What Being Born of Water and The Spirit in John 3:5 Mean - part 2

John 4:10: "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

Introduction

Over two years ago I wrote an article titled What Being Born of Water and The Spirit in John 3:5 Mean. I gave what I believe John 3:5 should mean. I must say that this has taken too long to come, but being a spiritual issue I realized that I needed not to be hasty. For those who have waited with me, thank you. Here is the article I promised

Jesus talks with the Samaritan woman (John 4:1-24, 39-42)

As Jesus talks with the Samaritan woman at the well, He tells her “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” (John 4:10). Here Jesus still uses the word water, but explains farther that it is the “living water”. This water when taken, according to the same chapter verse 14, one never becomes thirsty again and that it turns into a spring of water that wells up to eternal life.

The woman like many of us expected physical water in a small jar or container. She never realized the symbolic meaning. However, when Jesus sent her to go call her husband, she doesn’t go due to her controversial marital arrangement. She later on leaves without demanding to be issued a container of water.

Was she offered the living water? Did she partake of the living water? According to her later reaction, yes. In fact, when she got filled she went out calling her friends and village mates who also came to share with her in partaking of the “living water”. She became an evangelist.

The Samaritan woman got the living water, she drunk of it. Not baptized by it, but given. In fact, I dare say that the woman got born again of Water and the Spirit. What could this water be. It seems that the living water here has connection with the message of life that Jesus shared with this woman. She got this message, the message of the gospel.

Elsewhere in John 6:63 Jesus said, “The Spirit gives life, the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and they are life”. It seems to me that this also has a relationship with the same water that gives life. The words of Jesus, and of God for that matter, cleanses and gives life, life eternal. This life is found when one believes in the teaching of Jesus. That is why there is an inference to the fact that, “there are some of you who do not believe”, (John 6:64).

When Jesus says that it is the Spirit that gives life, one sees that the same living water that becomes a spring of water welling to eternal life is the same with the “Spirit that gives life”. With this alone, it is possible to say that when Jesus tells Nicodemus that he should be born again by water and the spirit he is meaning that Nicodemus has to believe in the Word of God.  Moreover, he is saying that the water and the spirit work together to give life. Or should I say that they are the same.

In Ephesians 5:26, Paul teachers that Christ “gave himself up for the church to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” The cleansing is done by the water through the word. This cleansing makes the church pure and blameless, holy and even radiant removing wrinkles and stain. This I believe, is what happens when we lay ourselves under the influence of God’s word. The word of God purifies believers from all ungodliness.

Conclusion

Jesus meant that salvation is only possible if one experiences spiritual washing and cleansing through the word of God as effected by work of the Holy Spirit. We can find this in Titus 3:5 (He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit) and Ephesians 5:26 (to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word). Anyone reading John 3:5 should not try to link it up with baptism of water since there is not even a single mention of baptism in the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.