572. I. Unless a person is born again and as it were created anew, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Unless a person is born again he cannot enter the kingdom of God; this is what the Lord teaches in John, where this passage occurs:

Jesus said to Nicodemus, Amen, amen ¹ , I say to you, unless a person is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And again, Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a person is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the spirit is spirit, John 3:3, 5-6.

The kingdom of God means both heaven and the church, for the kingdom of God on earth is the church. It is the same in other places where the kingdom of God is named; as Matthew 11:11; 12:28; 21:43; Luke 4:43; 6:20; 8:1, 10; 9:11, 60, 62; 17:21, and elsewhere. To be born by water and the spirit means by the truths of faith and by living by them. For water meaning truths, see Apocalypse Revealed 50, 614-615, 685, 932. Spirit means living by Divine truths, as is plain from the Lord's words in John (John 6:63). Amen, amen means that it is the truth; and because the Lord was the truth itself, that is why He said it so often. He is also called the Amen (Revelation 3:14). Those who are regenerated are called in the Word sons of God and born of God; regeneration is described by a new heart and a new spirit.

Notes de bas de page:

614. 14:2 And I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters. This symbolizes the Lord speaking through the new heaven with Divine truths.

A voice from heaven symbolizes an utterance or declaration coming from the Lord through heaven, for when a voice is heard from heaven, it comes from the Lord. Here it comes through the new heaven formed of Christians, meant by Mount Zion on which the Lamb was seen standing, and with him the one hundred and forty-four thousand (nos. 612[1-4], 613). Many waters symbolize Divine truths (no. 50).

The Lord is similarly depicted as speaking through heaven with Divine truths in the following places:

The Son of Man's voice was heard "as the sound of many waters" in Revelation 1:15. And the voice from the throne "as the sound of many waters" in Revelation 19:6. The voice of the God of Israel "like the sound of many waters" in Ezekiel 43:2.

The voice of Jehovah is over the waters..., Jehovah over many waters. (Psalms 29:3)

...the sound of (the cherubim's) wings, like the sound of many waters... (Ezekiel 1:24)

Cherubim symbolize the Word (no. 239), thus the Divine truth with which the Lord speaks.