Baptism, An Exploration: Nicodemus, Part 1 (The After Post, Part 2)

Nicodemus

Born or begotten?

We considered Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in the “before” post. But we need to consider Nicodemus further. He’d never read a Gospel or Romans. The only baptism he knew was John the Baptist’s, if he knew that. Jesus said,

(John 3:3-4 ESV) 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

4 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?”

I can find but one Old Testament antecedent for “born again.” In the Greek Septuagint, we find —

(Deu 32:18 ESV) You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.

“Bore you” in the Greek Septuagint is ?????????? (gennesanta) meaning “begot” or “fathered.” The Israelites were both begotten by God and born by God! The Jewish Publication Society’s translation is —

(Deu 32:18 JPS) Of the Rock that begot thee thou wast unmindful, and didst forget God that bore thee.

God is claiming to be both parents — father and mother. In other word, their origin is found in God and God only.

Of course, the idea of being begotten of God is the one that shows up repeatedly in scriptures. After all, the idea is implicit in being a “son of God” or “child of God.”

(Deu 14:1a ESV) “You are the sons of the LORD your God.”

(Hos 1:10 ESV) Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.”

In John 3:3, the same Greek verb (gennao) is used. Thayer’s defines it as —

properly: of men begetting children, Matt. 1:1-16; Acts 7:8,29; followed by ek with the genitive of the mother, Matt. 1:3,5,6; more rarely of women giving birth to children,

Louw-Nida defines it,

the male role in causing the conception and birth of a child – ‘to be the father of, to procreate, to beget.’

Liddell-Scott says,

of the father, to beget, engender, Aesch., Soph.; rarely of the mother, to bring forth,

Gingrich says,

1. be or become the father of, beget lit. … —2. of women: bear

There is no mother under consideration in John 3. Hence, “beget” is the natural translation. And this is the conclusion reached by Leon Morris in the New International Commentary, which is a masterpiece of a commentary. And it fits Deut 32:18. So let’s start over —

(John 3:3-4 ESV) 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is [begotten] again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be [begotten] when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be [begotten]?”

Now, to modern ears, it sounds ridiculous for Nicodemus to suggest returning to his mother’s womb to be re-begotten. That sounds much more like birth. But the ancients didn’t know about sperm and eggs. They didn’t speak in terms of conception as the uniting of sperm and egg. No, the man’s semen was referred to as “seed,” and impregnating a woman was seen as planting the man’s seed. Thus, the seed would produce the child in a “fertile” woman. Yes, they thought in agricultural terms. As stated by Scot McKnight —

The ANE view of reproduction, including human reproduction, was viewed as males as sowing seed into a receptacle – the womb of the female – where the seed then grew. Lineage passed through the male line because the essence of being came from the male, not the female. The idea of egg and sperm combining to produce a child with equal contributions from mother and father was not in the picture. Dr. Lamoureux quotes from Aeschylus (5th cent. BC):

“The mother is no parent of that which is called her child, but only the nurse of the new-planted seed that grows. The parent is he who mounts. She preserves a stranger’s seed if no God interferes.” The ancients believed that an entire miniature human being was tightly packed within a man’s “seed.” Historically, this notion persisted as late as the seventeenth century even after the invention of the first microscopes. (p. 139)

In fact, the Greek word for “seed” is sperma. Therefore, to be begotten was to be planted in the mother’s womb. Nicodemus’ question makes perfect sense from that perspective. He was thinking, “To be begotten again would mean to be re-planted in my mother’s womb. How ridiculous!” In fact, he was likely also thinking, “I’m a Jew. I’m already begotten of God!”

(John 3:5-6 ESV) 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is [begotten] of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is [begotten] of the flesh is flesh, and that which is [begotten] of the Spirit is spirit.

Now, this makes better sense. Flesh is begotten of flesh. To the ancients, the essential nature of the infant comes from the father through begetting. We inherit nothing from our mothers. Our nature is received from our fathers, not our mothers. Thus, kingship, for example, passed from the man to his son. Hence, they’d most naturally understand that flesh begets flesh and Spirit begets Spirit.

And for Jesus to say Spirit begets spirit makes sense in light of Deuteronomy as well as what we know of Jesus’ own conception by the Spirit.

Consider also —

(1Jo 3:9 ESV) 9 No one born [begotten] of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born [begotten] of God.

How can John be speaking of God’s “seed” and not be speaking of being begotten?

And consider —

(Psa 2:7 ESV) 7 I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.”

We Americans, as heirs of Victorianism, don’t like to speak in terms of conception. We’d rather talk about birth. But the same word used for the Messiah as begotten of God is used by Jesus to refer to our being begotten again — of water and the Spirit.

It fits. Indeed, Psalm 2 plainly speaks of the Messiah as begotten again. After all, the Psalm was originally a coronation psalm for the king. To become a king is to become begotten (again) of God.

Hence, another meaning of Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus is that he must become a king! (And we covered this in an earlier post here.) Nicodemus would not have seen this immediately, as the idea of a second begetting was shocking to him, perhaps even an insult to his status before God as a Jew. But Jesus was calling him to a higher, better kind of begottenness.

“Water”

This now leads back to Leon Morris’s commentary on John. He asks, what does “water” refer to? After all, Nicodemus would have had no way to understand Jesus to be speaking of Christian baptism. Indeed, John says nothing else about Christian baptism in his Gospel. What could Nicodemus have heard “water” to mean?

1. He could have heard a reference to John’s baptism in water. He further could have thought of the baptism of the Spirit John declared would be given by the Messiah. Thus, “begotten of water and Spirit” migh have sounded like “baptized in John’s water baptism and in the Messiah’s Spirit baptism.” But we aren’t told that Nicodemus knew any of this or had been present with John. Rather, the reason Nicodemus gives for visiting Jesus is —

(John 3:2 ESV) 2 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.”

So, yes, this is entirely possible. But it’s hard to insist on it.

2. “Water” could be a reference to begetting. Morris explains,

But Odeberg has gathered an impressive array of passages from Rabbinic, Mandaean, and Hermetic sources to show that terms like “water”, “rain”, “dew”, and “drop” are often used of the male semen. … Being born of “water” may point to natural birth, which must then be followed by being born “of the Spirit”, i.e., spiritual regeneration. Or better, we may take “water” and “Spirit” closely together to give a meaning like “spiritual seed.”

If we recall the Spirit’s role in the conception of Jesus, the idea of “spiritual seed” is hardly foreign to Jesus’ thought. And it’s a thought found in —

(1Pe 1:22-23 ESV) 22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born [begotten] again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;

(1Jo 3:9 ESV) 9 No one born [begotten] of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born [begotten] of God.

“Imperishable seed” and “God’s seed” are not agricultural references. We moderns would say “semen.” But our Victorianism makes that too uncomfortable to say out loud.

Matthew Henry comments on 1 John 3:9 —

that which is born of the Spirit is spirit; the spiritual seminal principle of holiness remaineth in him.

I think that’s plainly right. “Born of the Spirit” is a reference to being begotten by the Spirit — the Spirit as the spiritual seed that re-creates us in God’s image. (We could cover thousands of words on the New Testament concept of Christians being re-created by God at conversion, which parallels the thought.)