Regeneration

“ Thus does regeneration become a work of orderly progress and successive growth. Guided by the Lord, it is brought forward under his never ceasing energies. It is begun in chaos and ends in the glorious likeness of Divinity. This, and manifold more, the parable of the Creation sets forth, in its beautiful symbols, concerning the beginnings of the soul, its progress through the stages of its advancing career, the nature of each successive state, and the quality of its celestial outcomes. ”

“ All Things in Nature represent Regeneration.
Regeneration is represented by various things in the world; as by the blossoming of all things on the earth in the time of spring, and by their successive growth to the production of fruit, by the growth likewise of every tree, shrub, and flower, from the first month of heat to the last. ”

“ Regeneration, or the new birth, is the divine side of that change of heart which, viewed from the human side, we call conversion. It is God's turning the soul to himself,—conversion being the soul's turning itself to God, of which God's turning it is both the accompaniment and cause. It will be observed from the above definition, that there are two aspects of regeneration, in the first of which the soul is passive, in the second of which the soul is active. God changes the governing disposition,—in this change the soul is simply acted upon. ”

“ Regeneration is the beginning of holiness in the soul, and admits of no progression; sanctification is carried on progressively in the heart of the renewed, and will be continued until it is completed in the concluding moment of life. ”

“ But creation is progressive. In this also it is made to typify regeneration. In another parable our Lord has told us how the attainment of the kingdom of heaven, that is, the regeneration of the soul, is a progressive work. It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man—the Lord—took and sowed in the earth—in the human mind; which at first is the least of all seeds, in that spirituality at the beginning of our regeneration is very small, but growing, becomes a great tree, in that as regeneration progresses, we become great in spiritual perceptions, power and goodness. ”

“ REGENERATION IS A SPIRITUAL QUICKENING, A NEW BIRTH. Regeneration is the impartation of a new and divine life; a new creation; the production of a new thing. It is Gen. 1:26 over again. It is not the old nature altered, reformed, or re-invigorated, but a new birth from above. ”

“ Regeneration is the process through which we pass, the work of shunning evils as sins against God which we perform, the radical change of will and thought, of heart and mind, which is made within us, as we gradually emerge from the low plane of merely natural and sensuous existence to the highest levels of life, which is summed up in a state of love to the Lord and the neighbor.
The history of the creation is not natural science but spiritual parable. It is not a revelation of the process of the world's formation ”

“ However, this makes no alteration in the doctrine I have before established; because, with us, regeneration and new birth are terms that bear the same exact meaning. What I before delivered of the spiritual new birth or regeneration is strictly true, though the word regeneration is sometimes used in another sense. It is not to be there understood of a spiritual or figurative birth, but of a literal and actual revival of the body from corruption. ”

“ But there is one certain way, in which we can do something and perhaps much for the amelioration of mankind and the regeneration of the world: and that is, by regenerating that part of the world which lies absolutely in our own power—namely, ourselves. We are each a part of the world and of mankind, and, by regenerating our own minds, we regenerate a portion of the world. ”

“ Neither more nor less than in other problems of physiology are we called upon, in the case of regeneration, to indulge in metaphysical speculation, or to dwell upon the beneficent purpose which seemingly underlies this process of healing and restoration. ”

“ Regeneration consists in the principle being implanted, obtaining the ascendancy, and habitually prevailing over its opposite. It may be remarked, that though the inspired writers use various terms and modes of speech in order to describe this change of mind, sometimes terming it conversion, regeneration, a new creation, or the new creature, putting off the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new man, walking not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, &c ”

“ For all things depend on this; all joys, all delights, all happiness, all that is worth existing for, through the ages of eternity, depend on this,—our regeneration. For regeneration is the being brought into heavenly order ”

“ Or, on the contrary, may the whole phenomenon of regeneration, even in these startling instantaneous examples, possibly be a strictly natural process, divine in its fruits, of course, but in one case more and in another less so, and neither more nor less divine in its mere causation and mechanism than any other process, high or low, of man's interior life? ”

“ The Lord never despises beginnings. But He puts them at their true worth, and values them only as beginnings.
Therefore, in this account of creation as a parable of regeneration, what the mind brings forth is still expressed under the similitude of what the earth brings forth. This third stage of regeneration is described by the springing forth of vegetation, first, in its lower forms of grass, then in the higher forms of the herb yielding seed, and at last in the highest form of the fruit tree yielding fruit. ”

“ The seven days of creation were thus found to symbolize the seven stages of progress through which man passes in the regeneration. He is born merely natural and at first develops only his natural powers and mind. But it is also designed by his Creator that he shall become spiritual and develop his spiritual powers and mind. This development, always gradual and slow, is called in Scripture the regeneration.
At first, and before regeneration begins, we are in ignorance, or, at least, in non-acknowledgment of spiritual things. A little child knows nothing as to its spiritual nature. ”

“ The word "regeneration" has therefore in biology "come to mean, in general usage, not only the replacement of a lost part, but also the development of a new whole organism, or even a part of an organism, from a piece of an adult, or of an embryo, or of an egg." ”

“ The first state of regeneration, therefore, as symbolized by the first day of creation, is light let in upon the mind as to the superiority of spiritual knowledge and life over natural; the second is the opening of the spiritual mind, or of the faculty which discerns things spiritually.
Clearly, so long as one refuses to recognize at all the beauty of spiritual knowledge or life, he cannot enter upon the regeneration. When he does this he can make no further progress until his power of understanding spiritual truth is developed. ”

“ They are expressed, in the Christian or teleological order, by the terms generation and regeneration. Man is created by the supernatural, but the race is explicated in the order of generation by natural laws; in the order of regeneration, by the election of grace. Generation is initial; regeneration is teleological, and completes generation, or places man on the plane of his end, as generation places the individual on the plane of his natural existence. ”

“ Thus it appears that, in these primitive stages, fusion more or less complete, or interchange of essences, leads to Regeneration and renewal of vitality—and this long before the distinct phenomena of sex appear. It leads to Regeneration first, and so collaterally, and at a later period, to Generation. ”

“ But the process of regeneration is a prolonged one, extending over many earth-lives; and so also is the prior process of evolution, whereby man reaches the stage at which he is amenable to regeneration. Wherefore regeneration has for its corollary reincarnation. To tell man that he "must be born again" spiritually, and deny him the requisite opportunities of experience, which must be acquired while in the body—seeing that regeneration is from out of the body—would be to mock him.
This doctrine of a multiplicity of earth-lives is implicit and sometimes explicit in the Bible. ”

“ So little do they who are of the church at this day know about any thing relating to regeneration that it is almost nothing. They do not even know that regeneration goes on through the whole course of life of him who is regenerated, and that it is continued in the other life; and that the mysteries of regeneration are innumerable, so that they can scarcely be known as to a ten thousandth part by the angels, and that those which the angels know are what constitute their intelligence and wisdom. ”

“ To recall only one point, we have not said that regeneration, merely because it is a kind of restitution of the disturbed whole, compels us to admit that biological events happen in a specific and elemental manner, but, indeed, regeneration does prove vitalism, because it is founded upon the existence of certain complex-equipotential systems, the analysis of the genesis of which leads to the understanding of life-autonomy. ”

“ REGENERATION, a new birth; that work of the Holy Spirit by which we experience a change of heart. It is expressed in Scripture by being born again, John iii, 7; born from above; being quickened, Eph. ii, 1; by Christ being formed in the heart, Gal. iv, 19; by our partaking of the divine nature, 2 Peter i, 4. The efficient cause of regeneration is the divine Spirit. That man is not the author of it, is evident from John i, 12, 13 ”

“ It is for those who accept it to deny the justice of the spiritual analogy. Is religion to them unscientific in its doctrine of Regeneration? Will the evolutionist who admits the regeneration of the frog under the modifying influence of a continued correspondence with a new environment, care to question the possibility of the soul acquiring such a faculty as that of Prayer, the marvellous breathing-function of the new creature, when in contact with the atmosphere of a besetting God? ”

“ E. H. Johnson, The Holy Spirit: “Regeneration is a change, not in the quantity, but in the quality, of the soul.” E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 320—“Regeneration consists in a divinely wrought change in the moral affections.”
So, too, we would criticize the doctrine of Drummond, Nat. Law in the Spir. World: “People forget the persistence of force. Instead of transforming energy, they try to create it. We must either depend on environment, or be self-sufficient. ”

“ A complete curve of growth, starting from zero, has the same essential char­ac­teris­tics as the regeneration curve.
Indeed the more we consider the phenomenon of regeneration, the more plainly does it shew itself to us as but a particular case of the general phenomenon of growth189, following the same lines, obeying the same laws, and merely started into activity by the special stimulus, direct or indirect, caused by the infliction of a wound. ”

“ Regeneration then, being progressive, not a thing of sudden attainment, but, like a tree, of slow growth, the six days of creation represent the six general states of life through which each one has to pass before he becomes perfect in the sight of God. The exact distinction between these different stages of spiritual progress we will understand better as we advance in the consideration of the six days of creation. ”

“ Regeneration is not a mysterious term; it is simply the development of the spiritual nature. As infants we are born entirely natural. At that period we are without any knowledge of any kind. Our very natural senses have to be developed. We learn to distinguish objects one from another, to form sounds into words of sense, to walk, to talk, only by slow degrees of development. ”

“ The analogy is found in nature, from which its divine Creator selects many processes and principles, which He employs as figures to illustrate His teaching in the word. Thus, in regard to corporeal regeneration, in the process of developing an immortal being from the dust of sheol, the terms expressive of the stages of what may be styled the spiritual gestation are conformed to the phenomena pertaining to the natural. The same fact obtains in relation to moral regeneration, which must precede in probation, the corporeal in the resurrection state. ”

“ One question more we may look at for a moment. What can be gathered on the surface as to the process of Regeneration in the individual soul? From the analogies of Biology we should expect three things: First, that the New Life should dawn suddenly ”

“ Strictly, the regeneration is the washing, of which the water is the instrument. The figure thus used, the apostle immediately explains. “The washing of regeneration, even the renewing of the Holy Ghost.” As water is the instrument of washing, so the Spirit shed down by Jesus Christ is the instrument of that spiritual work which is indicated alike by the two identical words, regeneration, and renewing. ”

“ Man as he is needs a “new heart,” a new nature, a new life; and that need can be supplied by the Author of life, through that regeneration which is indicated, and which, in a sense, is realized in new blood which is pure at the start, and which purifies by its purging inflow. The recognition of this truth, and the outreaching of man in its direction, are at the basis of all forms of sacrifice in all the ages. And this wonderful attainment of primitive man everywhere, we are asked to accept as man’s mere natural inheritance from the sensory quiverings of his ancestral tadpole! ”

“ Suppose that without divine aid you should try to save a soul—you might as well attempt to make a world. Why, you cannot create a fly, how can you create a new heart and a right spirit? Regeneration is a great mystery, it is out of your reach. ”