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Washing of Regeneration Titus 3:5
Washing of Regeneration Titus 3:5
By the goodness and kindness of God, He saved us. Notice Paul's description of these disciples pre-conversion lives as written in vs 3. “We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.”
It is obvious that they could not undo their sin nor could they make up for it or atone for it. All they could do was plead guilty and pay the penalty. That is, that is all they could do UNTIL God stepped in. Hence it was according to His mercy that we are saved BY the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit (vs. 4). Paul stresses that such salvation is dependent upon God: “He saved us, His mercy, He poured out on us, by His grace.”
Yet, Paul writes that God saved us "BY the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit”. Regeneration means to make alive again. We were dead in sin but GOD made us alive. We learn from Acts 22:16 that in baptism our sins are washed away. We learn from Col. 2:11-14 that in baptism God makes us alive, that is, He regenerates us. Such is the washing of regeneration.
When the Corinthians heard the gospel, they believed and were baptized (Acts 18"8). Paul later said of their conversion that they were "washed, sanctified, and justified'. They too are saved by the washing of regeneration and being justified by the grace of God.
Here, by the mercy of God people are said to participate in the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit SO THAT being justified by his grace they might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. It is IN such act of being ‘washed’ that God not only makes one alive (regenerates) but also justifies him.
Paul writes in Eph. 5:25-26: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,”. That which effects the cleansing of the church (i.e., the people who compose the church) is ‘the washing of water with the word.” A.T. Robertson, a Baptist scholar, concedes that both of these passages [Eph. 5:26 and Titus 3:5, HD] allude to water baptism*(p. 607). Yet it is not the water literally washing away sins but that God, when one is baptized in water, forgives and cleanses one from sin.
People will accuse us of believing in 'baptismal regeneration' even though we affirm over and over that it is God that regenerates. What they are refusing to acknowledge is that God makes one alive IN baptism. It is not our work, but God that works. It is not baptism that makes one alive, it is God WHEN one is buried in baptism. As Paul said in Romans 6" we were buried in baptism and raised to walk in newness of life. Hugh DeLong
*Robertson, A.T. 1931, Word Pictures in the New Testament. Vol. IV. Nashville, TN: Broadman.
