Baptismal Regeneration & “Washing” (vs. Jason Engwer)

Prominent Scholarly Protestant Reference Sources (Kittel, Robertson, Vincent) Largely Support Baptismal Regeneration Views

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Evangelical apologist Jason Engwer  wrote a piece entitled, “The Abuse Of Water-Related Language In The Bible To Support Baptismal Regeneration” (Triablogue, 10-27-24).

It turns out that I had spoken about the same thing in a video on the Catholic Bible Highlights YouTube channel, where I partner with Kenny Burchard. See: “BAPTISM NOW SAVES YOU – Fridays With Dave!! [14+Verses to Highlight]” (10-25-24). By the merest of coincidences, Jason’s article was published two days afterwards. He’s an advocate of the “believer’s adult baptism” position: one that I held myself from 1980-1990, even getting “baptized” in 1982, thus rejecting my Methodist baptism as an infant.

Our video was in turn a discussion of my article in National Catholic Register, 14 Bible Verses That Show We’re Saved Through Baptism [11-30-21]. That article — and our video discussing it — included analysis of the following passages that include references to baptismal regeneration without using the word “baptism”:

Titus 3:5 (RSV) He saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit…

John 3:5 “Jesus answered, ‘I tell you the truth, unless a man is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.’” (cf. 3:3: “unless a man is born again …”)

1 Corinthians 6:11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

The following passage from Paul combines the word “baptism” with “wash away your sins” (clearly, baptismal regeneration):

Acts 22:16 And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name.

But Jason disagrees. Here is his argument (his words in blue):

Advocates of baptismal regeneration take certain passages out of context to make them seem supportive of baptismal regeneration because of the water-related terminology that’s used. Even where the context goes in the opposite direction, they appeal to phrases that can be made to appear supportive of baptismal regeneration if taken in isolation (e.g., citing the reference to water in John 3:5, even though Jesus goes on to refer to the Old Testament background of his comments and keeps referring to people being justified apart from baptism elsewhere in the gospels; citing the reference to washing in Titus 3:5, even though it’s accompanied by an exclusion of works). . . . 

In 2 Corinthians 7:1, Paul tells his audience that we should “cleanse ourselves”. Was Paul suggesting that he and the Christians he was addressing should get baptized again? No, it’s an obviously non-baptismal reference to spiritual cleansing.

It is obviously not baptism being referred to, and as such it’s a non sequitur in this discussion. The above passages, on the other hand, do have a fairly obvious meaning of baptismal regeneration: especially when cross-referenced with each other.

What about the cleansing referred to in 2 Timothy 2:21? Like the 2 Corinthians passage, it seems to be about growth in the Christian life, as 2 Timothy 2:22, addressing Timothy, illustrates. It’s not about baptismal regeneration.

The plural “washings” in Hebrews 6:2 most naturally is taken to refer to more than one type of washing, so it has to involve some application of that language to something other than baptism. That sort of language can refer to, and does refer to, a variety of physical and spiritual events.

See my previous reply.

Though this post has focused on a few New Testament passages outside the gospels, keep in mind the Old Testament and gospel passages I cited in my earlier post. Since proponents of baptismal regeneration acknowledge that it wasn’t in effect during the Old Testament era and often place the beginning of its application sometime after Jesus’ public ministry, the widespread use of water-related terminology in those earlier contexts is highly significant. That earlier usage carries more weight than the unverifiable appeal to a smaller number of passages with water-related language that allegedly support baptismal regeneration.

Actually, technically, baptismal regeneration (in terms of John the Baptist’s baptism) was in effect to some extent before the New Covenant began on the Day of Pentecost after Jesus’ Ascension. This “proto-baptism” had a regenerative aspect:

Matthew 3:6 . . . they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

Mark 1:4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Luke 3:3 . . . preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

The best argument I’m aware of for interpreting a passage like John 3 or Titus 3 as teaching baptismal regeneration is to appeal to a later history of interpretation.

Which Kenny did in our video (again, just a coincidence).

But that later history is outweighed by factors like the earlier evidence against baptismal regeneration, the lateness of the later interpretations in question, and the other later interpretations we find alongside the ones being appealed to by advocates of baptismal regeneration. Passages like the ones in John and Titus were being interpreted in multiple ways, including in ways not involving baptismal regeneration, long before the Reformation. The popular claim that there was unanimous agreement, or nearly unanimous agreement, about interpreting such passages in support of baptismal regeneration before the Reformation is false. See my discussions here and here, for example, among other posts.

Maybe Jason can come up with a few fathers and contradict Kenny’s claim that none did so. But that wouldn’t prove much at all, if anything, as there are usually exceptions in the fathers regarding any doctrine. If the consensus is overwhelming one way, that’s what matters. Jason habitually indulges in this fantasy / delusion. He’ll find a few fathers here and there (often fairly minor ones at that) who deny what the great mass of them teach, and act as if this is some sort of effective argument against patristic consensus. It’s desperate “patristic special pleading.” But that’s a separate (historical) issue.

In this article, I want to briefly verify that standard Protestant Greek language reference works mostly do not agree with his take on John 3:5, 1 Corinthians 6:11, and Titus 3:5. They verify that baptism regeneration is in view in some sense: precisely as Kenny and I have argued. It’s not merely symbolic. Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, a very widely used and respected source for biblical Greek, is one such source. I have the one-volume edition (Eerdmans 1985). On page 539 it discusses the word group louō / λούω [“to wash, bathe”]: Strong’s word #3068, and loutrón  / λουτρόν [“bath, place for bathing”]: Strong’s word #3067:

In many verses there is a clear reference to baptism. In Acts 22:16 Ananias tells Paul to be baptized and wash away his sins. In 1 Cor. 6:11 Paul reminds his readers that, being washed, they are to avoid fresh defilement. In Eph. 5:26 Christ purifies the church for bridal union . . . In Heb. 10:22 the outward washing is related to the inner purifying. In Tit. 3:5 the washing of regeneration is on the basis, not of our own works, but of God’s mercy. In 2 Pet. 2:22 the point of the proverb (Prov. 26:11) is that the false teachers, after baptism, return to sin and incur unforgivable guilt (Heb. 6:4ff.; 1 Jn. 5:16).

What fascinates and delights me about this analysis is that, in addition to verifying our take on Titus 3:5 and 1 Corinthians 6:11 (and mentioning relevant cross-reference Acts 22:16), it brings up three other passages that I not only didn’t include in my fourteen biblical passages regarding baptismal regeneration, but (if I recall correctly) have never used in my apologetics at any time. I love when that happens!:

Ephesians 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, [26] that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, [27] that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

Hebrews 10:22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

2 Peter 2:20-22 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. [21] For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. [22] It has happened to them according to the true proverb, The dog turns back to his own vomit, and the sow is washed only to wallow in the mire.

Kittel applies all of these allusions to “wash[ing]” to some notion of baptismal regeneration. He notes on the same page that loutrón means “freeing from sin (in baptism) . . . “in Eph. 5:26; Tit. 3:5).

Moreover, A. T. Robertson, in his famous Word Pictures of the New Testament, writing about Titus 3:5, states:

Through the washing of regeneration (δια λουτρου παλινγενεσιας). . . . For λουτρον, see Ephesians 5:26, here as there the laver or the bath. Probably in both cases there is a reference to baptism . . .

This is very important since Robertson, himself a Baptist, would deny baptismal regeneration.  Yet he concedes that Titus 3:5 “probably” is referring to baptism, when it makes reference to “the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit.” It’s equally remarkable for him to believe the same about Ephesians 5:26, which uses the baptismal regeneration language of “sanctify” and “cleansed” and “without spot or wrinkle” and “holy and without blemish.” Robertson is a bit tentative but seriously discusses a form of baptismal regeneration in John 3:5 as well:

He may have hoped to turn the mind of Nicodemus away from mere physical birth and, by pointing to the baptism of John on confession of sin which the Pharisees had rejected, to turn his attention to the birth from above by the Spirit. That is to say the mention of “water” here may have been for the purpose of helping Nicodemus without laying down a fundamental principle of salvation as being by means of baptism.

Presbyterian Marvin Vincent, in his Word Studies of the New Testament agrees. As to Titus 3:5 he writes:

Loutron only here and Ephesians 5:26. It does not mean the act of bathing, but the bath, the laver. . . . The phrase laver of regeneration distinctly refers to baptism, in connection with which and through which as a medium regeneration is conceived as taking place. Comp. Romans 6:3-5. It is true that nothing is said of faith; but baptism implies faith on the part of its recipient. It has no regenerating effect apart from faith; and the renewing of the Holy Spirit is not bestowed if faith be wanting.

His commentary on John 3:5 is extraordinary:

4. That water points definitely to the rite of baptism, and that with a twofold reference – to the past and to the future. Water naturally suggested to Nicodemus the baptism of John, which was then awakening such profound and general interest; and, with this, the symbolical purifications of the Jews, and the Old Testament use of washing as the figure of purifying from sin (Psalms 2:2, Psalms 2:7; Ezekiel 36:25; Zechariah 13:1). Jesus ‘ words opened to Nicodemus a new and more spiritual significance in both the ceremonial purifications and the baptism of John which the Pharisees had rejected (Luke 7:30). John’s rite had a real and legitimate relation to the kingdom of God which Nicodemus must accept.

5. That while Jesus asserted the obligation of the outward rite, He asserted likewise, as its necessary complement, the presence and creating and informing energy of the Spirit with which John had promised that the coming one should baptize. That as John’s baptism had been unto repentance, for the remission of sins, so the new life must include the real no less than the symbolic cleansing of the old, sinful life, and the infusion by the Spirit of a new and divine principle of life. Thus Jesus ‘ words included a prophetic reference to the complete ideal of Christian baptism – “the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5; Ephesians 5:26); according to which the two factors are inseparably blended (not the one swallowed up by the other), and the new life is inaugurated both symbolically in the baptism with water, and actually in the renewing by the Holy Spirit, yet so as that the rite, through its association with the Spirit’s energy, is more than a mere symbol : is a veritable vehicle of grace to the recipient, and acquires a substantial part in the inauguration of the new life. Baptism, considered merely as a rite, and apart from the operation of the Spirit, does not and cannot impart the new life. Without the Spirit it is a lie. It is a truthful sign only as the sign of an inward and spiritual grace.

6. That the ideal of the new life presented in our Lord ‘s words, includes the relation of the regenerated man to an organization. The object of the new birth is declared to be that a man may see and enter into the kingdom of God. But the kingdom of God is an economy. It includes and implies the organized Christian community. This is one of the facts which, with its accompanying obligation, is revealed to the new vision of the new man. He sees not only God, but the kingdom of God; God as King of an organized citizenship; God as the Father of the family of mankind; obligation to God implying obligation to the neighbor; obligation to Christ implying obligation to the church, of which He is the head, “which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all things with all things” (Ephesians 1:23). Through water alone, the mere external rite of baptism, a man may pass into the outward fellowship of the visible church without seeing or entering the kingdom of God. Through water and the Spirit, he passes indeed into the outward fellowship, but through that into the vision and fellowship of the kingdom of God.

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Summary: I disagree with Protestant apologist Jason Engwer, who contends that references to baptism that don’t use the word “baptism” do not teach baptismal regeneration.