Regeneration
Only found in Matt 19:28 and Titus 3:5. This word literally means a “new birth.” The Greek word so rendered (palingenesia) is used by classical writers with reference to the changes produced by the return of spring. In Matt 19:28 the word is equivalent to the “restitution of all things” (Acts 3:21). In Titus 3:5 it denotes that change of heart elsewhere spoken of as a passing from death to life (1 John 3:14); becoming a new creature in Christ Jesus (2 Cor 5:17); being born again (John 3:5); a renewal of the mind (Rom 12:2); a resurrection from the dead (Eph 2:6); a being quickened (Eph 2:1, Eph 2:5).
This change is ascribed to the Holy Spirit. It originates not with man but with God (John 1:12, John 1:13; 1 John 2:29; 1 John 5:1, 1 John 5:4).
As to the nature of the change, it consists in the implanting of a new principle or disposition in the soul; the impartation of spiritual life to those who are by nature “dead in trespasses and sins.”
The necessity of such a change is emphatically affirmed in Scripture (John 3:3; Rom 7:18; Rom 8:7–9; 1 Cor 2:14; Eph 2:1; Eph 4:21–24).
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), by Matthew George Easton.
