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"And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take
away the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them a heart of flesh: that they may
walk in My statutes, and keep Mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be My
people, and I will be their God."
Without this new spirit, no man of Israel should "see" or "enter" the kingdom of God.
The Lord follows this statement concerning the flesh and the spirit with the words:--
"Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be begotten from above. The wind bloweth
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or
whither it goeth: so is every one that is begotten of the Spirit" (John 3: 7, 8).
This is the only occasion in the N.T. where the words to pneuma are translated "the
wind". The word in John 6: 18 is anemos and this is so translated 31 times. The word
"listeth" is thelo, "to will", and is found in John 5: 21, "Quickeneth whom He will".
This word occurs 23 times in John's Gospel, except in 3: 8 (see John 1: 23; 3: 29;
5: 25, 28, 37; 10: 3, 4, 5, 16, 27; 11: 43; 12: 28, 30; 18: 37). The verse therefore
should be translated thus:--
"The Spirit breatheth where He willeth, and thou hearest His voice, but thou knowest
not whence He cometh or whither He goeth; thus is everyone that hath been begotten of
the Spirit."
To one who, like Nicodemus, was familiar with O.T. prophecies, the connection
between John 3: 6 & 8, and Ezek. 11: 19 (quoted above) and Ezek. 37: 9,
"Prophecy unto the wind . . . . . . . breathe upon these slain that they may live", and
Ezek. 37: 12-14, "I will open your graves . . . . . and ye shall live", would be obvious,
and to us who read John's Gospel and remember the remote context of John 5: 21-29,
with the parallels, "quicken whom He will", "all that are in their graves shall hear His
voice", further associations will be suggested.
Nicodemus, however, apparently still held by the traditions of his sect and still holding
to the advantages of being a physical descendant of Abraham, could only reply, "How
can these things be?" The Lord, perhaps with sorrow at the thickness of the veil that still
blinded his eyes, said: "Art thou the teacher of Israel, and knowest not these things?"
Dr. Lightfoot tells us that there were four sorts of teachers. The teacher of children,
public teachers in the synagogues, those who had their "midrashoth", or divinity schools,
like the school of Hillel and Shammai or Gamaliel, and The Sanhedrin, the great school
of the nation. Of this company of the great doctors and teachers of the Sanhedrin,
Nicodemus was one.
"Their divinity, that they taught and learned, was generally to this tenor:--to build
upon their birth privilege from Abraham, to rest in the law, to rely upon their own works,
to care for no faith but historical, to patter over prayers as efficacious . . . . . How was it
imaginable, that ever the doctrine of the new birth should be dreamed of among them,
who looked for salvation upon such principles and terms as these" (Dr. Lightfoot,
Volume 5: page 44).