I don’t believe I am separating anything. I agree it flows; it just depends on what anyone thinks the word meanings are.
Maybe this was stated before, but when Nicodemus asked Christ how, he didn’t ask how he could be born from heaven, he asked how he can be born in the flesh over again. From his mother. (I saw this in the Moffit also) (To me, Christ would have been speaking in the dialect that Nicodemus understood) Christ then states it differently to him by using the term, “spiritual water” (in how you must be born) according to Bullinger’s grammar explanation.
If we are going to use Bullinger for the flow, then water is only used once meaning spiritual water, Holy Spirit, Christ, not bag of water from a flesh birth.
When going to the Moffit, some say the term “again” means “anew”. (Born anew, hence, old self dies) It depends on which word someone wants to pull out of the Strong’s and plug it in.
I saw this many times before, one time it was the first definition in Strong’s, other times it was taken to the 4th level base word. It was never consistent even though there were other root avenues to use. The one that fit the narrative was the one used even if it took the meaning off course. The problem is which one is the true narrative for lack of a better word.
If we use the word “above”, for “again”, the narrative came be, soul sent from heaven to be born into flesh, so on and so forth. If we take away the Hendiadys, and separate water and spirit, we can plug that in too and it all flows.
Now if we use “anew” for “again” then it totally changes the context of what is being said, along with using the Hendiadys, spiritual water.
Even if the “again” is to be “above”, the water part has to be left out of it due to the proper grammar shown for water and spirit in the appendix. So, the “above” could still be implying, heavenly, spiritual, not flesh minded. Again, Christ’s come back to Nicodemus was strictly spiritual.
Wanted to add, nothing here is said to offend, just stating how I perceive the topic