This is an excerpt from the outstanding book “The Holy Spirit” by Sinclair B. Ferguson (G. Bray, Ed.) (pp. 115–138). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. 1996
The union with Christ into which the Spirit brings us is multi-dimensional in character. To be ‘in Christ’, says Paul, is to enter a ‘new creation’ (2 Cor. 5:17); the old order of sin and death, the age dominated by the flesh and the devil, have given way to a new order of reality in the resurrecton of Christ. Thus the mutual bonding between Christ and his people in the Spirit is the fulfilment of all that was adumbrated in the old covenant bond between Yahweh and his people in the Exodus and entrance into the land of rest; grounded in the work of the Messiah, it is forged through the ongoing work of the Spirit creating a new humanity.
Because it is multi-dimensional, life in union with Christ is necessarily viewed from various perspectives in the New Testament. It involves identification with him in his death, resurrection and ascension; but it also involves a correlation of the action of God with the action of man. As we have seen, Scripture stresses its monergistic roots (God is its author); it is bilateral in nature, with faith as its other polarity. The threads of regeneration and faith are inextricably intertwined. In both dimensions of activity the Spirit is active. These strands are capable of separate analysis (indeed, they ought not to be regarded as identical), but they cannot be existentially separated from each other. They belong together in such a way that we cannot mark a join where the monergistic action of God ends and the activity of the believer begins. It is significant in this context that both regeneration and the elements of conversion are regarded in the New Testament as gifts of God.
Regeneration
Union to Christ is inaugurated by the renewing work of the Spirit in which he begins the transformation into the image of Christ which will be completed at the eschaton. The ancient promise is thus fulfilled that God would give his people new hearts and spirits through the indwelling of his Spirit, resulting in a new lifestyle (Ezk. 36:24–27).
This transition was marked in the New Testament by the rite of baptism. By the time of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus in the late second century AD, regeneration already seems to have become so closely associated with its symbol of baptism that the two were thought of as coincident. This link became so refined that the sign and the thing signified were related in a sine qua non fashion, and a sacramentalist view of regeneration came to dominate the theology of the church. Even for Augustine, to whom the Reformers looked as the great theologian of grace, the idea of regeneration apart from water baptism was unthinkable. The doctrine of the limbus infantum for those who died in infancy unbaptized thus became virtually a dogmatic necessity for the medieval church.
While the mainstream Reformation thinkers continued to emphasize the role and necessity of baptism as the sign of regeneration, they argued that any identification of the two must be seen as sacramental and not mechanical; the sign and the thing signified must not be confused, as though the grace indicated by the sign were contained within it.
Particularly in the teaching of Calvin the term ‘regeneration’ was used to denote the renewal which the Spirit effects throughout the whole course of the Christian life. For him it describes the same reality denoted by ‘conversion’ and ‘repentance’ but viewed from a different perspective. Later, in many seventeenth-century writers, effectual calling and regeneration tended to be treated as synonyms. Only in the continuing development of evangelical theology did the term come to be used in the more limited and particular sense of the inauguration of new life by the sovereign and secret activity of God. While this served to focus attention on the power of God in giving new life, when detached from its proper theological context it was capable of being subjectivized and psychologized to such an extent that the term ‘born again’ became dislocated from its biblical roots.
But what does the New Testament itself mean when it speaks about ‘regeneration’? In the structure of evangelical soteriology, regeneration has occupied such a central role that ‘second birth’ has been regarded as the definitive element of genuine Christian experience. Yet the New Testament term for regeneration, palingenesia (from palin, ‘again’, and genesis, ‘beginning’) occurs only twice in the New Testament. In Matthew 19:28, it refers to the ‘renewal of all things’, the final rebirth of the universe, a meaning that stands in marked contrast with its use in Stoic thought as the periodic restoration of the world.
Palingenesia here is the final resurrection, the realized adoption of God’s sons, the redemption of their bodies and of the entire groaning creation (Rom. 8:19ff.), and the establishment of the new heavens and the new earth, the home of righteousness (2 Pet. 3:13). It is cosmic in its effects.
The only other occurrence of palingenesia is in Titus 3:5, where Paul speaks of the ‘washing of rebirth [palingenesia] and renewal by the Holy Spirit’. It is difficult to be dogmatic about the meaning of this phrase. Does the washing consist in rebirth, effect rebirth, or symbolize new birth (through baptism)? Does the statement refer to two actions (washing and renewal), or is it a hendiadys (in which a single idea is denoted by two expressions)?
This latter interpretation seems likely and, if valid, suggests a striking connection between the regeneration of the individual and the dawning of the new age, since Paul’s only other use of ‘renewal’ (anakainōsis, Rom. 12:2) serves the function of emphasizing the contrast between the present world order and that of the age to come. Furthermore, as H. N. Ridderbos has pointed out, the outpouring of the Spirit to which Paul refers in this context is ‘typical eschatological terminology’. It underlines the fact that Paul sees regeneration within a broader context as a share in the renewal-resurrection which has been inaugurated by the Spirit in Christ. The renewal which is effected in regeneration (and symbolized in baptism) is, therefore, not merely an inner change; it is the incursion of a new order into the present order of reality. Thus regeneration (palingenesia) and the cognates (anagennaō; gennēthēnai anōthen) denoted not merely the phenomenon of spiritual change from within, from below as it were, but transformation from without and from above, caused by participation in the power of the new age and more specifically by fellowship through the Spirit with the resurrected Christ as the second man, its firstfruits, the eschatological Adam (ho eschatos Adam, 1 Cor. 15:45). This is the note which became muted in the teaching of the postapostolic church but which must be recovered.
New creation—new life
While the term ‘regeneration’ is not strictly associated with the work of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, the idea of inauguration into the kingdom of God as a Spirit-wrought new birth is widespread and is in fact foundational in Johannine theology: ‘To all who received him [Christ], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God’ (Jn. 1:12–13). That this birth is the work of the Spirit is later underlined by Jesus’ words to Nicodemus: ‘No-one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit … the Spirit gives birth to Spirit … So it is with everyone born of the Spirit’ (Jn. 3:5–8). Being ‘born of God’ (i.e. through the Spirit) becomes as characteristic a description of being a Christian in Johannine theology as is the expression ‘in Christ’ in the Pauline corpus (cf. 1 Jn. 2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18).
Elsewhere in the New Testament similar language is used of the renewing work of God. While reference to the Spirit is less direct, his sovereign action is nevertheless implied (e.g. in Jas. 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:3, 23). Paul views Christians as being like Isaac, children of the promise ‘born by the power of the Spirit’ (Gal. 4:29). Continue reading
