"Jesus answered and said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, If a man is not born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
(John 3:5, Lamsa Translation)
I used to think that being born of water means our birth from the womb, and that is one way to look at this statement that Jesus said to the Pharisee Nicodemus. But there is another way to see this verse. If I look with a healthy eye I know that there is an inner meaning to this idea of being born of water. Just as there is an inner meaning to being born of the Spirit.
Water can be two hydrogen atoms joined to a single oxygen atom as a molecule. That would be the outer meaning. It is a literal interpretation of the word. What else could Jesus be teaching this teacher of teachers? Where else does Jesus refer to water in a way that most certainly is not referring to the molecule? Later in the Gospel according to John we get another clue when Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well.
"Jesus answered and said to her, If you only knew the gift of God, and who is the man who said to you, Give me a drink; you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."
(John 4:10, Lamsa Translation)
Whoever drinks this living water will never thirst again. This is not ordinary water. This living water is the message of the living Truth. It is a teaching that if we follow it will bring us eventually to being born of the Spirit and having a new life. The death and resurrection of Jesus is a symbol of this rebirth into Spirit that is our inheritance as human beings, children of God.
It is not enough to learn about Truth. It is living Truth that brings us forward into the new life. As Rev. Johnnie Coleman said, “It works if you work it.” We don’t get this teaching from our self. It comes to us from our personal relationship with the Christ within us. It comes through to our Self from Spirit. This is the guidance and counselship of God that is translated as the Kingdom of God in the gospels.
As Emmet Fox tells us in his essay, The Golden Key, when we “stop thinking about the difficulty, whatever it is, and think about God instead” then we can hear the still, small voice of God whispering what we need to know. The voices of separate self are quiet. We are hearing the guidance and counselship of God. Our Self is the active voice in our consciousness.
"Whoever from now on is a follower of Christ, is a new creation: old things have passed away"
(II Corinthians 5:17, Lamsa Translation)
I learn Truth
from my only teacher
the Spirit in my heart,
and put it in practice.
Even as my mind wanders
away from Truth
I awaken,
and return to the Stillness.
So, I grow
into my New Life.
It is the Life that is mine
from before birth.