4. The Instrumentality used in Regeneration.
A. The Roman, English and Lutheran churches hold that regeneration is accomplished through the instrumentality of baptism. The Disciples, or followers of Alexander Campbell, make regeneration include baptism, [pg 821] as well as repentance and faith. To the view that baptism is a means of regeneration we urge the following objections:
(a) The Scriptures represent baptism to be not the means but only the sign of regeneration, and therefore to presuppose and follow regeneration. For this reason only believers—that is, persons giving credible evidence of being regenerated—were baptized (Acts 8:12). Not external baptism, but the conscientious turning of the soul to God which baptism symbolizes, saves us (1 Pet. 3:21—συνειδήσεως ἀγαθῆς ἐπερώτημα). Texts like John 3:5, Acts 2:38, Col. 2:12, Tit. 3:5, are to be explained upon the principle that regeneration, the inward change, and baptism, the outward sign of that change, were regarded as only different sides or aspects of the same fact, and either side or aspect might therefore be described in terms derived from the other.
(b) Upon this view, there is a striking incongruity between the nature of the change to be wrought and the means employed to produce it. The change is a spiritual one, but the means are physical. It is far more rational to suppose that, in changing the character of intelligent beings, God uses means which have relation to their intelligence. The view we are considering is part and parcel of a general scheme of mechanical rather than moral salvation, and is more consistent with a materialistic than with a spiritual philosophy.
Acts 8:12—“when they believed Philip preaching good tidings concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized”; 1 Pet. 3:21—“which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation [marg.—‘inquiry’, ‘appeal’] of a good conscience toward God” = the inquiry of the soul after God, the conscientious turning of the soul to God.
Plumptre, however, makes ἐπερώτημα a forensic term equivalent to “examination,”and including both question and answer. It means, then, the open answer of allegiance to Christ, given by the new convert to the constituted officers of the church. “That which is of the essence of the saving power of baptism is the confession and the profession which precede it. If this comes from a conscience that really renounces sin and believes on Christ, then baptism, as the channel through which the grace of the new birth is conveyed and the convert admitted into the church of Christ, ‘saves us,’but not otherwise.” We may adopt this statement from Plumptre's Commentary, with the alteration of the word “conveyed” into “symbolized” or “manifested.”Plumptre's interpretation is, as he seems to admit, in its obvious meaning inconsistent with infant baptism; to us it seems equally inconsistent with any doctrine of baptismal regeneration.
Scriptural regeneration is God's (1) changing man's disposition, and (2) securing its first exercise. Regeneration, according to the Disciples, is man's (1) repentance and faith, and (2) submission to baptism. Alexander Campbell, Christianity Restored: “We plead that all the converting power of the Holy Spirit is exhibited in the divine Record.” Address of Disciples to Ohio Baptist State Convention, 1871: “With us regeneration includes all that is comprehended in faith, repentance, and baptism, and so far as it is expressive of birth, it belongs more properly to the last of these than to either of the former.” But if baptism be the instrument of regeneration, it is difficult to see how the patriarchs, or the penitent thief, could have been regenerated. Luke 23:43—“This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” Bossuet: “This day”—what promptitude! “With me”—what companionship! “In Paradise”—what rest! Bersier: “ ‘This day’—what then? no flames of Purgatory? no long period of mournful expiation? ‘This day’—pardon and heaven!”
Baptism is a condition of being outwardly in the kingdom; it is not a condition of being inwardly in the kingdom. The confounding of these two led many in the early church to dread dying unbaptized, rather than dying unsaved. Even Pascal, in later times, held that participation in outward ceremonies might lead to real conversion. He probably meant that an initial act of holy will would tend to draw others in its train. Similarly we urge unconverted people to take some step that will manifest religious [pg 822]interest. We hope that in taking this step a new decision of the will, inwrought by the Spirit of God, may reveal itself. But a religion which consists only in such outward performances is justly denominated a cutaneous religion, for it is only skin-deep. On John 3:5—“Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”; Acts 2:38—“Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins”; Col. 2:12—“buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith”; Tit. 3:5—“saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit”—see further discussion and exposition in our chapter on the Ordinances. Adkins, Disciples and Baptists, a booklet published by the Am. Bap. Pub. Society, is the best statement of the Baptist position, as distinguished from that of the Disciples. It claims that Disciples overrate the externals of Christianity and underrate the work of the Holy Spirit. Per contra, see Gates, Disciples and Baptists.
B. The Scriptural view is that regeneration, so far as it secures an activity of man, is accomplished through the instrumentality of the truth. Although the Holy Spirit does not in any way illuminate the truth, he does illuminate the mind, so that it can perceive the truth. In conjunction with the change of man's inner disposition, there is an appeal to man's rational nature through the truth. Two inferences may be drawn:
(a) Man is not wholly passive at the time of his regeneration. He is passive only with respect to the change of his ruling disposition. With respect to the exercise of this disposition, he is active. Although the efficient power which secures this exercise of the new disposition is the power of God, yet man is not therefore unconscious, nor is he a mere machine worked by God's fingers. On the other hand, his whole moral nature under God's working is alive and active. We reject the “exercise-system,” which regards God as the direct author of all man's thoughts, feelings, and volitions, not only in its general tenor, but in its special application to regeneration.