A Pharisee Named Nicodemus (John 3:1-17)

[@bethgalbreath01]

Amen, folks. I agree - this chapter is part narrative and then turns to commentary.

[@whosays2153]

*JOHN 3:1-17:* In verse 6, Jesus was making a distinction between the physical and spiritual. God, the angels, and the Kingdom of God, are in the spiritual realm. We cannot enter into that Kingdom as physical beings; we must become spirit beings like God and the angels. And here is where Jesus' metaphor of "water baptism" comes in. Water baptism is a symbolical phrase for "death and resurrection". The water represents grave, our immersion in it represents burial, and our emersion (emerging/ coming up) from the water represents our "resurrection from the dead". And here the phrase "born again" comes in. When God's "elects"/ people are resurrected from the dead (in the 2nd coming of Christ), they shall become spirit beings (no longer physical); thus "born again", "born of spirit", "born from above". In verse 8, Jesus described the spirit as like the "wind", because it has no physical body (as "flesh and blood"). John 3:14 is a metaphor of Christ's crucifixion by which he took the death punishment for our sin; thus we are given salvation from it (saved from the "second death"). John 3:13 and Acts 2:29,34 tell us that nobody goes to heaven after death, because the Kingdom of God is to reign here on earth (Revelation 31:2-3).

[@GoTellStory]

Thanks for your comprehensive comment, "whosays"