John 3:6-8 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

That which is born of the flesh is flesh Only flesh, void of the Spirit: or is carnal and corrupt, and therefore at enmity with the Spirit. And that which is born of the Spirit is spirit Is spiritual, heavenly, divine, like its author. As if our Lord had said to Nicodemus, Were it possible for a man to be born again in a literal sense, by entering a second time into his mother's womb, such a second birth would do no more to qualify him for the kingdom of God than the first; for what proceeds, and is produced from parents that are sinful and corrupt, is sinful and corrupt as they are; but that which is born of the Spirit is formed to a resemblance of that blessed Spirit, whose office it is to communicate a divine nature to the soul, and to stamp it with the divine image. Marvel not, therefore, that I said unto thee And have declared it as a truth that ye are all concerned in; that ye must be born again Ye Jews, though descendants of Abraham; ye scribes, though learned in the law; ye Pharisees, though exact in the observance of its ceremonies, and the traditions of the elders; ye doctors of Israel and rulers of the people, notwithstanding your authority in matters civil and religious, must all be born again in this spiritual sense, since the degeneracy of the human nature is of so universal an extent as to be common to you all. The wind bloweth, &c. As if he had said, Nor have you any cause to be surprised if there be some things in this doctrine of regeneration which are of an obscure and unsearchable nature, for even in the natural world many things are so: the wind, for instance, bloweth where it listeth According to its own nature, not thy will, sometimes one way, and sometimes another, not being subject to the direction or command of man; and thou hearest the sound thereof And feelest its sensible and powerful effects on thy body; but canst not tell whence it cometh Canst not explain the particular manner of its acting, or where it begins, and where it ceases blowing; for whatever general principles may be laid down concerning it, when men come to account for its particular variations, the greatest philosophers often find themselves at a loss. So is every one that is born of the Spirit The fact is plain, the manner of its operations is inexplicable. “It is worthy of remark,” says Dr. Campbell, “that as, in the Greek and in the Vulgate, the same word, in this passage, signifies both wind and spirit, the illustration is expressed with more energy than it is possible to give it in those languages which do not admit the same ambiguity.” But “I shall give what appears to me the purport of John 3:7-8. ‘Nor is there,' as if he had said, ‘any thing in this either absurd or unintelligible. The wind, which in Hebrew is expressed by the same word as spirit, shall serve for an example. It is invisible; we hear the noise it makes, but cannot discover what occasions its rise or its fall. It is known to us solely by its effects. Just so it is with this second birth. The Spirit himself, the great agent, is invisible; his manner of operating is beyond our discovery; but the reality of his operation is perceived by the effects produced on the disposition and life of the regenerate.'”