What does ‘of water and spirit’ mean in John 3:5?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 2002.

Bullinger's suggestion that the phrase 'of water and spirit' in John chapter 3 is a hendiadys¹, is, of course, a distinct grammatical possibility.² However, suppose we take 'of water and spirit' to be a hendiadys, that still leaves the question, so it seems to me, 'Why does our Lord use two words?' If in the end the verse simply means 'born of the Spirit', why bring in the matter of water? In what sense would the Holy Spirit's role in the new birth be appropriately indicated by the metaphor of water?

I, therefore, think that the better explanation is to be found by tracing our Lord's reference to the two appropriate chapters in Ezekiel 36:25, 37:1-14, where God through Ezekiel is describing the rebirth of the nation of Israel. In that operation there were two elements:

1. God announces that he will sprinkle water on them and they shall be clean.
2. In the other chapter, he talks about the dry bones being brought together and then being infused with the Spirit.

It seems to me, therefore, that in the rebirth of Israel there were two elements. One was cleansing from their defilement through the sprinkling of water; the other was the positive impartation of new life by the Spirit of God.

It seems to me also that it is plausible to look to Ezekiel for the background of our Lord's remarks, because he gently chides Nicodemus for not understanding what he is saying about the new birth: 'Art thou the teacher of Israel, and knowest not these things?' As a rabbi, he should have known what Ezekiel said about the rebirth of Israel, and the means by which God would achieve it. Therefore, when our Lord talks about being born of water and of the Spirit, I would not dispute that both terms are referring to the Holy Spirit; but each of the two terms is significant in its own way: the Spirit's work in bringing to repentance and the cleansing from sin, and the Spirit's work in imparting new life.

I think I would like to call as a back-up what Paul says in Titus 3:5: 'the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit' (ESV). Paul there talks about what he used to be before he was saved. He certainly needed cleansing from that, but of course not merely cleansing from his old perverted attitudes, but also positive new life from the Spirit of God.

I hope these few remarks are of some help in the ongoing debate on these verses.

Yours in the Grace,

¹ Editor's note: Hendiadys is the use of two nouns linked by a conjunction, instead of a noun-adjective pair, to express a single, more complex idea.

² E. W. Bullinger's Companion Bible Notes, John 3.