The Savior God saves us by the washing of regeneration. Water came out of the dead side of Christ, figure of the Word of life. The word cleanses, but it is by death. The sentence of death is written upon the flesh, morally purifying the man from sin, and cleansing his faculties; and hearing the voice of the Son of God the man lives of a new life. Not life that was in Adam, but life that is in the Son of God. This is the washing of regeneration. It is the word of the Son that came out of His dead side for every creature under heaven, that makes itself heard in the soul, and produces life there; but a life that purifies the man and his faculties, through the death of Christ, from the sin that is in him, and thus acts in leading him to repentance, for he is sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ made once (Heb. 10:10).
But this alone does not save the Christian, or make him a Christian as distinct from a believer of the Old Testament, or from a millennial saint. There is the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which God hath shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. This takes out of the sphere of earth altogether, and makes the Christian a heavenly man. An Old Testament saint was born again, but remained (as to his standing) in the flesh, and an earthly man, as waiting for the Messiah. Consequently, Moses, Joshua, David, etc., though born again, remained Jews. New birth did not take them out of Judaism. Their ordinary title was that of “just men.” A millennial saint besides having new birth, will stand as sanctified through the offering of Jesus Christ, but still in an earthly state, and for an earthly position, having the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice applied to him, but for earthly blessing. But a Christian besides having this PALINGENESIAN (regeneration, cp. Matt. 19:28) applied to him, possesses the ANAKAINOSIN i.e. RENEWAL OF THE HOLY GHOST: compare John 20:22.
This is a renewal that takes him out of the earthly sphere of things altogether, and makes him one with Christ and the Son in heaven. It is an ANAKAINOSIS; not only a new nature, but a taking the man out from the earthly order of things altogether, that is in Spirit. He is no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in him. As to the fullness of the life, he is quickened together with Christ, (though I have no doubt this takes in also the PALINGENESIAN (regeneration,) he is raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ. He is created anew in Christ Jesus (not merely born) unto good works which God hath before ordained that he should walk in them. The Holy Ghost, besides this, dwells in the believer as a distinct Person; gives him the knowledge of his place of oneness and position with the Son; bears witness with his spirit that he is a child of God (Rom. 8); gives him the knowledge of the things freely given to him of God (1 Cor. 2:12); and his body becomes the temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. 6:19). There is liberty now, no longer bondage; the knowledge of salvation, not hoping to get it (Rom. 8:16, 2 Cor.3:17). But this gift comes through its proper channel, that is through Jesus Christ our Savior, God’s glorified Man at the right hand of God. He had shed His blood, which the believer accepts and rests upon, and which as a result purges his conscience, so that he has boldness and access for and into the holiest.
He is justified by God’s grace; the death, resurrection and glorification of Christ is applied to him in all its value in the reckoning of God. He is cleared from his sins, dead to sin and alive unto God in Jesus Christ the Lord; made the righteousness of God in Him; in the full position too of a son, an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ according to the hope of eternal life, which will be applied to his body at the period of the first resurrection when Christ comes again.