In point of fact, John 3:55Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (John 3:5) answers to the work of Christ on the cross for us; only here in spiritual cleansing and life; there in judicial cleansing and righteousness. For Christ bore our sins, and put away the fruits of the old man as guilt; but in glorifying God perfectly, so as to obtain for us a title in righteousness in the glory of God. So here the water is the cleansing of all our thoughts, affections, habits, and the Spirit the making us partakers of the divine nature: what is born of the Spirit is spirit (compare Ezek. 36), which is indeed inseparably connected with our acceptance in the Beloved, our new positive position, for it is in life; though not only so, but by the presence of the Holy Ghost we have that place.
We are quickened into the new place with Christ raised from the dead, He having in that work, which gave us a title to be in glory, by glorifying God, having put away our sins by bearing them, and going down to death. He hath quickened us together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses. We are in Christ, or in the Spirit (not in flesh). That is our new place. So we are born of the Spirit. We are cleansed, and forgiven all the fruits of the flesh, and we are born of water. There acceptance does not go beyond resurrection; for we are, or Christ in testimony is, then in the new accepted condition of man in righteousness, God having raised Him from the dead.
But then, in point of fact, the counsels of God had given us a place in glory, and Christ enters into that glory, not only as what, as Son, He had with the Father before the world was, but as having glorified God perfectly here below, and in a work done as answering for us, so as to bring us, according to and by the righteousness of God, into that glory. This is a wonderful truth, but it is God's righteousness, evidently and wholly Christ's work; only the question of righteousness simply is settled in resurrection; only the work which did it was such that in its full effect it could not stop there, but was sufficient, when it was God's counsel to do so, to give us a part with Christ in glory.