Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Daily gospel
exegesis podcast where we look at the Gospel reading for
today's mass and we help you understand.
Maybe what the original author was trying to communicate to the
original audience. So, looking really at the
literal sense of the text today, we've got a really Really
interesting reading and I think you're quite enjoy diving into
this one because there's a lot going on here that has
implications for us as Catholics.
So we're looking here at John chapter 3 verses 1 to 8, there
was one of the Pharisees called Nicodemus of leading Jew who
came to Jesus by night and said Rabbi, we know that you are a
teacher who comes from God for no one could perform the signs
that you do. Unless God will with him, Jesus
answered, I tell you most solemnly unless a man is born
from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus said, how can a grown man be born?
Can he go back into his mother's womb and be born again?
Jesus replied. I tell you, most solemnly,
unless a man is born through water and the spirit, he cannot
enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is
flesh. And what is born of.
The spirit is Spirit, do not be surprised.
When I say you must be born from above, the wind blows wherever
it, pleases, you hear it sound, but you cannot tell where it
comes from, or where it is going.
That is how it is with all who are born of the spirit.
So the context here is were early in the Gospel of John and
Jesus has been doing some early Ministry in Jerusalem.
Not necessarily sure when this occurred in Jesus life because
John probably isn't writing everything strictly
chronologically here in these early chapters verse 1.
There was one of the Pharisees. So Pharisees are the Jewish
leaders of the popular, the popular Jewish people.
The Pharisees job was to study the law and they did their best
to communicate the meaning of the law to the people.
Many of them were quite corrupt and selfish as we often hear in
the gospels, but not all of them.
So, in particular, Nicodemus, here is an example of one who is
apparently genuinely seeking God.
So, his name is Nicodemus, and he's a leading Jews.
So that means his from a prominent wealthy family.
It would also appear from the gospel of Mark, although it's
not 100% sure that he's part of the Sanhedrin.
The council that condemns Jesus to death.
So he's part of the council that has legislative power over all
of Israel. So he's right at the top of the
Jewish chain, here he comes to Jesus by night.
Why does he come by night? Well, depending on what night
means because night can just means Sundown, but if he is
coming late at night, he doesn't want others to see him meeting
Jesus, because he's a Pharisee and officially the Pharisees
don't accept Jesus. So, he sort of has to hide a
bit. Some have also suggested that by
night said, means that his walking in darkness, some sort
of spiritual darkness and John often talks about light and dark
in his gospel. So he says to Jesus Rabbi.
We know that you are a teacher who comes from God for no one.
Could perform the signs that you do unless God were with him.
Nicodemus is spot on his right. The reason Jesus can do these.
Things is because God is with him.
Most of the other Pharisees wouldn't agree with Nicodemus
about that. But Nicodemus has correctly
perceived that only God could give the man any man have the
power to do what Jesus does. And that's one of the points
that Jesus is consistently. Making in the Gospel of John, he
says, believe me because of my works and that's exactly what
Nicodemus does. So we see here that Nicodemus is
genuinely interested in what Jesus has to say.
He's a Pharisee who seeking God's truth.
Notice he says we we know that you are a teacher while he's not
speaking on behalf of the Pharisees so that suggests that
there might be some disciples with him.
He's brought along some people which would make sense because
he's a rich ruler. So he probably does have
disciples and together they as a group Nicodemus, and his
followers believed that Jesus is from God.
Jesus is about to say some really interesting things is
about to give quite a lofty teaching.
That is deep and multifaceted. As he often does in the Gospel
of John and the main focus here. And the reason he says this to
Nicodemus is because Nicodemus, as Jesus perceives is still
thinking in Earthly terms, and Jesus wants him to raise his
thinking to spiritual things. So he's going to try and
introduce some new spiritual Concepts that Nicodemus hasn't
considered yet. So verse 3.
Jesus says, I tell you most solemnly, or as other
translations have it truly, truly, I say unto you.
As we often say, in this podcast, that means Jesus is
about to say something pretty important.
And he says this to him unless a man is born from above, he
cannot see the kingdom of God. So firstly, why mention the
kingdom of God here? Apparently, Jesus perceives,
that Nicodemus is searching for the kingdom of God.
He's trying to understand Jesus and his work and so Jesus.
He tells him because he's just tried to sort of say, to Jesus.
We know that you're a teacher who comes from God, but Jesus,
or to perceives that actually, he's not quite there yet.
So he tells them what the prerequisite is for getting into
the kingdom and it is to be born from above.
This audio of the kingdom of God isn't talked about a lot in
John, but it is pretty prominent in the synoptics and it's
basically where God's will is done and Nicodemus wants to be a
part of that. Jesus is telling him what he has
to do to be a part of that. The main issue here is and
there's this big misunderstanding that Nicodemus
is about to bring up, and we need to understand why it is,
and there's some translation difficulties here as well.
When Jesus says, unless a man is born from above the Greek here
that he uses can be translated legitimately in one of two
different ways in that culture, it could mean one of two
different things. So it could either mean born
from above which is what our translation has, but it could
also be translated born again. And so, you'll often hear other
Christians talk about having a born-again experience and they
take it from this verse because the Greek, their can actually
mean born from above or born again.
This is the Or of the misunderstanding.
Now, here's the thing. Nicodemus seems to think when he
hears Jesus speak these words, I should say, sorry, it's Aramaic
when Jesus speaks Aramaic here. Nicodemus thinks that Jesus
means born again, that's the one that Nicodemus goes through goes
for where is it? Looks like when Jesus says these
words, he means born from above. So he's talking about birth with
Heavenly Origins and we know that that's probably the
translation. Jesus was going for because
elsewhere in the Gospel of John. It always is translated born
from above and it only makes sense in those contexts to say
born from above. So if you look at 3:31 and
19:11, you know, elsewhere in the Gospel of John where he says
you are from below, I am from above.
So that's clearly the translation that Jesus is going
for and that's important because it means that our lectionary
translation gets it right Born from above Love.
So when you hear Christians talking about, are you born
again? Well I think it's it's fair to
correct them and say actually a better translation of that is
born from above. So juicer we get our terminology
right? Because that's the mistake that
Nicodemus made he thought that Jesus meant born again, but
that's not what Jesus meant, he meant born from above.
So Jesus is now going to make it a bit clearer.
For what it means for a man to be born from above because
Nicodemus doesn't understand Nicodemus.
The first thing Nicodemus says is, how can a grown man be born?
Can he go back into his mother's womb and be born again?
And that's a fair question, because he thinks that Jesus has
just said, you have to be born again.
And that's a bit of a strange phrase.
The Jews were not used to this idea of second births to them.
You are only born once and Jesus would probably agree with that
because that's not what Jesus meant Jesus meant.
One from above. So Jesus now makes it clearer
verse 5. He says, I tell you most
solemnly, unless a man is born through water and the spirit, he
cannot enter the kingdom of God. So Jesus, he gives a
clarification, this is not a separate teaching, it's the same
teaching as before. What this means is that the
phrase born from above is equivalent to being born through
water and the spirit. So what'd whatever, born from
above means, it means the same thing as been born through
water, and the spirit, it's the same teaching, Jesus is giving
here. So here's the question.
What exactly does it mean? When Jesus says, You must be
born of water and the spirit Well firstly, we know that
whatever it is, it's a prerequisite to getting into the
kingdom of God. Many Christians believe that
this is referring to two separate events.
So they see when Jesus says You must be born of water and the
spirit a lot of Christians, take that to mean firstly you have to
be born of water. So that's like a reference to
natural birth and the water there represents amniotic fluid
in your mother's womb and then the second time you have to be
born is when you're born of spirit.
So that's Like when you have a spiritual birth later in life.
So they see it as two separate births and in support of this.
So we need to talk about different ways.
This could be understood because non-catholic Christians
typically understand it this way.
They think it's two different births that Jesus is talking
about. So the first thing that I would
say to support this is they would say that.
Well, if you look at what Nicodemus is just said about
natural birth, And he's trying to understand how someone can be
born a second time. Well then this is the answer to
that. You can be born naturally and
then supernaturally. So that's one thing that they
would say in support of it and then secondly Jesus a couple of
verses later goes on to contrast flesh birth with Spirit birth
and so that could be seen to be supporting this where there's
like these two births and in that case, flesh birth would be
the same as what Jesus calls water birth.
In this verse born of water is the same as born of Flesh.
So that's kind of the typical Evangelical Christian
understanding, there's some problems with this
interpretation. Station the biggest issue with
this interpretation is that they're making the same mistake
that Nicodemus appears to make here.
Remember Nicodemus thinks that Jesus is talking about two
different, births, two separate events, but it's really seems
like Jesus did not mean to say those two separate events.
He just mean to say that there's one event, which he calls being
born from above. The second issue with this
interpretation of two separate births, is that being born of
water is not a phrase that's used at that time period to
represent natural birth from your mother.
That's a very strange phrase. Being born of water is not
something, the Jews would have understood to mean being born
from your mother. And also to make this
interpretation work, they have to say that water is equivalent
to flesh but all throughout John water represents Supernatural
life. So it doesn't seem like we can
treat water as equivalent to fret to flesh.
Which is what you would have to do to make this interpretation
work. So the other interpretation of
this being born of water and spirit.
And this is the Catholic Church's understanding, is that
being born of water and spirit is a way of describing one
single event, which occurs at baptism.
So let's look at some ways that we can support this
interpretation and it was actually quite interesting for
me. Doing the research to see how
all the different facts dew point in this direction.
So firstly, the Jews were familiar with baptisms.
Jesus didn't introduce baptism, they already knew what a baptism
was and they had their own ritual Washings.
They also understood that in some sense, some of these ritual
Washings like the mikveh, rituals cleanse them from sin,
the Jews did believe that. So, maybe when Jesus says, born
of water automatically Nicodemus, and other Jewish
readers of John's gospel might have Associated being born of
water with a water ritual. That might have been a term that
was familiar to them already because of their familiarity
with the water rituals that they already do, but that's
speculation. I think there's more stronger
facts. We can rely on look at often
with exegesis one of the principles.
You want to think about is if you're not sure what a verse
means. Look at the Your context.
So what happens just before and just after well what happens
just after this conversation with Nicodemus you go to verse
22 of chapter 3. The very next thing that happens
is Jesus and his own Apostles begin to baptize that's
literally the very next thing they do.
So it seems like John has put this story before Jesus starts
doing baptisms because he wants his readers to understand the
significance of baptism. Next, all throughout John's
gospel. If you study the Gospel of John
Jesus says That water is a metaphor for Supernatural life.
If you think about the things, he says to the woman at the well
where he says, I will give you water welling up to eternal
life. And that also later in the
gospel, he talks about streams of living water coming from your
soul. So Jesus uses water to talk
about supernatural life, not natural birth.
Also, look at things John, the Baptist says so John the Baptist
earlier in the Gospel of John, and in the other gospels as
well. He says, I baptize you with
water and the one who comes after me, will baptize with the
Holy Spirit. Now, that could mean, John is
saying this. I baptize you with melee water,
whereas the Messiah will do both water and the spirit and if
that's the correct interpretation than that map's.
Exactly onto what Jesus is talking about here, baptism of
water and Spirit next. If you look at Ezekiel 26,
there's this interesting prophecy in Ezekiel about what
the Messianic Messianic age is going to be like, this might
have been at the background of Jesus mind when he said these
words and perhaps Nicodemus would have recognized, or he
would have thought of this quotation.
Ezekiel 26 says, and this is God, speaking, I will, sprinkle
clean water upon you and you shall be clean from all your
uncleanness has And from all your Idols, I will cleanse you a
new heart. I will give you a new spirit.
I will put within you. I will take out your foot out of
your flesh, the Heart of Stone, and give you a new heart of
Flesh. And I will put my spirit within
you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to
observe my ordinances. So as Ezekiel says that in the
coming age, God is going to sprinkle people with water and
that in some sense is going to bring about a new spirit.
So again there's this water and spirit Going together.
A lot of Christians also would consider blood and water to be
the signs of new life because they were what flowed from Jesus
side when he was pierced and as Catholics, we understand that
blood is a symbol of the Eucharist.
So what is water is symbol of? Well, it's a symbol of the other
most important Sacrament. It's a symbol of baptism.
Lastly, I think we can. Also look at later passages in
the New Testament which says that water baptism does bring
about salvation. So Acts 2:38 1, Peter 3:21 and
Titus 3:5. They all talk about water
bringing about new life. So there's a whole lot of things
that point towards, although Jesus doesn't clearly explained,
it the facts do seem to support the interpretation that being
born of water. And the spirit is a single event
that occurs at baptism on I think of these reasons, the
strongest one is the way in which Jesus talks about water
elsewhere in the Gospel of John, he talks about it in reference
to Supernatural life and I think that that has to be our guiding
principle, it wouldn't make sense for Jesus to suddenly talk
about water in terms of natural birth here.
So that's the mum apologetics for you and helping you
understand the way that we might be able to get to the right
interpretation when there's difficulties.
When there's it's not clear what the right interpretation is now
on top of that as Catholics that Catholic Church doesn't usually
Define what specific Bible verses mean, it usually leaves
it up to individual Catholics to judge for themselves.
But this is one passage where the church has defined.
What the passage means at least the basics.
What it means. So what the Council of Trent in
1547 it was declared that John 3:5.
Does refer to baptism. And water is not merely a
metaphor here but it's actually Jesus telling us the water is a
visible sign of the spirits invisible work in the sacrament
of baptism. So for Catholics that's a
non-negotiable. Jesus is talking about water,
baptism here. To sum this up.
If we think about what's Jesus trying to tell us about water
and the spirit Jesus is saying that through the water writer
baptism, the believer is supernaturally.
Joined to Jesus own death and resurrection and through that
receives the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
As a result, the believer enters the kingdom of God and is given
a share in Jesus or in Divine life.
So in effect, what he's saying to Nicodemus, is, if you want to
see the kingdom of God, you must be baptized, you must be joined
to my own death and Resurrection through a sacramental baptism,
and that's how you'll receive the Holy Spirit.
Let's move on to verse 6 because Jesus adds a little bit more.
He says, what is born of Flesh? So what is born of?
The flesh is flesh. What is born of?
The spirit is Spirit. All throughout John if you keep
reading John flesh represents all that is natural and human.
So flesh is bad in a sense. So Jesus Point here is that
natural things can only produce other Natural.
Things flesh can only produce flesh, whereas Supernatural,
things can produce, other Supernatural things.
So Spirit born of the spirit and Jesus is saying that, if you
want to get in the kingdom of God, you can't rely on natural
things. You need to rely on
Supernatural. Virtual things.
So Supernatural spirit is going to be involved in bringing about
getting people into the kingdom of God, and that's think about
it. That's exactly what born from
above means to be born from above means, you are produced
with the help of God in heaven. So, Jesus is trying to teach
Nicodemus that eternal life, which is what Nicodemus is
seeking is a supernatural thing. It's a pure gift from God which
totally exceeds all human effort and natural abilities.
He wants Nicodemus to grasp That it's a supernatural process
verse 7. He's finishes by saying, do not
be surprised. When I say to you you must be
born from above. So, Jesus is now going to
explain why this teaching should not be particularly surprising
to Nicodemus. Versailles.
Jesus says, the wind blows wherever it pleases you hear its
sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is
going. So Jesus, you is talking about
wind and the Jews. Of course, were familiar with
the wind Jesus point is, you can hear the wind and you can feel
the wind, but in that culture, they didn't really understand
how wind worked. So Jesus goes on and that is how
it is with all who are born of the spirit.
Now, the Greek word here for wind is new.
Numa in Greek and that's the same word as the word for
spirit. So Jesus basic Point here, is
that the same principles which apply to the wind also apply to
the Holy Spirit. That's what he wants Nicodemus
to understand and this in particular, he's probably saying
something like this. The Holy Spirit Works in
surprising ways and we shouldn't expect to understand it just
like the wind still. We can see evidence that it is
indeed working. Just like we can see.
The wind is working. Causing people to be born from
above and bringing people into the kingdom of God.
We can see that happening. You shouldn't expect to fully
understand it, just accept that it works.
He's basically saying that to Nicodemus don't expect to fully
understand it. It's a supernatural thing.
Only know that it does happen. That's the end of our text for
today, in the other conversation with Nicodemus continues over
the next few verses. And that's when he says for God.
So loved the world that he gave his only son and that's in the
very next part of the conversation with Nicodemus,
that will be covered in your podcast tomorrow because that's
where the lectionary picks up from tomorrow.
Just want to read about this. One quote that Justin Martyr
around the year. 100 and 1000 ad said about baptism.
And this is a very reasonably short time.
The age of the Apostles, Justin Martyr says, at our birth, we
were born with our own knowledge or Choice by our parents coming
together. We were brought up with bad
habits and wicked training. However, so that we meant may
not Remain the children of necessity and of ignorance, but
may become the children of choice and knowledge and may
obtain in the water. The remission of sins formally
committed. There is pronounced over the one
who chooses to be born again and has repented of his sins.
The name of God the father and Lord of the universe.
So already really early on in church history, there's this
understanding, the baptism brings about forgiveness of sins
and a new Supernatural life in the name of Jesus.
So this passage is really really important in Catholic teaching
and tells us a lot about baptism a lot about the Holy Spirit.
There's all sorts of really interesting passages of the
catechism which touch on those. So I want to read out a few
short passages from the catechism, there's about eight
or nine of them that we want to read but they're all pretty
short and you'll see that they're all really Punchy and
striking and really good summaries of Catholic teaching.
So let's start by looking at paragraph 7 8 2, that's
characteristics of the people of God.
It says, the people of God is marked by characteristics.
That clearly distinguish, it from all other religious, ethnic
political or cultural groups found in history.
One becomes a member of this people not by physical birth,
but by being born, a new birth of water and the spirit that is
by faith in Christ and baptism. Paragraph. 69.
One about the holy spirit says this term Spirit translates, the
Hebrew word Rua, which is in its primary sense, means breath air
and wind Jesus. Indeed uses the sensory image of
the wind to suggest Nicodemus, the Transcendent newness of him
who is personally God's breath the Divine spirit Part of 720 is
about John the Baptist. It says finally, with John the
Baptist, the Holy Spirit, Begins the restoration to man of the
Divine likeness prefiguring, what?
He would achieve with an in Christ.
John's baptism was for repentance, baptism in water and
the spirit will be a new birth. Then we have a few here from the
section about, baptism paragraph, 12, 15.
This Sacrament is also called The Washing of regeneration and
Renewal by the holy spirit for it signifies and actually brings
about the birth of water. And the spirit without which no
one can enter the kingdom of God.
And then in paragraph 1 to 25, the blood and water that flowed
from the pierced side of the crucified, Jesus, I types of
baptism and the Eucharist, the sacraments of New Life. from
then on it is possible to be born of water and the spirit in
order to enter the kingdom of God, And then in paragraph 12,
38, the baptismal water is consecrated by a prayer of
epiclesis. The church asks God through his
son, the power of the Holy Spirit, may be sent upon the
water so that those who will be baptized in, it may be born of
water and the spirit, see hearing all, these really clear,
links here to John chapter 3, paragraph 1, 2 5 7.
And this is really important paragraph for understanding.
Whether you have to be baptized to be saved, says the Lord
himself affirms that baptism is necessary for salvation.
He also commands his Us to proclaim the gospel to All
Nations and to baptize them baptism is necessary for
salvation for those to whom the gospel has been proclaimed.
And to those who have had the possibility of asking for the
sacrament. The church does not know of any
other means other than baptism that assures and treat into
Eternal. Beatitude that is why she takes
care not to neglect the mission. She has received from the Lord
to see that all who can be baptized are reborn of water and
the spirit Pirate. God has bound salvation to the
sacrament of baptism, but he himself is not bound by his
sacraments, that last phrase is really important.
So the church teaches that God has set things up in such a way
that the ordinary way to be saved at least two initially
enter, the kingdom of God is through baptism, but God can
work outside of that. It's just the church.
Does not know of any other certain way that we can enter
the kingdom of God. Apart from that baptism.
Paragraph 1 2. 6, 2 says, the different effects of baptism is
signified by the perceptible elements of the sacramental,
right immersion in water symbolizes, not only death and
purification, but also regeneration and renewal, thus
the two principal affects our purification from sins and new
birth in the Holy Spirit. Paragraph 2790 is in the section
about the Our Father. It says, grammatically our
qualifies a reality common to more than one person.
There is only one God and he's recognized as father, by those
who through faith in his only son, a reborn of him by water
and the spirit paragraph 5 to 6, says to become a child in
relation to God, is the condition for entering the
kingdom for this. We must humble ourselves and
become little even more to become children of God.
We must be born from above or born of God.
And then paragraph 591. The last one, it says, Jesus
asked the religious authorities of Jerusalem to believe in him
because of the father's Works which he accomplished, but such
an Act of Faith, must go through a mysterious death of self for a
new birth, from above under the influence of divine grace.
So, all sorts of really interesting Catholic teachings
in there and I'll include as many of those as I can in the
show notes. One other thing to mention
before we finish, today's podcast is if you've seen the
movie Son of God, which came out a few years ago.
And also the Bible TV series when they depicted this scene,
when Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night time, apparently, what
happened while they were filming on set is just as Jesus, the
act, the actor playing Jesus said, the line The wind blows
wherever it pleases, you hear it, sound then apparently on the
set at that moment and this was captured on the footage.
If you go back and watch it, there was this big kind of
gentle gust of wind. And then the actors kind of just
stay in the moment for about 10 seconds before they continue
with it. And you could say that that was
a miraculous. Maybe.
So that's just an interesting link to this particular Gospel
reading. So we'll finish it there for
today. This is, as I said a fascinating
passage, if you've learned something new, please share it
with others. I think it's really fascinating.
In particular, I didn't know that born again can be
translated, born from above. And that that's actually the
hinge between the misunderstanding between
Nicodemus and Jesus. Thanks again and we'll see you
again tomorrow. We will continue from this very
place.