John 1:13 - born of God

This becoming children of God was very different from normal birth. This is very important in the immediate context, which we will look at in a moment or two, but also consider how much emphasis we put on human descent and human connections. People think because they were born in a certain nation or come from a particular background they are Christian (though this is far less true as our society abandons its Christian heritage). It is much stronger in other religions. Consider too the, sometimes violent, opposition that people can face if they convert from one religion to another.

So John emphasises that this becoming a child is very different. The literal translation of “not of natural descent” is actually “not of bloods”. In the ancient world the conception of a child was thought to be the result of a mixing of bloods. So John is saying the becoming a child of God is not a natural matter. Nor is it the result of human will. It is not the desire of two human parents, nor the result of a husband’s will.

No, the child is born of God. There is no further explanation of this here, but of course a little later there is the famous encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus. We often read sections of Scripture with little regard for how it all fits together. The gospel of John was written with a particular purpose, it was written as a single entity, it all fits together. Moreover, the Bible as a whole all fits together. For just as John had a single human author, the Bible has a single divine author.