In the beginning was the Word; the Word was with God and…was God… ·In him was life, and this life was the light of all people. ...·The light, the true one… ·…was in the world—yes, the world that came to be through him—yet the world did not know him. ·…His own people did not take him in. ·Yet to all who did receive him, to all those believing in his name, he gave ...authority [Gr. exousia] to become sons and daughters of God—·begotten [Gr. e-genneetheesan] not out of blood, nor out of the desire of the flesh, nor out of a man's will, but out of God himself. ·For the Word became flesh and resided among us, and we saw his glory—the glory as of an only-begotten [Gr. mono-genous] alongside a father, full of grace and truth. ...·From his fullness we all have received grace upon grace, ·in that: the Law was given through Moses; the grace and the truth came through Jesus the Messiah [Gr. christos]. ·No one has ever yet seen God. God, the Only-Begotten [mono-genees] who is at the Father's side, that one has made Him known. ...·The one who comes from above [Gr. anothen] is over all... ·The one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, since God gives the Spirit without limit. ·The Father loves the Son and has entrusted all things in his hand. ·The one believing in the Son has eternal life. (John 1:1,4,9-14,16-18; 3:31,34-36b GH[i])

There came a man sent by God; his name was John… ·John testified concerning him..., saying, ‘This is the one of whom I spoke: The one coming after me has come to be ahead of me, because he was before me. ...·…I came baptizing in water so that he might be seen by Israel. ·…I watched the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove and remain on him. ·I too was not aware of him. But the One sending me… had said to me…, “That one on whom you ever see the Spirit descend, and on him remain, is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” ·I have seen and I have testified that he is the chosen “Son of God”.’ (Jn.1:6,15,31b-34)

(To) Nicodemus… ·Jesus replied, ‘…If anyone is not begotten [genneethee] from above [anothen], he cannot perceive the kingdom of God.’ ·Nicodemus said, ‘How can a person who is old… enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born [genneetheenai]!’ ·Jesus responded, ‘…If anyone is not begotten out of water and out of spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ·That which has been begotten out of the flesh is flesh; that which has been begotten out of the Spirit is spirit. ·Do not marvel that I said to you: “YOU must be begotten from above.” ·The wind blows wherever it wishes, and you hear the sound of it; yet you cannot perceive where it comes from or to where it is going. So it is with each one who is begotten out of the Spirit.’ ·‘How can such things possibly happen?’ Nicodemus asked him in return. ·Jesus answered…, ‘You are the teacher in Israel, yet you do not know these things?’ (Jn.3:1,3-10)

In the above text we see that John learned to know the Father through Jesus in two ways: by observing Jesus' own relationship with the Father while he was ‘residing’ here on earth, and by revelation—by Jesus making the Father known to him after returning to ‘the Father's side’. And after John was baptized with Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost (Med.#49)—as foretold by John the Baptist and by Jesus  (Med.#51 & Med.#57)—he was able to describe his own new relationship with the Father in terms of what he had observed in Jesus (Med.#52):

•Just as the Father had ‘entrusted everything in his hands’ when he gave Jesus ‘the Spirit without limit’, so John himself had ‘become’ a ‘son’ to the Father by receiving ‘authority’.

•The ‘gift of God, the Holy Spirit (Med.#3), represented something of the glorious ‘fullness’ of ‘grace and truth’ that John had seen in Jesus: who had walked with God as an ‘only-begotten [monogenous] alongside a father’,

•The ‘grace and truth’ that had come to John, through Jesus and the Spirit, were built ‘upon’ the divine ‘grace’ that he already knew through the Torah, ‘through Moses’—grace that included knowing God as the Father who created him, and who had placed his Spirit ‘among’ the people of Israel (Med.#A & Med.#C, Is.63:11 [NIV]). Thus for John, being ‘begotten [e-genneetheesan]…out of God himself’, through faith in Jesus, was not primarily about coming to know God as Father for the first time—either by being ‘born’ or by being ‘adopted’!

This can be seen, first of all, in the way John connects the Greek word [root: gennao] to Jesus. But before doing so, he makes it very clear that Jesus does not have a birth relationship with the Father. The Holy Spirit has revealed to him that Jesus is the uncreated Word of God who is God and who makes the Father known to us—as the Son who is ‘God only-begotten [Gr. mono-genees]’. Many modern translators choose to interpret this compound word as the ‘only Son’, or the ‘one-and-only Son’. Yet this birth-related idea of ‘only-child (male or female)’ is only one of two possible meanings for mono-genees in the New Testament (e.g. Lk.7:12; 8:42). It can also refer to the one son designated as the only ‘heir’, like when Isaac is referred to as Abraham's ‘only-begotten’ (Heb.11:17). According to the Bible, Ishmael was also a ‘son’ of Abraham by birth; yet at God's direction, Abraham declared Isaac to be his sole heir. Thus when the author of Hebrews speaks of Jesus as God's ‘firstborn’—‘a Son whom he has ‘placed as heir of all things’—he sees this as fulfilling the Messianic prophecy: ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten [Gr. gegenneeka] you’ (Med.#7 & Med.#D).

Secondly, John he indicates how this word was used in a human sense. In his day, child was considered to be ‘begotten [genesthai]’ by his parents: through a genetic connection to them (‘out of blood’); through their sexual union that resulted in the child's conception (‘out of the desire of the flesh’), and through a choice made by the father (‘out of a man's will’). Only the first two aspects clearly refer to the birth of a child; for in the pre-modern world, birth was not seen to involve a human choice. So the third aspect is about the father declaring which of his already living children will become his ‘heir’ on coming of age (Med.#4). It is thus not  about how he or she was born.

Thirdly, John remembers how Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about being ‘begotten from above [Gr. anothen]…, out of the Spirit’? Nicodemus thinks Jesus is talking about being ‘born again’—physically ‘born …a second time’. Many Christians also think this is what Jesus means. Now the Greek word, anothen, can mean ‘again’; yet this is not how John uses the word when speaking of Jesus himself being ‘from above’. The key to understand Jesus' primary meaning lies in the following three things Jesus says to Nicodemus. (1) Everyone needs to be ‘begotten out of water’ as well as ‘out of spirit’, (2) since ‘that which is begotten out of the flesh is flesh’; so, therefore, (3) ‘YOU’ (plural) also ‘must be begotten from above’. By switching to the plural ‘YOU’, Jesus is also challenging Nicodemus' colleagues. The Judean leaders were expecting the kingdom of God, like all Jews of their day; yet they are not submitting to John's baptism (Lk.7:30). To them, baptism in water was only for proselytes from other nations—a ‘cleansing of re-generation’ [Gr. palin-genesia][ii] by which they began life again in Israel, as children.[iii] So, influenced by human ideas of social status and ethnic superiority, they can't imagine that as descendants of Abraham—let alone as leaders in Israel—they would need to do something so demeaning.

Similarly, many Christians today are focused on getting to heaven through a ‘born again’ experience. But this theology keeps them from hearing Jesus say that being ‘begotten from above’ is more like experiencing the wind, since it is more about living in the eternal life of Jesus than on being able to identify a starting and ending point. A focus on our coming into his Life as a kind of new birth experience reflects more a human perspective. For the Spirit represents the ‘first-fruits’ of a new level of life that will eventually include the ‘redemption of our bodies’ as well (Med.#5)—a transformation by which our mortal bodies become immortal ones, like the body Jesus received at his resurrection (Med.#94). Yet from our Father’s perspective, we still carry his DNA, having been created in his image—something we did not lose even after we disobeyed him, bringing sin into the world (Med.#A). Yes, all people need redemption through the blood of Jesus; but the ‘will’ of our Father, from before the creation of the world—also expressed in Jesus—was that with coming of the Spirit, as the deposit on our inheritance, we would come of age as adult ‘heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ’ through the ‘placement as sons’ (Med.#8, Med.#4 & Med.#5). By receiving the Spirit, we come into the same ‘fullness’ of ‘authority’ that Jesus received, when the Spirit came on him and the Father publicly declared him to be ‘my Son’ (Med.#26).

Have you embraced the full truth of being ‘begotten from above’ by God himself, with full authority in Christ as an adult son or daughter of the Father, and as a co-heir with Jesus by the Spirit? Or has a traditional ‘born again’ theology kept you focused on your own perspective of how you began to experience this new life?

With freedom and confidence I kneel before you, Father, having my heart sprinkled to cleanse me from a guilty conscience, having my body washed with pure water, and having tasted of the heavenly gift of the Holy Spirit. (Eph.3:12,14; Heb.10:22; 6:4)

Father, fill me with your Holy Spirit today—with the revelation of your grace and truth that have come in Jesus' name—so that I may know you better and the ‘fullness of Jesus’, so I may walk in the authority that makes me an adult son (daughter) in your family kingdom. (Lk.11:13; Eph.5:18; 1:17; Jn.1:12,16-17; 3:5)

[i] The Scripture passage is taken from J.K. Mellis, The Good News of the Messiah by the Four Witnesses, pp.7,27,31,34,38,41 and 297-298.

[ii] I use quotation marks because John the Baptist, coming from a priestly family, was most likely thinking of the prophecies indicating how God had spoken of, and would relate to the his promised Anointed One (Messiah) as his ‘Son’ in some special way (Med.#D),  

[iii] This word only appears twice in the New Testament: in Mat.19:28, and in Paul's letter to Titus where he associates it with baptism, ‘the washing of regeneration [Gr. palingenesia]’, and with our justification in Christ (also in Rom.5:9; 6:3)—while at the same time connecting the Spirit with a ‘renovation [Gr. anakoinoseos]’ by which we become ‘heirs’ (Tit.3:5-7). According to Thayer's Greek Lexicon,  this second Greek word refers to a ‘complete change for the better’ of some kind.

[iv] In William Barclay, The Letters of Timothy, Titus and Philemon, in ‘The Double Dynamic’ (concerning Titus 3:3-7).