Friday, September 30, 2022

Darwell Stone on Conversion, Regeneration, and Baptismal Regeneration

  

Regeneration is one thing; conversion is another. S. Paul was converted when he spoke the words, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ He was regenerated when, three days later, he was baptized. The Philippian gaoler was converted when he asked what he must do that he might be saved. He was regenerated when, a little afterwards, he received Baptism (Acts xxii 10; ix. 18; xvi. 30, 33). Conversion is the act whereby, in response to and by the power of divine grace, the soul turns to God in the desire to accept and do His will. Regeneration is the gift which God bestows on the soul by producing in its nature such a change as imparts to it the forgiveness of original sin and makes it to be accepted by God instead of under His wrath. To have kept clear a distinction which the facts and teaching contained in the New Testament undoubtedly express might have saved many from confusion of thought which have led to complete misunderstanding of the doctrine of Holy Baptism.

 

Regeneration, further, does not necessarily imply perseverance in goodness or ultimate salvation. Simon of Samaria—if, indeed in his case, bad faith had not at the first deprived him of benefits which, in ordinary cases, Baptism conveyed—could, after Baptism, so far fall from grace as to merit S. Peter’s rebuke, ‘Thy heart is not right before God. Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray the Lord, if perhaps the thought of thy heart shall be forgiven thee. For I see that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.’ S. Paul repeatedly addressed those who were evidently baptized in terms which implied that eternal life might be forfeited by them. ‘Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you If any man destroyed the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.’ ‘I verily, being absent in body but present in spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him that hath so wrought this thing, in the Name of our Lord Jesus, ye being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction for the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesu.’ ‘If ye receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing.’ ‘Ye are severed from Christ, ye who would be justified by the law: ye are fallen away from grace.’ ‘The works of the flesh are manifest . . . of the which I forewarn you, even as I did forewarn you, that they which practise such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.’ He contemplated the abstract possibility that he himself might be lost. ‘I therefore so run, as not uncertainly; so fight I, as not beating the air: but I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage: lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.’ He spoke of the possession of baptismal privileges as a reason for real and energetic struggle to do what is right. ‘But ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God. . . . Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ, and make them members of a harlot? God forbid. . . Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own, for ye were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body’ (Acts viii. 13, 21-3; 1 Corinthians iii. 16, 17, v. 3-5; Galatians v. 2, 4, 19-21; 1 Corinthians ix. 26, 27, vi. 11-20) The fact of the reception of grace is altogether distinct form any question of continuance in grace.

 

Here, again, confusions of thought have been numerous and harmful. It has been supposed by many that, if regeneration is bestowed in Baptism, there cannot subsequently be any departure from holiness or the grace of God. Such an idea has caused thoughtful persons to fail to grasp the Scriptural teaching that the baptized are regenerate, because they are convinced that many of the baptized commit sins of the most grievous kind. The fact was certainly not unknown to or ignored by the writers of the New Testament; but they viewed it in its proper light as not contradictory of but parallel to the truth that Baptism is the means of regeneration. Indeed, a moment’s consideration should be sufficient to show any one that a person may receive a gift and may yet fail to answer the responsibilities or use the powers which the gift confers. One who has been freed from original sin may yet commit actual sin; a nature which has been made holy may yet by sin become unholy; the child of God may, by the wrong use of the divinely given power of free-will, act as though he were still the child of wrath. The facts of life are to be explained, not by the rejection of the Scriptural doctrine of regeneration in Baptism, but by viewing it in connection with other truths which are no less Scriptural.

 

Christian Baptism, then, according to the teachings of Holy Scripture, by making the baptized person a member of Christ and a child of God and imparting to him the gift of the Holy Spirit, causes him to partake of the merits of Christ’s life and death and the power of His resurrection. It thereby enables him to live a Christian life and attain to eternal glory. Yet he may subsequently depart from grace and fall into sin by the act of his will choosing evil, and, if evil be finally chosen, he may be involved in eternal sin (S. Mark iii. 29. The reading ‘eternal sin [αιωνιου αμαρτηματος], adopted by the revisers and by Westcott and Hort, is found in the Sinaitic and Vatican MSS. and other authorities), and consequently in eternal loss. Baptism confers a position of high privilege and great responsibility. The free-will of the baptised person has to determine to what use this position is to be put. Holy Baptism affords the beginning of the possibility of the highest holiness; it supplies also the measure of the terrible character of sins committed by the baptized. (Darwell Stone, Holy Baptism [London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899], 35-39)