Notice the Johannine dualism: Flesh vs. Spirit (v.6) Earthly vs. heavenly (vs. 12 and 31) He who believes, he who does not believe. That is he who has faith, he who does not have faith (v. 15, 16, 18). Saved vs. perished (16 & 17), he who is judged, he who is not judged (vs. 18) and finally light vs. dark (vs. 19-21).
These dualisms are a reflection of two orders. A heavenly order and an earthly order. An uncreated order and a created order. A pristine order and a fallen order. The contrast in the two orders come to expression in the term "born again" or born from above". Intentionally ambiguous. To the mind of Nicodemas it is a linear, horizontal concept (re-emergence from the maternal womb), a begetting of the order of the flesh. But "born again" is tied to who Jesus is and what He brings. He is the one who has descended from heaven (vs. 13) and this adds to the understanding of "born again". Notice verse 31: The one who comes from above is directly parallel to the one who comes from heaven. The begetting of which Jesus speaks is vertical, it is an eschatological begetting, an eschatological birth from above. The only way one can see that heavenly arena is to be begotten from that arena. The generation for entrance into the kingdom of God must be performed by the one generated by the Father of the Kingdom. The eschatological begetting is itself patterned on the Only begotten. Our being begotten is tied to His being begotten. Birth in the redemptive-historical arena is related to birth in the eschatological arena. The eternal generation of the ontological Son has redemptive historical consequences for the regeneration of the sons and daughters of God. That eternal generation of the ontological Son is ordo-salutis (order of salvation) and we may rightly speak of the regeneration of Christ by His resurrection from the dead as Peter does in 1 Peter 1:3 as the historia salutis of salvation. Jesus was born again. Yes he was born again by resurrection redemptive-historically speaking. What is regeneration but a transition from death to life? And Jesus goes through that transition - He goes from death to life. He is born anew by His resurrection from the dead. Your regeneration is not anchored in some wispy abstraction. Your regeneration is anchored in a redemptive-historical performance. Jesus is regenerated and you are regenerated in His regeneration. You belong to an act that has occurred in time and space history. That is the reason he came into the flesh to do it. This is not Greek Platonism, nor is it evangelical idealism. John is even more profound than this. Our sonship is tied to the ontological Sonship of Christ. Our begetting of water and the Spirit is linked to the one begotten of the Father who gives the Spirit. By this birth from above we possess the eschatological, the heavenly arena. We possess the arena from which he comes who gives the re-birthing. We are made sons and daughters of God by the eternally begotten Son of God. The divine activity here is essential to this pattern.
In the nature of the case birth from above can only occur at God's initiative. Birth from that order requires that God do it. Boast your free will, put forth your blood line, and parade your church attendance. It is all a valley of dry bones, unless God has birthed you. Unless heaven has generated you. Unless you have received the eschatological birth. Unless you have been begotten from out of heaven itself. Here is what you are assured. You are assured of being children of heaven born from above from God for God that you may not perish. The eschatological birth has brought to you eschatological life. Your birth from above has brought you life from above. Here is your life – eternal as the life of the Son of God. … Your life from above now begun will never end. Eternal Life, eternal birth. You have been admitted to never ending life as you have been admitted to never ending regeneration, re-birth. What wondrous love is this? God so loved you that he brought you to the eternal life of His kingdom. What wondrous love is this that God so loved you? That he has begotten you to the eternal sonship of his eternal kingdom.
Nicodemus must unlearn his Jewish eschatology. Jesus asks him "are you the teacher in Israel and do not understand these things?" (vs. 10). Are you the teacher who thinks in linear fashion? Eternal realities await the end of history. Heavenly realities are delayed to the end of the world. Why are you thinking like a Jew thinks that everything is on a line and only at the end of the word will eternity dawn? No Nicodemus. I am here to tell you that being born from above brings the future eternity into the present. The future comes forward for the Christian, for the Jew. It's a flat linear horizon. The apostles left it behind. Jesus said Nicodemus, I am going to give you a course in eschatology 101. The eternal is present in the temporal. The eschatological is present in the historical. The realization of the heavenly has arrived in the earthly. Now, even now! Look at the tenses of the verbs. He who is born from above HAS (present tense) the heavenly birth. He who believes on the Son HAS (present tense) eternal life. No future eschatology but realized eschatology. A semi-realized eschatology where the eternal overlaps the temporal – where the heavenly invades the earthly. A now/not yet eschatology. Birth from above begun now. Birth from above to be continued and consummated in the not yet. Eternal life (begun now). Eternal life to be continued and consummated (not yet). The realized dimension of John's realized eschatology sets us apart form the Jews. No straight line. And the yet to be realized dimension of John's theology sets us apart from the liberal imminentists – the liberal, this-worldly eschatological triumphalists. Explicitly if you are a this-worldly eschatological triumphalists you are implicitly and eschatological liberal whether you know it or not.
Lets look at two problem texts.
Water & Spirit.
To see water as baptism is a doctrinal imposition on the text. It reincorporates a certain fetish mentality over rites and rituals. Something Jesus and John have already dismissed in chapter 2 and that devastating verse in chapter 1 verse 13… not blood, not flesh, not man, not sacerdotalism. Water and the Spirit is redemptive historical imagery, not sacramental idolatry. The baptistic interpretation is an aberration. It is an aberration in view of the fact that Jesus does not even institute Christian baptism until after His resurrection. So the sacerdotal interpretation of John 3 is eisegesis. It is reading a ritualistic agenda back on a Text simply because it speaks of water. Does that mean that the woman at the well when Jesus was talking [with her] about water, that he meant baptism? I think not? The Roman Catholic commentators and the high church commentators who see baptism in this category are imposing a category on the Text that is not there. Then there are those who suggest that water and Spirit are two contrasting aspects of the human experience: the physical and the spiritual. Water identifies the physical, the natural as "the water breaks"… the rupture of the amniotic fluid in childbirth. The Spirit identifies the spiritual or supernatural as in born of the Holy Spirit. Now this interpretation has a certain air of plausibility but it founders on the mini-inclusio which envelops verses 3 & 5. The Kingdom of God binds this little section together. Thus birth from above (verse 3) is parallel to birth of water and the Spirit (vs. 5). In other words, the eschatological birth is birth by water and the Spirit. Now what is this eschatological birth by water and the Spirit? We have to go back to the Old Testament. It is a redemptive-historical category. This is redemptive-historical language. In the Old Testament water and Spirit are images of the coming age of salvation. Isaiah 44:3 "I will pour out water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants." But the strongest passage is Ezekiel 36:25-27 where the Lord says "I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean, I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and all your idols. Moreover I will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit within you. And I will remove a heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances." The combination of water and Spirit squeezing … bracketing verse 26 in that passage where he is talking about regeneration. This is redemptive-historical language. It is not baptismal language. Water and Spirit are associated with the eschatological age of salvation and Jesus announces to Nicodemus that that age has arrived. The birth of water and Spirit brings the blessings of the kingdom of God. They are here now. I am here now. The order of water and Spirit is the eschatological order which brings entrance into the kingdom of God.
John 3:16
How does John use this term "cosmos"? Cosmos has no personal force. In John's gospel the word "world" does not refer to individuals as in the paraphrase "God loves each and every person in the world." No. rather cosmos has an ethical force in John's gospel. It means the arena of ethical hostility to God and his kingdom. In other words God's love is directed to the area rebelling in ethical hostility against Him. It is to this arena that He sends his Son and to this arena whoever believes has life from another arena; the arena of eternity. Therefore all the arguments whether "cosmos" is universalistic or particularistic are muted by tracing John's use of the term throughout his gospel, his epistle and his apocalypse. Cosmos for John is ethically specific. This arena of sin and rebellion was the object of God's love. Not the angelic arena, not the infernal arena. This cosmic arena was loved so that believers, however they come to believe, may not perish but have the life of the non-cosmic arena. Who are these believers? They are all the ones who receive heavenly things not earthly things (Vs 12 & 31). They receive the one lifted up as the serpent in the wilderness. They do not take their eyes off of Him. (vs. 14. 15). They receive the Son of God as the Son of Man (Vs. 13, 14, 16, 17, 18). They do not receive those who reject Him (Vs. 33). The receive salvation. They do not receive judgment/condemnation (Vs. 17-19). They receive the light (Vs. 19-21), they do not love the darkness (v. 19). They receive the witness of the Son who the Father has sent. They do not receive the witness of those who deny or ignore Him. (Vs. 11 & 32). They receive eternal life. They do not abide in eternal wrath (v. 36). The eschatological birth brings one into Christological union, soteriological union, eschatological union and the sweetness of that union is as the joy of the friend of the bridegroom, John the Baptist. Christ is better than all suitors. Union with Christ is the soteric ecstasy. Identification with Christ in the eternal heavenly places is the presence of eschatological finality.
I want to look at the word "cosmos" again, not in the sense of each and every person in the world which is how it is often nuanced and paraphrased but with reference to the arena morally and ethically opposed to the kingdom of God. I want to illustrate this by two passages. There are actually many more. But I want to illustrate this with two obvious passages in the gospel of John.
We begin with 8:23. If you notice in that verse Jesus is talking. He says "You are from below, I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world." The Greek word that appears twice in that verse is the Greek word "cosmos". There is no way that you can read that word "cosmos" in that verse as meaning each and every person in the world. It will not work. But if you read that verse and those terms "cosmos" as ethical arenas then the verse makes perfect sense. Chapter 9:39. Another illustration which clearly demonstrates that the word cosmos in the fourth gospel does not mean each and every person in the world. "For judgment I came into this world. That those who do not see may see and those who see may become blind." For each and every person in the world? No. I came into this arena. I came into this area, order.
Second. There are two passages in which the word cosmos has a less than universalistic sense. Chapter 12:19. Where the Pharisees looking at one another after the triumphal entry say you see that you are not doing any good. Look, the world has gone after him." It means multitude. It is restricted by its own context here.
In chapter 14:19 we have another clear instance where cosmos must have a less-than-universalistic sense. Jesus says "after a little while the world will behold me no more but you will behold me… "It can't be each and every person in the world. It is impossible to read that into the Text. It is restricted to the unbelieving world.
Therefore cosmos does not mean, in these four instances in John's gospel [and there are more. You can trace the word through], where cosmos does not mean each and every person in the world. And so translating cosmos in John 3:16 to mean each and every person is a translation of sentiment, not a translation of John's mind or the Holy Spirit's inspiration.