In this post, I defended the Latter-day Saint belief that, when Jesus spoke of being born of "water and the Spirit," the water was a reference to baptism. I just came across this informative comment by C.H. Dodd in his book on the Gospel of John, which sheds further light on the phrase "water and the Spirit" being a reference to water baptism and confirmation, notwithstanding these terms not being stated explicitly:
The evangelist appears to have deliberately exercised reserve about the Christian sacraments in writing for a pubic which included pagans whom he wished to influence towards the Christian faith. So he would not say plainly that initiation into the higher order of life is by way of baptism accompanied by the gift of the Spirit. Indeed, he may well have felt that to put it in that way would risk misleading such readers as he had in view. But he could bring in the idea of Baptism allusively. He was already had much to say about John the Baptist. In particular, he has recorded that John was sent to baptise εν υδατι (i.26, 31, 33—the threefold repetition of εν υδατι is impressive) and that he declared Jesus to be ο βαπτιζων εν πενυματι αγιω on the ground that he had himself seen the Spirit descending and remaining on Him (i.33). Thus the association of ideas, υδωρ-πνευμα, is established, although so far it is an association of contrast. Now in iii.22, after the discourse which contains the saying about birth from water and Spirit, we are told that Jesus was baptizing, and that the fact was reported to John the Baptist, who was simultaneously engaged in baptizing at another place (iii.26). The implication is that the two are regarded as competing practitioners of the same ritual, viz., baptism in water. But the reader is not to forget that Jesus is ο βαπτιζων εν πνευματι αγιω. The implication is that the water-baptism administered by Jesus (and therefore also the water0baptism of the church, though this is not brought to the surface) is also baptism εν πνευματι. This is quite intelligible in the context of Johannine thought. The opening of the eyes of the blind by Jesus (partly through an act of ‘washing’, i.e., baptism) is also spiritual enlightenment (ix. 5-7) and we are to learn that the ‘living water’ which proceeds from Christ is the Spirit (vii. 38-39). (C.H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel [Cambridge University Press, 1958], 309-10).
