714
ixCor.ii. τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ Θεοῦ. 6.
with εἰ Mk. xv.
. 111.13. , »
k pres.indic. πνευματος. Burton, 313.
will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.” The water, then, is considered as that which cleanses from sin: the Spirit as the principle of the new life.—Ver. 6. The necessity of the new birth is further exhibited by a com- parison of the first and second birth: τὸ γεγεννηµένον ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς, capt ἐστι: καὶ τὸ γεγεννγηµένον ἐκ τοῦ Πνεύ- patos, πγνεῦμά ἐστι. The neuter is used because the speaker ‘‘ wishes to make His statement altogether general” (Winer, 27, 5), whatever is born. The law is laid down in Aristotle (Eth. Maj., i., 10), “‘ Every nature generates its own substance,” flesh, flesh; spirit, spirit.— Ver. 7. Therefore it was no cause for wonder that a new birth was required for entrance into the spiritual kingdom. The argument implies that natural birth produces only σάρξ, not spirit. By his natural birth man is an animal, with a nature fitting him to live in the material world in which he finds himself and with capacities for spiritual life in a spiritual world. These capacities may or may not be developed. If they are developed, the Spirit of God is the Agent, and the change wrought by their development may fitly be called a new birth, because it gives a man entrance into a new world and imparts new life to live in it. (Cf. the second birth and second life of many insects.)—Ver. 8. τὸ πνεῦμα ὅπου θέλει πνεῖ. Two render- ings of these words are possible: ‘‘ The wind bloweth where it listeth,’? as in A.V.; ‘The Spirit breatheth where He will,’ as in margin of Κ.Υ. By the one rendering a comparison is instituted between the unseen but powerful opera- tion of the Spirit in regeneration and the invisible but mighty power of the wind. You hear the voice of the wind but cannot see where it comes from nor where it goes to. So in the new birth the Spirit moves and works unseen. Similarly Socrates (Xen., Mem., iv., 3) says: The thunder as it comes and goes is not seen: the winds also are invisible though their effects are manifest; the