Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." All translations with which I am familiar use only one preposition here. The passage does not say “born of water and of the spirit,” which would give rise the the inference of two events. Rather, the syntax allows for only one event that is being described here. This would rule out the idea that Jesus is speaking of natural birth and spiritual birth.
I believe Jesus is speaking here of water baptism. First, we see immediately after the Nicodemus meeting the only references in the gospels to Jesus and/or His disciples baptizing. It is a natural sequel to Jesus telling Nicodemus, "You must be born again."
Second, until very recently this verse was universally understood to have reference to water baptism. The number of church fathers who believed John 3:5 referred to water baptism are legion. Rather than quote them all here, I will submit an excerpt from Justin Martyr’s
First Apology written about 151 A.D.
As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, and instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting, for the remission of their sins that are past, we pray and fast with them. Then they 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, 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.”
I would agree that much of what the church fathers taught is wrong but in this instance it is simply a matter of “rightly dividing the word of truth.” John wrote this scripture more than 1,900 years ago and he wrote it in Greek. Not modern Greek but Koine Greek, which is used nowhere in the world today. There is no doubt in my mind that the church fathers, who used Koine Greek on a daily basis understood the nuances of the language far better than any of us.
Comparing their understanding with ours would be like comparing the ability of a learned man of the l5th Century with one of us if we were both given a copy of
Beowulf or
Canterbury Tales. The nuances of the language are obvious to those who lived and spoke it. Is there anyone here who thinks he understands Russian as well as an educated person who was born in Russia has lived there all his life? Suppose I wrote, “It’s raining cats and dogs outside.” Everyone would understand that it is really raining hard. But if someone picked up my writing 1,000 years from now they would think I was talking about animals falling from the sky (and probably think this was the work of a deranged person). The church fathers simply understood the language better than we do because they were closer to it, and they all agreed that John 3:5 refers to water baptism.
Third, “born of water and the spirit” reminds us of O.T. passages like Ezekiel 36:25 and 2 Kings 5. It also reminds us of the baptism of John. Certainly Nicodemus would have understood this concept—the washing of water.
And that is why I believe in baptismal regeneration. I know I will probably be the only person on this thread who takes this position but I have viewed it from every perspective possible, and without any presuppositions, and keep coming back to this one conclusion. I could explain away passages like Acts 2:38 and Mark 16:16, but to explain away John 3:5 you must change the plain and intended meaning of the One who said it. Moreover, by accepting this meaning a lot of other difficult passages fall into place without straining at what they might mean.
I’m supposed to go back into my mother’s womb and be born again!?!” Jesus is like: “Really dude,…