1 Cor 12:13
For by one Spirit we were all baptized into
one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
(RSV)
A wealth of teaching is concentrated in this
brief line. For one thing, it is perfectly clear that the Holy Spirit is given
in Christian baptism. Whether the Greek is translated “by one Spirit” or “in
one Spirit” it is obvious that Paul is referring to the baptism by which his
readers became Christians and members of the one body. It is clearly a “baptism
in the Spirit” or a “baptism of the Spirit”—but there is no reason for thinking it is not identical with water baptism.
When Pentecostals, then, use the term “baptism of the Holy Spirit” for the deep
spiritual experience of the release of the Spirit, ordinarily accompanied by
the laying on of hands, it would be wrong to imply that the Spirit is given
only then, as if he were not already with the Christian from the moment of his
initiation into the Christian life. In Titus 3:5 the sacrament of baptism
is called “the bath of rebirth and renewal by the spirit” According to Luke, the
conferring of the Spirit was ritualized, it seems, by the gesture of imposing
hands on the newly baptized (Acts 8:17; 19:6), though other passages in the
Pauline literature suggest that the rite of anointing signified this (2 Cor
1:22; Eph 1:13; 1 John 2:26-27). We are not certain exactly what was the full
Christian ritual of baptism in the early decades, nor how the rites of water
and anointing and laying on of hands were interrelated, nor even whether there
was a generally uniform practice in the matter, nor how exactly they verbalized
the relationship of the various elements of the ritual to the name of the Lord
Jesus and to the gift of the Spirit. But for baptized, conformed Christians
today who are seeking a deeper experience of the Holy Spirit in their lives
through the laying on of hands, it would seem preferable to speak of a
re-awakening or a release or a yielding to the Spirit already given, after the
fashion of the exhortation given in 2 Tim 1:6: “I remind you to stir into flame
the gift of God bestowed when my hands were laid on you” (the next verse makes
it obvious that the gift of God is the Holy Spirit). (George T. Montague, The Holy Spirit: Growth of a Biblical
Tradition—A Commentary on the Principal Texts of the Old and New Testaments [New
York: Paulist Press, 1976], 157, emphasis in bold added)
Titus 3:4-7
But when the goodness and loving kindness of
God and Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in
righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration
and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly through
Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become
heirs in hope of eternal life. (RSV)
This passage is so dense that it makes analysis
difficult, especially at the point that interests us most, vs. 5, which reads
literally in the Greek: “through the bath of regeneration and of renewal of the
Holy Spirit.” let us begin with what is most certain. When we were lost in our
own sinful selfishness (3:3), God manifested his goodness and loving-kindness
(vs. 4). He saved us not because of any righteous deeds we had done (a strong
Pauline thought) but because of his own mercy (vs. 5). At this point we would
expect a mention of Jesus Christ, but this is delayed until vs. 6 in order to
give prominence to the moment and the rite of Christian initiation. The bath of
regeneration is clearly baptism in which we are reborn. The idea of “rebirth”
is not a Pauline way of referring to baptism. It sounds more Johannine (“born
again of water and the Spirit,” Jn 3:5). In Matthew the word “rebirth” or “regeneration”
is used for the final inbreaking of the new age when the Son of Man shall be
enthroned in glory (Mt 19:28), a usage that is probably more primitive than the
one here. As the tradition developed it was seen that, for all that really
mattered, the regeneration took place in each Christian at his baptism when he
became a son of God. (It certainly did not happen at some advanced stage, as in
Gnostic doctrine, where the rebirth was thought to take place through the
mystic and magic formula of the “regenerating word.”)
The word “renewal” is however, a key word in
Paul’s pneumatology. The Psalmist had said that when God sends forth his breath
(ruah or pneuma) all nature is renewed (Ps 104:30). The noun ”renewal” (anakainÅsis), however, appears nowhere
in the Greek language before Paul and is apparently a word of Paul’s own
coning. This part of Titus 3:5 is therefore echoing a strong Pauline tradition.
How is the “renewal of the Holy Spirit”
linked with the preceding? It is a separate and subsequent moment or is it
identical with the “bath of regeneration”? The word “renewal,” unlike “regeneration,
is a favorite one of Paul’s. The verb and the noun always occur in contexts in
which Paul speaks of the development of the Christian life subsequent to
baptism. The inward man is being renewed day by day (2 Cor 4:16); he must walk
in newness of life (Rom 6:4) and be renewed in the spirit of his mind and put
on the new man (Rom 12:2; cf. Eph 4:23f); who, according to Col 3:10, is being
renewed unto knowledge. Here, in Titus 3:5, however, there is every reason to
believe that the renewal is linked to the bath as much as regeneration is, for
not only is the Spirit constantly presented in Paul as the Christian’s
birthright in baptism (1 Cor 12:13; Rom 8:10) but here the verb “poured out”
refers equally well to the waters of the bath as to the Holy Spirit which is
the closer antecedent.
Is there then no difference between “rebirth”
and “renewal”? There is a difference; for while rebirth corresponds to the
once-done instatement as God’s sons, the work of renewal is a process which,
while beginning at baptism, continues in the Christian until the divine image,
Christ himself, is perfectly achieved (2 Cor 4:16; 3:18). “Rebirth” is a word
taken from the realm of nature; “renewal” is taken from the realm of art. Like
an artist carefully restoring a faded or damaged masterpiece, the Holy Spirit
works upon the Christian until the divine image is restored (2 Cor 3:18).
(Ibid., 230-32)
