Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Which were born, х egenneetheesan (G1080)]. Observe this word "born," or begotten.' It was not a name only, a dignity only, which Christ conferred on them: it was a new birth, it was a change of nature-the soul being made conscious, in virtue of it, of the vital capacities, perceptions, and emotions a 'child of God,' to which before it was a total stranger. But now for the Source and Author of that new birth-both negatively and positively.
Not of blood - not of 'superior human descent,' as we judge the meaning to be,
Nor of the will of the flesh - not of 'human generation' at all,
Nor of the will of man - not of man in any of the ways in which his will brings anything about. By this elaborate, three-fold denial of the human and earthly source of this sonship, how emphatic does the following declaration of its real source become!
But of God. A sonship strictly divine then, in its source this was which Christ conferred on as many as received Him. Right royal gift which whoever confers must be absolutely divine. For who would not worship Him who can bring him into the family, and evoke within him the life, of the children of God? Now comes the great climax, to introduce and raise us to the altitude of which the foregoing thirteen verses were penned.