Jesus answered, "Most assuredly I tell you, unless one is born of water and spirit, he can't enter into the Kingdom of God!
It cannot be denied, therefore, that all interpretations that would edit any reference to baptism out of this text are too late by centuries, to have any weight at all with people who wish to know what the word of the Lord teaches.  The warping and distortion of the views of expositors since the Lutheran reformation, who have sought to conform this text to Luther's erroneous theory of justification, were denounced by no less a giant of Biblical exegesis than Alford, who wrote: