The Lord explains Himself. Two things were necessary — to be born of water, and of the Spirit. Water cleanses. And, spiritually, in his affections, heart, conscience, thoughts, actions, etc., man lives, and in practice is morally purified, through the application, by the power of the Spirit, of the word of God, which judges all things, and works in us livingly new thoughts and affections. This is the water; it is withal the death of the flesh. The true water which cleanses in a christian way came forth from the side of a dead Christ. He came by water and blood, in the power of cleansing and of expiation. He sanctifies the assembly by cleansing it through the washing of water by the word. "Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." It is therefore the mighty word of God which, since man must be born again in the principle and source of his moral being, judges, as being death, all that is of the flesh.To repeat, the "water" in this verse is not the literal water of sprinkling, pouring, or immersion baptism. One can be saved without being water-baptized. The purpose of the use of water in the immersion baptism is not for salvation/new birth, It is for induction into the Kingdom of Heaven, not for the participoation in the Kingdom of God which should have already been effected.
Nor is it speaking of two different births, which the "amniotic fluid" theory demands, and though one experiences it, immersion in that water does not allow one to see or enter the Kingdom of God.
No, the verse speaks of the two stages of one new birth (1Jn. 3:9), for one cannot be saved, born anew in the spirit, regenerated, without a knowledge of the elements of The Faith, which comes by hearing the preached Word of God, of which one symbol is "living water."
That is, for Jesus to say "Unless a human is born of water and spirit he is not able to enter The Kingdom of The God" it is clear that the two elements in combination are involved in the new birth. They cannot be separated (Tit. 3:5). One cannot be born in the spirit without the faith endowed by being cleaned by the Spirit who through the preached Word convinces one of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, and of the need to confess and repent of one's sin. And on the other hand, once the gift of faith comes, one is compelled to exercise it and thus be born anew in the Spirit.
This does not leave any room for another interpretation consistent with the rest of Scripture.
In relation to this, what does it mean to you that only a little while later, Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman making the promise:
"But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life" (Jn. 4:14 AV).
Is that literal water, or is water here not symbolic of the Word of God integrated with and controlled by God's Spirit in the new man regenerated by the faith resulting from the informing and cleansing Word of God?
Jesus said water AND THE SPIRIT to Nic, as recorded in John 3.