But it is in the same passage, v 17: "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
Equating the phrase "born again" with salvation is not something we have uniquely done all these years later. We have texts by Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, who wrote around 55-80 years after the apostle John, that explicitly do this.
Again, in this same conversation, Jesus explicitly mentions salvation, and it refers to an immediate rescue and deliverance from God's condemnation and judgment, and in this salvation, coming to have eternal life.
John 3.16-18: "16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God."
I've already shown how your assertion is incorrect that equating John 3.3-5 with salvation is modern phenomenon. It decidedly is not.
And calling Nicodemus a flatterer simply does not accord with what John says in his gospel about Nicodemus.
John uniformly presents him as sincere in respect to Jesus: he is attracted to Jesus as a teacher and is a seeker of the truth (3.1-21); he defends Jesus against his fellow Pharisees (7.45-52); he helped bury Jesus! (19.38-42).
"Consider the context."
Let's do so. In a previous post I have already noted, "Based on Jesus's entire conversation with Nicodemus, to be born from above and thus be able to see and enter the kingdom is equivalent to believing in Jesus and thus not perishing but having eternal life. That is the very definition of salvation."
That's the immediate context, but consider the opening section of John's Gospel. In vv 11-13, John first establishes the context for understanding what Jesus means by being born from above.
"11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God."
To be born from above is to be born of God and to become a child of God. To believe in his name (v 12) is later directly associated in
John 3 with receiving eternal life and escaping condemnation (vv 15-18).
Suffice it to say, born from above language is fundamentally about salvation.
Of course, John is not the only NT writer is use born from above/born of God language in connection with being a believer in Jesus and being saved. Paul and Peter do as well:
Gal 4.28-30: "28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. 30 But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.”
1 Pet 1.3-5: "3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
1 Pet 1.23, 25: "23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; . . . And this word is the good news that was preached to you."
So, yes, being born of God/born from above/born again is fundamentally about being saved and having eternal life.
I believe I had already asked you if you thought the birth of the Spirit occurred automatically at baptism and so without the sign of tongues, but you had not answered the question.
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