In John 3:1-5, a Jewish ruler named Nicodemus comes to Jesus and confesses that Jesus must be from God. Nicodemus could not deny the signs that Jesus was able to do. Jesus immediately tells him, “Except one be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (3:3).
Birth brings something that has life into a new existence. A baby in the womb is a living human being. Killing this baby is just as evil as a child outside of the womb. But we also recognize that when the baby is born, it enters into a new life. Similarly, one enters into the new life of a Christian through the process of being born again.
In 3:4 Nicodemus asks Jesus how one is born again. Many people have their own answer to the question, but honest hearts will give heed to the answer of Jesus.
Jesus says, “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (3:5). Water is essential to life. Plants and animals will die without water. Water is essential to spiritual life as well. The Bible gives us many examples of what Jesus means by water.
In the same chapter, as soon as he is finished with Nicodemus, the text says that Jesus came to Judea “and there he remained with them and baptized” (3:23). In the next verse, it says that John was also baptizing in a place called Aenon, “because there was much water there”.
When Jesus commissioned his disciples to preach the message of his kingdom, he told them, “he that believes and is baptized shall be saved” (Mk 16:16). In Acts 2:38, after the message of the kingdom had been preached, Peter instructs the believers to “be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins”. And when they were baptized they were added to the kingdom (2:47).
In Romans 6:1-6, Paul is teaching on the importance of baptism. In this text he says we are raised out of the water to “walk in newness of life”. Or another way to put it, water is the point in which someone is born again.
Water is essential to all life. Physical and spiritual. Have you been born again?
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