Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, х ex (G1537) hudatos (G5204) kai (G2532) pneumatos (G4151)] - or, more simply, 'of water and the Spirit,'
He cannot enter into the kingdom of God. We have here a two-fold explanation of the new birth, so startling to Nicodemus. To a Jewish ecclesiastic, so familiar with the symbolical application of water, in every variety of way and form of expression, this language was fitted to show that the thing intended was no other than 'a thorough spiritual purification by the operation of the Holy Spirit.' Indeed, this element of water and operation of the Spirit are brought together in a glorious evangelical prediction of Ezekiel 36:25-27, which Nicodemus might have been reminded of had such spiritualities not been almost lost in the reigning formalism. Already had the symbol of water been embodied in an initiatory ordinance, in the baptism of the Jewish expectants of Messiah by the Baptist, not to speak of the baptism of Gentile proselytes before that; and in the Christian Church it was soon to become the great visible door of entrance into "the kingdom of God," the reality being the sole work of the Holy Spirit.
In this way of viewing the two elements - "water" and "the Spirit" - we avoid the unsatisfactory interpretation of the "water," as if our Lord had meant no more than 'Except a man be regenerated by the ordinance of baptism and by the Holy Spirit.' We call this unsatisfactory, because, as the ordinance of baptism was not instituted until Jesus was on the wing for glory, we think it harsh to suppose any direct allusion here to that institution. But neither is it to be reduced, with Lampe, etc., to a mere figure for the truth. It is undoubtedly the cleansing or purifying property of water which is referred to, in conformity with the familiar ideas of the Jewish ritual and the current language of the Old Testament. But since this was already taking form in an initiatory ordinance, in the ways just mentioned, it would be unreasonable to exclude all reference to baptism; although it would be nearer the truth, perhaps, to say that Baptism itself only embodies in a public ordinance the great general truth here announced-that a cleansing or purifying operation of the Spirit in everyone is indispensable to entrance into the kingdom of God.