12 But, as many as did receive Him,*‘Receive’, not ‘accept’—if you ‘accept’ something it is inferior, or is offered by someone who is socially inferior; superior people or things are ‘received’. If you merely ‘accept Jesus’ that Jesus can’t save you; he is less than you are. to them He gave the right to become children of God,*No one is born a child of God (God has no grandchildren); you may become one by receiving Christ. Presumably ‘receiving’ is a conscious act. Each of my two children did this when four years old. to those who believe into His name:*Never does the Text read ‘believe in’ (Greek εν) Jesus or His name; always it reads ‘believe into’ (Greek εις). People believe in Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, the goodness of man, or whatever, but it makes no difference in their lives. Many millions of people say they ‘believe in Jesus’, but it makes no difference in their lives either. You have to believe into Him—commitment and identification are involved, that go along with the change in location, from being outside to being inside. As Jesus Himself said in John 6:53-56, you have to "eat" His flesh and "drink" His blood. If you eat something your body assimilates it, it becomes part of you. 13 who were begotten, not by blood, nor by the desire of the flesh, nor by the will of a man,*"The will of a man" seems obvious enough—many, perhaps most, people are born because a man decides he wants children. "The desire of the flesh"—many others are born because a man and a woman are carried away by physical attraction, whether or not they are planning to have a child. "By blood"—the best sense I can make out of this is to assume that it refers to levirate marriage; a man fertilizes his brother’s childless widow to produce an heir for that brother, precisely because of the blood relationship between them. but by God.*For a human being to be begotten physically a man must implant the seed of life, and to be begotten spiritually God must implant the seed of the Life.