Monday, September 12, 2022

Karl Deenick on παλιγγενεσία ("regeneration") in Titus 3:5 and Matthew 19:28

  

. . . Paul also says that the washing is a work of ‘rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit’. The word ‘rebirth’, or ‘regeneration’, is only used twice in the whole of the New Testament, here and in Matthew 19:28. The Greek word, palingenesia is a sandwich of two other words ‘beginning’ (genesis) and ‘again’ (palin), and it means something like ‘new beginning’ or even ‘new birth’. The word ‘renewal’ has a very similar meaning. It does not refer here to a gradual process of renewal but refers to a decisive restart—going back to ‘new’. In other words, both are very similar to what Jesus says in John 3 about being ‘born again’.

 

The way Jesus uses ‘regeneration’ in Matthew 19:28 also gives us some insight into what Paul means in Tutus 3. Jesus says:

 

Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things [i.e. the regeneration], when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, and you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. 19:28).

 

Jesus uses the term ‘regeneration’ to refer to the new world or new creation that He will establish in which He will rule together with His disciples. That hope is anchored in the Old Testament hope of a world put right. For example, God says through Isaiah:

 

See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. (Isa. 65:17).

 

That new world will be a world of unparalleled goodness such that no one will remember the sadness of this contorted world. So too, the lives of people in that world will be full of joy and peace:

 

‘They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortunate; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD< they and their descendants with them. Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,’ says the LORD (Isa. 65:21-25)

 

God’s plan to put the world right involves a new beginning for the whole world and the whole creation.

 

But the catch is that, in order for you and me to be part of that new creation, we need to become new creations too. (Karl Deenick, Washed by God: The Story of Baptism [Ross-Shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, Inc., 2022], 56-57)

 

The relationship between washing, rebirth, renewal and the Holy Spirit is grammatically tricky. It could be ‘through the washing-of-rebirth and (through the renewal-of-the-Holy Spirit’ or ‘through the washing of re-birth-and-renewal of the Holy Spirit.’ But the fact that rebirth and renewal mean almost the same thing and that washing is generally a function of the Holy Spirit, suggest that whatever the precise grammatical relationship, thematically, washing, rebirth, renewal and the Holy Spirit’s activity all continue one singular work .of God (cf. Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 782-84 and George W. Knight, The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 342-44). (Ibid., 56 n. 18)

 

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