Continuity and Discontinuity—on the Relation to Judaism and Hellenism
In John 3 we have an example of the longings and aspirations uttered by a representative from one of the religious traditions (Judaism). However, the concept of rebirth itself conveys such a longing. It is the longing for a totally new being, a longing to transcend oneself. In New Testament times many people dreamed of such things, indeed the dream seems as old as the human race.105 In Hellenistic literature rebirth means a process of divinization.106 In their new being the reborn are in fact the All in All, made up of all powers, cf. Corpus Hermeticum, the tractate “On Rebirth” (XIII, 2). Some trends within modern psychotherapy and new religious movements point in the same direction.107 This idea of divinization is not found in John 3. By contrast, the main emphasis is on the element of discontinuity. Rebirth means a radical transformation and it is not something that can be attained through human effort.
Thus, there is an innovation in John’s thought when compared with both Judaism and Hellenism. The Jewish religion which Nicodemus represents cannot move forward continuously into the Kingdom of God. A moment of discontinuity, comparable with physical birth, is essential. Humankind as such, even the Jew, is not by nature able to enter into God’s Kingdom. John also differs from Judaism by saying that the Kingdom has already been manifested in the person and work of Jesus. The language of rebirth borrowed from Hellenism helps John to express his realized eschatology: Eternity is now! But John also differs from Hellenism by insisting on the incarnation and the historical character of Jesus Christ (vv.14–16). He does not just take over the concept of rebirth; he incorporates it into his proclamation of Christ without subscribing to the Hellenistic idea of divinization.
In addition, it has often been argued that v.13 reflects the redeemer-myth in Gnosticism—cf. the verbs for ascending and descending—but the similarity with Hellenistic ideas should not be overemphasized, since at the most crucial points John differs from the redeemer-myth. He insists that Jesus is a historical person. The description of Jesus as the “one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man” refers to the incarnation. The crucial point in v. 13 is the same as in 14:6 and 1:51. No one has ascended into heaven but the Son of Man. Christ alone is the link between God and men (cf. 1:51). There is no access to God independent of him (14:6).
This understanding of v.13 is supported by the fact that v.16 refers to Jesus as “the only begotten” Son of God. The importance of these words can be seen by a comparison. The famous Hindu Swami Vivekananada has argued that there is no “only begotten” son of God. There is a plurality of avatars, i.e., there are many “sons of God.” God has incarnated himself a number of times. This is a pivotal point in the encounter of Eastern and Western spirituality, as Vivekananda takes issue with Christians, who maintain that the “Lord can manifest himself only once; there lies the whole mistake.”108 Vivekananda’s position resembles that of early Gnosticism, but it differs substantially from that of John, in whose understanding the uniqueness of Jesus Christ is beyond question.
“Seeing” the Kingdom of God
In John 3 the author makes use of an unusual phrase: “to see the Kingdom of God” (3:5). This reflects the centrality of the word “seeing” in the Fourth Gospel, as can be noted in “we have seen his glory” (1:14) or “come and see!” (1:38–39; 4:29; cf. the paragraph “Come and see!” in Part Two. Right to the end the Gospel emphasizes the importance of seeing—as with Thomas: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe” (20:25). In general we may speak of three ways of using the term “seeing”:
5. seeing in a literal sense (i.e., 1:38; 6:2; 9:8; 20:25)
6. seeing with the eyes of faith—in a figurative sense (1:39.50–51; 19:34)
7. seeing God whom no one has ever seen (1:18; 6:46); whoever sees Jesus, sees the Father (12:45; 14:7).
The transition between the two last meanings is fluid. To interpret what Jesus says and does is to “see” the revelation of the Father “full of grace and truth” (1:14). The literal and the figurative meanings of “seeing” should not be contrasted. Robert Kysar correctly speaks of John’s “sensory theology,” the suggestion that faith grows out of immediate, everyday physical experiences; it is precisely why the sacraments are central to Christian thought.109
What, then, are we “seeing” in Jesus? The answer is a new and different reality that is revealed in the midst of the old reality. From the analogy between the wind and the Spirit we learn that they are both realities that are perceived only in their effects. In the Gospel of John these effects are clearly visible in the new way of life in the community of the disciples, who being born of the spirit are free as the wind. They are not dependent on others’ ideas, criticism, and approval, but are moved solely by the Spirit to love each other. This is their new identity.
Entering into God’s New Order
The Gospel of John calls for a public transfer of allegiance. Those who refuse to believe in Jesus constitute themselves as “the world,” the realm of darkness, untruth, and death. Passing from that world to the new identity is only possible through a reorientation so profound as to constitute a new birth (3:5–8). By physical birth one is born into the world and has to accept its order. To be born again “from above” means to “see” God’s kingdom and the new order. To see, then, is to experience, to encounter, to participate in.110 Moreover, John uniquely relates this rebirth to the Kingdom of God not as a replacement for life in this world but as a new world within this world, the most natural explanation being that John sought to underline the social components of salvation.
Thus the Kingdom of God is a social category. The goal of rebirth is entrance into the Kingdom, and the confession of Jesus as Messiah means that the disciple already lives in the Kingdom under the kingship of Jesus—a kingship that is not of this world, and whose unworldly character is expressed precisely in his servants’ refusal to take up arms in defense of Jesus: “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But, as it is, my kingdom is not from here” (18:36). This kingship, which is neither established nor defended by acts of violence, is the kingship under which the messianic community lives out its love for one another; cf. 13:34–35.
The close relationship between rebirth and the Kingdom of God underlines its communitarian character.111 The rebirth implies not only personal faith, but a change of social location as well. To be born “from above” is to be part of a new community. The worldly community represented by Nicodemus must undergo a change of social location by openly acknowledging the messiahship of Jesus and in so doing will become part of the messianic community. They are called on to abandon the world and its continuing self-centeredness and to be integrated into the community of love.
Contemporary perspectives
New Gnosticism and Reincarnation
The conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus is one of the Johannine texts that have attracted great interest among the new religious movements. According to Steiner, the conversation reflects a deep secret regarding the development of humankind, and he would translate the words of Jesus in 3:5 thus: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and air he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”112 The argument is that in New Testament times pneuma (Spirit) meant “air,” and had “exactly that meaning.”113
If we wish to characterize the significance of this evolutionary process, we may say that formerly, when the human being was still living with the gods, his physical and ether bodies were fluidic and gaseous in form, and were only gradually, simultaneously