What you gotta like about this quote is the close proximity of justification and two-kingdom political theology. If water, the Spirit, and justification are what get you into the Kingdom of God, how exactly does that work for accounting? And the author even concedes that the claim is “hard” to accept, which might account for the popularity of that transformational “can do” spirit.
Do not think that you will enter the Kingdom of God unless you are first born anew of water and of the Spirit. That is a strong and hard saying, that we must be born anew. It means that we must come out of the birth of sin to the birth of justification; else we shall never enter the kingdom of heaven. Upon this birth or justification good works must follow.
Of these things the Lord Christ speaks much with Nicodemus, but Nicodemus cannot understand, nor can they be understood unless a man has experience of them and has been born of the Spirit. (Luther’s Exposition of John 3)
Old Life 
Several questions arise:
1. Shouldn’t the conversation with Nicodemas be referred to as one concerning regeneration (not justification)? and
2. According to Luther, at baptism one is reborn. Do you agree with that?
My source is:
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/publications/34-2/sola-fide-compromised-martin-luther-and-the-doctrine-of-baptism/
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Eliza,
1. I was quoting Luther. In glory you can ask him.
2. Probably not. Something happens at birth to children of the covenant. That is why most Reformed theologians have taught that covenant children dying in infancy go to heaven.
Do you agree with that?
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“Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ though the Spirit, who works when and where, and how he pleases. ” WCF 10.3
That’s as far as the Westminster divines went (a good cross section of outstanding Reformed theologians, no doubt). That is comprehensive–not just elect “covenant” infants but all elect infants (though born to pagans, Unitarians, etc.) are regenerated and saved… The Westminster divines did not specify who these elect infants are nor how many there are. I believe the Biblical evidence for the general statement “covenant children dying in infancy go to heaven” is meager.
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