John Calvin Commentary John 3:5

"Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God!" — John 3:5 (ASV)

Unless a man be born of water. This passage has been explained in various ways. Some have thought that the two parts of regeneration are distinctly pointed out, and that by the word Water is denoted the renunciation of the old man, while by the Spirit they have understood the new life. Others think that there is an implied contrast, as if Christ intended to contrast Water and Spirit, which are pure and liquid elements, with the earthly and gross nature of man. Thus they view the language as allegorical, and suppose Christ to have taught that we should lay aside the heavy and ponderous mass of the flesh, and to become like water and air, that we may move upwards, or, at least, may not be weighed down so much to the earth. But both opinions appear to me to be at variance with the meaning of Christ.

Chrysostom, with whom the greater part of commentators agree, makes the word Water refer to baptism. The meaning would then be, that by baptism we enter into the kingdom of God, because in baptism we are regenerated by the Spirit of God. From this arose the belief of the absolute necessity of baptism for the hope of eternal life.

But even if we were to admit that Christ here speaks of baptism, yet we should not press his words so closely as to imagine that he confines salvation to the outward sign; but, on the contrary, he connects the Water with the Spirit, because under that visible symbol he attests and seals that newness of life which God alone produces in us by his Spirit.

It is true that, by neglecting baptism, we are excluded from salvation; and in this sense I acknowledge that it is necessary. But it is absurd to speak of the hope of salvation as confined to the sign. Regarding this passage, I cannot bring myself to believe that Christ speaks of baptism, for it would have been inappropriate.

We must always remember Christ's purpose, which we have already explained: namely, that he intended to exhort Nicodemus to newness of life, because he was not capable of receiving the Gospel until he began to be a new man.

It is, therefore, a simple statement that we must be born again so that we may be the children of God, and that the Holy Spirit is the Author of this second birth.

For while Nicodemus was dreaming of the regeneration (παλιγγενεσία) or transmigration taught by Pythagoras—who imagined that souls, after the death of their bodies, passed into other bodies—Christ, to cure him of this error, added by way of explanation that it is not in a natural way that men are born a second time. It is not necessary for them to be clothed with a new body; rather, they are born when they are renewed in mind and heart by the grace of the Spirit.

Accordingly, he employed the words Spirit and water to mean the same thing, and this should not be regarded as a harsh or forced interpretation. For it is a frequent and common way of speaking in Scripture, when the Spirit is mentioned, to add the word Water or Fire, expressing his power.

We sometimes meet with the statement that it is Christ who baptizeth with the Holy Ghost and with fire (Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:16), where fire means nothing different from the Spirit, but only shows what is his efficacy in us.

As for the word water being placed first, it is of little consequence; or rather, this way of speaking flows more naturally than the other, because the metaphor is followed by a plain and direct statement. It is as if Christ had said that no man is a son of God until he has been renewed by water, and that this water is the Spirit who cleanses us anew and who, by spreading his energy over us, imparts to us the vigor of the heavenly life, though by nature we are utterly dry.

And Christ most properly, in order to reprove Nicodemus for his ignorance, employs a form of expression which is common in Scripture; for Nicodemus should eventually have acknowledged that what Christ had said was taken from the ordinary doctrine of the Prophets.

By water, therefore, is meant nothing more than the inward purification and invigoration which is produced by the Holy Spirit. Besides, it is not unusual to employ the word and instead of that is, when the latter clause is intended to explain the former. And the view which I have taken is supported by what follows; for when Christ immediately proceeds to assign the reason why we must be born again, without mentioning the water, he shows that the newness of life which he requires is produced by the Spirit alone. From which it follows that water must not be separated from the Spirit.