Section Eighth. ON THE IMPORT OF CERTAIN TERMS EMPLOYED IN NEW TESTAMENT SCRIPTURE TO INDICATE THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE RENOVATION TO BE ACCOMPLISHED THROUGH THE GOSPEL; μετάνοια, παιγγενεςία, ἀνακαίνωσις, ἀποκατάστασις. THE mission of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the institution consequent on it of His spiritual kingdom, have for their object the accomplishment of a great and comprehensive renovation. And in addition to such expressions as βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη, which, in different respects, indicate the design and character of the change to be introduced, and which have already been considered, there is a class of expressions pointing also to the change in question, but with a more special respect to its renovating character. There are altogether four of these terms, which, while they form a sort of whole, must yet be considered separately, in order to obtain a correct idea, both of their distinctive meanings, and of the relation in which they stand to each other.
I. The first in order of the terms referred to is μετάνοια, which need not detain us long. The verb meets us at the very threshold of the Gospel, in the Baptist’s call of preparation for the kingdom—μεανοεῖτε—which was afterwards also taken up by our Lord. The first and most immediate change, which was required of men in expectation of the Lord’s appearance and kingdom, was an altered state of thought and purpose in regard to things spiritual and divine; and to impress the necessity of this more deeply upon the minds of all, the call to enter into it was coupled with an administration of baptism—a baptism εἰς μετάνοιαν. Even after the personal ministry of Christ was finished, and He had left the work to be prosecuted among men by his apostles, the call was still the same; μετανοήσατε καὶ βαπτισσθήτω was the closing and practical point of St. Peter’s address to the multitudes on the day of Pentecost; and in St. Paul’s brief summary of the Gospel he everywhere preached the first article named is τὴν εἰς Θεὸν μετάνοιαν (Acts 20:21.) In all these passages, it is μετάνοια or the cognate verb, which is employed, not μεταμέλεια and μεταμέλομαι; and this, no doubt, because the former more significantly and correctly indicated the change intended than the latter. Both, indeed, by etymology and usage μετάνοια points more to the change itself in thought and purpose, while μεταμέλεια fixes attention chiefly on the concern or regret, which the consideration of the past has awakened. Of itself, μετάνοια expresses nothing as to the nature of the change, in what particular direction taken, or how far in that direction carried: this is left to be determined by the connexion, or from the nature of the case. In the New Testament it is always used in a good sense, and in reference to a sincere practical reformation of mind and conduct. Not this, however, in the aspect of a change wrought by the power of God, but rather in its relation to human responsibilities, as an amendment that men are bound to aim at and strive after; hence the verb is used in the imperative; the thing to be done is bound as an obligation upon men’s consciences. The other verb, μεταμέλομαι is never so used—the thought it expresses being a matter of suffering rather than of action, the recoil of feeling or inward sorrow and dissatisfaction which rushes upon the soul’s consciousness, when a past course of transgression is seen in its true light. Whenever the μετάνοια is of the right description, there will always, of necessity, be something of this sort; since it is impossible for the mind to turn from the love and practice of sin, to even the heartfelt desire after righteousness, without a certain degree of sorrow and remorse. But, from the varieties that exist in human temperaments, and the diversified effects apt to be produced by the circumstances of life, no definite measure or uniform rule can be laid down in this respect; there may be considerably less of such conscious and painful regret in some cases than in others, where the change is alike genuine; and there may also be a good deal of it where there is no actual μετάνοια—the recoil of feeling passing away without leading to any permanent result. Accordingly it is not the μεταμέλεια, but the μετάνοια, which is indispensably required of those who would find a place in the Messiah’s kingdom—a μετάνοια, as is expressed in 2 Corinthians 7:10, εὶς σωτηρίαν ἀμεταμέλητος, a repentance unto salvation not to be repented of. The word repentance, however, as is evident from the preceding remarks, is but an imperfect synonym for μετάνοια, it does not sufficiently distinguish between this and μεταμέλεια in the respects wherein they differ, but gives a partial indication of the import of both. As commonly understood, it points fully as much to the sorrow or regret which ensues upon a proper change of mind, as to the change itself. Yet we have no other word that can fitly take its place; for, though reformation or amendment may seem more closely to correspond with the original, and have been formally proposed as a better rendering, they carry the thoughts too much outward to meet with general approval as a substitute for repentance. It is the excellence of this last, as a translation of μετάνοια, that however otherwise defective, it points inward, and marks the state of the soul—not merely of the outward behavior—as different from what it formerly was: it is expressive of a changed action of the heart in respect to sin and holiness; only it leaves the action in a state of incompleteness, as if it had respect merely to the evil perceived to have existed in the past. It is right, however, as far as it goes. He who repents has come to see that to be evil which he previously loved and followed as good; and it is only necessary to think of this altered bent of mind, as taking a direction toward the future equally with the past, in order to find in the term repentance, which is used to express it, a fair representation of the New Testament μετάνοια. The call to this μετάνοια, as necessary for admission into the Messiah’s kingdom, proceeds on the existence of a state of alienation and disorder in respect to the things of God; it implies, that the νοήματα, the thoughts and intents of the mind, have gone in the wrong direction, and must be turned back upon the right objects. As a people the Jews were in such a state when the call was originally addressed to them; arid, notwithstanding the call, they, for the most part, continued to abide in it. In respect to the state itself, however, there was nothing singular in their case; the same alienation of heart belongs naturally to every individual, and the spiritual change, or conversion, which consists in its abandonment, is the one door-way for all into the kingdom. The great question—when once the heart has begun to grapple in earnest with the Divine call—is how the change is to be effected? It is man’s duty and interest to have it done; for till it is done, he is an enemy of God, a child of perdition; and to bestir himself to the task of reformation is his immediate and paramount concern. But if in reality he does so, he will presently find that other powers than his own are needed for the end in view; he can himself see the necessity for the change, can think with sorrow and remorse of the errors of the past, can anticipate with dread the dangers of the future, can wish and pray that it were otherwise with him—but nothing comes to perfection, unless the effort to convert bring the soul into contact with the regenerating grace of God, and make it conscious of a vital influence from above.
II. It is this second, but most important stage in the process, that is marked in the next term—παλιγγενεσία or regeneration. Considered doctrinally, either of these terms might be made to include the other, and the one or the other might indifferently be put first. Regeneration might be represented as necessary to conversion, and determining what belongs to it; since it is only when the Divine element implied in regeneration works upon the soul, that the conversion it undergoes is sufficiently deep and earnest to be lasting. On the other hand, conversion, if viewed in its entire compass and perfected results, must be made to comprehend, as well the regenerating grace that effects the change, as the desires and struggles of the soul, while travailing in birth for its accomplishment. But, viewed in the order of nature, and also as commonly represented in Scripture, the μετάνοια, or conversion, must be placed first; for it is with this that man’s responsibilities have immediately to do: and it is in addressing himself to the things connected with it, that he is driven out ofhimself, and brought to surrender himself to the working of that Divine power on which he depends for the necessary result. Scripture never puts regeneration, or what is implied in regeneration, before conversion; but it does press the work of conversion, as in some sense prior to the possession of a regenerated state:—as in the original call of the Baptist to repent, or be converted, that men might be prepared for the baptism of the Spirit; or in St. Peter’s address to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, exhorting them to convert and be baptized, that they might receive the gift of the Spirit. Of course, when so represented, conversion is to be understood as spoken of only in respect to its initial stages, and as a work demanding men’s earnest application; in which respect it may be said to “precede regeneration, and to be the condition and qualification for it;” (Mozley on Baptismal Regeneration, p. 58.)—if by condition and qualification we understand simply that without which, on the sinner’s part, he has no valid reason to expect the further and higher good implied in regeneration. And there is undoubtedly this further difference implied in the terms themselves, that, while conversion is a change of mind which, so far as the mind that experiences it is concerned may possibly change again, regeneration is a change of state, a new being—and so, we may say, carries the idea of fixedness and perpetuity in its bosom. The term itself παλιγγενεσία, which exactly answers to our regeneration, is found only twice in the New Testament (Matthew 19:28; Titus 3:5,) and in the second alone of the two cases, has it respect to spiritual renovation. There are, however, various other expressions which are employed to indicate the same thing. In point of time, the first was that used by our Lord in His conversation with Nicodemus—one also of the most explicit—in which he declared the necessity for every one who would enter His kingdom, of being born again. ̓́Ανωθεν γεννηθῆναι is the expression used, and is most exactly rendered, perhaps, born afresh—but obviously all one as to meaning with πάλιν γεννηθῆναι , for both alike indicate a kind of starting anew into being, or re-entering upon life, in some new and higher sense. In the explanations given immediately after by our Lord, it is connected with water and the Spirit—with the Spirit alone, however, as the effective agent; for He calls it “a birth of the Spirit,” as contradistinguished from a birth of the flesh (John 3:6;) and, after referring for illustration to the somewhat similar operation of the wind in nature, He sums up by saying, “So is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). The Evangelist John himself, John 1:13, says of all genuine believers, ἐκ Θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν, they were born of God, and that in a manner different from every form of natural generation. So again in his first Epistle, 1 John 5:4, the believer, on account of his faith, is “born of God.” In 1 Peter 1:23, and James 1:18, the new birth is asserted equally of all Christians, and ascribed directly to God, but connected instrumentally with the operation of the word (διὰ λόγου or λόγῳ ἀλληθείας.) So, still further, St. Paul, who not only designates believers once and again “new creatures” (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15;) but in the passage already referred to, Titus 3:5, characterizes the change that passes on them, when they become true Christians, as a regeneration. The whole passage runs thus: “After that the kindness and love toward man (φιλανθρωπία) of our Saviour God (τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Θεοῦ) appeared; not by works of righteousness which we did (ἐποιήσαμεν,) but according to His mercy He saved us—διὰ λουτροῦ παλιγγενεσίας καὶ ἀνανκαινώσεως πνεύματος ἁγίου— through washing (or laver) of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” The whole of these passages describe in terms substantially alike, the spiritual change which passes over those who become Christ’s true people; differing only in connecting it, some more immediately with the word, understood and received in faith, others with the baptismal font or water. As this connexion can only be of a subordinate and instrumental kind, it does not affect the nature of the thing itself, which must be determined by the plain import of the language employed concerning it. But the language, in its plain import, undoubtedly expresses an actual change—a new birth; not the mere capacity for such, but its realized possession. Were this παλιγγενεσία any thing short of a work of God, brought into actual existence in the case of the person who is the subject of it, the term would be an entire misnomer, such as we cannot conceive to have a place in the volume of inspiration. But this becomes still more certain, and is established beyond all reasonable doubt, when along with the natural import of the language we couple what is said of those, who have undergone the regenerating change. “He that is born of God,” says the Apostle John, “doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.” And, he adds, “in this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil; whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God.” (1 John 3:9-10.) In like manner St. Paul describes the sons of God as those, who are led by the Spirit of God, and declares that if any have not this Spirit they are none of His (Romans 8:9, Romans 8:14.) Not only so, but he characterizes them, on the ground of their regeneration, as dead to sin, risen again with Christ to walk in newness of life, and already sitting together with Him in heavenly places (Romans 6:4; Ephesians 2:6; Colossians 2:12.) The apostles of our Lord can no longer be regarded as persons, who used great plainness of speech, or even gave intelligible utterance to their thoughts, if such expressions were employed by them to denote any thing else than an actual change from death to life, from sin to holiness;—if nothing more was meant, for example, than the bestowal of some mysterious gift or capacity, which might be held by the worst in common with the best of men—by one who continues practically a child of the devil, as well as by him who breathes the spirit and does the works of a child of God. “Such a monstrous perversion of language,” it has been justly said, “would never approve itself to any one, who did not come to this subject with his mind pre-occupied with a particular” view. But it is in vain, that Scripture is plain and express to the effect, that the Divine gift of regeneration is actual holiness, so long as men are pre-occupied with an idea, that actual holiness cannot be a Divine gift. They will go on to the last, not seeing the plainest assertions of Scripture as to the nature of regeneration.” (Mozley on Baptismal Regeneration, pp. 29, 30.)
It can serve no good purpose, therefore, to dwell longer on this aspect of the matter; since exegetical efforts must be altogether misspent in endeavouring to impart light to those who cannot afford to see. But in regard to the point of the instrumental relationship of regeneration to the Divine ordinances, we may remark, that while it is specially and frequently connected with baptism, it is not connected with that ordinance alone; the Word of God equally shares in the honour. It is not to be denied, that when our Lord speaks of being born of water and spirit, and when St. Paul couples the laver with regeneration, and represents believers as being buried and rising again with Christ, a close relationship is established between Christian baptism and. spiritual regeneration. But there are other passages referred to above, which equally connect it with the word of the Gospel, of which also it is said generally, that it is “the power of God to salvation to every one that believeth,”—that it is “quick, powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword,”—that it is even “spirit and life.” Nothing stronger than this is said of baptism in respect to regeneration; so that the relationship of baptism to the spiritual change is by no means exclusive; and as the change itself is inward and vital, neither baptism nor the word can have more than a subordinate and instrumental relation to it. As to efficacious power, it is “the spirit that quickeneth,”—not, however, apart from the ordinances, but in connexion with their instrumentality; nor yet by indissoluble union and invariable efficiency through these, but in such manner and ways as seem good to Him who quickeneth whom He will. It is enough for us to know, that in this spiritual birth, as in the natural, the internal links itself with the external, the Divine with the human; so that if the word is honestly handled, and the sacrament of baptism believingly received and used, the spiritual effect will infallibly result. When so received and used, baptism saves, and the baptized are regenerated, because the manifested grace of God meets with a suitable recipiency, on the part of man; as also the word of truth brings salvation, quickens and renews, when its promises of grace and blessing are rested on in humble faith. But abstract the supposition, which is commonly made in Scripture, of this faithful and honest dealing with these ordinances of God, and there is nothing of regenerative power or saving effect in either; the hearer of the word only treasures up for himself a heavier condemnation, and the baptized, so far from rising to newness of life, remains, even when baptized by an apostle, in “the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.”
There is, doubtless, so far a difference in the scriptural statements referred to, as to the relation in which baptism and the word respectively stand to regeneration, that the former, being a symbolical and sealing ordinance, it more distinctly and personally exhibits the things connected with the soul’s regeneration. It has somewhat of the nature of a covenant transaction, in which the individual presents himself, or is presented by others, for a personal participation in the regenerating grace exhibited in the ordinance; and personally, or through others for him, professes to accept what is there offered to his hand, and engages to act accordingly. Contemplating the matter, therefore, as an honest transaction a transaction—in which the human subject seems truthfully to respond to the Divine condescension and favour shown him—our Lord and His apostles represent baptism as, according to its true idea, an instrument or channel of regeneration, and speak of those as regenerate persons who have in sincerity complied with it. But that is a very different thing from saying, that baptism, simply as an ordinance, carries regeneration in its bosom, or that all who have passed through the outward rite are regenerate. Such language is in Scripture applied only to those who have actually been born of the Spirit, or who, in the judgment of faith and charity, may be considered to have been so born again. And precisely on account of regeneration being thus essentially a Divine work, in which man, as a spiritual being, has to be the recipient, through the grace of the Spirit operating vitally within, it is not directly laid as an obligation upon his conscience. He is entreated and bound to do the things, which, in their full compass, involve it, and which also bring him into immediate contact with the living agency that works it; but for the change itself the actual regeneration of his soul to God—he must be a partaker and not a doer, become a subject of the Spirit’s renewing grace.
III. This interconnexion, however, between the human and the Divine, as directly related to men’s responsibilities, comes out in the next term of the series, ἀνακαίνωσις, which is occasionally, though not very frequently, used in New Testament Scripture. In the passage cited from the Epistle to Titus, it is coupled with παλιγγενεσία, and placed after it, as denoting something consecutive—a carrying forward of the regeneration to its proper completion; which again brings us into the region of human responsibility and active working. For, while it belongs to God, through the internal agency of His Spirit, to implant the principle of divine life in the soul, it belongs to man not independently, indeed, and as at his own hand, but in connexion with the promised grace of God—to guard, and nourish to perfection the gift conferred upon him. Hence this ἀνακαίνωσις is matter of express command; for example, in Ephesians 4:23, where the apostle charges believers—who had already “been taught as the truth is in Jesus” to “renew themselves (ἀνανεοῦσθαι) in the spirit of their mind;” and in Romans 12:2, they are called to be transformed, or to transform themselves, in the renewing of their mind (τῆ ἀνακαινώσει τοῦ νοός.) This growing renewal of mind and spirit, which is only rendered possible by a preceding regeneration, it is the imperative duty of every believer to press forward; it should be the object of his daily watchings, strivings, and prayers, which, if rightly directed, shall have for their great end his progressive advancement in the divine life, and assimilation to the image of his Father in heaven.
We have here to note the manner in which the new life of Christianity has formed for itself a language, to give adequate expression to the thoughts and aspirations it has awakened. Of the two words just mentioned, one of them ἀνακαίνωσις, is found only in the New Testament, as is also the verb ἀνακαινόω. The classical word for expressing a somewhat similar action of mind, was ἀνακαινίζω, which occurs in Hebrews 6:6, but is found nowhere else in the New Testament. It was, we may conceive, felt to be too feeble, or, from its ordinary application, indicative of too partial and defective an improvement, to bring out the Christian sense that was meant to be conveyed; and so a distinct word, of the same root, but with a different termination, was brought into requisition. The other word, παλιγγενεσία, was, indeed, employed by heathen writers, but in a sense so inferior, that it may be said to have become instinct with new meaning, when turned in a Christian direction. As employed elsewhere, it expresses such renovations as take place, from time to time, within the natural sphere, and on the same line of things with itself. Thus Cicero, on the close of his exile, and referring to his restoration to honour and dignity, speaks of hanc παλιγγενεσίαν nostram (Ad Attic, 6:6.) In like manner, Josephus applies the word to that political resuscitation, which was granted to his people and country, on the return from the Babylonish captivity (Ant. 11:3, 9.) Marcus Antoninus and the Stoics generally designated the revivals, which, at shorter or longer intervals, occur in the constitution and order of earthly things, and which they believed would ultimately become fixed, τὴν περιοδικὴν παλιγγενεσίαν τῶν ὄλων, the periodical regeneration of the world. And approaching a step nearer, though basing itself on a fanciful foundation, it was the doctrine of the Pythagoreans, as we learn from Plutarch (De Em. Cat. i. 7)—part of their general doctrine of the transmigration of souls—that there was a παλιγγενεσία to each particular person when his soul returned to the body, and again made its appearance on the theatre of an earthly existence. From such applications of the word, one sees at a glance what an elevation was given to it when it entered into the sphere of Christian ideas, and came to denote that high moral renovation, which Christ ever seeks to accomplish in His people—the formation in them of a life fashioned after the life of God. Here we find ourselves in another region than that of nature’s feebleness and corruption; the supernatural mingles with the natural; and the earthly in man’s being is transformed, so as to receive the tone and impress of the heavenly. But the παλιγγενεσία of the gospel, and its attendant ἀνακαίνωσις, do not stop here; while commencing with the soul of the individual believer, they thenceforth proceed to other operations and results. The internal renovation is but the beginning of a process, which is to extend far and wide—to spread with regenerating power through all the relations and departments of social life—to defecate and transfigure the corporeal frame itself into the fit habitation of an immortal spirit—yea, and embrace the whole domain of external nature, which it will invest with the imperishable glory of a new creation. It was this more extended and comprehensive application of the word παλιγγενεσία, which was made by our Lord in Matthew 19:28, when He gave assurance to the disciples of the immortal honour and dignity that was to be their position in the closing issues of His kingdom, “Verily, I say unto you, that ye who have followed Me, in the regeneration (παλιγγενεσία)—when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” It was a prevalent opinion among the Fathers, that by regeneration here, our Lord pointed explicitly to the resurrection of the body. Thus Augustine, De Civ. Dei. 20:5, “When he says, in the regeneration, beyond doubt He wishes to be understood thereby the resurrection from the dead; for thus shall our flesh be regenerated through incorruption, even as our soul has been regenerated by faith.” To the like effect Jerome, who says on the passage, “In the regeneration, that is, when the dead shall rise incorruptible from corruption.” Gregory, Theophylact, Euthymius, and others, follow in the same line. It is, however, too narrow a reference to give to our Lord’s words. The resurrection of the body is, doubtless, implied in what He says; for when the Son of Man sits upon the throne of His glory, or is manifested in His kingly state, the saints shall certainly have been raised up to sit with Him; according to the testimony of the apostle, “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory.” Undoubtedly, too, the resurrection may be fitly designated a regeneration; as it shall be in the most emphatic sense a renovating of the old, casting it entirely into a fresh mould, and giving it a kind of second birth, unspeakably better than the first. So, the apostle Paul in effect, though not in express terms, calls it, when in Romans 8:23, he speaks of the general body of believers groaning in themselves, and “waiting for the adoption, the redemption of the body;” as if their proper filiation only began then, and not till it took place did they fairly enter into the state and heritage of the sons of God. Then only indeed shall they reach it in its completeness, or in respect to their entire personality. The regeneration is already theirs; it is theirs from the first moment of their spiritual life, in so far as their souls are concerned, but still only as in a mystery; since the corporeal and visible part of their natures continues as before, in the frailty and corruption of the fall. At the resurrection, however, this anomalous state of things shall be terminated; the old man shall in this respect also be exchanged for the new; and the children of the regeneration shall at last look like their state and destiny—they shall possess the visible seal of their adoption, in the redemption of their bodies from the law of mortality and corruption. On these accounts, the resurrection of the body may fitly be called a παλιγγενεσία; it is certainly to be included in the general renovation, which the Lord will introduce at the proper time; but it is this general renovation itself, not simply the resurrection of the body, which is to be understood as pointed to in the declaration of our Lord. The παλιγγενεσία there mentioned is the bringing in of what is elsewhere called the new heavens and the new earth, the constitution of every thing after a new and higher pattern; in consequence of which, that which is in part shall be done away, evil in every form shall be abolished, and universal peace, harmony, and perfection established. For, such is the proper issue and consummation of Christ’s work, who, as the Lord’s anointed, has received from the Father the heritage of all things, and received it, not to retain them in their state of corruption and disorder, but to rectify and bless them; so that, throughout the entire domain, there shall be nothing to hurt and offend, and all shall reflect the spotless glory of their Divine Head.
IV. The regeneration in this large and general sense is much of the same import as another word—the last we have to notice in this connexion—ἀποκατάστασις. The noun occurs, indeed, only once with reference to the work of Christ (Acts 3:21;) but the verb is found, on two occasions, with a somewhat similar reference. In Matthew 17:11, our Lord replied to a question respecting Elias, “Elias indeed cometh and restoreth (or shall restore—ἀποκαθιστάνει, Mark; ἀποκαταστήσει, Matt.) all things. It was the purpose or destination for which John came that Christ here speaks of; His mission was of a restorative nature, being appointed in respect to a people, who had gone away backward, and were practically in a state of alienation, first from the God of their fathers, and then from these fathers themselves. To turn again this tide of degeneracy, and bring the hearts of the people into a friendly relationship as well to God, as to their pious ancestors, was the special calling of this new Elias; he came to the intent, that He might restore all things to their normal state of allegiance to God, and mutual respondency between parent and child (Luke 1:16-17.) But in respect to the event, all was marred by the perverseness and carnality of the people; they frustrated the grace of God, and did to the Elias “whatever they listed.” In this case, it was plainly but a provisional moral restoration that was meant to be accomplished; but even this was arrested in its course, and only in a very partial manner reached its end.
Still more immediately, however, in connexion with Messiah’s work, we find the expression used by the apostles after the resurrection, when they asked Christ, “Lord, dost Thon at this time restore the kingdom to Israel (εἰ ἐν τῷ χρόνῳ τούτῳ ἀ ποκαθιστάνεις τὴν βασιλείαν τῷ ̓Ισραήλ)?” The answer returned simply conveyed a rebuke for their too prying curiosity regarding the future, and an instruction as to present duty: “It is not for you to know the times and seasons, which the Father has put in His own power; but ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost comes upon you,” etc In short, there was to be no ἀποκατάστασις such as they were looking for, of a present resuscitation of the temporal kingdom; and for themselves, they had other and higher things to mind, for which the needed power was shortly to be conferred on them from above. They were not on this account, however, discharged from expecting an ἀποκατάστασις —only it was to be one (as they themselves soon understood,) which carried in its bosom the elements of a nobler renovation fresh successions of spiritual revival in the first instance, and these culminating at last, in a complete, final restitution. So, in a comparatively brief period, the Apostle Peter gave expression to his views, and showed the vast moral elevation that had been imparted to him by the descent of the Spirit: “Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come (ὅπως ἄν ἔλθωσιν καιροὶ ἀναψύζεως) from the presence of the Lord; and He may send Jesus Christ that before was preached unto you; whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things (ἀποκατάστασεως πάντων,) of which (of which times) God spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, since the world began (or, from the earliest times.”) The slightest inspection may convince any one, that this was spoken under the direction of a far more enlightened and elevating impulse, than that which dictated the question, “Wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” In the one case there is a manifest savouring of the things of the flesh, in the other, of those of the Spirit; the first thoughts were characterized by a narrow exclusiveness, and a desire for some sort of temporal ascendency, while in the latter there is a noble breathing after things heavenly and divine, a just appreciation of the spiritual in comparison of the earthly, and a lively expectation of the complete triumph over all evil yet to be effected by the presence and power of the glorified Redeemer. The ἀποκατάστασις now looked and longed for by the apostles was nothing short of a general and thorough renovation the same, that prophets had from the first been heralding, when they pointed to the glory which was to follow the obedience and sufferings of the Redeemer—a re-establishment of the original order and blessedness of the world, or its final deliverance from all the troubles and disorders thatafflict it, and along therewith its elevation to a higher even than its primeval condition. But the general carries no antagonism to the particular; the restitution of all things now hoped for should also be, in the truest sense, the restitution of the kingdom to Israel. For, in Christ all that is really Israel s, finds its proper centre and its ultimate destination; where He, the King of Zion is, there is Israel’s ascendency, Israel’s seed of blessing, Israel’s distinctive glory; and the best and highest thing for Jew and Gentile alike is to share in the dominion of Christ, and with him to possess the kingdom. To sum up, then, in regard to this series of words so peculiarly indicative, as a whole, of the nature and tendency of the Gospel of Christ:—The generic idea of renovation, or radical change from a worse to a better state, is here presented to our view under successive stages and developments. We see it beginning in the region of the inner man—in the awakening of a sense of guilt and danger, with earnest strivings after amendment (μετάνοια) then, through the operation of the grace of God, it discovers itself in a regenerated frame of spirit, the possession of an essentially new spiritual condition (παλιγγενεσία) this, once found, proceeds by continual advances and fresh efforts to higher and higher degrees of spiritual renovation (ἀνακαίνωσις) while, according to the gracious plan and wise disposal of God, the internal links itself to the external, the renovation of soul paves the way for the purification of nature, until, the work of grace being finished, and the number of the elect completed, the bodies also of the saints shall be transformed, and the whole material creation shall become a fit habitation for redeemed and glorified saints (ἀποκατάστασις.) What a large and divine-like grasp in this regenerative scheme! How unlike the littleness and superficiality of man! How clearly bespeaking the profound insight and far-reaching wisdom of God! And this not merely in its ultimate results, but in the method also and order of its procedure! In beginning with the inner man, and laying the chief stress on a regenerated heart, it takes possession of the fountainhead of evil, and rectifies that which most of all requires the operation of a renewing agency. As in the moral sphere, the evil had its commencement, so in the same sphere are the roots planted of all the renovation, that is to develop itself in the history of the kingdom. And the spiritual work once properly accomplished, all that remains to be done shall follow in due time; Satan shall be finally cast out; and on the ruins of his usurped dominion, the glories of the new creation shall shine forth in their eternal lustre.
