Message Ten

The Washing of Regeneration
and the Renewing of the Holy Spirit

Scripture Reading: Titus 3:5

1. In 1 Timothy the church is stressed, in 2 Timothy the Scripture, and in Titus the Holy Spirit:
   1. The church is the house of the living God, expressing God in the flesh, and is the pillar and base of the truth, the divine reality of the great mystery—God manifested in the flesh—1 Tim. 3:15-16.
   2. The Scripture is the breath of God, containing and conveying His divine essence for our nourishing and equipping to make us perfect and complete for His use—2 Tim. 3:15-17.
   3. The Holy Spirit is the divine person, washing and renewing us in the divine element to make us a new creation with the divine nature, that we might be heirs of God in His eternal life, inheriting all the riches of the Triune God—Titus 3:4-7.
2. “Not out of works in righteousness which we did but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit”—v. 5:
   1. The Greek word for regeneration here refers to a change from one state to another; being born again is the commencing of this change—cf. Matt. 19:28:
      1. 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, a process that makes us a new man; it is a kind of reconditioning, remaking, or remodeling, with life.
      2. Baptism (Rom. 6:3-5), the putting off of the old man, the putting on of the new man (Eph. 4:22, 24; Col. 3:9-11), and transformation by the renewing of the mind (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23) are all related to this wonderful process.
   2. The washing of regeneration purges away all the things of the old nature of our old man, and the renewing of the Holy Spirit imparts something new—the divine essence of the new man—into our being:
      1. In this is a passing from our old state into a wholly new one, from the old creation into the status of a new creation.
      2. Hence, both the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit are working in us continually throughout our life until the completion of the new creation.
   3. Regeneration is a washing in God’s salvation, and this washing is a great renewing of the believers by God’s salvation to enable them to get rid of all that is of their natural life and the old creation and become God’s new creation—Titus 3:5; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15.
3. We are in the process of being renewed day by day with the divine element by the renewing of the Holy Spirit through sufferings to become the New Jerusalem—2 Cor. 4:16-18; Rev. 21:2:
   1. God is newness, and newness is God; the old creation has nothing of God in it, but the new creation is constituted with God—2 Cor. 5:17; Ezek. 36:26; Matt. 9:17; Eph. 2:15; 2 Cor. 3:6; Rev. 21:2:
      1. In order to be renewed day by day through the renewing of the Holy Spirit mingled with our spirit, we need to walk according to the spirit in newness of life and serve in newness of spirit—Rom. 6:4; 7:6:
         1. Everything related to our regenerated spirit is new, and everything that comes out of our spirit is new; our regenerated spirit is a source of newness because the Lord, the life of God, and the Holy Spirit are there—2 Tim. 4:22; Rom. 8:10, 16.
         2. Whatever we are, whatever we do, and whatever we have must be in spirit; everything that God is to us is in our spirit—1:9; 2:28-29.
      2. Through regeneration, our spirit has become a part of God’s new creation, but not our soul; we need to be renewed in the spirit of our mind (the leading part of our soul) by allowing our mingled spirit to spread into our mind to make our soul a part of the new creation—Eph. 4:23.
   2. We need to be renewed by having God’s ever-new essence dispensed into us to replace our old element:
      1. The Spirit of God renews the believers by infusing their inward parts with God’s attributes, which are forever new, can never become old, and are everlasting and unfading—Titus 3:5b; Rom. 12:2a; Eph. 5:26-27.
      2. The Spirit of God renews the believers by causing them to pass through the death of Christ on the cross, the discipline of the Spirit of God in the environment, and the metabolic dispensing of the Spirit as life, that they may be renewed day by day by putting off the oldness of the old creation and living out the newness of life of the new creation—2 Cor. 4:16; Rom. 6:4; cf. Prov. 4:18.
   3. God’s purpose in dealing with His people is that He wants His people to gain Him, partake of Him, possess Him, and enjoy Him more and more, rather than all things, until their enjoyment reaches the fullest extent, as the divine revelation ultimately unveils in the New Testament, that His people may ultimately become the New Jerusalem—Phil. 3:7-14; 2 Cor. 4:16-17; Rev. 21:2.
   4. God’s intention is to tear down every aspect of our natural man and to rebuild us with Himself to make us a new man, a part of God’s new creation, to fulfill God’s eternal economy for God’s expression—2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15:
      1. God’s appearing to Job implied that He wanted to help Job to know that he was in the wrong realm, the realm of building up himself as a man in the old creation in his perfection, uprightness, and integrity—Job 1:1; 42:5-6.
      2. Job glorified himself in these things, but God considered them frustrations to be stripped away so that Job might receive God in His nature, life, element, and essence and be metabolically transformed to be a God-man, a man in the new creation, expressing God and dispensing Him into others—3:1; 19:9; 2 Cor. 4:16; 3:6.
      3. Job’s hope had been to build up the “tree” of his integrity, but God would not allow such a tree to grow within Job; rather, God had plucked up this tree, this hope; although God was stripping Job, He surely was not angry with him; neither did God consider Job His adversary but His intimate friend—Job 19:10-11; Ezek. 14:14, 20; James 5:11; Job 10:13; cf. Eph. 3:9.
   5. While we are in the midst of suffering, we need to receive the renewing; otherwise, the suffering we pass through means nothing to us; we need to be thoroughly and absolutely renewed day by day through the renewing of the Holy Spirit to be as new as the New Jerusalem—Rev. 21:2.