The word ' regeneration ' occurs in AV only in Mt 1928, Tit 35 (iraXivyevea-la), and the figure of a new or second birth is most distinctly expressed in our Lord's conversation with Nicodemus, Jn 3 {yevvTidiivai 6.vw6ev). But as the first of these pass- ages is eschatological, and refers to the new world which is intr(iduced with the irapovcla of the Son of ISlan, while the two others belong to the latest in the NT, it is not convenient to start with them. To see the real basis for the figure of the new birth, it is necessary to go back to the teaching of Jestts in the Synoptics, and to look at it in its substance and not merely in its formal expression. What the figure conveys, vividly and truly, is the idea that somehow a man has lecome another man : he has entered into a new order of being ; things once real to him have lost reality ; things once unknown are now alone real. If we find this idea in the teaching of Jestts, we find what is meant by regeneration, even though that figure should not expressly appear.
1. Our Lord's teaching. — It cannot be questioned that the idt a of the newness or originality of His work, and of all that dei)ended upon it, was familiar to .lesus. Withotit accepting the doctrine that the Kingdom of God, as He conceived it, was purely transcendent, — a new world not spiritually evolved from the present, btit supernaturally descending ui)on it, — we must believe that however it came, and however it was related to the present, the Kingdom introduced an order of things which was entirely new. It was itself, in a comprehensive sense, a waXivyevecrla (Mt 192**). (On this word see the excellent article on ' Regeneration' in Hastings' DB, by Dr. Vernon Bartlet.) But everything con-
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nected with it, involved in it, or leading up to it, awoke in tlie mind the same sense of newness. In spite, for example, of our Lord's feeling of the con- tinuity of His work vdth the OT (' I came not to destroy, but to fulfil,' Mt S^''), He has the equally strong feeling that with the time of fulfilment a new era has dawned ('The law and the prophets were until John : from that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every one presses into it,' Lk IGi"). The newness is so complete, the dis- tinction is so great, that the least in the Kingdom of God is greater tlian the greatest in the old dis- pensation (Mt 1111). The same truth underlies all the passages in which Jesus claims for Himself absolute significance in determining the relations of God and man. Of these the most explicit is Mt 11^^. Jesus alone reveals the Father, and the man who knows the Father is no longer the same man. No words could be too strong to tell how completely he is another. This absolute signifi- cance of Jesus is the sum and substance of His self-revelation (cf. Mt 16i'"*f-)» S'l^'^l the trath of ' regeneration ' is an immediate inference fi'om it. Further, though it is not put expressly in this form in the Synoptics, the ' newness,' which is the point to be emphasized, does break through in various ways. We see it in the parables of the New Patch on the Old Garment and th^ New Wine in the Old Bottles (Mk 2-'"-ll). We see it in the new spiritual liberty which Jesus in Mt 17-'4-27 claims for Himself and those who through Him become chil- dren of the Kingdom. We see it especially in the words at the Supper ; for there is no doubt that Mt. and Lk. give at least the thought that was in His mind when they speak of the new covenant based on His blood (Mt 2628 D, Lk 222'). it deserves special mention, too, that in all the Synoptics (Mk 14^5, Mt 2629, Lk 2216-18) the thought of the new covenant carries the mind forward to the new world in which it is to be consummated ; the new religious relation to God, determined by Christ and His death, cannot be fully realized apart from immortality. The inward regeneration of the soul (so to speak) is part of the dTroKardaTacns Tvdvrwv, or of the iraXivyeveaia in the sense of Mt 1928. But to use the term ' regeneration ' here is to anticipate. We have not found any suggestion of it in the words of Jesus, and, in point of fact, the only such suggestion to be found in the Synoptics is Mt 18^ ' "Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn (idv /x-fj (TTpa(pTjTe), and become as little children^ ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven ' (cf . Mk IQi^) . To become as a little child is really to be born again ; it is what this figure of a new birth properly means, and it is the only key to it which the words of Jesus yield. In the words of Jesus, evidently, it describes a moral requirement ; it is something He demands from those who would be His disciples and enter the Kingdom, and it is achieved through ' turning.' The context defines what ' turning ' means. It means giving up ambition, pride, self-seeking, by- ends in religion, and other uncliildlike tempers ; it is, in short, identical with what is elsewhere in the Synoptics called fxerdvoia, or repentance. It is through this moral change, the responsibility for which is laid upon man, that he becomes as a little child, that is, is born again.