James 1523, Jesus was talking about 2 births, the second we agree is your spiritual or heavenly birth but with all due respect, everyone knows that your first birth is obviously of your mother or your physical (flesh of flesh) human birth. I am very uncomfortable with way the you twist this around as proof of your own legalistic view. Please, no offence intended but your doctrine can have the effect of putting others in bondage.
So, I really do respect your own belief but it certainly is not mine and, like others here at TJ have said on different occasions, we will just have to agree to disagree.
Regardless, here at T.J., we all can agree that Jesus is Lord and Saviour.
I agree that first (physical) birth is obvious.. but that doesn't help your interpretation of what "born of water" means, it sort of confirms to me that water means baptism. Why would Jesus mean "you have to be born physically first", and what does water have to do with physical birth? Everyone knows that physical birth is necessary. Therefore born of water is an obvious reference to baptism, of which Nicodemus would be well aware. The Jews were going to John to be baptized by water. Jesus is telling Nicodemus to get water baptized, and then receive the Spirit. Both of these are necessary to enter the Kingdom of God, as followers of Christ. Both experiences were necessary for the Israelites to be saved from Egypt, as followers of Moses. Mark 16:16 says that belief and baptism is necessary for salvation. Jesus was water baptized, all His followers were water baptized, there is no record of any believer not being water baptized in the New Testament.
It is not a religious bondage, it is a command from the Lord and a necessary Christian sacrament that has been practiced for the past 2000 years:
Matt 28:19 says "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,"
It is through baptism that we are buried and resurrected with Him:
Romans 6:3-4 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Baptism is a command from the Lord, R.J., not from men. Baptism is the means by which disciples of Christ are made. If we have not been baptized in Christ's name, we are not part of God's church and we are not Christ's disciple. This is what the Bible teaches, and what the early church believed, and was the belief of all the reformers (Luther, Calvin).
Martin Luther, the great champion of salvation by "faith alone" in the face of real religious bondage and dead works, wrote that baptism was necessary for salvation:
"In these words you must note, in the first place, that here stand God's commandment and institution, lest we doubt that Baptism is divine, not devised nor invented by men. For as truly as I can say, No man has spun the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer out of his head, but they are revealed and given by God Himself, so also I can boast that Baptism is no human trifle, but instituted by God Himself ( God), moreover, that it is most solemnly and strictly commanded that we must be baptized or we cannot be saved, lest any one regard it as a trifling matter, like putting on a new red coat. For it is of the greatest importance that we esteem Baptism excellent, glorious, and exalted, for which we contend and fight chiefly, because the world is now so full of sects clamoring that Baptism is an external thing, and that external things are of no benefit".
John Calvin, also taught of the importance of water baptism:
Baptism is a sign of initiation, by which we are admitted into the society of the church, in order that being incorporated into Christ, we may be numbered among the children of God. Now it is has been given to us by God for these ends, which I have shown to be common to all sacraments:—First, to promote our faith towards him; secondly, to testify our confession before men. We shall treat both these ends of its institution in order. To begin with the first: from baptism our faith derives three advantages which require to be distinctly considered. The first is, that it is proposed to us by the Lord as a symbol and token of purification; or, to express my meaning more fully, it resembles a legal instrument, properly attested, by which he assures us that all our sins are canceled, effaced, and obliterated, so that they will never appear in his sight, or come into his remembrance, or be imputed to us: for he commands all who believe to be baptized for the remission of sins. Therefore, those who have imagined that baptism is nothing more than a mark or sign by which we profess our religion before men, as soldiers wear the insignia of their sovereign, as a mark of their profession, have not considered that which was the principal thing in baptism—which is, that we ought to receive it with this promise, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.”56
