ACC ~ John 3 v3

ONLY THOSE BORN AGAIN CAN UNDERSTAND WHO JESUS IS

CHRYSOSTOM: In other words: Unless you are born again and receive the right instruction, you are wandering somewhere out there far away from the kingdom of heaven. But he does not speak as plainly as this, preferring to make what he says easier to hear by generalizing, “Unless one is born again.” In this way he does not specifically address his remarks at Nicodemus…. Now, if he had spoken to the Jews this way they would have ridiculed him and then left. But Nicodemus shows he wants to learn…. And so what Christ says to him is something like this: If you are not born again, if you do not share in the Spirit that comes through the washing of regeneration, everything you think about me will be from a human point of view, not a spiritual one…. Now, some take the expression “again” [1] to mean “from heaven”; others think it means “from the beginning.” Either way, it is impossible, Christ says, for someone who is not born in this way to see the kingdom of God. By these words our Lord discloses his nature, showing that he is more than what he appears to the outward eye. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 24.2. [2]

[1] Gk anōthen (“again” or “from above”).

[2] NPNF 1 14:85**.

THE ONE WHO IS ILLUMINATED IS WASHED

JUSTIN MARTYR: At our birth we were born without our own knowledge or choice by our parents coming together. We were brought up with bad habits and wicked training. However, so that we may not remain the children of necessity and of ignorance, but may become the children of choice and knowledge and may obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed, there is pronounced over the one who chooses to be born again and has repented of his sins the name of God the Father and Lord of the universe. The one who leads to the font the person that is to be washed calls him by this name alone. For no one can utter the name of the ineffable God. And if any one dares to say this name, he raves with a hopeless madness. Also this washing is called illumination because those who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings. The one who is illuminated is thus washed in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets foretold all things about Jesus. FIRST APOLOGY 61. [1]

[1] ANF 1:183.

PORTRAIT AND IMAGE IN BAPTISM

ATHANASIUS: Once the likeness painted on a panel has been effaced by stains from outside itself, the one whose likeness it is needs to come once more to enable the portrait to be renewed on the same wood. And, for the sake of his picture, even the mere wood on which it is painted is not thrown away, but the outline is renewed upon it. In the same way, the most holy Son of the Father, being the image of the Father, came to our world to renew humankind once made in his likeness. He came to find such lost individuals by the remission of their sins. He says as much himself in the Gospels: “I came to find and to save the lost.” [1] This is why he also said to the Jews, “Except one be born again,” not meaning, as they thought, birth from a woman, but speaking of the soul born and created anew in the likeness of God’s image. ON THE INCARNATION 14.1-2. [2]

[1] Lk 19:10.

[2] NPNF 2 4:43-44**.

SPIRITUAL REGENERATION LEADS US TO CHRIST

GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: And indeed from the Spirit comes our new birth, and from the new birth our new creation, and from the new creation our deeper knowledge of the dignity of him from whom it is derived. ON THE HOLY SPIRIT, THEOLOGICAL ORATION 5(31).28. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 7:327.

A NEW BIRTH INTO THE IMAGE OF THE RESURRECTION

THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: [Jesus seems to be saying to him], “If you believe that I was sent as a teacher from God, and the miracles I accomplished convince you of this, as you say, our teaching then requires another way of life and expects the beginning of a new generation.” So we hope indeed to see the kingdom of God, because, while we are mortal, we cannot go there if we are not raised incorruptible after our death. We believe that this happens typologically through baptism: we are born again in an image of the resurrection, that is, of a new state [of being]. COMMENTARY ON JOHN 2.3.3. [1]

[1] CSCO 4 3:66.

THE TWO BIRTHS

AUGUSTINE: [Nicodemus] knew only one birth from Adam and Eve. He did not yet know [the birth] from God and the church. He knew only the parents who beget death. He did not yet know the parents who beget life. He knew only the parents who beget those who will succeed them. He did not yet know the parents who, living forever, beget those who will remain. Therefore, although there are two births, he only knew one. One is from earth, the other from heaven. One is from the flesh, the other from the Spirit. One is from mortality, the other from eternity. One is from male and female, the other from God and the church. But these two are each individual instances. Neither the one nor the other can be repeated. [1] TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 11.6.1. [2]

[1] This last remark is directed against the Donatists, a North African Christian sect at the time of Augustine that insisted upon rebaptizing persons who had been baptized by unworthy or sinful ministers, particularly by those who renounced the faith under duress from the Roman persecution. Like many of Augustine’s tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 11 is devoted to demonstrating that the validity or sanctifying power of baptism and the other sacraments comes”from God through the church,” not from the individuals through whom they are administered.

[2] FC 79:16*.