Commentaries:
Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?" (John 3:10). Should Nicodemus have known of this teaching? Yes! What had he neglected? The Scriptures! He was a teacher of the Old Testament. Does the Old Testament say anything about the resurrection from the dead? Yes, indeed!
Here at the beginning of His ministry, Jesus emphasizes the hope of mankind, the resurrection from the dead, changing from flesh to spirit, only he calls it becoming "born again." Like any good teacher, He used different metaphors to explain the same process so that greater numbers of people can grasp the concept. So now He tells Nicodemus that he should have recognized and understood it from the teachings of the Old Testament.
Job knew about the resurrection. He says to God:
Oh, that You would hide me in the grave, that You would conceal me until Your wrath is past, that You would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, till my change comes. (Job 14:13-14)
Job, although he does not call it being born again, knew he would be changed from physical to spiritual.
Nicodemus, a master of the law, apparently never understood Job's words, so Jesus was opening his understanding. "You shall call [the last trumpet], and I will answer You; You shall desire the work of Your hands" (Job 14:15). Our God will desire to fellowship again with the wonderful attitude, the beautiful heart, the sterling character that He created in us through our experiences in the flesh. Just like a father desires to see his child finally born after waiting so long during his wife's pregnancy, God wants to see us born into His Kingdom.
Later, Job returns to this theme:
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that [out of, free from, without] my flesh I shall see God. (Job 19:25-26)
He knew that when he rose from the grave, he would not be flesh, although Nicodemus apparently did not.
Others in the Old Testament, like Daniel, also understood a spiritual resurrection:
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. (Daniel 12:2-3)
Paul writes in I Corinthians 15:40, "There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another." As a star is brighter than a light on earth, so shall we be after the resurrection compared to now. Paul found this idea—that people will be resurrected and glorified—in the Old Testament.
Isaiah also writes of the resurrection:
Arise, shine; for your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth [tribulation and the Day of the Lord], and deep darkness the people; but the LORD will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you. The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. (Isaiah 60:1-3)
Paul uses this same imagery in II Corinthians 3:18: "But we all . . . are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory," meaning from the glory of man to the glory of God.
Isaiah writes about it later in his book:
Before she travailed, she gave birth; before her pain came, she delivered a male child. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall the earth be made to give birth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? (Isaiah 66:7-8)
A nation is a family grown large, but Isaiah speaks of such a nation coming into existence "at once," in a moment (see I Corinthians 15:51-52). Here is the God Family, the Kingdom of God, born (again!) all at the same time, except Christ, the Firstborn, who has already gone through the process.
"Shall I bring to the time of birth, and not cause delivery," says the LORD. "Shall I, who cause delivery shut up the womb?" says your God. "Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you who love her; rejoice for joy with her, all you who mourn for her; that you may feed and be satisfied with the consolation of her bosom [also part of the birth analogy], that you may drink deeply and be delighted with the abundance of her glory." (Isaiah 66:9-11)
Jerusalem, a type of the church, is resurrected, born again, and glorified.
John W. Ritenbaugh
You Must Be Born Again!
Several words, both in English and Greek, need clarification. The word translated "born" comes from the Greek gennao. According to Zodhiates, gennao means "to beget as spoken of men; to bear as spoken of women" (The Complete Word Study Dictionary New Testament, p. 364). In a passive sense, it means "to be begotten or be born." He continues:
Spoken of God begetting in a spiritual sense which consists in regenerating, sanctifying, quickening anew, and ennobling the powers of the natural man by imparting to him a new life and a new spirit in Christ.
Thayer concurs: "properly of men begetting children . . . ; more rarely of women giving birth to children" (Lexicon, p. 113). Thus, gennao means to beget or bear; to generate, procreate, engender, or sire. These are only a few of its synonyms.
The Greeks used a different word for "conceive": sullambano. Strong's defines it as "to clasp, i.e. seize (arrest, capture); spec. to conceive (lit. or fig.)." It occurs sixteen times in the New Testament, but only four times to indicate conception (Luke 1:24, 31, 36; 2:21). Each of these four times, it describes a woman's part at the beginning of the birth process, not the man's. Further, it always identifies a human conception, not one from God.
The word beget has caused great confusion in the church. Some claim that it is obsolete and that it means exclusively "to be born." When a word is obsolete, a good dictionary will inform the reader by using the abbreviation obs, meaning that lexicographers can find no evidence of its recent use. "Beget," though, has no such indicator—it is not even considered archaic. It is a word of literary elegance, of formality. Still very much in use, it is a word similar to "bequeath" and "behoove," which are still used, just infrequently. Lawyers use "bequeath" in a special, formal sense. Sometimes we use "behoove" when we say, "It behooves me to do this." "Beget" belongs to the same class of words.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), probably the world's most authoritative English dictionary, gives these definitions for beget: "to procreate or generate." What does gennao mean? "To beget or bear; to generate, procreate, engender or sire." What does OED say procreate means? "Engender, give rise to, bring into existence." Synonyms for procreate are "sire" or "father." Male horses become sires of their offspring.
Webster's Third International Dictionary defines beget as "procreate as the father: sire, father; to give birth to, breed, make a woman pregnant." Does not a woman become pregnant at the moment of conception? Conceive means "to become pregnant." All these definitions lead us in a circle; these words all have similar meanings. "Engender," "generate," "procreate," "sire," "father," "conceive" and "beget" are all synonyms that can be used for the beginning of the process that ends in birth.
If a man fathers a child which dies prior to its birth, he is nevertheless considered to have begotten a child. If a horse sires a foal, and it dies before birth, we say it was stillborn. The foal had been sired—begotten—but not born alive.
So beget, a word in current usage, means either "conceive" or "bear," exactly what gennao means! They are exact duplicates of each other. Both can be used as the male equivalent of the female "conceive." Notice that "conceive" and "bear" together cover the whole process, from conception to birth. Gennao and "beget," then, cover the whole process from conception to birth.
To simplify this, gennao means "to become the father of," whether the beginning of the process or the end. Secondarily, though very rarely, it means "to become the mother of." Because of its broad use, covering from conception to birth, its meaning has to be determined by the context in which it appears.
John W. Ritenbaugh
You Must Be Born Again!
Related Topics:
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
John 3:10
John 3:13
John 19:38-40
Library resources that contain this verse:
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