Understanding “Wind” In John 3:8
Humans often use religion for their own desires rather than for the Spirit’s desires. This is easy to do. One simply does anything he wishes; then he says the Spirit moved him to do it. After all, the Spirit is quiet and invisible. So who is to say that the Spirit was not active in that way? Thus people think they can be ‘born again’ in any manner they like. When anyone questions them, they reply that the Spirit was acting as He pleased. They try to use John 3:8. They argue, “The Spirit is like the wind blowing wherever it pleases. ‘You cannot tell’ which way He will blow next.” Some use this argument to escape the Bible’s commands, and to excuse their own strange behavior.
Does John 3:8 really support their view? Look again at the Scripture. Nicodemus ought to grasp the basic truths Jesus states in John 3:3-7. But because he does not, Jesus must draw a picture for him. Jesus makes use of the word for both “wind” and “spirit.” In the Greek language that word is pneuma. As reflected also in Hebrew and Latin, wind and spirit are similar. Wind is invisible; spirit is invisible. Wind is known by its effects, including sound. Spirit is known by its actions, including speech. So, in John 3:8, Jesus’ thought goes like this: The pneuma (wind, spirit, Spirit) blows wherever it pleases. You hear its phone (sound or voice), but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So is everyone born of the Spirit.
However one translates the first part, the second part seems plain. Jesus does not say, “So is the Holy Spirit,” or “So is the Spirit’s work.” Jesus literally says, “So is everyone born from the Spirit.” He is saying something about everyone receiving rebirth. Is Jesus helping Nicodemus to see which “one” – which person – is born of the Spirit? If so, who is that? Everyone who is wind-like. In that case, Jesus is strengthening the beginner’s lesson He began in John 3:6, that new birth is not of flesh (as Nicodemus mistakenly thinks). Rather, new birth is for “everyone” like the wind – invisible yet heard – the inner self. This fits the flow of thought. There is a fleshly body, and there is a “soul” or “spirit” (Matthew 10:28; 2 Corinthians 4:16; James 2:26). The body is involved in submitting. But Nicodemus must first see which part of himself is to be reborn. That part is the wind-like being, for “the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3:6).
John 3 says little about how the Holy Spirit actually goes about His work. For details we must go to other Bible passages. They never suggest that the Holy Spirit acts on His own, or in strange ways contrary to His revealed word. They show Him working in full accord with the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit “will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears [from the Son ] He will speak” (John 16:13-14). Likewise, the Holy Spirit does not give new birth in just any wild manner. He gives new birth in the very way the Son has revealed.