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