Regeneration: An Attempt at Definition
these rather free, subjective, and arbitrary premises.
Consequently, and by way of example, conversion then becomes a phenomenon that is on a level with various other alterations of human consciousness, or, equally arbitrarily, is explained in terms of the unconscious inward operation of some supernatural factor. But what conversion really is and, similarly, what faith, prayer, Justification, religion, and so forth really are, neither the psychology nor the philosophy of religion can tell us. Only
Scripture can.85
Regeneration: An Attempt at a Definition When we note the many related concepts (calling, illumination, conversion, renewal, purification, sanctification, and so forth), in the midst of which regeneration plays its role in holy
Scripture, and observe the many divergent views concerning it occurring in theology, it seems a precarious undertaking to want to furnish a definition of it that can claim general approval. Yet such an attempt does not seem to be impossible.
The theosophical and the eschatological view of regeneration can at once be set aside, since the former does not belong in Christianity and the latter will automatically, based as it is on Matt. 19:28, be considered in the doctrine of the last things.86
This leaves us actually with only three remaining meanings of the word.
In the first place, one can use it to describe the transformation that begins in the human consciousness as a result of the believing acceptance of the gospel, by which it is relieved of all feeling of guilt and fear and filled with comfort, peace, and joy.
This is indeed a great and wonderful transformation and regeneration of human consciousness. Not only Luther and the Lutheran confessions sometimes speak of regeneration in those
terms; this terminology also occurs occasionally among Reformed theologians. Polanus, for example, says that regeneration consists in "mortification" and "vivification," and that the latter again has two parts: the "gladdening of the conscience" and "spiritual governance."87 Yet it is not advisable to describe this change in consciousness with the term
"regeneration." For (1) this is, at least nowadays, an uncommon use of the word; (2) the thing expressed by it will automatically come up in connection with Justification; and (3) one can easily foster by it the misunderstanding that regeneration actually coincides with Justification and ought not to be distinguished from it.
If for these reasons we also reject this meaning of the word "regeneration," one can still construe this term in a broad as well as a more restricted sense. In the early years of the Reformation, theologians commonly used the word in the broad sense.88 In that case, regeneration included the total renewal of a person as the renewal was brought about by and out of faith and coincided with repentance (resipiscentia, μετανοια, not penitence in the medieval sense). The result was that one moment "regeneration" and another time "conversion" was described as existing in two parts, the mortification of the "old man" and the rising of the "new."89 But various causes, already summed up earlier,90 converged to prompt theologians to view regeneration in a restricted sense and to have it precede faith and repentance. The progress of regeneration after and by faith was then usually given another name (repentance, renewal, sanctification). This terminology gradually spread to the point where today almost nobody identifies regeneration with sanctification.
The restricted sense of the word became established, and this makes sense: the word does not include the growth and development of the new life but suggests the genesis or origin of that life.
Accordingly, when dogmatics restricts the term to the implantation of the spiritual life, it is giving it a more restricted sense than that in which Scripture usually speaks of
"regeneration" (or "birth from above" or "birth from God") and must therefore be on its guard not to cite it by its sound alone.
This is no objection, however, since the dogmatician uses the language of confession in reference to every doctrine and must base his use of it, not on the sound of words, but on divine revelation.
Regeneration in the restricted sense further requires a distinction between the activity of God by which he regenerates, and the fruit of that activity in the person who is being regenerated; in other words, between active and passive regeneration. In reality both things are closely interconnected and are frequently summed up in the one word "regeneration."
But differentiation is indispensable for a correct understanding here. Regeneration in the active sense, the regenerative activity of God, is only another name for the call: the efficacious call of God. And the connection between the calling in this sense
(active regeneration) and regeneration in the passive sense is the same as that between the Father's speaking and our learning from him (John 6:45), between the Father's drawing and our following (6:44), between the Father's granting and our accepting (6:65), between the efficacious offer and our passive acceptance of salvation, between the sowing and what is sown.91
So in regeneration we must first focus our attention on the activity of God (a subject already discussed in part above in connection with "calling" and to which the following now needs to be added).
Just as "calling" is partly external and partly internal, so the action of God in regeneration includes both a moral and a "hyperphysical" (a provisional term to be explained later) operation.92 The first-mentioned operation occurs by the agency of the Word, is aimed at the human consciousness (not only theoretical but above all practical reason with the conscience) and through it at the human will. In the preaching of the gospel to adults, especially on the mission field, the
external call is therefore anterior to regeneration, although it may coincide with it in time. Now Pelagians of all stripes recognize no activity of God in regeneration other than this moral suasion. They deem it sufficient for adults because, in their view, the human will is either not at all affected or only weakened by sin, and therefore can, if it wants to, obey this moral suasion. In addition, insofar as it concerns children, this moral suasion is unnecessary because original sin is either totally denied or considered a nonculpable defect.93
Among the proponents of this view are indeed those who speak not only of the word of the gospel, the image of Jesus in the Gospels,94 and so forth but also of the Spirit and his activity and even in a sense have the latter precede the Word. But when speaking of the "Spirit," they have in mind the holy spirit of community that indwells believers as a body,95 or the objective divine power (Potenz) in which God imparts himself,96 or the life orientation and life force that emanated from Jesus's person and work—as it did from other great men—and continues on in history;97 but they no longer believe in the Holy Spirit as he participates with the Father and the Son in the same divine being, yet as a person is distinct from them,98 and therefore they no longer have any room left for a special divine activity in regeneration. The Christian church, however, has consistently— and all the more vigorously as it gained more insight into the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit—assumed a special divine activity in regeneration. Just as, to the extent it became more firmly persuaded of the necessity of internal grace, it confessed all the more decisively and joyfully the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit.99 The one thing is inseparably connected with the other. If God is triune, then in addition to a work of the Father in creation and a work of the Son in redemption, there has to be a special divine work of the Holy
Spirit in sanctification. The Christian church, based as it is on the foundation of the trinitarian dogma, therefore unanimously confessed an "infused" grace. However, whereas Roman
Catholics and Lutherans in the case of infants linked this infusion of grace (regeneration) to baptism, the Reformed learned to see by the light of Scripture that the children of believers are included in the covenant of grace, not by but even before baptism, not on account of their parents by virtue of their natural birth, but with their parents by virtue of divine compassion. In their case, accordingly, regeneration could take place and, in their view, often did take place without the external calling by the Word. External and internal calling, Word and Spirit, the moral and the "hyperphysical" activity of God in regeneration, therefore, in reality frequently diverged rather widely.
It is remarkable, nevertheless, that the Reformed, in their polemics with the Anabaptists, consistently tried to maintain the connectedness of the two and in their confessions, catechisms, and dogmatic manuals, remained steadfastly faithful to the order of calling and regeneration. Even Maccovius, who locates active Justification before regeneration and has faith and passive Justification follow it, nevertheless deals—under the heading of the royal office of Christ—with the external means by which he exercises his government, and has active Justification take place in the gospel (Gen. 3:15) that is made known to us by the Word.100 And they [Reformed theologians] had good grounds for maintaining this order.
1. When the children of believers are regenerated in infancy, before they are able to hear the word of the gospel, this is always true only for the children of believers; that is, for such children who from their conception and birth are included in the covenant of grace. This covenant of grace, accordingly, precedes their regeneration. It is objectively made ready for them as a gracious ordinance of God. It consists, independently of them, in the gospel and the sacraments; and they are passively incorporated in it and baptized at this time as members of that covenant. The sacrament of baptism would not be a sacrament if
it were not attached as a sign and seal to the Word. The internal calling by which the children are regenerated therefore remains closely tied in with the Word, even though the children themselves do not yet have any glimmering of it.
2. When in dogmatics the person and work of Christ (soteriology) has been treated, one cannot immediately begin in soteriology with regeneration, but must first in some fashion deal (in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit: the covenant of grace, the church, the means of grace, the external rule of Christ, the calling, and so forth) with the way in which and the means by which the objective salvation in Christ is made known in the world and passed down from generation to generation. For if regeneration were objectively detached from the Word, one would not only no longer be able to make any judgments about the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit,101 but might also draw the obvious conclusion that actually Christ's person and work are not necessary to salvation, and that God may equally well regenerate the sinner aside from Christ by the Holy Spirit alone. At most Christ then remains necessary only to reveal
God's name and glory in the world of human consciousness.
3. It is not correct to say without qualification that regeneration is effected by the word of God, that is, by God's power. For although the expression "word of God" not infrequently has that meaning,102 in 1 Pet. 1:23–25 the apostle obviously has in mind the word of the Lord that had been proclaimed among his readers, and the word by which regeneration is effected—even if one links it only with internal calling—is not after all the word of God in general, not his word in creation and providence, but his word in re-creation, that is, the word that in Christ he speaks in our hearts by his Spirit. In other words, the Spirit who works regeneration is specifically the Spirit of Christ, who has been acquired by Christ and, after Christ himself had completed his work on earth and ascended into heaven, was sent into the church and now lives and works
in it and takes everything from him. This bond is only retained if in one way or another one remains faithful to the order of calling and regeneration, for otherwise the work of Christ and the work of the Spirit end up on two separate parallel tracks.
4. In addition to these arguments, there are still a number of other considerations that, though secondary, are not without significance. When some Reformed theologians preferred to place regeneration before or during baptism, not only in the case of children who die in infancy but also of covenant children who remain alive, this was not a dogma fixed somewhere by the church, but a judgment of charity according to which the church had to view and treat its young children until the contrary was evident from their lives. Complete certainty was and is not obtainable here. In reference to the external call, it must be remembered, furthermore, that it certainly does not occur only as a consequence of public preaching or even by reading and studying Holy Scripture, but also takes place in the simple words spoken in the home by father and mother and heard by the child, and no one can say when and how this word can begin to influence the mind of the children. One must further consider that, though the internal calling or regeneration in order undoubtedly always precedes the saving hearing of the Word of God, as Maccovius 103 correctly asserted, but certainly not always the external hearing, nor the moral influence exerted by the Word on the heart and the mind. God can open human hearts before but also during the hearing of his Word (Acts
16:14). He can make Ezekiel prophesy over dead bones that they shall live (Ezek. 37:14ff.); make Lazarus, upon hearing the voice of Jesus calling him, come out of his grave (John 11:43–44); and call into existence the things that do not exist (Rom. 4:17). And, finally, one should keep in mind that the purpose of calling in general is absolutely not only to bring to faith and repentance those who are born again but also has meaning for all people.
There is a universal, a general, and a special call. But this beautiful confession cannot come into its own if the calling is