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C. THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF REGENERATION.
Relative to the nature of regeneration there are several misconceptions which should be
avoided. It may be well to mention these first, before stating the positive qualifications of this
re-creative work of God.
1. MISCONCEPTIONS.
(a) Regeneration is not a change in the substance of human nature, as
was taught by the Manichæans and in the days of the Reformation by Flacius Illyricus, who
conceived of original sin as a substance, to be replaced by another substance in regeneration.
No new physical seed or germ is implanted in man; neither is there any addition to, or
subtraction from, the faculties of the soul. (b) Neither is it simply a change in one or more of
the faculties of the soul, as, for instance, of the emotional life (feeling or heart), by removing
the aversion to divine things, as some evangelicals conceive of it; or of the intellect, by
illuminating the mind that is darkened by sin, as the Rationalists regard it. It affects the heart,
understood in the Scriptural sense of the word, that is, as the central and all-controlling organ
of the soul, out of which are the issues of life. This means that it affects human nature as a
whole. (c) Nor is it a complete or perfect change of the whole nature of man, or of any part of
it, so that it is no more capable of sin, as was taught by the extreme Anabaptists and by some
other fanatical sects. This does not mean that it does not in principle affect the entire nature of
man, but only that it does not constitute the whole change that is wrought in man by the
operation of the Holy Spirit. It does not comprise conversion and sanctification.
2. POSITIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF REGENERATION.
The following positive assertions may be
made respecting regeneration:
a. Regeneration consists in the implanting of the principle of the new spiritual life in man, in a
radical change of the governing disposition of the soul, which, under the influence of the Holy
Spirit, gives birth to a life that moves in a Godward direction. In principle this change affects the
whole man: the intellect, I Cor. 2:14,15; II Cor. 4:6; Eph. 1:18; Col. 3:10; the will, Ps. 110:3; Phil.
2:13; II Thess. 3:5; Heb. 13:21; and the feelings or emotions, Ps. 42:1,2; Matt. 5:4; I Pet. 1:8.
b. It is an instantaneous change of man’s nature, affecting at once the whole man,
intellectually, emotionally, and morally. The assertion that regeneration is an instantaneous
change implies two things: (1) that it is not a work that is gradually prepared in the soul, as the
Roman Catholics and all Semi-Pelagians teach; there is no intermediate stage between life and
death; one either lives or is dead; and (2) that it is not a gradual process like sanctification. It is
true that some Reformed authors have occasionally used the term “regeneration” as including
even sanctification, but that was in the days when the ordo salutis was not as fully developed as
it is to-day.