New Birth in 1 John
Perseverance is addressed in the
"new birth" in 1 John, which is a different Greek word from regeneration
in Titus 3:5 with a different idea. John asserts clearly that the new birth he
has in mind is persevering grace: "The one who is born of God does not
[practice] sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot [practice] sin,
because he has been born of God" (3:9; see also 2:28; 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18 for
similar ideas).
Of course the difficulty some people
have with this "sacramental" view is that Baptism itself cannot accomplish
such. But no one says that the water itself does this. Furthermore, to conclude
as one man "that a spiritual economy cannot be tied to a material agency
as an indispensable channel of grace" is to deny the Incarnation. Jesus
was God incarnate, God with a body, and the greatest good was spiritually
accomplished with His physical body as the God-man died on the Cross for our
sins. Here physical and spiritual come together par excellence.
Furthermore, to reject the sacraments as
accomplishing spiritual good by the power of God's Spirit is to fall into the
heresy of Gnosticism, separating the physical from the spiritual. The theology
of the English Reformation avoids the extremes without disconnecting the physical
and the spiritual. One extreme is the view that the water in itself
accomplishes conversion/regeneration. The other extreme is that Baptism does
not matter. Reformed Anglicanism, in keeping with the fathers and good exegesis,
maintains that the sacraments, by God's Spirit, are channels of grace that
actually accomplish spiritual good. In Titus 3:5, Baptism effects regeneration,
not conversion necessarily (though in God's good pleasure it could be). Also
what begins at Baptism is the Spirit's renewing work, a covenantal work that
reveals an organic connection with Christ (see John 15:1ff). All have this
work, but only the elect have it to the end, and only God knows who they are. (Ray
R. Sutton, Signed, Sealed, and Delivered: A Study of Holy Baptism
[Houston, Tex.: Classical Anglican Press, 2001], 137-38)
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