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What did Jesus mean when He said we must be “Born Again” to enter the Kingdom of God? With over 35,000 denominations now all having their own interpretations it gets very confusing. I found one Protestant Bible Commentary that offered six different explanations for what Jesus meant!
The Scripture reference to being "born again,” in John 3:3, is followed by Jesus saying, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." (Jn 3:5)
What does Jesus mean by the “water and the Spirit?” In the early Church there was no question of what Jesus meant, the writings of the Early Church Fathers uniformly identified this verse with baptism. Water baptism is the way in which we are born again and receive new life - a fact that is supported elsewhere in Scripture (Rom. 6:3&4; Col. 2:12–13; Titus 3:5). No Church Father EVER referred to John 3:5 as anything other than water baptism.
Today however, some modern denominations who wish to claim that baptism is just a symbol (so as to deny the power of the Sacraments, and in turn, deny the necessity of the Priesthood and the Church) have to deny that Jesus was referring to water baptism when He spoke of being “born again.” “Born Again Christians” as some now call themselves, claim that the "water" mentioned in Jn 3:5 is the “preached word of God”. They also claim this elsewhere in the Bible about the word “bread,” claiming that this word also stands for “the preached word of God” - in this case so as to deny the necessity of the Eucharist. But when Jesus says “water” here He means water, and when He says “bread,” He means bread! And when He tells us that to be “born again” we need to be born of “water and the spirit” this is exactly what He means –the waters of baptism and the Holy Spirit which accompanies it.
On the following pages are the teachings of the Early Church Fathers:
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