begins with God, not with human religion.

The sinner is responsible to hear and believe, but he cannot take credit for creating spiritual life within himself.

God supplies the truth, the conviction, the Saviour, the grace, and the life.

Spiritual birth is not inherited through family blood. No one is born again because his parents were Christians, because he grew up in church, or because he belongs to a religious nation.

It is not produced by the will of the flesh or the decision of another human being. Parents, pastors, churches, and religious institutions cannot generate eternal life.

Those who receive Christ by believing on His name are born of God.

The wind cannot be controlled or seen with the natural eye, yet its effects are unmistakable. Jesus uses this picture to describe the sovereign and invisible work of the Holy Spirit.

A ceremony may be observed outwardly, but the new birth is an inward work that only God can perform.

Its effects become visible as the believer begins to respond to God’s Word, love Christ, hate sin, desire righteousness, and walk in newness of life.

Jesus expected Nicodemus, as a teacher of Israel, to understand that entrance into God’s kingdom required more than outward religion.

The prophets had already spoken of cleansing, a new heart, a new spirit, and the Spirit of God dwelling within His people.

Nicodemus knew the ceremonies of Israel, but he had not understood the spiritual reality toward which they pointed.

The new birth is not merely a new religious label. God places His Spirit within the believer and begins an inward work that affects the direction of his life.

The saved person does not become sinlessly perfect. He still must grow, obey, resist temptation, and confess failure.

Yet God does not leave him spiritually unchanged. Regeneration creates a new relationship with God and a new desire to walk according to His Word.

The conversation does not end with the mystery of the Spirit’s work. Jesus directs Nicodemus to the Son of man who would be lifted up.

As the dying Israelites looked upon the serpent of brass and lived, the sinner must look in faith to Christ.

Christ, not baptismal water, is the object of saving faith. His death provides the only sufficient payment for sin.

John 3:16 explains the response required of the sinner. The one who believes in the only begotten Son receives everlasting life.

Jesus does not add water baptism as a second condition in the explanation that follows John 3:5.

The new birth is accomplished by God and received through faith in the Son whom God gave.

Salvation is God’s gift received through faith. It is not a reward for performing a work of righteousness or completing a religious ordinance.

Water baptism is an important act of obedience for someone who has believed, but it cannot create life, remove sin, or complete the saving work of Christ.

The glory of salvation belongs entirely to God.

The Ethiopian eunuch heard the gospel of Jesus Christ before he requested baptism. Philip required belief before entering the water.

Baptism publicly identifies the believer with Christ. It testifies to salvation already received; it does not cause the new birth.

Reversing this order turns an act of obedience into a means of earning what God gives freely through faith.

Cornelius and those with him heard the gospel, believed, received remission of sins, and received the Holy Ghost before they were baptized in water.

Their baptism followed as the testimony of people whom God had already received.

This example makes it impossible to treat physical water as the power that causes the Spirit’s regenerating work.

Whether the water in John 3:5 is understood as the first birth or as a figure of spiritual cleansing, the sinner’s true need remains the same.

Outward water can wash the body, but it cannot cleanse guilt, justify the ungodly, or transform the heart.

The saving washing is connected with the name of the Lord Jesus and the work of the Spirit of God.

Reformation attempts to improve the old life. Regeneration gives a new life in Christ.

The gospel does not teach sinners merely to become more polite, disciplined, religious, or respectable. It calls them to receive the Saviour and be made new in Him.

Good works follow the new birth, but they do not produce it.

John 3:5 does not teach that water baptism washes away sin or causes a person to be born again. The conversation concerns birth by the Holy Spirit, not salvation by ceremony.

It does not teach that religious ancestry, morality, knowledge, church membership, or leadership can replace regeneration. Nicodemus possessed these advantages and still needed to be born again.

It also does not teach that a person can create the new birth by human effort. Spiritual life comes from God and is received through faith in Jesus Christ.

When physical water is given saving power, confidence is moved away from Christ’s finished work and placed in a human ceremony.

When the new birth is reduced to moral improvement or religious membership, people may appear Christian while remaining spiritually dead.

Jesus removes every false confidence. A person must receive life from the Holy Spirit by believing in the Son of God.