Refuse (Hastings' Dictionary)

The verb 'to refuse' frequently has in AV its earlier meaning of ' reject,' especially as unft for use, which is still retained in the subst. 'refuse.' Thus I's 118^ 'The stone which the builders refused (KV ' rejected ' t), is become the head stone of the comer ' ; Is 8' ' Forasmuch as this people refusetli the waters of Shiloah that go softly.' So Knox, Works, iii. 210, ' He that refuseth aot himself, and takis not up his croce, and folio wis • As to the relation ot Dt «««■ to 191^, and on the whole iubjcct, see Driver, Oeut. 233. t The Gr. of the Sept. is BfrtitMifjutra, the Lat. of the Vut^. reprohaverunt ; Wye. translates ' repreveden,' Gov. and Gen. 'refused,' Douav 'rejected,' Bish. 'refused.' TJie pas-jajje is quoted in Mt 21«, Mk 12i», Lk 20" where the Gr. is always atxthoKi/xAirx, and the Vulg. reprobaverunt ; Wye. has repre- veden' in Mt and Lk, but 'dispisid in Mk ; Tind. has always 'refused' or 'did refuse, Rhem. and AV 'rejected.' The puy^a^'e is also quoted in Ac 4^^ and 1 P 2, but with less verbal o\art- nesa. Thus Ac 4^1 Gr. icaoflivijffiiV, Vulg. qui re^trubatus t'nt, Wye. •which was reproved, Tind. 'cast a sj'de,' Rhem. 'rejected,' Bish. ' set nought,' AV and RV ' set at nought ' ; IP 2 Gr. eiira^iicxiujcir,u.i»e¥, Vulg. reprobatum, Wye. ' reproved,' Tind. 'disalowed' (so Gov., Gran., Gen., Bish., AV), Rhem. 'repro- bated,' BV ' rejected.' me, is not worthie of me ' ; p. 317, ' Peter was per. mitted once to sincke, and tliryse most shamefully to refuse and denye his Maister ' ; Tindale, Pent. Prologe to Exodus, 'an abjecte and a castawaye, a despised and a refused person ' ; Kxpos. 101, ' None of them, that refuseth not all that he possesseth, can be my disciple ' ; Mt 2i^ Tind. ' Then two shalbe in the feldes, the one shalbe receaved, and the other slialbe refused.' The origin of the word is difficult to trace. Trench (English Past and Present, 3ii6) says un- reservedly, ' To refuse is recusnre, while yet it has derived the / of its second syllable from rrfutare j it is a medley of the two'; and perliaps he ia right. J. Hastings. REGEM (nn; B 'Vi-yefi, A ■p^7tM)-— The eponym of a Calebite' family, 1 Ch 2". REGEM-MELECH (-^jcn: B'Ap/3e(re^p [A 'Ap/Se- ddsip, i^'- ' 'kp^taip, Q 'kplieael] 6 /SairiXei's).— One of a deputation sent to consult the priests about the propriety of continuing to observe the fast of the lifth mouth in commemoration of the destruction of the temple by the Chaldaians, Zee 7-. The text of this passage is dubious, especiallj' as concerns the words Bethel (AV 'house of CJod') and Sharezee (which see). REGENERATION In the NT this subject is uniformly regarded in its concrete or experimental aspect : "hence the abstract idea hardly occurs. Wliere it does, the terra TaXivyefetrla (so Tisch. \VH, 7raXi77. TR) alone is employed. This word is not found in LXX, but it has a history ia Classical and Hellenistic Greek, being used mainly in the figurative sense of complete renovation {dvaKalvu(TLS, cf. Ro 12", Tit 3"). It is this idea of restoration to pristine state that meets us in the nearest equivaient to the term found in LXX, viro/jLevd ?us iraXiv 7cv(i>|iai, Job 14'^. But ia pre- Christian usage it is not the individual so much as the world, or a nation, that is generally the subject of the entire change of condition denoted by iraXivyevfata. Thus Basil {Horn. iii. in Hexcem.) says that the Stoics dTreipous (pBopas Kbanov k. vaKiy ■yevealas eladyeii' (cf. PhUo, de Incorr. mundi, 3. 14. 17 ; de Mundo, 15), what M. Aurel. (xi. 1) calls T) TTcpioBiKT) w. Twii SXuv. Similarly, Philo calls Noah and his sons, iraXiyy. ijyep^oi'es k. Se\rripa% dpxiry^rai TreploSov (Vit. Mui/s. ii. 12 ; cf. 1 Cletn. ix. 4). National restoration is a sense found in Jos. [Ant. XI. iii. 9, v ayaKTijan k. ttoXitt. tt)S TrarplSos) ; and this, in the fuller sense of the Messianic renewal of Palestine (and of the whole world, or dependent thereon, dTroKardcrTaffis iravruv), seems to reappear in Mt 19-", one of the two NT occur- rences of iroKivy. (cf. Dalni. 145). Even in Classical usage, however, the term does sometimes refer to the lot of the individual, denoting restoration to life in a literal or a figurative sense. PlutJirch uses it several times in the former sense, i.e. iu relation to the transmigration of souls (de Esu cam. ii. 4. 4, firt xp^'''"''^ Ko^voXi a.1 tpvxo-i trufia<Tt¥ iv Toi! Tra\t.yy(viaiai.s) ; and Agrippa is (juoted by Philo (Leg. ad Gaiiim, 41) as addressing the em- peror Gams as follows: riy . . . nOfe^a, t(^ o^et j^uTTvp-Zjcrai KaOdirep ix jraXiT'yfi'eo-ias ivrjyeipas. In more figurative wise Cicero (ad Att. vi. ti) calls his restoration to his lost life of dignity and honour hanc waXiyy. nostram; and Olj'uipiodorus, speak- ing of memory, says, jraXi77. ti)s yvwaub's ianv i) afd/xv-nais. Hence, on the whole, 10X177. in non- biblical usage seems to denote a restoration of a lost state of well-being, amounting to re-creation or renovation. If we could be surer of the Rabbinic use (esp. in relation to proselytes) of such an idea in th« EEGENERATIOX KEGEXERATIOiS^ 215 time of Christ, we should probably get further li^'ht on the exact connotation ot iraXtKy. and kindred expressions as they emerge in the NT. Among the latter the following are [irominent : dycmaiyuutt (Ro 12-, and eap. Tit 3'), with the verb oFoKoivoiV^ai (Col 3'", 2 Co 4"') and its synonym iyayeoucdai (Eph 4^); dvayefi'SLV (1 P I'-^'^J [which does not occur elsewhere in extant Greek litera- ture uninfluenced by the NT itself, thougli the Philonean tract, de Incorr. mvndi, 3, has 0^07^1, friui! as a synonym for the Stoic TraXiy-fivicla of the world, and PorphjTy has avayewriTiKht (Ep. ad A neb. 24)]; ytvi>T]0Tifai ivwOev (Jn 3^'', cit. •y^vr. •y4fni)v &» or ievTipoVy V.) ; Katv^) Krl^ts in the con- crete sense (2 Co 5", Gal 6", Eph 2'" 4-), and its practical equivalents, koikAs d^-ffpunros (Eph 2" 4^), vios ifOp. (Col 3'"); T^itra SfoD 7fv^<7«o« (Jn 1"), y€vi'T}6iivai ix r. 6tov (Jn passim), iK r. wyeu/xaroj, or e'J CottTot K. vKv/iaTos (Jn 3'-°-'); and, finally, yevfdv (rica) iid toC ciayy., used of the preacher of the Word (1 Co 4", of. tjal 4'"). A single passage from an early Christian Father may be subjoined, as showing the influence of the NT ujion his langua^'e, and also the relation of the biblical idea ot Regeneration to certain other cognate ideas. Clement of Alex., speaking of the restora- tion of a sinful woman, writes (iitrom. ii. ad fin. p. 424) : i) 5i fieravorjaaaa, olof avayivvqdf'iaa. /card TTiv iiri(7Tpotp7jv Tou ^iov, TTaXiyyevfaiav txet fw^J, TtdvTiKulas lUv T^s TripKTjs T^s ToKalai, els jSiov 5^ rape\doij<rr]s av$Li tt)S Kara ttjv fxerdvoiav yevv-rjSelffTjs. It has sometimes been thought that the idea of religious regeneration in this life was one ' in the air' in the 1st cent. ; and the phrase in wtcmum renatus tauruboliu, in connexion with Mithraic worship, has been cited as evidence. But Hort thinks it, as well as the -roKiyyevccla of the Her- metic writings, to be dependent on Christian usage. Nor can the fact that Osiris was addressed as one who ' giveth birth unto men and women a second time,' be cited to the contrary : for this clearly refers to renewed life bej'ond the grave, not to spiritual regeneration in this life. The origin of tills latter notion and phraseology is rather to be sought in the OT and its liabbinic developments. The phrase 'new creation,' adojited by St. Paul, occurs repeatedly in the lilidrashim with various applications (see Dalm. Worte Jesu, 146), and a proselyte is compared to a newborn child in the Talmud (Jebamoth G2a ; see WiinsLhe, Erldut. der Evanrjg. 506) ; cf. Hort, First Ep. of Peter, p. 33. The present article will deal with the following points : — Eegeneration ' characteristic of the NT. A, Old Tc-iit. AdumbratiODS. L In (a) national, (&) pereonal rellgioD. ii. In the case of Proselytes. B. New TesU Presentation. i. In the Synoptics, ii. In SL Janies. Hi. In St. Peter (relation to Baptism), iv. In Epistle to Hebrew. V. In St. Paul. Ti. In Kt. John. C Connected Summary. Literature. The idea of Regeneration belongs to the NT rather than the OT. Indeed, some would confine it, in any proper personal sense, to the former exclusively. Rut this would be to confuse the implicit and explicit forms of the doctrine and experience, and to break the ji;eiiuine continuity of biblical religion. This continuity, along witli progressive development of form, it must Tie our care to trace between OT and NT, as well as between the several types of presentation in the NT itself. A. Old Te.st. Adumbrations.— i. OT religion being originally a matter of the nation rather than the individual, all the forms under which it was conceived were highly objective. Thingi to be done or avoided are jirominent ; and all as tending to avoid rupture of the normal relation or covenant between the people and J". At first little stress is laid on the state of the inner life, on ethical as contrasted with ritual purity. But when, under the iiitluence of the prophets of the 8th cent, and later, the ethical element in religion came fully to light, tlie old idea of relip^ion, as a dutiful relation between man and God, became charged with new spiritual meaning, and allbided the deepest and most adequate notion of piety imaginable. For it went below the level of mere deeds, to the attitude of soul of which they were as the fruit. (rt) The stages in the process may be traced as follows. As the older notion of salvation or well- being had been largely that of external national prosperity, taken as the expression of the favour of J " ; so the chief means of its purification and deepening was national adversitj-. This turned attention, first to the moral conditions of the favour of the Holy One of Israel, and then to the intrinsic blessedness of righteousness itself, apart even from its normal external concomitants of peace and prosperity. At the same time, the break-up of national welfare caused the individual to attain to a new consciousness of his personal relations to J", and so to a more spiritual piety. These chanjjes, as they afl'ectcd both Israel and the individual Israelite, reached their crisis in the experiences of the Exile. During and after it the spiritual harvest, the first-fruits of which are to be .seen even in the pre-exilic prophets, was gathered in by the sifted Church-nation. Chief among the new ideas acquired were (1) the thought of sin as a besetting power, ever apt to mar the normal relations between J" and His people ; (2) the idea that a profound change of temper or attitude in Israel as a whole was needful ; (3) the conviction that an evil so inherent as the stitt- neckedness and uucircunicision of heart discovered in Israel could be met only by Divine and super- natural agency, working upon the very springs of conduct (cf. Dt 10'« 30'"). In fact, the vision of a renovation of feeling and will as needful to Israel, of national regeneration as the pre-requisiie and the essential blessing of the longed-for Messi- anic age, began to possess the better minds follow- ing in the wake of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Yet even in those great prophets the bestowal of the regenerate heart is thought of largely as a special intervention to meet an exceptional need, as it were at a stroke ; and its primary reference is collective rather than personal. Ephraim is over- heard aclcnowledging tne ellcct of the Divine dis- cipline as salutary, and adding, 'Turn thou me, and I will turn' (.Jer3I"'): and then the prophet looks forward to the bright day of national restora- tion, when the covenant shall become 'a new covenant,' as being divinely in.scribed on the heart or inner life of tne people (31'"'-)- Then 'they shall be my people, and I will be their God : and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear nie for ever' (32™'- 24'). Similarly Ezekiel: 'And 1 will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean : from all your fillhi- ness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you : and I will take away the stony heart out of your llesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes' (36""-' II'"). Here we get, as never before, the idea of a new responsiveness of heart divinely produced — the essence of regeneration. But the regeneration is still viewed as national rather than individual (cf. the prophecy of the Valley of Drj 216 REGENERATION KEGENEKATION Bones, Ezk 37'""), though the effects on the in- dividuals composing the nation are often clearly present to mind (Jer 31", Is 541^ 60-'). And, above all, it is felt to be still future (contrast Ezk 18^'), a blessing of the Messianic age. (6) But while this is true of OT religion as a whole, even after the E.xile, there are traces of individual piety going far beyond it, and virtually anticipating tlie NT experience of regeneration. Transferring the idea of religion, as a dutiful relation between Israel ami its God, from the nation to the individual conscience, this deeper piety gave the holiness loved of J" a most vital meaning. It saw in ' wajking humbly with one's God,' the inmost secret of 'doing justly and loving mercy.' All sprang from the 'contrite and humble spirit' indwelt of the Holy One of Israel (Is 57" 66^). ' The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,' a spirit broken by the sense that it was ' truth in the inward parts' that could alone satisfj' the Holy One (Ps 51"-"). And along with this begins to appear the sense of a nature radically prone to Bin, and so in need of more radical aid from the Searcher of hearts before covenant obedience could become possible (Ps 51', Job 14^ ' Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? Not one '). There arises a cry for the ' mercy ' and ' loving- kindness' of God, to draw the heart to Himself, and so create the very state of spirit with which He could commune. 'A clean heart,' 'a right' (steadfast) or 'free (willing) spirit' — on which turned ' the joy of thy salvation ' — are all traced to the presence of God's 'holy Spirit' at work on the soul (Ps 51''"''''^). Here we have the high- water mark of piety on OT lines, or rather piety under OT forms, but already outgrowing its limits. For with the emergence of the ideas of religion as primarily a state of the heart, of the radical tendency to sin native to frail human nature, and of the grace of God, in renewing and quickening power, as alone adequate to man's need, — with this the old national religion is transcended, and a new covenant becomes indispensable. Here, then, the experience, not to say the doctrine, of regenera- tion is already virtually present : it lacks only the objective basis furnished by the revelation in Christ, to give it that steady and assured quality which is the prerogative of NT 'faith.' ii. As Israel's slowness to realize the idea of regeneration was in part due to its overshadowing sense of a specially favoured relation to J" attach- ing to Abraham's seed, as such ; so we may suppose that the accession to exilic and post-exilic Israel of a growing number of those who had no such natural advantage, must have stimulated reflexion on the subjective conditions of fitness for com- munion with .1'. It may be true that the sense in which proselytes were first spoken of as ' born ' to or in Messianic Zion (Is 49'''''- 44°, Ps 87"-) was mainly that of formal adhesion to the sacred people. Yet the patent greatness of the change of belief and conduct involved in the adhesion, must have tended to develop thought upon the spiritual and ethical senses in which a man might become a 'new' man, as it were by birth out of one world into another. Such reflexion would further be fostered by the rites through which the change of condition was achieved, particularly the ablution or bai)tism by which proselytes were admitted to Israel. Ana all this would easily coalesce in devout minds with the promise in Ezk 36^'- touching the sprinkling of Israel itself with clean water, and tlie new heart associated there- with, as markinjr the piety of the great age that was to come. \Vhen, then, .John the Baptist appeared, to usher in the fulfilment of Mai 3"'-, there must have been a widespread feeling that his baptism meant a radical change of heart even in Israel (cf. Jn l^"-). Still, the Diviner side ol Ezckiel's prophecy, the baptism with the Holy Spirit, waited upon the coming of the Mightier One, Messiah Himself (Mt 3", Lk 3'«, Jn I" 3-»). And it was the deeper experience of the Holy Spirit, in specifically Christian form, that brought regeneration to light as implicit in the contrite heart and spirit, and placed it, the Divine side o' the fact of true repentance, in the centre of NT teaching (cf. Jn 3^- "). B. New Test. Presentation.— i. The Synop- tics.— In Jesus' own public teaching the idea appears only in implicit forms, chiefly that of a radical repentance or change of heart (ij-erivoia) towards God and towards sin — the great condition, in the prophets also, of restoration to Divine fellow- ship. But in that teaching there are also hints that the change is more complete than anything hitherto realized, in keeping with the advance in tlie revelation conditioning it. Man must choose between two lives, a lower and a higher : to find or save the one, he must be ready to lose the other. And it is implied in the parable of the Prodigal Son that the spiritual life of sonship ig in fact 'dead' or null (Lk 15-^) in every child estranged by sin and selfhood. It is needful tliat even honest disciples ' turn and become as little children ' in order truly to enter the Kingdom, in which it is the crown of blessedness to be genuine children of the heavenly Father (Mt 18» 5«). The parable of the Sower implies that the specific life of the Kingdom arises in the human heart by the sinking in of the gospel, and its producing, as it were, a new root of personality ; and it is inti- mated, though only in private to chosen disciples, that true 'faith' is dependent on a Divine factor at work behind the human (Mt IG'"). This latter case suggests that the merely imjilieit form in which the profound truth of regeneration occurs in Christ's ordinary preaching is due, partly at least, to its popular character, as adjusted to the needs of the poor and simple, in contrast to theo- logians like Nicodemus. ii. St. James. — The exact sense of the words (1"), 'of set purpose he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be first-fruits, as it were, of his creatures ' {^ov\r]6eis aireKVT)jev imas \6ryif dX7;^etay, els rd etvat i}^d$ dTrapx^* ^^'^ ''wi' avToO KTifffiiTuf), has been much debated. St. James is addressing the Israel of God, conceived much in the way in which an ancient prophet thought of the triie Israel within Israel. He thinks of all ' Israelites indeed,' though he has in mind chiefly those who already believe in Jesus as Messiah (cf. Jn !■" 3-') ; for both alike have in principle one religion, that of 'doers of the word' (the revealed will of God), of such as visit the fatherless and widows, and keep unspotted from the world (I'"'"). To his ej'e, then, this people of loving obedience ia what Israel's God had meant Israel to be (Is 43™'-), ' My people, mv chosen, the people which I formed for myself (LXX, Sr irefiiciroiri<rdfirji>), that they might set forth my praise.' So, of those Avho fear J" and regard His name it is said (Mai 3"), ' And they shall be to me ... in the day which I make, lor a special possession ' {laoi'Tai /kh . . . fis Trepinoiri<ni'). This is very much the idea on which St. Peter dwells so lovingly, of 'a people for God's own possession,' quickened into new life through the word of the living God (IP 1^ 2')— though he has professed Christians alone in view. Like ideas occur also in Eph 1 '"•', but <lecisively universalized as to the scope of ' God's own posses- sion ' (cf. 2 Th 2'^'-, es[). if we read ajrapxv" instead of dir' dpx^5> with BFG " P minn. f. v^. syr. hi., al.); while the notion of God's saints being first- fruits, as it were, of His full and final possession of His creatures in general, appears quite explicitly REGENERATION REGENERATION 217 in Ro S""". Thore creation is represented as awaiting 'the revealing of the sons of God ' \' the Regeneration,' in the collective sense of Mt 19-'), who, as already having 'the tirst-fruits of tlie Spirit,' may themselves be styled God's lirst-fruits (cf. Rev 14 'Jl'). Thus spiritual Israel, now in pro- cess of rallying to Messiah Jesus, seemed to St. James ' the lirst-fruits' of God's final rei^n. As for ' the word of truth ' to which this Israel owed its being, it was the revealed will of God active in conscience ( = 'the inbred word,' P', or simply ' the word, 1—'= God's 'law,' known as spirit and not as letter, 'perfect law, that of liberty,' 'royal law,' 1^ 2-'" 4"=' the truth,' in an ethico-religious sense, S" 5", cf. Jn 8^"- 17"). It was the sort of ' word ' that meets us in the Sermon on the Mount, the final practical is.sue of OT revelation for the conscience icf. 'the word of trutli ' in Ps 110"; also v."* 'the sum of tbj' word is truth'). Yet it is not to be conlined to the spucilically Christian gospel : it denotes, rather, the element common to that and the law as it lived in the unsophisticated consciences of Jews like those who meet us in Lk 1-2. St. James has in mind, then, not individual regeneration, but rather the collective being of a People devoted to the Divine Will, and of which believers on Jesus Messiah were the typical members — a People which thus could be styled 'lirst-fruits, as it were, of God's creatures.' His argument is that God cannot stultify Himself by temjiting to evil. He is the author of good, and cliangeth not. And since it was with full intention that He brought forth t or constituted the godly community gathering to the name of Jesus Messiah, lie must not be thought of as the author of seductive temptations. The emphasis ■till falls, as in pre-Christian references to regene- ration, on the collective quickening traceable to the Divine initiative, rather than on the individual — though this latter is implied in the exhortation to ' receive the inborn word (IfiipvToy Xlryov, cf. Wis 12"' tn<f)VTOt i) Kaxla aiViii-), J which is able to save your souls.' Accordingly, such rudiments of our doctrine as occur in James, represent a stage mid- way between typical OT and typical NT statements on the subject. iii. St. Peter. — The Petrine doctrine stands be- tween that of St. James on the one hand, and that of St. Paul on the other. The O T associa- tions of collective ble.ssing (cf. his reference to 'seasons of recovery' or 'restoration,' dvdxpv^it, iroKaTdaraais, in Ac 3'°' "• *) are still prominent in the language chosen (1 P '2") ; while yet the idea of ' regeneration,' and that of individuals, by the Divine 'seed' or 'word of God,' is firmly Kras])ed (l^cf. °, cf. parable of the Sower). The uLsciple seems possessed by his Master's teaching as to the child-spirit and the Divine fatlierhood (2^ 1"). The Divine parentage involved in the new life is appealed to as a reason for love of the brethren (f^-): being regarded as a congenital law of their new being — an idea which recurs in 2 P 1, where renewed human nature is set forth as 'in a true sense not God-like merely, but derivatively Divine' (Hort, cf. 1 Jn 3"). 'The word' by wMch this comes about is clearly that of the gospel (1 P l'^) ; and, answering to this, Jer 2> ' InracI (is) holiness unto the Lono, the Drat-frults of bit Inrreaae' — t^fx^-i yttr,^Ttir «i«u, whii-h j>.irallel8 urxpxytv npcr^ K'>rou KTt^ixaTain ; and for the (>erw()nal sense of mrifuMTK, of. Sir SO>i>f', wliere i K»if rtu \b descnlxKl in the next line oa r t The Idea occurs elsewhere, e.g. Sir 38" (derived from Dt f^^'^.V.x i'^)'\trp%xi vptrrvyiim muJt'^riti. In Ja I't^ the verb kwtH,^,tK is used to marlt an aiititliesis to the llioujrlit of !•», Wiierc tills metaphor was em]>lo>ed of Bin as parent of death. I Cf. itam. I. 2, tCritt tfjL-vrtf rrtt 2«/}|a( r>luu«ri«nt X«^PI •uii^Ti, and Ix. 9, •!>» i rVii i^t^mr )«/iik« njr itmBrimt mUti the definite act of confession in baptism is thought of as objectively sealing the salvation thus wrought (see Bai'TIsm in vol. i. p. '244"). Water, says ne, doth now, in antitj'po to Noah's preservation, play its part in .salvation, as Christian baptism — ' not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the appeal toward God of a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,' man's surety at God's right hand ( 1 P 3-'). The sense of this passage, and particularly the meaning here given to the word iirfpumifw., seems lixed by Ko lO'-"-, Ho 10'^-. ' For with tlie heart man trustfullj' believeth unto (the attaining of) Righteousness (i.e. Justilication = Sal- vation in (iod's sight, impliciti) ; but with the mouth man maketh confession unto ( the attaining of) Salvation ' (i.e. formal possession of salvation, explic.iti). ' Salvation,' in this context (Ho lU"'-), refers to objective menibc^rsliip of the Messianic Community or Church, the proper unit or subject of I he New Covenant. Into this Body of the Christ, St. Paul says elsewhere (1 Co 12"), Chris- tiiins are through baptism incorporated ' by one Sjiirit.' 'The Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father,' seals, often by objective manifes- tations, tlie sincerity of the believer's confession. Similarly He 10-^ ' Let us draw near (as favoured worshippers) with a true heart, ixi full asauranci of faith, having our hearts sprinkled (by blood, 9'''-) fruin an eeil conscience, and the bodi/ ivashcd with pure water.' Thus every obscure element in 1 P 318. 21 ia elucidated. Christ, though ' i)ut to death in (the sphere of) flesh,' was ' quickened in (the sphere of) spirit ' — and so became for others ' a quickening spirit' {jrviufxa fuoTroioOv, 1 Co 15'''). Baptism, then, as the consummation of the be- liever's appropriation of Christ, means no mere bodily cleansing (like Levitical ablutions), but the ajipeal of a cleimsod conscience (see 1 with 3'; cf. He 9"'-), directed in 'full assurance of faith' to God (cf. Eph 3'^ irpoaaforyT]v iv Trciroi9i)ff«)- It corresponds to tlie 'living hope' due to Christ's resurrection, spoken of in 1' (cf. Col 2'-). 'The promise of the eternal inheritance' (Ho 9"), for which wor.shipful appeal is made to God's covenant fidelity in the Mediator, was conceived to be re- ceived 'in earnest' in the manifestation of Holy Spirit power (Ac S")— 'anoinlin^' or 'sealing' the believer unto the d.iy of perfected redenH)tion (2 Co l-"-,Ki)h 1"'- 4). Thus 'baptism.' as a livin" experi- ence, could be alluded to in Tit 3° as a formal 'wash- ing of regeneration and renovation (in virtue) of Holy Sjiirit,' 'poured forth richly' at the solemn crisis of confession, where ' Salvation,' as an objec- tive state, took full ellect [taanev ^/xas 5ii XourpoO 7raXif7Cfe(r/as Ka.1 dvaKaivuff^ixiS ttv. d7ioi'). Baptism was a rite for the Church or saered community as such, and for the individual in relaticin to it ana its privileges; 'by the washing of water' were its members, as 'cleansed' 'by means of the word' (cf. Jn 15"), formally admitted to the sphere of consecrated life resting on Christ's sacrihce (Eph 5'^, Ko 10«'). St. Peter seems also, by the time he \vrote 1 P, to have caught in his own wav St. Paul's deej), mystical thought in Ko 6"-, wkere identity with Christ's ' resurrection ' life, on the part of the regenerate, is made to grow out of spiritual union with Him in His death to sin (consummated in His crucifixion, see 1 P 2-). For 1 P 4'»» con- tains the es.sential idea of spiritual ouickening through judgment in the flesh. And tliis process is extended by him, alone among NT writers, even to certain souls in Hades, namely, those suddenly cut oil in the days of Noah— a fate conceived (as it seems) to have given them less than the normal prol)ation of mankind, and that in an age of but dim light (1 P 3""-4«; see, further, arU PkTFU, FlltST Ei'lSTLK OF, in vol. iii. p. 790). 218 ElCGENERATIOiSr REGEXEKATION iv. The Epistle to the Hebrews. — Tliough this Epistle contains, as we saw, much bearin;; on the new consciousness, yet it lias no formal doctrine of ' regeneration ' as the deepest aspect of the Messianic blessing. True, it uses metaphors of life developing from infancy to maturity (6""', with its allusions to ' milk ' and ' solid food ') ; but there is no stress on tlie image involved. The categories of thought are mainly of an OT character — apart from the writer's own ' Alexandrine ' strain (see below, C, ad pn. ; cf. ' those once illumined,' ' having tasted ( iod's word as good,' 6^). Hence we get a parallel to Ja 1' in the ' congregation of the firstborn (who are) enrolled in heaven.' Hence also the central place of repentance, as marking the be- ginning of the new relation to God—' repentance ' as the negative side of the change represented on its positive side by 'faith' (6'-). ' Kepentance,' however, is taken by this writer in a deep and inward sense, in which it amounts to a ' new heart ' wherein the Divine Law is by Di\'ine grace made inherent, according to Jeremiah's great prophecy of the New Covenant O'"- 10'"-''). V. St. Paul. — The Pauline doctrine of Regenera- tion contains the essence of its author's unique experience of Jesus the Christ, as effecting at once revolution and renovation in his inner life. The difficulty here is to prevent this central aspect of Paulinism from involving us in an exposition of that system as a whole. We shall try, however, to indicate its place in the organism of St. Paul's soterioloo;y as allusively as possible. Beyond all question, ' faith ' was to him the very soil or subjective condition of that new good which came through the gospel. Faith was such recep- tivity as enabled God to give 'his ineffable gift' to the soul. As such, it answers to ' the good ground,' the ' honest and good heart,' as the state of soul adapted to ' the word of God,' in Christ's parable. But St. Paul, -viewing things in a more subjective way, proceeds to uluniine the inner factors and stages of the great process from the standpoint of personal appropriation, as one who was himself the conscious soil in which it had come about. The good of which such ' faith ' or vital trust is receptive in Christ, is variously set forth by St. Paul as the righteousness of a recti- fied relation to God, including forgiveness of sins (see Justification) ; cleansing or consecration (sanctilication in principle : see SanCTIFICATION) ; participation in the Divine life, as the life of the Christ, or Spirit-life ; and hence realized sonship to God, as embracing all else. So arranged, the series passes from the more objective to the more subjec- tive aspects of tlie one simple yet complex fact, which, rooted at the heart of St. Paul's experience, had made a new man of him. And tne most adequate conception of it is that which represents the new relation to God in its most inward, vital, and causal aspect — the birth of a new manhood or personality within the old individual, Saul. It is this which ever emerges in St. Paul's most spontaneous and personal utterances. Such are the great out- bursts in Gal 2-" and 2 Co 5'°'" — passages familiar, yet in virtue of thiir experimental depth so little ' known ' in the biblical sense. ' I have been cruci- fied with Christ ; yet I live ; (and yet) no longer I, but Christ liveth in me : and that (life) which I now live in the flesh, I live in faith, (the faitli) which is in the Son of God.' And again : ' He died for all, that they who live sliould no longer live unto themselves, Tjut unto him who for their Bakes died and rose again. . . . Wlierefore if any man is in Christ, (he is) a new creature (koi^?; KTlmt) : the old things are passed away ; behold, they are become new.' In tiiese and like passages St. Paul speaks as a prophet, not as a schoolman. He affirms : he has no thought of what he may seem implicitly to deny. The life in him wai above all new ; and it was of Divine initiation or grace. But that did not mean tliat there was no psj'cliological continuity between tlie old Saul and tiis faculties, and tlie new Paul and liis : nor did it exclude the responsible co-operation of his own volition througliout. The affirmations are experi- mental and unembarrassed by reflective considera- tions of verbal consistencj'. We may see, more- over, from other passages that what is here in the background was not overlooked by St. Paul, but entered into the body of his tliought, coming out in turn as occasion arose. Thus when he speaks of ' a new creature ' (Gal 6", 2 Co 5"), or says, ' the old things are passed away ; behold, they are become new, he simply means that his experience had utterly changed in colour and perspective. No factors had been eliminated : but the resultant was new ; and this by the operation of a new factor determining all afresh and in a new syn- thesis. The new factor was the quickening grace of God in the Christ, the Spirit of Christ, the (Holy) Spirit, or most fully ' the law of the Spirit of life ill Christ Jesus.' Tliis, by overcoming ' the law of sin and death,' naturally at work, had pro- duced a new spiritual life in him, and so made him a ' new man ' in Christ Jesus. The way by which this had come about is laid bare in Ko 7, a chapter of deep psychological and also autobiographic sig- nificance. From it w-e gather that even in his un- regenerate state, while the law of sin operative in ' the flesh ' — the sensuous and self-willed side of his nature — actually swayed his will, he was already conscious of another and deeper element in his being, protesting against the flesh and sympathizing witli the claims of God's law. This 'mner man' (6 (au dfOpuiros, 7-^ = 6 vovs, 7^-^ = t4 TTi-eC/ia Tov di/dpuTTov, 1 Co 2" ; cf. Ro 8'°), however, has only a latent or potential existence so long as it is overridden by ' the flesh ' — ' the law of the mind,' by the law or principle active in the fleshly members (7^). The spirit is as good as dead in the man Saul as a moral personality, being outside the centre of volition as long as ' the flesh ' is there enthroned in power ; and so it is generally ignored in St. Paul's references to ' the natural man,' who is called summarily ' dead in trespasses and sins,' because morally 'alienated from the life of God' (Eph 2'- ° 4'). But when the life of God succeeds in quickening this half-inanimate spiritual faculty with a kindred passion for the righteousness of God, then it springs to life (Ro 8'") and gains control of the will : a new personality arises from the new union of the will and the higher element dependent on and akin to the Divine : the man lives anew with a fresh type of moral life— that being dominant which before was subject, and vice versa. With tliis psychological reversal may be comjiared the earlier change from the rudimentary ' life ' of irresponsible innocence to the ' death ' of a divided heart, wherein the lower elements hold sway (Ro 7'")- Now, however, the man is con- scious of the issues at stake and the forces of both kinds at work in and upon him : and the whole deliverance has a vividness and finality propor- tionate to his prior sense of the death in bondage to sin (7"). As this experience of renovation came to St. Paul under the forms of the life, death, and resur- rection of Jesus tlie (^lirist, so regeneration is set forth in terms of the same. The ' new man ' or ' new creature ' is so in Christ'; and Christ is in him. Hence ' the Spirit of God ' or ' Holy Spirit,' the quickener of the new life (1 Co 6" 12^), can also bo called 'the Spirit of Christ' (Ro 8'-') or 'the Spirit of his Son ' (Gal 4"). Hence also the specific condition of the ' new man,' in contrast to the ' old ' (Col S"-, Eph 42>-»'), is that of sonship and instal'a REGENERATION REGENERATION 219 tion into sonship {iloffeala, Ro 8""'^) after the like- nfss ot Christ's. StUJ this regenerate or filial life is not comjilete at the tiiue when it is given, coinciJently witli the eelfconuiiittal of faith. It has a course of growth to go throuijh, analogoiis to that of natural life. It begins with spiritual immaturity and proceeds to maturity of will and insight. The 'babe' (viirios) in Christ is one who perceives only the broadest outlines of the Father's waj's ana will, and may still be confused by the films of his old Heshly blindness ; whereas the full-grown or ' per- fect ' man (WXcios) is one to whom experience lias brought enlightenment and discrimination of con- science (Ph l"' 3'-""") : he is actually and not only potentially ' spiritual ' [Trpev/iaTiKis). And each stage has its own spiritual nutriment, its 'milk' or its ' solid food ' (1 Co S'-). (vi.) St. John. — The term 'regeneration' does not actually occur in St. John's writings, though it does virtually in one passage of his Gospel (3" '), in the phrase ^ei'i'Tjff?'''" fiyuflei', which is best rendered ' born auew' (cf. v. bivrepov el<T(\Ouv . . . Kal ieiiiir)6rivai). This shade of thouglit, while proper to the context, and while probably appro- priated by St. Jolin as the root of his own thinking on the matter, is not the one most characteristic of his own doctrine. It is not so much the fact of a new beginning in the Christian life, as the in- herent nature of that life as due to its Divine origin, that occupies tliis apostle's mind, llis favourite emphasis is seen in the phrase ' to be begotten of God ' (yew-qOiivai ix toO $eov). God Himself is the veritable Father of the Christian believer, the kindred fontal source of his new life, with its iulicrent Divine virtue [rb yeyewrjiiivov ix Tou Bfoi). This virtue manifests itself in certain vital functions, wonderful and Divine by reason of their distinctness from the average conduct of liuMian nature, as St. John saw it about him, radically determined by the world of sense, that source of seductive pleasures and ambitions. The worlil, so regarded, stood at tlie rival pole of beiii" to the Father; so that ' to be of the world 'and 'to be of God' were mutually exclusive states or spirits, by which the soul might be possessed and cliamcterized (I Jn'i'"). Such birth from God is conceived by St. John as % single initial fact, carrying in itself abiding issues of a like nature. This is expressed by the use of perfects, like ye-y^vvijraif 6 yey^wTj^yos (1 Jn 2^ 3 4' 51. 1. 1«_ (.f jy jju. 8)^ a^ distinct from aorists (i ytvuTiOeis iK toO 0(ou describes Christ in immediate contrast to the believer, A ytyewrnjjvos in tou OeoO, 1 Jn 5'"). The rarer cases in which the aorist occurs, are those which sunply contemplate re- generation as the decisive fact constitutive of spiritual sonship in the believer (Jn 1'-'-, cf. 3'''). "The main passage in question is Jn !'"• : ' But as many as received him (the Logos), to them gave he prerogative to become children of God (touxei' avTois (ioMtav Hxva fftoO yei'i<;OaL), even to them that Were believers on his name (rois iriarfiiowrtv fis K.r.X.) ; who were born, not of blood of liunian parents, nor of fleshly volition, nor of a human lather's volition, hut of God ' (ot ovk c'f al/xdrui' oiiSi fK tffXTj/uiTos (rapKbs ovSi f'/c 6i\i)^aTos ivbpds d\\ iK Oeou tytfir^Oriaati). This is, in form and in context, an absolutely general statement ; so much so, that it seems impossilile to refer it primarily to belief in Jesus tlie Clirist at all, but rather to the uni- ver.ial approach of the Logos to the human soul, prior even to the Incarnation (see 1 1" for a similar thouglit). This is a most important aspect of the Johannine doctrine of regeneration : it not only tits ir. with the universality of his thought, but also confirms with his authority what is urged below, namely, that ' regeneration ' may properly be predicated of the experience of saints under the Old Covenant. Yet the language in which St. John states this very truth of the wider regenera- tion, eficcted wherever the Logos is welcomed by the soul, is signilicantl.v coloured by liis habitual speech in terms of the final manifestation of the Logos in Jesus the Christ (' believers on his name'). As a rule, then, regeneration is, to St. John, actually conditioned by personal trust in Jesus, or, more specifically, in Him as the Christ, the .Son of God {V-'- 20^', 1 Jn 5'). Further, it is assumed to take formal or consummated ell'ect (aa in the case of Jesus' own Messiahsliii)) in the experience of baptism. Just as he says, 'This is he who came under the condition of water {Si' iooros) . . . even Jesus Christ ' (1 Jn 5") — words used in close con- nexion with the Spirit as Messiah's endowment and witness (vv."", cf. Jn 3") ; so bajitism is to hira the normal condition under which believers come to rank as 'children of God,' in virtue of a manifest sealing by Holy Spirit power. As the Father had 'sealed' tlie Son(JnO-') with the Spirit's witness, in response to His obedience of self-eonse- oration at the Baptism (1 Jn S"'"), so, ai)paiently, St. Johu thought of the Messianic gift of the Spirit, usually manifest at baptisms in the Apos- tolic Age, as definitively ' sealing' (cf. above, (iv.)) the believer's confession of personal trust and consecration by 'an unction from the Holy One' {i.e. Christ, 1 Jn 2-»- -''). Such a reading of his Master's mind, as expressed by the reference to water in the words to Nicodenius, may be implied by St. John's return to the topic of baptism a few verses later on (3,, '^''■), and certainly corresponded to the experience of the Apostolic Age— though hardly to that of later times. Naturally', the con- junction has no relation to the baptism of infants, where the essential element of belief on Clirist's name is lacking. But, in lelation to the conditions contemplated by the apostle, the definite line drawn by baptism between the filial status of Christian believers and what went before, is of great moment for his tliouglit as to regeneration. It does not, indeed, annul his recognition of children of God awaiting the gospel to gather them into Christ's one flock (Jn 11'^ iVa khI rd r^Kva Tov deov tA dieaKopTna/j^va auvaydyji els ?;), and so of a deep dualism of moral state among mankind at large, a predisposition to accejit or to reject the Light definitively revealed in Christ, according to the attitude to God implicit in eacli of two tj-pes of conduct (3""-'). But all this, taken along with the absolute form in which the tests of kinsliip to God are set forth in his Epistles (' every one that doeth rigliteonsness,' ' that lovetli,' I Jn 2-^ 4'-, cf. 3 Jn "), suggests that St. John distinguislied be- tween a virtual, though latent, and an explicit or conscious sonship. The latter was the specific blessing brought by the gospel of Christ, the assurance or Icnowlcdge of Divine sonship, after which even the best of men had before sought in vain. In this respect the revelation in Christ was crucial. As Light, in an absolute moral sense. He brought all to a crisis or decision {Kpluis), forcing all hearts to reveal their inmost allinities— whether for 'the world' and self, or for God and His righteousness and love. Implicit regeneration, where it already exists, thus passes into explicit regeneration. i'lie more definite and psychologically mature character of the NT experience of Regeneration, as compared with that of the godly under the OT, is hinted in the words, ' I came that they may have Life, and have it in abundance ' ( 10'°, cf. 4'''). As has been well said, tho disciples are in a tnio sense Chritfi In virtue ot the lite of "Uj« Christ '" (Westcott, T/u i^pistUs qf St. John, xlv). 220 REGENERATION REGENERATION It connects itself also with the Johannine emphasis on the specilieally new presence of the Spirit with the Christian as sudi. Here two passages in the Gospel are crucial. Commenting on Clirist's words, ' lie that bclieveth on me . . . out of his belly shall flow ri\ers of living water,' St. John adds: But this sjjake he of the Spirit, whicli they that believed on him were to receive — for (the) Spirit was not yet (given), because Jesus was not yet glorified ' (T^'O- Then, in the gicat Farewell Dis- cour.se (Jn 14'^) he records his JIaster's promise that He would give tlie disciples ' another Helper ' or Paraclete, to supply what would he lacking of conscious support through the removal of His own bodily presence. This implies something fresh to their e.xperience, and yet Jesus adds : 'Ye (already) have (experimental) knowledge of him, for at your side he abideth and in you he is ' {v/j.c7s yiviliuKerc avTd, Irrt Trap i/fuv ^ii'et. Kai iv v^uv iarlv). Here the contrast is a religious rather than a metaphysical or theological one : it is a matter of the disciples' consciousness rather than of tlie Spirit's real pre- sence. They had implicit experience of His action, in their very experience of oneness of heart with their Master : in a little while this was to blossom out into recognition of His presence and support as the very ground of their assurance of abiding spiritual union with their gloritied Lord and a share in His sonship. This is the thought which St. Paul grasped so firmly and expresses in the words, • the Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit tliat we are children of God' (Ro 8', cf. "'■). But it is also what St. John has in mind in saying that 'not yet was the Spirit,' i.e. the Spirit-consciousness of full sonship which marked Christians after Pentecost (7^°, cf. Ac 19"). St. John's doctrine of salvation, then, centres in Kegeneration. In it man's true or ideal destiny is realized through the initiative of the heavenly Father or the Spirit, responded to bj' the moral receptivity of obedience in the human heart or will : potential sonship becomes actual in a Life of communion that is at once human and Divine (IC^). Every man has the potemy of two dia- metrically opposed personalities in him, by his natural birth. The one has, as it were, the start of the other, realizing itself along the line of sensuous, egoistic tendency — the line of least re- sistance morally. It is thus ' of the earth ' (3''), 'of the world' ("iS'MT"- '», lJn2'»4'>), 'from below' (8^), the sphere of ' the ruler of this world ' (W>). Those, then, in whom it reigns are morally ' children of the devil ' (IJn 3»- »», cf. Jn 8"). The other personality or character, on the contrary, owes its origin and vitality to God and that sjiiritual order of His which gradually dawns \ipon our ken with the emergence of reason and conscience. Thus it is, when produced in a man by Divine grace (6*) — though not without the co- operation of human volition (3°<"- 5" 8") — a life ' from heaven ' (S-''), ' notof the world ' (15'» 17"- "), ' from above ' (like the Son himself, 8'-^), ' of God ' (1 Jn S'J 5- ") or 'of the Father' (1 Jn 2'«). To save one of these lives is to lose the other (12-') : the life of the one means the death of the other (as in the Synoptics). C. Connected Summary.— Regeneration is the final form in which biblical religion conceives that profound s[iiritual change whereby sinful man conies into real and abiding communion with God. Accordingly, one must recognize in regeneration the virtuaJ synonym of various other soteriological terms, such as Repentance, Conversion, Justifica- tion, or Forgiveness, and even Consecration or • The usual readinc inou, instead of irrit (BD 1. 22. 69. 251. 254 it P'"" syr. cur. pesh. pro Tat »'»>■ Lcif), is probably due to failure to see this, and the coDsequent attempt to harmonize the statement with the future Q^icu) above. Sanctification in that radical sense which consti tutes the believer as such 'a saint.' But aa ' regeneration ' sets forth the change in question in a specially inward or vital way, it hardly emerges as an explicit doctrine in the OT, and does so but grjidually even in the NT. We have seen that in Christ's own ordinary preaching, as given in the Synoptics, regeneration is set forth in purely religious and ethical fashion, in terms of the will rather than in a manner more abstract. This poimlar aspect of the matter meet.s us again in early Judajo Christianity, before highly trained minds like St. Paul and the writer to 'Hebrews' had brought the categories of Rabbinic and Hel- lenistic psychology to bear on the data of Christian experience. Repentance, not regeneration, stands in the forefront of the early preaching in Acts, as also of that under which 'the Hebrews' had be- lieved (He 6'' ") ; and thereby men were qualified for entrance into the Messianic communitj' in baptism, in which they received the ' seal ' of the Spirit's manifested gilts. The more inward and secret operation of the Spirit, implied in penitence and trust, had not as yet received due notice. This side of things, indeed, was largely hidden from those whose outlook and conception of Sal- vation were still primaril_v eschatological. Hence St. Paul's unique experience of the gospel as power of God in the soul, and as an essentially present Salvation, marks an epoch in the NT doctrine of Regeneration. His deeply self-reveal- ing consciousness of sin gave him to see, traced within, the process by which new moral energy was received, and to realize the Divine quickenin" involved in man's experience of repentance and faith. He saw that human nature embraced two principles, opposed in tendency to each other, and competing for the control of man's settled personal will. In actual human nature the lower or sensu- ous (^('I'xtKii"') and self-centred principle, called ' the flesh ' (ffd/jj), had the upper hand and determined the quality of man's moral life : and the outcome was ' death ' towards God and His righteousness. But in Jesus Christ, who was a ' second ' or new type of manhood, of heavenly origin (6 deiWcpot dfdpuTros (( ovpafov), and ' spiritual ' in contrast to the 'sensuous' or 'eartliy ' type of Adamic man- hood (1 Co IS""^'), a new basis was laid for humanity. To believers this Saviour became ' a quickening spirit' (iri-eDjua (woroiovv), turning the scale decisively against 'the flesh,' and setting free, as if by a resurrection, the enthralled higher nature (^oDs or irvevfui), before as good as dead, by tilling it with Divine energy or life {irveOfui d-yiov) akin to His own, in virtue of which He rose vic- torious over death. A man so vivified by the Spirit of God, and after the likeness of Christ, was in very deed a new moral being {Kainii Kricns), a son of God, bj- Divine re-creative action and adoption. The S])irit replaced the flesh as piime determinant of will and conduct ; and therewith ' the old man,' the moral state of the individual by nature, gave way to 'the new man,' the state in which the human will is in harmony with the Divine in principle, and normally so in practice likewise. ' Cleaving to the Lord, the soul ' is one spirit' with Him (1 Co 6"), animated by one and the same life that is in Christ, the Head of the new humanity, a life that is essentially of God and Divine. This deeper idea of Salvation seems certainly to have left its trace on St. Peter's later thought, to Judge by 1 P. Possibly also it affected the form in whicn St. John himself interpreted the new Life which hail been manifested, first among the original disciples, and then in them. Yet there were elements in St. John's doctrine proper to his o^\'n experience, both of his Master's teaching ano REGEXERATION REHOB 221 of the Light and Life in himself and others. He shared with St. Paul the idea of moral dualism as rooted in a dualism of elements in human nature. On the one hand man was related to ' the world ' of sense and of self (the flesh), on the other he was akin to God, as .sensitive to His word and BO potentially His 'child' in deed and in truth. St. Paul thought most of the new experience in itself, speaking of the regenerate man as a ' new (moral) creature,' or as a ' son ' in respect of dchnite status and privileges in relation to God through faith in Christ and by virtue of the Spirit (2 Co 5", Gal 3^ 4'-', Ko S"""- ^). Thus it is a question of a new status or condition into which a man is brought by a definite act. Adoption (vlod(aia), by which the transition is made from the opposite states of serfdom, wretchedness, aliena- tion, death (Gal S^'-\ Ko 7=^ S"'- ") : so tliat the full etlect of such adoption waits upon man's emancipation from ' the bondage of corruption ' in 'the redemption of our body' (Ro S-"''^). St. John, on the other hand, thought rather of the intrinsic nature of the ' eternallife' quickened in believers, of the wonder and glory of its origin in God — the Divine nature germinating as 'seed' in the liuman soul, and by a new birth begettin<j a new personality. Thus it is his writings which present the most classic statement of the doctrine of Kegeneration, as ' that work of the Holy Spirit in a man by which a new life of holy love, like the life of God, is initiated.' Aside from tliis main line of development stand St. James and the writer ' to Hebrews.' The former thinks of the origin of the higher life in the soul in terms of the Wisdom literature of the OT and of writers like Philo. ' The word of truth,' 'the inborn word,' or 'the wisdom from above,' is the medium of God's creative action on the soul, by ' the Spirit which he hath caused to d'vell in us' (!'»■" 3" 4»). To the latter, men are essentially 'spirits,' placed by 'the Father of spirits' in the body, to be disciplined and puri- hed with a view to conscious sonship, and so to the ' glory ' of the spiritual and leal world of which the visible is but the poor shadow (12'-'-'' oio 12'"). Hence the work of grace is set forth as moral enlightenment and puriticalion of the con- science (6 hy'- 9 KI-), believers being ' those who have been illumined.' The vital and djTiamic aspects are not, indeed, absent (5"-6°) ; but the renewal ell'ected in the fundamental change of heart which the NT everywhere recognizes in Repentance (6"), is to him a matter of divinely- given insight into the realities of the moral and spiritual world, and a corresponding obedience, 'ihe Christian 'tastes the word of God to be good,' and as he feeds upon the oracles of God he gains an ever more relined perception of shades of moral and spiritual truth (6' 5"). This, the writer's own emphasis (as distinct from his readers' type of thought), is Hellenistic and ' Alexandrine, being largely paralleled in the so-called Epistle of Bar- nabas, as well as in 1 Clement and a good deal of 2nd cent. Christian literature. But differently as the NT writers do, in some respects, conceive the (jreat exi)erience whereliy the mural centre of gravity in a man's life changes from self to God, they are unanimous on one car- dinal point. And that is the constant relation of the ' word of God,' made vital to the conscience and heart, as the means, and of faith aa the con- dition of the change. LiT«KiTCR».— Tho special literature of this subject Is rather scanty. Considerable sections on It exist In the larger works • Philo represents Ood and the Logos as sowing In the womb of the soul the seed of virtues, and so maltirig it preg- nant_ and boar : e.g. Ley. atUg. ill. 61. heivtwnt ykp rirt t^ on biblical theoIog>' (e.p. Weiss and Iloltzmann in particular), as also in systems ol I)oginatic (e.g. Itothe, Thomosius, Marteuscn, Uorner). But attempts at a strictly historical aud genetic account of the biblical doctrine, on the basis of an adequate literary criticism, are singularly few : J. Kostlin'a art. ' Wicder- geburt,' in /*/iA'2 xvii. 75 ff., seems the best available, but is no longer sullicient. The Angus Lecture on 'Regeneration' (1S97), so fur as it deals with the biblical material, is quite uncritical and conventional. Much matter bearing on our doctrine is to be found in studies of the doctrine of the .-leveral NT writers, often under other, but kindred, headings, e.g. Adoption, Converyion, Faith, Justilication, Repentance, Son- ship. As examples may be cited, J. B. Mayor, Kintitle of Jaines, appended Conunent on ' Regeneration,' pp. l.sO-189 ; A. B. Bruce, St. Paul's Conception of Christianity^ chs. x.-xiii., and esp. ch. xvii., 'The Christian Life' (though it unduly uiinimizes St. Paul's recognition of growth in the new life) ; Westcott, El'isHet of St. John, added Note on 'Children of Ood,' p. 123 a. J. V. B,UITLET.