約翰福音 3章5節 到 3章5節     上一筆  下一筆
 {Of water and the Spirit} (ex hudatos kai pneumatos).
Nicodemus had failed utterly to grasp the idea of the spiritual
birth as essential to entrance into the Kingdom of God. He knew
only Jews as members of that kingdom, the political kingdom of
Pharisaic hope which was to make all the world Jewish (Pharisaic)
under the King Messiah. Why does Jesus add ex hudatos here? In
verse  3  we have "an(9374)hen" (from above) which is repeated in
verse  7 , while in verse  8  we have only ek tou pneumatos (of
the Spirit) in the best manuscripts. Many theories exist. One
view makes baptism, referred to by ex hudatos (coming up out of
water), essential to the birth of the Spirit, as the means of
obtaining the new birth of the Spirit. If so, why is water
mentioned only once in the three demands of Jesus ( 3,5,7 )?
Calvin makes water and Spirit refer to the one act (the cleansing
work of the Spirit). Some insist on the language in verse  6  as
meaning the birth of the flesh coming in a sac of water in
contrast to the birth of the Spirit. One wonders after all what
was the precise purpose of Jesus with Nicodemus, the Pharisaic
ceremonialist, who had failed to grasp the idea of spiritual
birth which is a commonplace to us. By using water (the symbol
before the thing signified) first and adding Spirit, he may have
hoped to turn the mind of Nicodemus away from mere physical birth
and, by pointing to the baptism of John on confession of sin
which the Pharisees had rejected, to turn his attention to the
birth from above by the Spirit. That is to say the mention of
"water" here may have been for the purpose of helping Nicodemus
without laying down a fundamental principle of salvation as being
by means of baptism. Bernard holds that the words hudatos kai
(water and) do not belong to the words of Jesus, but "are a
gloss, added to bring the saying of Jesus into harmony with the
belief and practice of a later generation." Here Jesus uses
eiselthein (enter) instead of idein (see) of verse  3 , but
with the same essential idea (participation in the kingdom).

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