{"id":75,"date":"2002-09-02T19:48:35","date_gmt":"2002-09-03T03:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/archives\/2002\/09\/02\/unless-one-is-born-of-water-and-spirit\/"},"modified":"2002-09-02T19:48:35","modified_gmt":"2002-09-03T03:48:35","slug":"unless-one-is-born-of-water-and-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2002\/09\/02\/unless-one-is-born-of-water-and-spirit","title":{"rendered":"Unless One Is Born of Water and Spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wow\u2013Jack, author of Intregri\u00adty<\/i> blog<\/a> made sev\u00ader\u00adal com\u00adments back-to-back in response to my ear\u00adli\u00ader post\u00ading about bap\u00adtism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll have to wait to address his length\u00adi\u00ader com\u00adment, but I\u2019ll tack\u00adle his short\u00ader ques\u00adtion right now: To make my ques\u00adtion more explic\u00adit: what I don\u2019t under\u00adstand is how you rec\u00adon\u00adcile this \u201cphys\u00adi\u00adcal birth\u201d inter\u00adpre\u00adta\u00adtion in the con\u00adtext of Jesus stat\u00ading the con\u00addi\u00adtions of entry into the King\u00addom. Are you sug\u00adgest\u00ading that it read as, \u201cTru\u00adly, tru\u00adly, I say to you, unless one is phys\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly born and spir\u00adi\u00adtu\u00adal\u00adly born, he can\u00adnot enter the king\u00addom of God.\u201d Does\u00adn\u2019t seem odd to cite phys\u00adi\u00adcal birth \u2014 some\u00adthing we all have expe\u00adri\u00adenced by the virtue of our exis\u00adtence \u2014 as a con\u00addi\u00adtion to entry into Heav\u00aden? Does\u00adn\u2019t that inter\u00adpre\u00adta\u00adtion ren\u00adder the \u201cof water\u201d part of the phrase a moot point? After all, who has\u00adn\u2019t been phys\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly born?<\/i><\/p>\n

Thanks\u2013I was wor\u00adried that I was\u00adn\u2019t clear enough in my pre\u00advi\u00adous post\u00ading. I now know that I was pos\u00adi\u00adtive\u00adly mud\u00addy!<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the flow of con\u00adver\u00adsa\u00adtion between Jesus and Nicode\u00admus in the NET Bible<\/a> trans\u00adla\u00adtion of John 3.5\u20137: <\/p>\n

Jesus replied, \u201cI tell you the solemn truth, unless a per\u00adson is born from above [anoth\u00aden<\/a>], he can\u00adnot see the king\u00addom of God.\u201d <\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

In this snip\u00adpet of dia\u00adlog, Jesus explains the whole she\u00adbang: you must be born from above. The word anoth\u00aden<\/a> is ambi\u00adgious in Greek. In this con\u00adtext, it might either mean \u201cfrom above\u201d or \u201cagain\u201d. Recent schol\u00adar\u00adly trans\u00adla\u00adtions come down on the side of \u201cfrom above,\u201d which makes the most sense of the con\u00adver\u00adsa\u00adtion (NET and NRSV are two of the trans\u00adla\u00adtions: check them out).<\/p>\n

Nicode\u00admus said to him, \u201cHow can a man be born when he is old? He can\u00adnot enter his mother\u2019s womb and be born a sec\u00adond time, can he?\u201d <\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

Nicode\u00admus does\u00adn\u2019t under\u00adstand what Jesus is say\u00ading. Being born from above does\u00adn\u2019t make any sense to him, but nei\u00adther does being born again. Evi\u00addent\u00adly, he thinks being born again is the more like\u00adly mean\u00ading, so he asks Jesus the above ques\u00adtion based on that mis\u00adtak\u00aden under\u00adstand\u00ading.<\/p>\n

Why would Nicode\u00admus assume that Jesus was talk\u00ading about phys\u00adi\u00adcal birth? Because Nicode\u00admus thought his own phys\u00adi\u00adcal birth was salvif\u00adic. Nicode\u00admus was trust\u00ading in his sta\u00adtus as a bio\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal mem\u00adber of God\u2019s cho\u00adsen peole to assure him of cit\u00adi\u00adzen\u00adship in God\u2019s King\u00addom.<\/p>\n

Jesus answered, \u201cI tell you the solemn truth, unless a per\u00adson is born of water and spir\u00adit, he can\u00adnot enter the king\u00addom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spir\u00adit is spir\u00adit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, \u2018You must all be born from above.\u2019 \u201d (John 3.3\u20137, NET Bible)<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

Jesus is now try\u00ading to help Nicode\u00admus under\u00adstand his real point\u2013that every\u00adone must be born from above. To that end, he draws a con\u00adtrast between the phys\u00adi\u00adcal birth that Nicode\u00admus thinks Jesus is talk\u00ading about and the spir\u00adi\u00adtu\u00adal birth that Jesus is dri\u00adving at.<\/p>\n

What evi\u00addence is there for this point of view?<\/p>\n

1) It makes sense of the flow of con\u00adver\u00adsa\u00adtion. Jesus talks about spir\u00adi\u00adtu\u00adal birth, Nicode\u00admus thinks he\u2019s talk\u00ading about phys\u00adi\u00adcal birth, so Jesus bridges from phys\u00adi\u00adcal birth back to spir\u00adi\u00adtu\u00adal birth.<\/p>\n

2) \u201cBorn of water\u201d is clear\u00adly a metaphor for some\u00adthing. Phys\u00adi\u00adcal birth is the top\u00adic being dis\u00adcussed when the metaphor is used, and the metaphor fits.<\/p>\n

3) The par\u00adal\u00adlelism in the text itself. The unclear term \u201cborn of water\u201d is in par\u00adal\u00adlel con\u00adstruc\u00adtion with \u201cborn of flesh\u201d. Using the clear to inter\u00adpret the unclear, we see that \u201cborn of water\u201d means the same thing as \u201cborn of flesh.\u201d In oth\u00ader words, being born.<\/p>\n

4) It does jus\u00adtice to Nicode\u00admus\u2019 like\u00adly frame of mind. Nicode\u00admus thought he was guar\u00adan\u00adteed access to the King\u00addom of God based pure\u00adly on the acci\u00addent of his birth as a Jew\u00adish per\u00adson. <\/p>\n

I hope that helps. <\/p>\n

There are oth\u00ader inter\u00adpre\u00adta\u00adtions out there: just do a search on Google for \u201cborn from above.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In which I attempt to clar\u00adi\u00adfy what I mean by being \u201cborn from above\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-of-random-interest"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-1d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}