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).
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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.