Born from above: Jesus assures Nicodemus that no one can see the rule of God unless the person is begotten from above. The phrase from above in the Greek (anothen) of John’s Gospel can also mean from the beginning or again.
Nicodemus interprets Jesus’ statement as meaning that one must be born again. He asks Jesus how a person could be born again once he is old. Jesus corrects his misunderstanding by emphasizing that it is being born from above that he means, not being born again.
Jesus distinguishes between “flesh” and “spirit.” These are two completely different ways of life: one at the merely human level and the other in communion with God.
To be born of the flesh means to get what we can secure, use, and control: to succumb to the pursuits of “the world” in its bad sense. “Flesh” describes the human being as subject to weakness, sinfulness, and alienation from God.
To live the higher life, one must be “born of the Spirit.” In other words, God’s Holy Spirit is the agent of rebirth. Jesus speaks of that higher life as being carried by the wind. His word for “wind” is the same as the word for “spirit” in both Hebrew (ruach) and Greek (pneuma). The activity of the Holy Spirit is as mysterious as that of the wind, which blows where it will, and whose sound we can hear, but we do not know where it comes from or where it goes.