(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.