John 3:1-17
We hate ambiguity. We really hate it. Ambiguity is messy, frightening even. We like certainty. Black and white. It’s part of the reason America has become so polarized over politics. We want surety, on one side or the other, not questions, not shades of gray. Unfortunately, that’s not always the way the world works. Sometimes life is a paradox. We can both love something and hate it; things can be both good and bad. Often the truth doesn’t lie on one side or the other, but somewhere in the middle. And sometimes two contradictory things can be true at once. This complexity is also true of God’s Kingdom. The author of the Gospel of John understood this, and it is nowhere made clearer than in this passage.
There’s a lot that we could focus on in this relatively long passage, which includes perhaps the most well-known verse in the entire Bible (3:16). But at the heart of the passage is a significant ambiguity, or misunderstanding. And unravelling this misunderstanding is crucial to discerning Jesus’ (and John’s) meaning here.
The misunderstanding occurs in vv. 3-5: “Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’ ‘How can someone be born when they are old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!’
Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit’” (NIV).
The ambiguity here takes place on two levels. The first is obvious, and it’s the one Nicodemus recognizes right away. Jesus seems to be saying that a person must be “born” a second time. Interpreting this as a reference to physical birth, Nicodemus is confused. How is this possible? He fails to understand that Jesus is speaking about a spiritual rebirth. This intentional play on the dichotomy between earthly and heavenly realities occurs a few times in the Gospel of John, including notably in the next chapter when Jesus converses with the woman at the well in Samaria, who is likewise initially confused (4:10-14). This ambiguity is created in a couple different ways.
First, there is the difference between the word “birth” in v. 3 being meant literally and being used figuratively or metaphorically. Nicodemus interprets the word quite literally, even though Jesus is speaking in metaphors. But secondly, there is a double-meaning baked into this verse from the original language. In Greek, the word used here for “again” (anothen) can also mean “from above.” Both translations are equally valid, and although “again” is most often used in English translations (because otherwise Nicodemus would not have asked the question he did), some English versions notably choose “from above” as the primary translation (cf. NRSV). For centuries biblical scholars have debated which of these translations is “correct,” the implication being that John intended one of the meanings over the other one. And many have posed elaborate explanations for why one or the other is the only proper reading. However, I believe that the author of the Gospel (and Jesus himself in the Gospel) did not intend us to understand only one meaning of the word anothen. Rather he intended us to understand both meanings as being true at the same time.
The author of John often asks his readers to hold two contradictory things to be true at the same time. There are several other places in the Gospel where someone misunderstands Jesus because he is speaking on two different levels at once (2:19-20; 4:10-14, 7:33-36; 8:21-22; 11:11-13, etc). Most often these misunderstandings are used by Jesus as a teaching tool to move the person’s understanding from the physical to the spiritual plane. But 3:3-5 is arguably the most complex of these misunderstandings, perhaps because it is the one that relates most closely to the central tenet of Christianity: salvation.
Jesus’ point here seems to be that to be born “again” in a spiritual sense, is the same as being born “from above.” Being “from above” is also an important concept in John, as Jesus himself refers to having come “from above,” which is equated with coming “from the Father” (3:31; 8:23; 19:11). So those born “from above” become, in some small way, like Jesus, in that they are also “from the father.” This is the deeper spiritual meaning of being “born again.”
This distinction between earthly, physical birth, and spiritual, heavenly rebirth is reinforced a couple verses later when Jesus explains: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit” (3:5). Much debate has also taken place over the meaning of being born “of water.” What does Jesus mean? There is a long tradition of interpreting this as a reference to water baptism; the believer must be baptized to enter the kingdom. While this is not impossible, and certainly may be a legitimate interpretation by the early church and following generations of Christians for whom baptism became the primary initiatory rite, it seems more likely that Jesus’ primary meaning here is something different. It has also been suggested that this refers to the many water purification rites that were popular in the ancient world–the need to cleanse oneself before interacting with a deity or anything considered holy. However, this doesn’t seem to cohere with anything else in this passage or anywhere else in the Gospel, or New Testament for that matter. Nowhere are Christians told they must participate in specific cleansing rituals in order to enter the Kingdom (assuming you don’t interpret baptism as such a ritual).
Instead, the primary meaning of “born of water” appears to have more to do with physical birth rather than the spiritual rebirth celebrated in baptism. After all, being “born of the Spirit” appears to cover the spiritual rebirth aspect; so the parallel being born “of water,” in a literary sense, appears to refer to something different, perhaps even opposite. This is why some interpreters see this “water birth” as referring to the natural, physical birth every person experiences. Every baby who is born naturally comes into the world in a gush of water from the mother’s womb. This is a plausible way that people in Jesus’ time would have referred to being born. This reading is supported by the next verse in which Jesus says, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit” (3:6).
So, with that interpretation, we have parallel references in v. 5 to both of the births just referred to in v. 3, the physical AND the spiritual. Both are necessary for one to enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, it seems likely that Jesus is referring to both of these realities when he initially says to Nicodemus “no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again [or “from above”].” Jesus and John intend their audiences to interpret both of these meanings as being true at the same time, not to choose between them. Being “born again” IS being born “from above.”
In the New Testament, the kingdom of God and its way of life are often spoken of in paradoxes. From the Beatitudes (Matt 5:1-12) and several other places in Jesus’ teachings (Matt 10:39; 20:16; 23:11; Mark 9:35; Luke 17:33, etc.), to the many contradictions celebrated by Paul (I Cor 3:18; 2 Cor 4:8-12; 6:8-10; 12:9; Gal 2:20, etc.) the New Testament message is rife with ambiguity and paradox. This is not an accident. Rather, it is the nature of the Kingdom itself. The reality of the Gospel is complicated, and cannot be easily fit into our neat little human boxes. And this is exactly why Jesus and the biblical authors often turn to paradox. To quote Amanda L. Giordano, “Paradoxes compel us to step outside of our neatly organized, mutually exclusive categories and embrace complexity.”[1] And nowhere is this more true than in our interpretation of John 3:3-5. The message of the Gospel is simple on the surface, but it invites us to engage on a higher, more complex spiritual level which may at times seem enigmatic, but is ultimately vastly rewarding.
[1] Giordano, Amanda L. “Biblical Paradoxes.” American Association of Christian Counselors, 6 Mar. 2017, www.aacc.net/2017/03/06/biblical-paradoxes/.