First Peter 1:3 reveals that our regeneration took place “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead.” It is crucial for us to realize that we were regenerated when Christ was resurrected. This means that, in the sight of God, we were regenerated before we were born, since Christ’s resurrection was our regeneration. Before we became part of the old creation through our natural birth, we were already a part of the new creation through Christ’s resurrection. Thus, our regeneration was accomplished once for all more than nineteen centuries ago. In our experience we may have been reborn some years ago, but from the divine perspective our regeneration was fully accomplished when Christ was resurrected. Our experience of regeneration is based fully upon the fact that it has already been accomplished through the resurrection of Christ.
When Christ was resurrected, we, His believers, were all included in Him. Thus, we were resurrected with Him (Eph. 2:6). In His resurrection Christ imparted the divine life into us and made us the same as He is in life and in nature. This is the basic factor of our regeneration.
Christ’s resurrection was a birth both for Him as the firstborn Son of God and for us as the many sons of God. Therefore, the resurrection of Christ may be considered a universal delivery, a universal birth. In this birth Christ as the firstborn Son of God and the believers as the many sons of God were brought forth. Of course, as the only begotten Son, Christ was the Son of God from eternity past. Nevertheless, in His humanity He was born as the firstborn Son of God through His resurrection. It was through this resurrection that the believers were regenerated by God the Father.
The believers in Christ are regenerated of the water of baptism to terminate the old man. In John 3:5 the Lord Jesus tells us that we need to be “born of water and the Spirit.” Here water refers to the water of baptism, which terminates and buries our old man. After our old man has been terminated and buried, we can be reborn as part of the new creation.
Water is the central sign of the ministry of John the Baptist, that is, to bury and terminate people of the old creation. In his ministry John the Baptist came to baptize with water. He told people that they had to repent and realize that they were fallen and good for nothing except burial. Those who heard John’s preaching and repented were baptized in water. This means that as sinful, fallen men of the old creation, they were being terminated.
John also told people that his ministry was for the ministry of the Lord Jesus. The termination of our old life is for the germination of the divine life within us. The center of the ministry of the Lord Jesus is the Spirit, that is, to germinate people with a new life in the new creation.
Regeneration, then, is to terminate people of the old creation with all their deeds and to germinate them in the new creation with the divine life. Whenever a person repents, confessing that he is a sinner who is good only for burial, he is accepting John’s ministry. After repenting, he must believe in the Lord Jesus and accept His ministry of life in order to be germinated. This is to be terminated by John’s ministry through water and to be germinated by Jesus’ ministry through the Spirit. This is what it means to be born of water and of the Spirit.
The believers have been regenerated to be washed from all the old, negative things. This washing is the “washing of regeneration” spoken of in Titus 3:5. The Greek word for “regeneration” here is different from that for born again in 1 Peter 1:23. The only other place this word is used is in Matthew 19:28 for the restoration in the millennium. In Titus 3:5 this word refers to a change from one state of things to another. To be born again is the beginning of this change. The washing of regeneration begins with our being born again and continues with the renewing of the Holy Spirit as the process of God’s new creation to make us a new man. The washing of regeneration organically and metabolically purges away the old things of our natural life and of our old man, and the renewing of the Holy Spirit imparts something new—the divine essence of the new creation—into our being. In this is a passage from the old state we were in into a wholly new one, from the old creation into the status of a new creation. Hence, both the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit are a continual working in us throughout our life until the completion of the new creation.