Spiritual Birth, Physical Things

Some Christians deny the “water” because it doesn’t fit with the spiritual nature of the new birth. Here’s how the volume on John from The Preacher’s Outline and Sermon Bible puts it:

The new birth is spiritual, apart from any natural phenomenon. It has nothing to do with any physical substance, including water. It is not of the flesh, not any material thing. It is of the Spirit.

The “not of the flesh” and “of the Spirit” parts of the above quote are derived from verse 6, where Jesus says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

Notice that this interpretation reads into Jesus’ words that anything and everything that is material or physical is excluded from being involved in the spiritual rebirth. But that is not what Jesus says.

Rather, Jesus juxtaposes two kinds of births: our physical or natural birth, which is “of the flesh,” and the spiritual or supernatural rebirth that is “of the Spirit.” The focus is the essential difference of the births, not what might or might not be involved with those births.

For example, our physical or natural birth is “of the flesh,” yet that doesn’t mean that anything and everything spiritual is excluded from it, since our natural birth does involve something spiritual—namely, our soul, which is informing the matter. But the birth itself is described as “of the flesh” because that’s an idiom Jesus frequently uses to express things that pertain to the natural order apart from God’s grace.

Consider what he says in John 8:15: “You judge according to the flesh.” There, Jesus is telling the Pharisees that they judge from an earthly perspective alone.

He also employs this idiom in John 6:63, when he says, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. The Spirit gives life, the flesh is of no avail.” Per John 8:15, Jesus is teaching his disciples that if they judge his teaching to eat his flesh and drink his blood from an earthly perspective alone, they won’t be able to assent to it. His teaching goes beyond human reason. Consequently, they need a power that is above reason, which only the Spirit can give, and that’s the gift of faith.

So the birth “of the flesh” that Jesus speaks of is our first birth, which is natural, and that natural birth doesn’t exclude any and all things spiritual, since the soul is present with the body in that first birth.

Our spiritual rebirth, on the other hand, is not a physical birth. It is a spiritual birth. That’s why Jesus says it is “spirit,” “of the Spirit.” But just because the birth is spiritual in nature doesn’t necessarily exclude any and everything material. It may well involve something material, like water, that serves as a means through which the spiritual rebirth takes place.

Consider again John 6:63. Jesus says, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. The Spirit gives life, the flesh is of no avail.” Affirming that his words are spiritual, and are discerned by the Spirit, doesn’t mean he didn’t use audible sounds, something of the physical world, to communicate his words.

Similarly, just because Jesus teaches the new birth is spirit and not flesh doesn’t mean all fleshy and physical things, like water, are excluded. It simply refers to a particular kind of birth that is distinct from our physical birth.

That this is the focus is supported by the fact that Jesus draws this contrast in response to Nicodemus who thought the new birth was to involve a grown man entering into his mother’s womb a second time (v. 4).

Therefore, the spiritual nature of the new birth can’t be appealed to as evidence for water being excluded from the new birth.

Let’s consider one more counter-argument to our interpretation of the new birth being a reference to baptism. This one is offered by Todd Baker, president of B’rit Hadashah Ministries and pastor of Shalom, Shalom Messianic Congregation in Dallas, Texas. In commenting on the new birth of “water and Spirit,” Baker writes,

Nothing in this world can generate the power of spiritual rebirth; flesh can produce only flesh. . . . Even in the beginning of John’s Gospel, the reader is told that the power of spiritual rebirth, whereby the believer in Christ becomes a child of God, is not an act that can be exercised by human act of will, or physical generation, or performance of any kind—the act of sacramental baptism included— but is a supernatural, sovereign act of God alone, bestowed upon those who believe in Jesus Christ. Those who are baptized do so by an act of their own will. The new birth is altogether different from this; it is an act of God! . . . So then, “born of water” in John 3:5 cannot mean the physical rite of baptism as the agent for spiritual rebirth; it must mean something else.

For Baker, the spiritual rebirth is an act of God and therefore cannot involve any human act. Since the ritual of water baptism involves a human act, it follows that the spiritual rebirth can’t be a reference to ritual water baptism.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that it would preclude humans being involved in several things that the Bible affirms humans are involved in when God exercises his sovereignty.

Consider, for example, the healing of the lame beggar that Peter performs in Acts 3:1-10. The effect of the miracle can be brought about only by God. Yet that doesn’t mean Peter’s action isn’t involved. God used Peter as an instrument to bring about the miraculous effect.

Consider also Paul’s teaching that we are justified by “faith.” Faith is a gift that God alone can give. Yet the act of faith itself, which God moves us to engage in, involves our intellect moved by the will to assent to what God reveals and the act of directing our hearts and minds to God as our ultimate supernatural end. That’s human action, actualized within us by God.

More examples abound. In John 16:8, we’re told that the Spirit will convict the world of sin and righteousness. However, we know that the Spirit uses preachers to establish that conviction.

Life itself is from God, yet he uses the actions of a human mother and father to be participants in giving that life to us.

One more example, which perhaps relates best to our topic at hand: Jesus heals the blind man in John 9:1-7. Yet he intentionally involved the blind man’s action—namely, Jesus commanded him to go and wash his eyes in the pool of Siloam. And upon doing that human act, Jesus healed him.

So just because an effect is brought about by God alone, like the spiritual rebirth, doesn’t necessarily exclude human action, like ritual water baptism.

Given that the two above counterarguments fail to disprove the spiritual re-birth of John 3:5 to be a reference to water baptism, believers in baptismal regeneration can still appeal to the passage as biblical support for their belief.