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Jesus and Nicodemus
…7Do not be amazed that I said, ‘You must be born again.’8Thewindblowswhereit wishes.You hearitssound,butyou do not knowwhereit comes fromorwhereit is going.Soit iswith everyonebornoftheSpirit.”9“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.…

Treasury of Scripture

The wind blows where it wants, and you hear the sound thereof, but can not tell from where it comes, and where it goes: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

wind.

Job 37:10-13,16,17,21-23
By the breath of God frost is given: and the breadth of the waters is straitened…

Psalm 107:25,29
For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof…

Ecclesiastes 11:4,5
He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap…

so.

John 1:13
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Isaiah 55:9-13
Foras the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts…

Mark 4:26-29
And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; …

BirthBlowBlowethBlowsBornChoosesEarsGoesHearHearestPleasesPleasureSoundSpiritThereofUnableVoiceWantsWhenceWhereverWhitherWillethWillsWindWishesBirthBlowBlowethBlowsBornChoosesEarsGoesHearHearestPleasesPleasureSoundSpiritThereofUnableVoiceWantsWhenceWhereverWhitherWillethWillsWindWishes1.Jesus teaches Nicodemus the necessity of being born again,
14.of faith in his death,
16.the great love of God toward the world,
18.and the condemnation for unbelief.
22.Jesus baptizes in Judea.
23.The baptism, witness, and doctrine of John concerning Jesus.

The wind blows where it wishes.
This phrase highlights the sovereignty and unpredictability of the wind, which serves as a metaphor for the Holy Spirit. In biblical times, wind was often associated with divine activity, as seen inGenesis 1:2, where the Spirit of God is described as moving over the waters. The Greek word for "wind" (pneuma) is the same as for "spirit," emphasizing the connection. The wind's freedom to move as it pleases reflects the Spirit's ability to work beyond human understanding or control.

You hear its sound,
The sound of the wind is perceptible, yet invisible, much like the effects of the Holy Spirit's work in a person's life. This aligns with the biblical theme that faith comes by hearing (Romans 10:17). The Spirit's presence is evidenced by transformation and the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), which are observable even if the Spirit Himself is not seen.

but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going.
This phrase underscores the mystery and divine nature of the Spirit's work. Just as the origins and destination of the wind are unknown, so too are the ways of the Spirit. This reflects the biblical principle that God's ways and thoughts are higher than human understanding (Isaiah 55:8-9). The Spirit's work is not bound by human limitations or expectations.

So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Being "born of the Spirit" refers to the concept of spiritual rebirth or regeneration, a central theme in Christian theology. This new birth is necessary to enter the kingdom of God, as Jesus explains earlier inJohn 3:3-7. The transformation brought about by the Spirit is profound and life-changing, akin to a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). This spiritual rebirth is a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, such asEzekiel 36:26-27, where God promises to give a new heart and spirit to His people.

1.Jesus Christ
The central figure in this passage, Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus about the nature of being born again and the work of the Holy Spirit.

2.Nicodemus
A Pharisee and member of the Jewish ruling council who comes to Jesus at night seeking understanding about His teachings.

3.The Holy Spirit
Referred to metaphorically as the wind, the Holy Spirit's work in regeneration and transformation is a key theme in this passage.

4.Jerusalem
The city where this conversation takes place, a significant location for Jewish religious life and Jesus' ministry.

5.The Wind
Used as a metaphor for the Holy Spirit, illustrating the mysterious and sovereign nature of the Spirit's work.The Sovereignty of the Spirit
Just as the wind cannot be controlled or fully understood, the Holy Spirit operates according to God's sovereign will. Believers should trust in the Spirit's guidance and timing.

The Mystery of Regeneration
Spiritual rebirth is a mysterious work of the Holy Spirit. Like the wind, it is not always visible, but its effects are evident in a transformed life.

Hearing and Responding
While we cannot see the wind, we can hear its sound. Similarly, believers are called to be attentive to the Spirit's voice and respond in obedience.

Transformation and New Life
The work of the Spirit brings about a new creation in Christ. Believers should seek to live out this new life, reflecting the change the Spirit has wrought.

Dependence on the Spirit
Just as we rely on the wind for movement, believers must depend on the Holy Spirit for spiritual growth and direction.1.What is the meaning of John 3:8?

2.How does John 3:8 illustrate the work of the Holy Spirit in believers?

3.What does "the wind blows where it wishes" teach about God's sovereignty?

4.How can we discern the Spirit's movement in our daily lives?

5.Connect John 3:8 with other scriptures about the Holy Spirit's guidance.

6.How should John 3:8 influence our approach to evangelism and discipleship?

7.What does John 3:8 mean by "The wind blows where it wishes"?

8.How does John 3:8 relate to the concept of being "born of the Spirit"?

9.Why is the metaphor of wind used in John 3:8 to describe the Spirit?

10.What are the top 10 Lessons from John 3?

11.What are the symbols of the Holy Spirit?

12.What is the Holy Spirit's outpouring?

13.What is the nature of the spirit world?

14.Who was Nicodemus in the Bible?The wind blows where it wishes

• Jesus begins the illustration with an everyday reality: “The wind blows where it wishes” (John 3:8).

• Wind is free, sovereign, and untamed—no human can dictate its course. In the same way, the Holy Spirit moves according to His own perfect will (Psalm 115:3;1 Corinthians 12:11).

• This comforts us: our new birth is not secured by our efforts but by God’s gracious initiative (Ephesians 2:4-5).

• It also humbles us, reminding us that salvation is entirely of the Lord (Jonah 2:9) and not a human achievement.

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You hear its sound

• Though invisible, wind leaves evidence—rustling leaves, whistling eaves. Likewise, the Spirit’s work produces unmistakable fruit.

–Acts 2:2 records “a sound like a mighty rushing wind” accompanying the Spirit’s arrival.

–Galatians 5:22-23 lists love, joy, peace, and the other fruit that let others “hear” the Spirit’s presence.

• Authentic conversion is never silent; transformation is audible in changed speech, visible in altered conduct, and tangible in self-giving love (1 Thessalonians 1:5-8).

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but you do not know where it comes from

• We cannot trace the wind’s point of origin; it arrives beyond our sightline. So it is with the Spirit: the new birth springs from God’s hidden initiative, not human lineage, effort, or ritual (John 1:13).

•James 1:18 affirms, “He chose to give us birth by the word of truth,” emphasizing divine origin.

• This mystery invites reverent awe rather than analytic control (Romans 11:33).

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or where it is going

• Wind’s destination is just as elusive. We may feel the breeze but cannot chart its future path.

• When the Spirit indwells, He leads believers into God-planned journeys we could never script (Romans 8:14).

– Philip suddenly found himself on a desert road because “the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go…’” (Acts 8:29).

– Trust replaces self-directed planning (Proverbs 3:5-6).

• The Christian life is therefore an adventure of obedience, not a program of predictable milestones.

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So it is with everyone born of the Spirit

• New birth is as real as the wind, yet just as supernatural. Its cause is invisible, its effects undeniable (2 Corinthians 5:17).

•Ezekiel 36:26-27 foresaw this miracle: God gives a new heart and puts His Spirit within, enabling obedience.

•Titus 3:5 sums it up: “He saved us… through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”

• Each believer becomes a living testimony that the unseen Spirit still breathes life into dead hearts, just as surely as Jesus promised Nicodemus.

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summary

The wind illustration shows that regeneration is God-initiated, Spirit-driven, and unmistakably evident. Though we cannot control or fully comprehend the Spirit’s movements, we can trust His sovereign grace, expect tangible change, and follow wherever He leads.

(8)The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof.--Better (see Note below),the Spirit breatheth where He willeth, and thou hearest His voice. These words are an explanation of the spiritual birth, the necessity of which has been asserted in the previous verses. They must have come to Nicodemus, bringing in their sound echoes of the old familiar words, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7). These words would bring to the mind thoughts of the human body, cold, lifeless, corpse-like; of the breath of life passing into it; of the beating pulse, the opening eye, the action of nerve, muscle, and limb, as, in obedience to God's will, matter became the framework of spirit, and man became a living soul. There are parallel thoughts of the spirit existing in capacity for life and union with God, but crushed beneath the physical life with its imperative demands for support, and the sensible life with its engrossing pleasures and pains, and sorrows and joys; of the Spirit of God breathing upon it; and of the dormant power awakening into a new life of noblest thoughts and hopes and energies, when man is born of the Spirit.

And yet the new spiritual birth, like the physical, cannot be explained. We can observe the phenomena, we cannot trace the principle of life. He breatheth where He willeth, in the wide world of man, free as the wind of heaven, bound by no limits of country or of race. The voice is heard speaking to the man himself, and through him to others; there is the evidence of the new birth in the new life. We know not whence He comes, or whither He goes. We cannot fix the day or hour of the new birth with certainty. We know not what its final issues will be. It is the beginning of a life which is a constant growth, and the highest development here is but the germ of that which shall be hereafter (1John 3:2).

So is every one that is born of the Spirit.--The sense is,In this manner is every one(born) who is born of the Spirit. The universality is again emphatically asserted. Individual spiritual life depends upon individual spiritual birth. The baptism of the Spirit is needed for all. Now, indeed, coming as a fire burning in men's hearts, consuming the chaff of sin, while He purifies and stores up all that is true and good; now coming as in a moment, and arresting a man in a course of evil, revealing the iniquity of sin, and giving the power to reform; now coming as the gradual dawning of day upon the youthful soul who has never been wholly without it; here in a sermon or a prayer, there in the lessons of childhood; now by the example of a noble life or the lessons of history; again in the study of Scripture or the truths written on the page of nature--the Spirit breatheth where it willeth. We may not limit His action, but by His action must every one be born again. Comp. the instances of what men call gradual conversion and sudden conversion, placed side by side in the same chapter, inActs 16:14;Acts 16:29et seq.

The rendering of the first clause of this verse by theSpirit breatheth for "wind bloweth" of the Authorised version has met with so little support that it is right to state briefly the grounds on which it rests. . . .

Verse 8. -The wind bloweth (the Spirit breathes, Revised Version, in margin)where it willeth,and thou hearest (his voice)the sound thereof, but thou knowest not whence it cometh and whither it goeth. Vulgate (followed by Wickliffe and the Rheims Versions) is,Spiritus ubi vult spirat et vocem ejus audis, sed nescis unde veniat, aut quo vadat:sic est omnis qui natus est ex Spiritu. Augustine, though acquainted with the other rendering, approves of this; so Origen, Bengel. The great majority of commentators and versions have held that the former of the two translations is correct; that the first time the wordΠνεῦμα is used, it refers to the wind, "the unseen similitude of God the Spirit - his most meet and mightiest sign;" and that, since the same word is used for the two things, Spirit and wind, the Lord, after the parabolic manner which he adopted (in the synoptic Gospels), took advantage of some gusts of roaring wind then audible, to call attention to the mystery and incomprehensibility of its origin or end, and to see a parallel between the unknown ways of the wind and the unknown points of application to the human spirit of the mighty energy of the living God. The passage,Ecclesiastes 11:5, may have been in his mind (though there "Spirit" is as likely to be the reference as is the motion of the "wind," and our ignorance of the way of the Spirit is akin to our ignorance of the formation of bones in the womb of her who is with child), and the adoption of the unusual wordπνεῖ (cf.John 6:18;Revelation 7:1;Matthew 7:25;Acts 27:40) is in support of the comparison between "wind" and the "Spirit;" while theφωνή, the "voice" or sound of the wind in trees or against any barriers, and the other effects that the rapid motion of the air produces, gives a lively illustration of the method in which the Spirit of God works in human minds, revealing, not itself, but its effects. The parallel is not peculiar to Scripture (see the remarkable passage in Xenophon, 'Memor.,' 4:3-14; also 'Rig Veda,' 10:168). It is further urged that the following clause,So is every one that hath been bornof the Spirit - meaning,So doth it happen to every one who is born of the Spirit - suggests the analogy betweenπνεῦμα in its material sense, andπνεῦμα in its customary and deeper sense. Now, on the other hand, it appears to me that this latter clause is compatible with the older translation and application. Thereis a comparison, but it may be between the mysterious working, breathing of the Divine Spirit, whose "voice" or "word" may be heard, whose effects are present to our senses and consciousness, but the beginnings and endings of which are always lost in God, - and the special operations of Divine grace in thebirth of the Spirit. There are numberless operations of the Spirit referred to in the Old Testament, from the first brooding of the Spirit on the formless abyss, to all the special and mighty effects wrought in creation, all the heightening and quickening of human faculty, all the conference of special strength upon men - their intellectual energies and Divine inspirations. Over and above all these, there is all the supernatural change wrought in souls by the Holy Spirit. Christ callsthis a "birth of the Spirit," and declares that, according to all the mysterious comings and departings of the Spirit, leaving only manifold effects, so is the special Divine work which morally and spiritually recreates humanity.Pneuma is used three hundred and fifty times in the New Testament, and twenty times in this Gospel for "the Spirit;" and if the usage is reversed here, this is the solitary occasion. The wordθέλει, is, moreover, more appropriate to a living Being than to the wind. There is another way which suggests itself by which the wordΠνεῦμα may mean the same in both clauses:The breath of God bloweth where it listeth, etc.,so is every one born of the breath of God. If this be possible, the form of the expression supplies a cooperating similitude drawn from the unknown origin and mighty effects of the unseen breath of heaven; and on this translation the comparison is drawn between all the ways of the Spirit and the special work of the Spirit in regeneration. An inference is deducible from either interpretation of this verse, incompatible with the theory that "birth from water" is equivalent to "regeneration in baptism." If the rite of baptism provided the moment and occasion of the spiritual result, weshould know whence it came and whither it went. We might not know "how," but we should know "when" and "whence" the spiritual change took place. But this knowledge is distinctly negatived by Christ, who herein declares the moment of the spiritual birth to be lost or hidden in God. Physical birth is a deep mystery, both whence the "spirit" comes and whither it goes; the signs of the presence of life are abundant, but there is an infinite difference between the stillborn or dead child and the living one. Similarly, the commencement of the Spirit's creation within our nature is lost in mystery. We discern its presence by its effects, by consciousness of a new life and sense of a new world all around the newly born, but the Spirit-birth, like all the other operations of the Spirit, is hidden in God.

Parallel Commentaries ...


The
τὸ(to)
Article - Nominative Neuter Singular
Strong's 3588:The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

wind
πνεῦμα(pneuma)
Noun - Nominative Neuter Singular
Strong's 4151:Wind, breath, spirit.

blows
πνεῖ(pnei)
Verb - Present Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 4154:To blow, breathe, as the wind. A primary word; to breathe hard, i.e. Breeze.

where
ὅπου(hopou)
Adverb
Strong's 3699:Where, whither, in what place. From hos and pou; what(-ever) where, i.e. At whichever spot.

it wishes.
θέλει(thelei)
Verb - Present Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 2309:To will, wish, desire, be willing, intend, design.

You hear
ἀκούεις(akoueis)
Verb - Present Indicative Active - 2nd Person Singular
Strong's 191:To hear, listen, comprehend by hearing; pass: is heard, reported. A primary verb; to hear.

its
αὐτοῦ(autou)
Personal / Possessive Pronoun - Genitive Neuter 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 846:He, she, it, they, them, same. From the particle au; the reflexive pronoun self, used of the third person, and of the other persons.

sound,
φωνὴν(phōnēn)
Noun - Accusative Feminine Singular
Strong's 5456:Probably akin to phaino through the idea of disclosure; a tone; by implication, an address, saying or language.

but
ἀλλ’(all’)
Conjunction
Strong's 235:But, except, however. Neuter plural of allos; properly, other things, i.e. contrariwise.

you do not know
οἶδας(oidas)
Verb - Perfect Indicative Active - 2nd Person Singular
Strong's 1492:To know, remember, appreciate.

where
πόθεν(pothen)
Adverb
Strong's 4159:From the base of posis with enclitic adverb of origin; from which or what place, state, source or cause.

it comes {from}
ἔρχεται(erchetai)
Verb - Present Indicative Middle or Passive - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 2064:To come, go.

[or]
καὶ(kai)
Conjunction
Strong's 2532:And, even, also, namely.

where
ποῦ(pou)
Adverb
Strong's 4226:Genitive case of an interrogative pronoun pos otherwise obsolete; as adverb of place; at what locality.

it is going.
ὑπάγει(hypagei)
Verb - Present Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 5217:To go away, depart, begone, die. From hupo and ago; to lead under, i.e. Withdraw or retire, literally or figuratively.

So
οὕτως(houtōs)
Adverb
Strong's 3779:Thus, so, in this manner. Or (referring to what precedes or follows).

it is
ἐστὶν(estin)
Verb - Present Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 1510:I am, exist. The first person singular present indicative; a prolonged form of a primary and defective verb; I exist.

with everyone
πᾶς(pas)
Adjective - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 3956:All, the whole, every kind of. Including all the forms of declension; apparently a primary word; all, any, every, the whole.

born
γεγεννημένος(gegennēmenos)
Verb - Perfect Participle Middle or Passive - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 1080:From a variation of genos; to procreate; figuratively, to regenerate.

of
ἐκ(ek)
Preposition
Strong's 1537:From out, out from among, from, suggesting from the interior outwards. A primary preposition denoting origin, from, out.

the
τοῦ(tou)
Article - Genitive Neuter Singular
Strong's 3588:The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

Spirit.”
Πνεύματος(Pneumatos)
Noun - Genitive Neuter Singular
Strong's 4151:Wind, breath, spirit.


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NT Gospels: John 3:8 The wind blows where it wants (Jhn Jo Jn)