ACC ~ John 3 v4

TWO POINTS OF ASTONISHMENT FOR NICODEMUS

CHRYSOSTOM: [Nicodemus] coming to Jesus, as to a man, is confused and startled and perplexed on learning greater things than any human being could speak, things no one had ever heard before. For a while, he is impressed by the sublime character of the sayings, but his mind is darkened and unstable, borne about in every direction and on the point of falling away from the faith. Therefore he objects to what he has heard as being impossible in order to bring out a fuller explanation from Jesus…. There were two difficulties for him. The first concerned the kind of birth Jesus was talking about; the second, this idea of the kingdom since neither had the name of the kingdom ever been heard among the Jews, nor of a birth like this. But he stops for a while at the first, which most astonished him. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 24.3. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 14:85-86**.

A TWOFOLD CLEANSING

GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: We are a compound of both body and soul. The one part is visible, the other invisible. In the same way, our cleansing also is twofold, that is, by water and the Spirit. The one is received visibly in the body, the other concurs with it invisibly and apart from the body…. The one that comes to the aid of our first birth makes us new instead of old and like God instead of what we now are. It recasts us without fire and creates us anew without breaking us up. For… the virtue of baptism is to be understood as a covenant with God for a second life and a purer conversation. ON HOLY BAPTISM, ORATION 40.8. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 7:362**.

A SINNER REBORN FROM THE SEED OF THE JUST

AUGUSTINE: You wonder why a sinner should be born of the seed of a just person. Don’t you also wonder why a wild olive is born of the seed of an olive tree? Here is another comparison: think of the baptized righteous person as a grain that has been gleaned. Don’t you observe that from this gleaned grain wheat is born with the chaff, without which it was sown? Again, while the propagation of those who are reborn is a matter of spiritual regeneration, do you really want a person to be born circumcised of a circumcised person? Certainly this kind of generation is a bodily act, and circumcision is a bodily act. And yet the offspring of a circumcised man is not born circumcised. So in the same way the offspring of a baptized person cannot be born baptized, because nobody is born again before being born. SERMON 294.16. [1]

[1] WSA 3 8:191.

NICODEMUS’S QUESTION INDICATES A WEAK FAITH

CHRYSOSTOM: You call him “Master” and say that he “comes from God,” and yet you do not receive his words but utilize a word with your master that brings in endless confusion. For the “how” is the doubting question of those who have no strong belief and are still earthbound. Therefore Sarah laughed when she said, “How?” [1] And many others who have asked this question have fallen from the faith.

Some ask, “How was he begotten?” others, “How was he made flesh?” They subject that infinite essence to the weakness of their own reasonings. Knowing this, we ought to avoid this unseasonable curiosity because those who search into these matters will, without ever learning the “how,” fall away from the right faith. Nicodemus here asks from anxiety…. But observe how ridiculous anyone talks when he commits spiritual things to his own reasonings. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 24.2-3. [2]

[1] See Gen 18:12.

[2] NPNF 1 14:85**.

JESUS EXPLAINS THE MEANING OF THE NEW BIRTH

THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: Since Nicodemus had asked, “Can one enter again into the mother’s womb and be born?” our Lord explained that this occurs through both water and Spirit. He said water because the action takes place in water, Spirit because the Spirit exercises his power through the water. This is called the Spirit of adoption, not water, because we receive new birth through his power. For this reason in baptism we name the Spirit together with the Father and the Son, but we do not mention the water, so that it may be clear that water is employed as a symbol and for a [visible] use. But we invoke the Spirit as the effective agent together with the Father and the Son. That is why, in reply to Nicodemus’s question, “Can one enter again into the mother’s womb and be born?” our Lord answers, “Through both water and Spirit.” Just as in the instance of natural birth, where the womb is the place in which the child is formed and then perfected by the divine virtue that forms it from the beginning, so also in this place, the water is referred to in place of the womb and the Spirit in place of the Lord as the effective agent. Baptism is said to be a symbol of death and resurrection, and so it is called a new birth. Just as one who is resurrected is considered to be created again after death, so also one who is begotten in baptism is said to be born again, because first he dies in water and in a similar way is resurrected by the power of the Spirit. The immersion represents the burial while the raising of the head out of the water at every invocation of the name represents the resurrection that takes place through the Spirit. COMMENTARY ON JOHN 2.3.4-5. [1]

[1] CSCO 4 3:67-68.

Jn