Birth from Above

John 3:3–4 ESV Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” ₄ Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

John 3:3 records Jesus’ famous saying that people must be “born again”. The Greek word for “again” here is the adverb anōthen, which could also mean “from above”.

Of course, being “born again” is certainly a biblical concept found elsewhere in the New Testament (Titus 3:5; 1 Peter 1:3, 23). However, in the immediate context and in the rest of the writings of John, the emphasis regarding the spiritual birth is on its divine origin rather than its subsequence to physical birth (John 1:13; 3:5, 6; 1 John 2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1, 4).

Because anōthen could mean either “again” or “from above”, Nicodemus misunderstood Jesus to be saying that a person must be born again, “entering a second time into his mother’s womb and be born.” However, Jesus was actually talking about being born from above.