“Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’  The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (Joh 3:5-8).”

In the passage above, Jesus is responding to Nicodemus’ question, “How can a man be born when he is old?  Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born (Joh 3:4)?”  But even Nicodemus’ question must be understood rhetorically.  He understood that there was something deeper to what Jesus was saying.  He just did not yet know what it was.

Jesus had just told him, “unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God (Joh 3:3).”  Adam Clarke, commenting on that passage, notes that the Jews of Jesus time, believed that Gentile converts to Judaism underwent a new birth.  The Jews, “held that the Gentile, who became a proselyte, was like a child new born.”  In this sense Jesus was telling Nicodemus that not only did the Gentile need to be born again but so did Nicodemus, a practicing Jewish teacher The Law.

The other day I was in the Old Testament and as is often the case I found a passage that just did not make sense.  Back in Numbers we find a section titled in the English Standard Version “Laws of Purification.”  In this section we can read about the offering of a red heifer as a sin offering (Num 19:1-10). It is offered outside the camp and in the offering its carcass is to be burned.  In the burning the priest adds cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet yarn to the fire.  The ashes are then gathered up and mixed with water to be, “kept for the water of impurity (Num 19:9).”  Strange.

That this offering is symbolic of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross is found in the New Testament book of Hebrews, “For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Heb 9:13-14).”  I have come to understand that the entire legal system of the Old Testament is the mechanism God devised for communicating the need for atonement, the requirement of the atonement to be offered, and for the purpose of pointing to Jesus as that atonement.  That Jesus is my sin offering is clear but what does this bit about mixing the ashes with water have to do with any of that?

Numbers explains further.  Whoever, in Israel, who had become unclean, by touching a dead body in this case, was to, “cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and so be clean. But if he does not cleanse himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not become clean.  Whoever touches a dead person, the body of anyone who has died, and does not cleanse himself, defiles the tabernacle of the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from Israel; because the water for impurity was not thrown on him, he shall be unclean. His uncleanness is still on him (Num 19:12-13).”  The water for impurity was for the cleansing of the unclean.  Sound familiar?

“If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin… If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1Jo 1:6-7, 9).”  The blood of Jesus also cleanses us from our unrighteousness, our uncleanness.

Also, in Revelation, “Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?”  I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb (Rev 7:13-14).”  Again, we see the efficacy of Jesus’ blood in the purification of these robes.  But are these similarities enough to prove my point; that the blood of Jesus is the water of impurity to be used for our purification?

We read in the Gospel of John that at the crucifixion the soldiers were breaking the legs of the condemned to speed up death.  “But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.  But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water (Joh 19:33-34).”  Could it be that in the piercing of his side the connection between the cleansing properties of His blood is being firmly tied to the water of impurity to be used for our purification?  The blood of Jesus sacrifice was mingled with water.

But again, I think the proof might be found back in the Old Testament.  God, writing through Ezekiel, declares, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the 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 be careful to obey my rules (Eze 36:25-27).”  Both elements of the new birth as described by Jesus to Nicodemus are there, the water and the spirit.  The Israelites hearing this declaration would have, in the context of the Old Covenant, understood this to mean the sacrifice of the red heifer, the water for purification, and a writing of that covenant on their hearts.  But in the context of the New Covenant, we know that the red heifer was pointing to Jesus and the water for purification was pointing specifically to His blood.

That we need to be born of flesh, in the sense that we must be born into this word, and born of the Spirit, in that we must be born into the Kingdom of God, to attain eternal life is undoubtedly true.  However, it seems to me extraneous to have to say that you must be born into this world to attain eternal life.  I doubt that there will be anyone suffering in the fires of judgement because he or she was not born into this world.  I suspect that Nicodemus’ rhetorical question was born out of the misunderstanding that because he was a son of Abraham he was already justified, by the Old Covenant, before the Lord.

If we understand Jesus’ response in light of the waters of impurity and the association of the blood of His sacrifice with those waters then what Jesus is telling Nicodemus isn’t that he needs to be born into this world and then into the Spirit but rather that our eternal life depends on the sprinkling of Jesus blood on our hearts that we may be purified by His sacrifice which allows the Spirit to then indwell us that our life may be lived for Him.

I could be wrong, the Old Testament is hard. But I think our understanding of the New Testament is refined by our understanding of the Old. Bottom line, have you been purified by the blood of the lamb?  Repent, confess your sins… He is faithful to forgive!!!

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Image by ArtPyle from Pixabay 

Clarke, Adam. Adam Clarke’s Commentary On The Bible. Public Domain, 1810-1826.

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