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BORN AGAIN BY WATER AND THE SPIRIT
The Text, St. John 3:1-8. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Lord, this is Your Word, and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is truth. O gracious God, send Your Holy Spirit into our hearts, that being born again we may firmly believe the forgiveness of sins according to Your promise in baptism, and grow in baptism that we may eternal life inherit. Amen.
(From the Collect on the Trinity Sunday Gospel, ELH p. 157-158; and ELH 241:2, T. Kingo)
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ, who comes to us through the work of the Holy Spirit: Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
On Pentecost, we hear about the Holy Spirit. Amazingly, the first time Jesus taught about the Holy Spirit was not to His disciples but to Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, who came to Jesus privately. This happened very early on: Jesus hadn’t even called all 12 disciples at this point.
Nicodemus did not come to Jesus with any humility. He wasn’t inquiring how to be saved. Like all the Pharisees, Nicodemus thought he knew God already. He says to Jesus, “We know that You are a teacher sent from God.” It sounds like faith in God. But it isn’t. And it sounds complimentary to Jesus, but it isn’t; he just considers Him a human teacher. Jesus tells this man how he can come into the kingdom, which is saying that he’s on the outside of it.
Jesus’ response is to tell Nicodemus about the need to be “born again,” to be “born of water and the Spirit.” This is baptism language. This is amazing, since Jesus didn’t institute baptism until 3 years later!
What’s going on is that by the time John wrote his gospel around 95 A.D., the Christian Church had been following Jesus’ command to baptize for over 60 years. But what can happen with something like Baptism is that you think of it as a ritual, and it becomes impersonal. John was moved by the Spirit to write in his gospel this visit with Nicodemus, to highlight the personal nature of Baptism, as in the Person of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit isn’t an impersonal force. He’s the third Person of the Trinity, and He deals with you personally.
This is about our salvation. The Holy Spirit deals with you personally to save you from your sins: to bring the salvation Jesus won on the cross right to you. That’s what it was about with Nicodemus. But he didn’t think he needed saving. He came to Jesus with an arrogance, only to satisfy curiosity, not to satisfy a need. But John clues us in by saying he “came to Jesus by night.” This isn’t just the time of day, but in John’s gospel this is a term for unbelief. It’s saying that Nicodemus is walking in darkness. That’s how Jesus sees him.
As Jesus explains, this is how everyone is by nature. This is how God sees everyone: on their own, they’re walking in darkness. God wants to bring everyone into the light, the light of faith, and to keep walking in this light. This is where the Holy Spirit comes in. It’s His work to give this light, as Psalm 25 says to open our eyes, to open blind eyes, and give the light of faith.
So Jesus begins by saying, “Truly, truly, unless one is born again, He cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus responds, “Can a man enter into his mother’s womb a second time and be born?” Jesus explains that the problem is, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh” – that is, that which is born of human flesh is sinful flesh – and “cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
The reason Jesus speaks about a new birth is that – since the fall of Adam – there’s a problem with the first birth. This is the first truth to know about yourself: that “truly, truly,” you have a sinful nature. Like Nicodemus, you have to hear that by your own doing, you “cannot enter the kingdom of God.” It’s hard to hear “cannot.” You like to think you can do anything.
The baptism liturgy starts with this teaching: “In the Word of God we learn that from the Fall of Adam we are all conceived and born in sin.” This reflects Jesus’ words, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh [and] cannot enter the kingdom of God.” The world hates this teaching. Those who reject infant baptism hate this teaching, since they teach the “competency of the soul,” which they say is the freedom and ability for each soul to respond to God’s will on its own, the ability to choose to accept God’s gift of salvation.
Also, your own sinful flesh hates this teaching. It resists saying “truly, truly,” to this utter inability to believe and do God’s will, needing God to do it all. Your sinful flesh – your sinful self – gnashes its teeth over this, you get this bitter feeling over it. I think we feel this most when you see your failures, or when you want to live as the world does in some ways, and be more like everyone else. We avoid facing this inability, since our sinful self resents it.
This is when, like Nicodemus, we “come to Jesus by night.” It’s not just that we were that way prior to Baptism; but we return to that darkness. The devil, the prince of darkness, is working to pull you back into it. It’s the darkness that furrows your brow in anger; or the darkness of doubt; or the dark cloud that covers you in depression or worry; or the bitterness of spirit that can’t be happy for others; or that you get into a mood so easily. It betrays a deeper darkness, a self-righteousness that looks for someone else to blame or look down on. Yet underneath, you know you don’t measure up; this gnaws at you. Isn’t this what offends some people about Baptism, that it doesn’t seem to make us better? Shouldn’t we live better if we’re baptized?
Yes. But it can’t be by your own ability. Then you’d still be in darkness. Luther says in the Smalcald Articles, one of our Lutheran Confessions, this is “how blind reason, in matters pertaining to God, gropes about, and according to its imagination, seeks consolation in its own works, and entirely forgets Christ or faith.”
But thank God, He loves you so much! He just refuses to let you belong to the night or darkness. The Holy Spirit, the Light Giver, comes to you. Jesus says you cannot enter the kingdom of God, except, or unless, you’re “born of water and the Spirit.” He said it to Nicodemus. He says it to you. The Holy Spirit is the Except. The Holy Spirit is the Unless.
After the part about being “conceived and born in sin,” the baptism liturgy brings in these words of Jesus: “In order that all men, women, and children might come to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, He has entrusted Baptism to His church as a means of grace for our salvation. Our Lord has said, ‘Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.’ ”
“Water and the Spirit” is Baptism. This is how you enter God’s kingdom! This is how the Holy Spirit works. He binds Himself to water and the Word. This is the next truth to know about yourself: that “truly, truly,” the Holy Spirit came to you in Baptism and you were brought into God’s kingdom “by water and the Spirit” and made God’s child. You say “truly, truly” to this: that your sin doesn’t condemn you, “truly, truly”; that you are God’s child, “truly, truly”; that you are without spot or wrinkle or blemish in God’s sight “by the washing of water with the word” (Eph 5:26-27). “Truly, truly.”
But what about now, when you return to that darkness of sin and shame, or the darkness of self-righteousness or doubt or bitterness? Because “that which is born of the flesh is flesh,” you have no ability to take to yourself this comfort that you are without spot or wrinkle or blemish, in God’s sight. This explains why it’s so hard to receive this comfort and hold onto it.
Jesus provides the answer in verse 8: “you hear the sound of [the wind], but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” These words are put into our Augsburg Confession, Article 5, on how faith comes: “Through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Spirit is given, who works faith where and when it pleases God in those who hear the Gospel.” This also answers how – in times of spiritual struggle and the dark night of the soul, if your heart refuses to be comforted – it’s still true that the Spirit is providing what you can’t get to on your own.
This says that the power to do this – the ability to believe the comfort that He gives – comes from the Holy Spirit. Just as He gave you faith the first time in Baptism through the life-giving words, the Gospel, He also gives you faith whenever you still hear the life-giving Word, the Gospel.
We just trust what God says, that “through the Word and Sacraments, the Holy Spirit is given” – to you! – that we can’t judge from our feelings about the presence and work of the Holy Spirit; that we don’t doubt but believe that the Holy Spirit enlightens and converts our hearts through the hearing of the Word, even if it happens in great weakness and struggle (FC II) – that the Holy Spirit, who loves you, is doing it, keeps doing it, and never gives up.
Only this can make someone into a new person. This is the only thing that can ever bring you to live like you should. The Law will never do it. Only the Gospel, the declaration that God loves you despite your sins, will give you the heart, mind, strength, and will to do better with His help. This is living the new life He gave you in Baptism. This too is the work of the Holy Spirit, called sanctification. It began in Baptism and never ends.
Take as your own identity Jesus’ final words here, “So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” He’s describing you. You are born of the Spirit. Amen!