Q. What does the term “born again” mean in John 3.3?

A. This is an old concept in Jewish/biblical thought. It was understood in the first century and Yeshua is referring to it in John 3. One of the reasons Nicodemus didn’t quite catch on at first in our passage was because he was being immersed in rabbinical thought with all the differing views. Yeshua’s teaching on it was not new, however. He narrowed the definition of what it means. So, let’s look at this with some insight from the Torah. Paul said in Col 2.16-17 that the festivals, Sabbath, food laws and the new moon all were pictures of the Messiah. We were not to let anyone judge us for keeping them, as many do today. The new moon festival teaches us about the concept of being born again. You will notice in John 3.1 Nicodemus came to Yeshua at night and was quite possibly a new moon. The new moon is not really “new” but “renewed” in the heavens. In the same way a person is “renewed” in the heavens. The term “born again” is really “born from above” in Greek which goes long with the idea of the new moon. The moon in Scripture is symbolic of the believers who reflect the glory of the sun (Messiah). As the moon turns more toward the sun, the more you can see the moon which does not have a glory of its own. A full moon is symbolic of the believer who has reached his full glory and brightness, glorified body and so on. That’s why certain biblical festivals occur on full moons like the feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Sukkot. The idea of being born from above means a “change of status” and there is a relationship between heaven and water. The Hebrew word for heaven is “shamayim” and it means “there is water” referring back to the original creation in Genesis 1. There you have the creation “coming out” of the water with the Spirit of God hovering over it. This is alluded to in Yeshua’s baptism. where he comes up out of the water and the Spirit of God hovers over him as he is bringing the ”new creation” which is related to the “new moon” which is related to the “new covenant which is the same thing as being “born from above” in our passage. Now it gets even deeper. Genesis 1 is seen as the “womb of creation”. When one gets immersed/baptized it is to show that there has been a change of status in that person’s life. The “mikvah” is where the immersion takes place and it can be a river, lake, ocean or a cistern in the ground that holds “living water.” Just as the earth came out of the water, the womb of creation in Genesis, we also come out of the water at an immersion, the womb of the new creation. We read in Genesis 2.10 that a river came out of Eden. Now, according to the water cycle created by God, theoretically, the waters of Eden still exist in living water today. When we immerse in living water we are, in some way, getting in touch with the original creation in the Garden of Eden which is also a synonym for heaven So, now we are back to the concepts of heaven (shamayim=there is water) being born from above, new creation and the term “born again” from above with water, which is the Spirit in John 5.5. The term for womb is “kever” in Hebrew and can also be translated ”tomb”. So womb and tomb are related concepts spiritually. Yeshua was conceived in a new womb (his virgin mother-Isa. 7.14) and buried in a new tomb. He comes out of the new tomb with a glorified body which is the substance of all the things we have been talking about. When a person submits to a biblical immersion he is going into the water (womb) and if he stays there too long it will be his tomb. But, we immerge and take a deep breath (symbolic of the Spirit entering into us) and we are a ‘new creation.” The old life has been cut off by the water. This illustrates the spiritual fact that the Spirit of God has entered us and we who were dead (in a tomb) can now come out of the tomb (which is now seen as a womb) alive forevermore, and born from above by the Spirit of God. This is basically what Yeshua was alluding to in the term “born again.” There is so much more to this than what is brought forth here but hopefully you get the idea.