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.
Believe me, I would never 'dismiss' the teachings of basic salvation (John 3) and 'the Lord's supper' (John 6) as 'mere' symbols.
It has been...interesting...and educational. Thanks.
So who is the final authority on what, in the Bible, we take literally or figuratively? I know when Jesus said He is the “bread of life”, he didn’t mean He was a loaf of bread. No, he meant that bread is what sustains life. So He used bread as a symbol of His life that will sustain us eternally.
Luke 22:19 And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying “This is my body given for you, do this in remembrance of me.”
He broke the bread as a symbol that His body would be broken. He would suffer. He wanted us to remember the sacrifice He made on the Cross.
Luke 22:20 In the same way, after the supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”
The cup symbolizes His blood shed for us at the Cross. In no way did Jesus want us to literally eat His flesh. That’s just morbid. Where is the message in that? Why would one want to literally eat someone’s flesh? All He wants is for us to remember the supreme sacrifice He made so we could live.
In I Cor 11 Paul is chastizing the church for their disrespect of communion, they were trying to make it a party instead of a somber moment of remembrance.
In John 3 Christ is describing a physical birth and a spiritual birth. Hence the need to be born again, only a different kind of birth (spiritual).