2021-08-28 09:13:02
So in that analogy, where it is evident that Christ had purposely employed a parallelism, what is born of water as opposed to what is born of spirit in verse 5 is the same as what is born of flesh as opposed to what is born of spirit in verse 6. So what is “born of water” is that which is born of flesh, most likely referring to the natural process of childbirth. This interpretation of the phrase being directly from the words of Christ, who had first used it, is quite certain.
Furthermore, references to blood in relation to race or birth in the Old Testament are rare, although in the past we have cited Hosea 4:2 as an example, where in Brenton’s translation of the Septuagint we read: “Cursing, and lying, and murder, and theft, and adultery abound in the land, and they mingle blood with blood.” There, it is evident that mingling “blood with blood” is a reference to the result of adultery, and the same word for adultery, the Greek word μοιχεία, certainly was used by Hellenistic Greek and even earlier writers to describe race-mixing. In our March, 2017 commentary on chapter 1 of Paul’s epistle to Titus, titled Purity Spiraling in Apostolic Christianity, we provided relevant examples from Strabo’s Geography and Aristotle’s Animalia.
Yahshua Christ having come through water, meaning the flesh, and through blood, we would esteem the blood to be a reference to the blood of the particular race, the blood of Adam, Abraham, and Israel. The word adam itself is derived from the Hebrew word dam, which means blood (Strong’s # 1818). This also supports, and is supported by, our own translation of John 1:13, and here we shall read the passage starting from verse 12: “12 But as many who received Him, He gave to them the authority which the children of Yahweh are to attain, to those believing in His Name: 13 not those from of mixed origin nor from of desire of the flesh nor from of the will of man, but they who have been born from Yahweh.” So we see the same concept here in John’s epistle, that it was necessary for Christ to also come through the same blood as Israel. Translating that passage in John 1:13, we concluded that John’s use of the term blood in the plural referred to bastards, to people of mixed origin, as the many Edomites who inhabited Judaea at the time of Christ were indeed of mixed origin.
This is not alien to the consciences of the apostles, as Jude described fornication as the going after of different flesh, and as Paul had warned the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 not to commit fornication as their ancient fathers had, using an example from Numbers chapter 25 where the sons of Israel had joined themselves to the daughters of Moab, and suffered greatly for their sin, calling it fornication.
Cont.
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