As Jesus and John the Baptizer announced the Good News, they required believers to be baptized. Jesus also made this remarkable statement to a Jewish leader named Nicodemus:
Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.“ 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?“ Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God“ (John 3:3-5).
The first four chapters of John’s account provide the background for Jesus’ choice of words. Look for water in that context. John the Baptizer is immersing all who respond to his message. Jesus too is baptized in water. Soon, Jesus’ followers baptize many others. Nicodemus comes from the Pharisees, a proud group that rejects John, Jesus and the baptism they require (Luke 7:29-30).
This is the context where Jesus insists on the new birth of water and Spirit.
Could this explain why, under Jesus and the apostles, all believers are baptized? In the New Testament, there are no exceptions (see “all” or “every” in Mark 16:15-16; Acts 2:38; Romans 6:3; 1 Corinthians 12:13 and Galatians 3:26-27). All who enter the relationship with Jesus do so through baptism—immersion in water (Matthew 3:16; John 3:23; Acts 8:36-39; 10:47; Ephesians 5:26; 1 Peter 3:20-21.) Furthermore, Paul marked baptism as the entry “into Christ.”
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3-4).
What is another word for “newness of life”? Birth! This birth, empowered by the Spirit, begins in the water of baptism. This is the birth “of water and the Spirit” (John 3:5).
During the first thousand years of Christianity, this was the common understanding of John 3. However, some today object. Their traditions class baptism as a “work”—an attempt to earn salvation.