OK.
At about post 100, you bemoaned the fact that people were complaining, but presenting no arguments. So I took an item that I had an issue with, and used a very similar example to show that symbolism was used. Nicodemus and I both understood ‘born again’ to mean something other than baptism, and Jesus took a moment to clarify. You don’t see it as symbolism, that is fine.
I honestly thought I would start with a simple mis-representation in the article, then we might move onto other passages. I sincerely doubt that you have ever used these 2 words interchangeably - I could be wrong. You may very well say that a baby has been ‘born again’ as they are being sprinkled.
I like to say I ‘learn from mistakes’, but sometimes I don’t show it...
Well, obviously, “born again” cannot be taken literally in the way Nicodemus was taking it, as getting back into the mother’s womb and out the birth canal once more. My point is not that “born again” intrinsically, lexically means “baptized”; the point is that Christ does not speak in riddles; each time when He felt He was being misunderstood, He explained. In John 3 He explained that the second birth is of the water and spirit, and we see how the Church took it to mean baptism — a sacrament whose form is water. Remember that St. John the Baptist was already baptizing in some sense, so the reference to water and spirit was not without context. In John 6 Jesus explained that He means literally eating His flesh, and that it also has a spiritual dimension, and the Church took Him literally as we see in 1 Cor 11 (where St. Paul corrected those who did not take it literally enough). Neither case can be dismissed as mere symbolism.