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).
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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