John 3:5 | Born of Water and Spirit?

Let's talk about John chapter 3. John 3 5 is really important. In fact, Nathan, will you roll that next clip for us?

Are you talking about water baptism? No. Is it talking about baptism in any sense?

Yes. What baptism is it talking about? Okay, so here's the context. I think

Nicodemus has on his mind earthly categories of being born in an earthly sense, and I think he would have in mind the water baptism of John.

And I think Jesus is given that slight rebuke saying, hey, you're a ruler of Israel. You don't know what your own scriptures, the

Hebrew scriptures, actually teach about spiritual realities. So baptism is relevant as we see it come out later in verse 22 where Jesus and his disciples were baptizing where water was plentiful, but it was they got into disputes with Jews over purification rites.

So there's a rich history of what that means. And so yes, Nicodemus was thinking earthly and Jesus was trying to get him to think heavenly.

Hmm. Hmm. I like hearing that again. Oh, yeah. Because when we're talking about regeneration, you have to talk about at least two passages.

John chapter 3 verse 5 because it says water. We got it, you know, why are you taking the water out?

Right? And then you got to talk about Titus 3 5. There's other related verses to regeneration, but these kind of surface to the top.

Oh, yeah. And so I do want to touch on this again. I want to get your any initial thoughts.

So we have to talk about John 3 and you notice the two type of questions he asked me.

He goes, okay, in John 3, is Jesus, was his implication, talking about water baptism?

I said no, and then he said is baptism being talked about in any sense? And I said yes, and I could almost see it.

He was just like how does that work basically? So how do we approach this situation?

Like you said, we're talking to Nicodemus who should know the law, but Jesus is coming from perspective of John's baptism because John was the one that was preparing the way for the

Lord. So when we get to where Nicodemus is, I was a little troubled when

I first read it. He's like, ma 'am, how am I gonna be born again? Do I go into my mother's room a second time?

And that's where Jesus kind of really hit him down and he's like, no, I'm not even talking about these natural things.

I'm talking about spiritual things, things that you should already know because you're a teacher of the law. So if he's a teacher of the law, then where do we go to to find what he's trying to get

Nicodemus to already know? Is it okay if I disagree? I think it's with Matt Slick. He held the view that Jesus was talking about you got to be born earthly and then you have to be born again heavenly, something like that.

And I don't think that's the view that's being talked about, but I do think it's orthodox. You know what I mean? The reason why

I don't think that though is because Jesus is using such striking imagery of Ezekiel 36.

And for someone to say that that is not what Jesus has in mind, then they have to answer me this.

Jesus is actually holding Nicodemus accountable to something he should already know.

Verse 10, Jesus answered Nicodemus, are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?

So what knowledge is Jesus holding Nicodemus accountable to? Well, it'd be something that had already been revealed in the

Hebrew Scriptures. And we already have too much sauce, too much context.

John chapter 1, 12 and 13, the reason why some received Jesus is not the will of man, but is of God.

And so when you look into the word born again, doesn't it mean to be literally born from above? Well, this directly echoes

Ezekiel 36 language where God says, I will cause you to walk in my statutes.

I will cleanse you by my Spirit. I will take out that heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

And so it's too clear, you know what I mean? Like people can just disagree and I'm gonna say that the meaning is too plain for me.

Like we're gonna we're gonna play that game a little bit of just saying I'm not convinced because of the clear and plain meaning of the text.

But the point is you have to be able to develop what that actually looks like. And so here's the objection

I get, Adam, is you want the Spirit to stay there but Jesus says you must be born of the water and the

Spirit. So how do you take water out of that statement? And I just say look, he's already talking about being born again, born from above.

Then he makes the statement that you must be born of water and the Spirit and then verse 8 he says, So it is with everyone who is born of the

Spirit. So the water is being qualified by the Spirit. He says the same thing three different times.

And so Ezekiel 36 is talking about a spiritual cleansing.

That's what he's talking about here with the water and the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is going to cleanse you, bring you to newness of life, to be born again from being dead.

And to have new life. That's what Ephesians chapter 2. I was talking with Brother Keith one day that just about how but God.

But God being rich in mercy lavishing us with with his love and we are saved by his grace.

And so you got the famous but God statement, right? That's what Jesus is talking about here. So this is a spiritual cleansing and so water is meant to teach us a heavenly truth.

But it's so funny because I found people being like Nicodemus. No, no, he's talking about water, right? We're talking about these earthly categories and I'm like, that's the problem

Nicodemus had. He was trying to be born from his mother's womb again, right? He would have been thinking about John's water baptism and Jesus like no, no, no.

Think back to the scripture that came from God. Think about what it means to be born from above. So, what do you think?

I think it's great because most people don't understand five times there from John 3 5 to 3 8 the

Spirit is mentioned even when there is Pneuma in Greek, so my question is why would we want to cling to water when the

Spirit is talked about five times in that verse? You're just taking the water out of it.

It's the plain meaning of the text and I want our viewers I don't know Pastor Nathan where to look over here.

Oh, I'm over here. You can say that the plain meaning of the text is

X, but you have to demonstrate that and so that's where I hope our audience is listening to us as we're starting with lexical uses, definitions of terms, and then we're letting the context determine that because I noticed, and I'm trying to be nice when

I say this, I noticed Mark asked me this question about three times in a row and I just tried to come at it with a little bit more zing each time because I could tell his tradition was being challenged and he's never probably heard of a good response to this before and so one of his questions was well, how can you believe this is a waterless baptism when the surrounding context involves water like with John the

Baptist? I'm like because that's what Nicodemus would have had in mind and Jesus is calling him to think in almost transcendent categories.

Right, because we don't deny later in verse 22 Jesus and his disciples, they went on baptizing, right, where water was plentiful and it goes on to talk about how this was in disputes with Jews over purification rites, and I think that further builds our case because when you start getting into purification washings in the

Old Testament, they would be totally bathed in water. Leviticus 17, many examples in Leviticus.

I saw people in the chat saying Jeremiah's not quoting from anywhere. Well, go back to Yom Kippur. Aaron was was totally bathed.

This would have been a type of mitzvah. Am I saying that right? Yeah, mitzvah. And this would have been a setting where someone was totally immersed for a ceremonial cleansing and those are always in the context to teach us a spiritual truth.

That's what we teach, right? Baptism is wonderful and it pictures a spiritual reality of what

God has already begun in your life and we'll see it to completion. So when you dial back, baptism doesn't just pop up out of nowhere in the

New Testament. It's like, no, no, the nearest antecedent with that is not these Old Testament types and shadows, but it's with John the

Baptist, and there was even a backdrop why John's immersion in water was meaningful because it even has remnants with the